Welcome/Call to Worship
Good morning! I’m Pastor Ashley Dargai. To those here in the chapel and those joining us online: we are so glad you’re here!
This morning, we will sing songs of worship, pray together, hear from scripture and one another, as we move toward the pinnacle of our service: the table of our Lord, where we will take the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of our most Gracious Host, Jesus. The purpose of our time together each Sunday is to bring our hearts closer to the heart of God, so I invite you to participate as much or as little in our prepared liturgy as your spirit is willing.
A couple of announcements before we begin:
If you missed a Sunday and want to catch up on the worship series, you can listen to our church’s podcast wherever you get your podcasts. A new episode of Music Monday dropped this week, an extra to our worship series where we talk about the intersection of music and theology at Azle Christian Church.
Many, many thanks to those who helped with Sting Fling yesterday! From those who put stickers on water bottles to those who passed out goods, we are so grateful for you! We passed out 1000 water bottles and 500 fans like this one yesterday to citizens of Azle.
This Saturday, from 9-12, is our cabinet retreat. Due to COVID-19 concerns, we have decided to make it online only. Like our retreat in January, it will be on Zoom. Your cabinet agenda and Zoom information will be emailed to you this week.
Next Sunday, September 19, will be our first Sunday back in the sanctuary! As we have been doing here, we will continue to serve individual communion cups and masks will be required in all parts of the building. The sanctuary doors will open at 10:50, ten minutes before worship begins, and they will close 10 minutes after service ends to minimize risk. This is a slow open, so right now, we are only resuming worship. The Pandemic Response Committee continues to monitor the situation in our area to determine how to safely resume more activities and they continue to encourage getting fully vaccinated and wearing a mask in public places.
In two weeks, on the last Sunday of September, we will have Dedication Sunday for our building.
September 29 is our first Gospels and Groceries event. We’ll host an outdoors hymn sing and collect food for our Little Free pantry. DMM is making food.
We continue our new series this morning: Homecoming: Stories of Return. Today, we return to worship with Hannah and Samuel.
Let’s pray to turn our hearts toward God for this hour.
Spirit of truth, open to us the scriptures, speaking your holy word through song, through the bread and cup, and through offering ourselves, and meet us here today in the living Christ. Amen.
Let us prepare our hearts for worship.
Litany of Faith
One: If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel now say;
All: If the Lord had not been on our side, when enemies rose up against us;
One: They would have swallowed us up alive; the flood would have swept us away,
All: The water would have drowned us, the raging torrent would have engulfed us!
One: Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth.
All: Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
(From Psalm 124)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
We don’t often recognize state holidays and anniversaries in worship. Our service is oriented toward God, and we are wary of the way state and religion have interacted in the past, dating all the way back to Jesus. And when these days do come up in worship, it’s done with great trepidation and care, albeit imperfect. I want to acknowledge that because of the prayer I’m about to pray. I do think that a lot of us are carrying the burden of the war we have just exited that began because of September 11, whose 20th anniversary was yesterday.
The violence done that day on September 11th, the violence that ensued afterward, and the recent tumultuous exit out of Afghanistan have profoundly affected all of our lives. War does that. It affects our moral imagination, it creates spiritual crises, and so in this case, it is relevant for us to think about these events together before God.
So join me in prayer.
Most Holy One, our hope and our refuge, we welcome to you today.
The shock and horror of that tragic day, of September 11th, have subsided, replaced now with an emptiness, a longing for an innocence lost. We are mindful of the public servants who demonstrated the greatest love of all by laying down their lives for their friends that day. And we commit their souls to your eternal care.
O God, tragedies like this present us with so many questions, but the primary one we grapple with on the 20th anniversary of such a terrifying day is simple: who shall we become because of this? We know that suffering can make us hard, bitter, vengeful, and cruel. But we pray that instead, this moment remembered makes us vulnerable, generous, kind, and hospitable. Instead of being against each other, may we remember that we belong to each other.
We sing a song together sometimes: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” And for the peace of the world, we pray to you, O God. For our enemies and those who wish us harm, we pray for them, because you asked us to, because we know how complex the idea of enemy is, how very nuanced and multi-faceted are the reasons people participate in violence against one another.
We recognize and repent for how religion is weaponized in both our own Christian faith and in the faith of our sister Abrahamic religion of Islam, how those saying the name of God whether by the moniker Yahweh or Allah, use it in vain when religion is married to violence, to a campaign of hate, to destructive and death-dealing ways.
We pray for the forgiveness of the sins. For the way our own country has contributed to the violence of the world. For how thought the trauma of that day brought out some good and heroic behavior, that it also brought out the worst of some of us, fostering fear, racism, and Islamophobia. And we give thanks for those who have actively waged peace and understanding ever since, for those who have sought to draw out the very best of humanity in the midst of it all.
For all those whose spirit has been broken and whose lives have been irrevocably disrupted by the violence of September 11th and its aftermath, we offer our prayers. May our memories be a call to remember that each one of us can work for peace. May our memories move our hearts and hands to heal.
We pray for those too young to remember that day but whose lives have been utterly shaped by the war that followed, by the narrative of terror and security, by the suspicion and fear that engulfed those around them.
And we remember the closest thing to us today of September 11th: the heartbreaking stories of a war finally ended in Afghanistan. We pray for the people left behind. We pray for those who must now make a home in a place not their home. We pray for the soldiers in anguish over their Afghan friends’ fate. We pray for the Afghan and American families and all those in the crossfire who will not get their loved ones back. We pray for the healing of the moral injury of war and all it demands of humans. We pray for help in our disillusionment, our jadedness, our numbness.
We don’t know everything, God. We don’t have all the right words to pray in this moment. Our hope is mixed with anguish, our prayers marred with exhaustion from a very long war.
So we entrust the rest of this prayer to Your Spirit, who groans with us, praying on our behalf.
And we return to the prayer Jesus gave us to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.
Sermon
1 Samuel 1
There was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2 He had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
3 Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. 4 On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; 5 but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. 6 Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. 7 So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. 8 Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”
9 After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. 10 She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. 11 She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”
12 As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. 14 So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.” 15 But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. 16 Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” 17 Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made.” 18 And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.
19 They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I have asked him of the Lord.”
21 The man Elkanah and all his household went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and to pay his vow. 22 But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, “As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him, that he may appear in the presence of the Lord, and remain there forever; I will offer him as a nazirite for all time.” 23 Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Do what seems best to you, wait until you have weaned him; only—may the Lord establish his word.”
So the woman remained and nursed her son, until she weaned him. 24 When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was young. 25 Then they slaughtered the bull, and they brought the child to Eli. 26 And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. 27 For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. 28 Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.”
She left him there for the Lord.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
Throughout the pandemic, I have watched a lot of television. Like a lot. I might have finished Netflix.
And one of the shows I have become obsessed with is The Crown, the fictionalized, sensationalized story of the British monarchy, beginning with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Now I realize that in many ways, the monarchy has no bearing on our lives because we Americans did away with our ties to the crown about 245 years ago. We dumped the monarchy’s property—proper-tea, if you catch my drift—into the harbor and won the Revolutionary War, and that was that. The world turned upside down, as we sing in Hamilton.
But the interest in what goes on in Buckinham Palace has waxed and waned over the years, most recently when an American became part of the family a few years ago. And what made this all even more compelling was that not only was it an American—but it was a black American woman who found herself beside a prince at the altar in Westminster Abbey.
Not everyone may be as tuned in as I have been at how the royal family has unraveled since that beautiful wedding where Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, a black American Episcopal priest, preached a beautiful wedding sermon and won all of our non-Episcopal hearts. But let me catch you up.
Meghan Markle—a B-list actress from LA—married Prince Harry, becoming the Duchess of Sussex. She’s a feminist, she’s been outspoken against racial injustice, and she’s divorced, which is a big deal in the royal family.
And we know that media is brutal and the paparazzi are relentless in England. We saw how they hunted Princess Diana until the tragic denouement of her death.
But the papps have never had a black member of the royal family before, and the UK is not doing much better than we are when it comes to avoiding racist stereotypes and bias. So the press on Meghan has been awful. She shared in an interview with Oprah that was it so terrible at one point that she wanted to end her life. She pointed out deftly that the British Commonwealth—the holdover of Britain’s imperialist policies and colonies around the globe—looked a lot more like her than they did the queen.
So, placing his wife and child first, Prince Harry decides to step back from his royal duties, his brother having produced the obligatory heirs to the crown anyway, and in a shocking letter, the couple leave their post as extensions of the crown. Lots of family drama ensues and the public only gets snippets of it because the royal family is a vault. And now the Sussexes live in the U.S. without any royal duties.
And all of this drama has revived a conversation that has been happening in the British imagination for almost a century: monarchy or no monarchy? In a world of democracies, is the monarchy relevant anymore?
This conversation of monarchal relevance has been going on for a lot of Queen Elizabeth’s tenure. In the 60s, a monarchy dissenter was eventually hired by the palace to help modernize the monarchy. Each generation has had someone to engage the public once again. Princess Diana won our hearts but her tragic love story set the public against the once and future king, Prince Charles. And now Meghan’s saga has done it for new generations.
But this monarchy debate has been around for a lot longer than the British monarchy. The books in the Bible categorized as “history,” and I use quotation marks on purpose, in the Bible take sides when it comes to the monarchy of Israel. Some are pro-king, some are anti-king.
1 Samuel wrestles with this debate, but painstakingly makes the argument that this monarchy was birthed out of prayer and miraculous visions and the hand of God. It blesses the crown and tries to endear the man after God’s own heart, King David, to us, despite many, many shortcomings as a man and leader. Give the crown a chance, 1 Samuel says.
The Israelites, according to the histories, really want a king. All the nations have one, God. We want one, too.
And maybe they need one. Their nation under a set of judges doesn’t seem to be going well anyway. The last chapter of Judges details horrific violence, ethnic genocide, and ends with these lines: “In those days there was no king in Israel; each person did what they thought to be right.”
Now, you have to be reading scripture carefully sometimes to catch the shade thrown around, but this is major shade. The writer of Judges, setting the stage for pro-monarchy writings, essentially says, “These people have run amok. It’s like Lord of the flies out there. Somebody please come rein them in.”
And it is with this backdrop of internal conflict and societal upheaval, that we finally arrive at our story about a family today.
We meet the family of Elkanah, whose biblical marriages entails having two wives: Penninah and Hannah. Penninah has kids from Elkanah—she has produced the heirs, so his lineage will be fine, thanks to her. Hannah, however, has no children—a source of shame in a culture that demands offspring as a sign of favor from God. Without heirs, Hannah could very well be on the streets when Elkanah dies.
Elkanah loves Hannah, and he tells her it doesn’t matter if she has children or not, which sounds nice, but he is clearly not appreciating the precarious state her life would be in when he’s gone, and he’s also resting in the fact that he’s set for life with the aforementioned heirs from Penninah. But aside from this obtuseness, we do get that he cares for Hannah. She is not a mere baby-making conduit to him.
But he doesn’t share that affection for Penninah, and so she bullies Hannah. And to be fair, Penninah had done everything right in her culture’s eyes—she is the one with children, and yet she is unfavored and unloved.
So we arrive at the scene in Shiloh, the place where the ark of the covenant was, and Hannah is alone weeping, begging for a child. The priest, Eli, thinks this is a case of feminine hysteria, that she must be drunk or something because she’s….crying? Praying? A woman? It’s unclear.
But they talk and he predicts Hannah will indeed have a child, a male child, and she will dedicate to him the Lord, giving him back to God when he is weaned, to be a part of the religious order known as the Nazirites. And she does. She has the child she has prayed for, she is set for life, and she hands him back to God to be a prophet. He will be the prophet who tries to help King David through his many foibles, and he will be the voice of reason for Israel’s first stint of monarchy.
Which is a good ending, right? So why does this story have a tinge of sadness to it?
Perhaps it is because she is caught up in her culture’s narrative that says she has to have a child to complete her. That a male child will solve her problems. She buys in because it’s true in the way their society is structured, the way most ancient societies were structured. And like a lot of the testimony of scripture, which is human testimony and witness of the Divine, so we are reading an interpretation of what people think God is doing—the narrative of 1 Samuel 1 was that God was the orchestrator of childbearing. And Hannah attributes her barrenness and then her fruitfulness to God’s hand. And it’s easy to look back and say, “Oh, Hannah. You should know better. You are more than your womb.” But we still struggle with this truth in 2021.
And it’s worth mentioning that Hannah is not the first or last woman in scripture to long and pray for a child, and then get one. But the many biblical accounts of miraculous pregnancies do not conform to the lived experiences of most people. This room is probably full of stories of failed pregnancies, years of trying, and heartbreak. So it’s helpful in this particular context of pregnancy, of monarchy, of marriage, of faith even, to affirm that these stories we read are not prescriptive. They do not lay out a path to follow uncritically. And they do not promise that with a little faith, and little Jesus, that things will work out.
Hannah’s culture, like many ancient and modern cultures alike, believe pregnancy resulting in the birth of child to be the be-all, end-all of womanhood, to be signs of favor and faithfulness to people who have a womb. But there are many valid ways to be a woman, to be a mother, to be a family, and some of those include no children, whether by chance or choice, and some of those include children who do not come from our womb at all. The many incredible women and families in this community of faith represent the varying ways to be a woman, to be a mother or mothering presence, to be a family. And we give thanks for each one.
And it may seem extra to pause and say all that, but I take the time because this story and others like it, have been weaponized and hurtful to me as someone who had a painful journey to motherhood, and I know that statistically, I’m in good company and the company is vast. These are the kinds of pauses one gets when one has a woman in the pulpit, thanks be to God.
So, caveat made. I began the sermon talking about monarchy. And yet our story is about a family. And not even the royal family of 1 Samuel, but a person who seems to be a peripheral presence in the kingdom. It’s as we have asked about what’s going on with Israel, and the writers respond, “Let me tell you a story about a family,” which feels like a familiar move for those of us who hang around Jesus.
While this story does give us an origin story of the prophet with miracles and promises and conflict, the first half of the chapter is about the anguish of two women.
And I wonder if the tinge of sadness to this story also stems from the fact that in Hannah’s return, there is also a goodbye. In her joy, there is also grief. We can safely assume that Hannah did not look at her precious baby boy as a mere retirement plan. That she loved him. And wanted to be with him. But she had to leave him a priest who did not have a good track record raising children—we don’t have time for that part of the story, so you’ll have to trust me on this one.
So that even her story is commandeered by something bigger.
And if we assume that Hannah’s return to Shiloh with baby Samuel is not just another mollifying assurance that God answers prayers, then what is her return about?
For us, I mean.
Perhaps her return is about the hope of the future of Israel. Perhaps, this story is saying that if we just start things off on the right foot—with clean hands and a pure heart—we might get it right. Maybe?
Spoiler alert: the kingdom of Israel is a mixed bag at best. And I’m being generous. People are messy. Governing is hard. Even Israel had issues with nationalist movements and neglect of its most vulnerable populations. I mean, God essentially says over and over again in the prophets: “Geez, treat the people inside and outside your borders better. Do better. For the love of Me.”
So with our millennia of hindsight, and the rest of the Bible, we know that good intentions and noble beginnings will not a nation keep.
But there’s something here for us, I just know it. I believe that the Bible is meaningful and relevant to us, even the sticky parts.
So of course, God does not give us everything we long for. We know that.
But I recognize something in Hannah’s longing for a child. In Israel’s longing for a king. A longing for the world to be made right. Hannah’s return to Shiloh held such metaphorical and actual hope for the shifting sands and turning tides of a people. And in her story, we can trust in ours, that something is being birthed to guide us as a people of God in a rapidly changing world.
And perhaps what is being birthed is not what we bring with us in our own return, but rather our own devotion, our own trust that God is touched by the tears of those who are longing.
Perhaps what we are bringing with us is a stubborn belief that one day God will get everything God wants, and we may not see it all happen, but we know that our hope will be rewarded, not with how we excel in the ways of our culture, but with how attentive we are to what God is doing in our small story.
Sharing Our Resources
There are many ways to support and resource the ministries of Azle Christian Church: Venmo, giving online, giving box, offering plate.
I’m going to pass these plates during our final song, starting at the front row and they just to need make their way to the back where a deacon will collect them.
Invitation
If you’d like to become a member of this faith community, or if you’d like to become a disciple of Jesus, please talk to me after service or sometime this week.
Benediction
Please rise in body or spirit for our benediction, the final song, and the Doxology.
Our benediction this morning comes from the letter to the Ephesians:
May Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. May you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Amen.