Hannah’s Hope
1 Samuel 2:2-8, Luke 2:36-38
Has there been a time in your life when hope has been hard to find? A season when grief felt heavier than you could carry? A season of uncertainty, when the future felt fragile? A season of scarcity, when there never seemed to be enough? A season of deep hurt? A season when helplessness pulled you into the mire of despair?
Maybe it came after the loss of someone you loved. Maybe it came after a diagnosis. Maybe it came after a fractured relationship.
Maybe it came from watching the news and wondering what kind of world we have become.
War continues in the Middle East. Families are displaced. Children suffer unimaginable violence. Here at home, homelessness continues to rise. Violence continues to wound our neighborhoods. Systems meant to care for the vulnerable are being weakened.
Many people are working harder and falling further behind.
And beneath all of this is a quiet question many people are carrying: What can I do?
And sometimes that question becomes even more honest: God, where are you? Why does justice seem delayed? Why does healing take so long? Why does hope feel so hard to find?
Sometimes all we can do in those moments is cry out. Sometimes all we can do is lament. And that is exactly where Hannah’s story begins.
Our scripture today begins with Hannah’s song in chapter 2 of 1 Samuel. But before there was a song, there were tears. Hannah lived in a world that measured women by their ability to bear children. She was unable to conceive, and another woman in her household mocked her relentlessly. Year after year she carried grief, shame, and heartbreak until she finally reached a breaking point.
She goes to the temple and prays with such anguish that Eli mistakes her silent prayers for drunkenness. But Hannah responds, “I am a woman deeply troubled… I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.”
That is where hope begins.
Not in denial. Not in pretending everything is fine. Not in shallow positivity. Hope begins with telling the truth.
Biblical scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann says one of the central tasks of prophets is to break denial through grief. Prophets help communities tell the truth about what is broken. Hannah does exactly that. Her lament is prophetic because she refuses silence.
But Hannah does not stay in lament. Her prayer becomes a song. And her song becomes a vision.
“The bows of the mighty are broken.”
“The hungry are filled.”
“The poor are lifted from the dust.”
“The needy are raised from the ash heap.”
This is not simply gratitude for a child. This is prophetic imagination. It is Hannah declaring that the world as it is will not be the world as God intends it to be.
That is what prophets do.
Brueggemann suggests that prophets have three tasks. They expose false systems. They break denial through grief. And they speak hope in the face of despair.
Hannah does all three.
This week Pastor Anier, from our Presbyterian partners in Placetas, Cuba, shared a poem from his Easter message. As many of you know, our siblings in Cuba are facing increasing scarcity, power outages, and deep uncertainty.
Pastor Anier wrote:
The city that gazes at the sky, gazes at the sea, at the infinite, asking itself deep down… what will our destiny be? Hiding its answer in the breath of a sigh and waiting for time to pass… like bored fish.
Politics, incapable of resolving any conflict. Government taxes that enrich the very same few. Officials who squander the fruits of hard labor. Workers rising at dawn, pouring their souls out for their children.
Everything will change. Someday it will change. Everything will change. I have faith that it will change.
The poisoned lies that fanaticism preaches. The “you can’t,” the “speak softly or you’ll get me in trouble.” The pressure to market a paradise to the outside world. The reasons given for stripping away my rights and principles. Those who ignore your problems just to uphold the status quo. Who point fingers at you simply for thinking differently. Causing families to miss out on life’s most beautiful moments. A solitude that isn’t just a name, but a truly broken feeling.
Todo cambiará. Algún día cambiará. Todo cambiará. Tengo fe en que cambiará.
The city that gazes at the sky, gazes at the sea, at the infinite, asking itself deep down… what will our destiny be?
It is the anguish of silence, of wondering if we are truly alive. Sacrifices left unanswered at the end of this road.
Everything will change. Someday it will change. Everything will change. I have faith that it will change.
Pastor Anier’s poem exemplifies prophetic hope. It exposes false systems. “Officials who squander the fruits of hard labor.” “The poisoned lies that fanaticism preaches.”
It breaks denial through grief and lament. “It is the anguish of silence, of wondering if we are truly alive.”
And it repeatedly speaks hope in the face of despair.
Todo cambiará. Algún día cambiará. Todo cambiará. Tengo fe en que cambiará.
Everything will change. Someday it will change. Everything will change. I have faith that it will change.
This is what prophetic hope sounds like.
Prophetic hope is not optimism. Optimism says things will probably work out. Prophetic hope says even when things are not working out, God is not finished.
Optimism depends on circumstances. Hope depends on resurrection.
One of my favorite theologians, Jürgen Moltmann, wrote in Theology of Hope, “Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it.”
And he writes, “Faith sees in the resurrection of Christ… the future of the very earth on which his cross stands.”
That is Christian hope.
Christian hope does not ignore suffering. Christian hope confronts suffering because resurrection has already broken into the world. Christian hope refuses to let what is determine what will be.
That is what Anna the prophet reminds us of in our second scripture reading.
Anna had waited decades. We often imagine her waiting peacefully. But I suspect there were seasons when hope felt thin. Seasons of grief. Seasons of silence. Seasons of wondering whether God had forgotten God’s people.
And then she sees Jesus.
And in that child, she sees God’s promised future. Her hope is renewed.
And that same Christ has been raised from the dead. As Easter people, we believe and witness to that same risen Christ at work in our lives and in our world, still lifting up the least, still welcoming the lost, still raising up the last, still bringing life where others only see death.
And we are called to join that work in what Eleanor Roosevelt described as “small places, close to home, so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.”
Every time we feed hungry neighbors with donations to this month’s Yellow Bag ministry, we live into prophetic hope. Every time we support refugees through the IRC, we live into prophetic hope. Every time we care for children through Jacob’s Learning Ladder, we live into prophetic hope. Every time we show up for someone in grief, we live into prophetic hope. Every time we choose generosity over fear, we live into prophetic hope.
When we gather with people of faith from across Wichita through Justice Together and dare to believe that homelessness can be reduced, that affordable housing can be increased, and that gun violence can be prevented, we live into prophetic hope.
That is what Christian prophetic hope looks like. It rejects cynicism. It is the antidote to despair. It is believing Christ’s resurrection still has something to say about this world.
So when hope feels hard to find, cry out to God. Tell the truth about what is broken. Sing anyway. Act anyway. Hope anyway.
Hannah sang it. Anna saw it. Eleanor pointed to it. Pastor Anier believes it. And the risen Christ is still making it true.
Thanks be to God.
