Hannah’s Prayer
Now Hannah, she was speaking in her heart, only her lips moved; her voice was not heard. So, Eli took her for a drunkard. – 1 Samuel 1:13 (as translated by Wilda C. Gafney for Year B)
I look at the Eli/Hannah interchange, and it reminds me of my worst nightmare in prayer. Hannah’s story is something like this: Her dreams were shattered. She’d had expectations for the way her life would go … and it wasn’t. And those expectations weren’t just that; they were requirements for a woman.
She was going through it. And she took up her courage—or maybe she was resigned—and said: I’m headed into that sanctuary. And I’m laying it all at the altar. I have to.
The guy in charge wasn’t going for it. He made fun of her. Or at best, he criticized her. As some clergy love to do. Thousands of years later, it’s people like him who make it so hard for so many people to even dare step into a sanctuary in the first place. Was it hard for you to step foot through a church’s door? It’s that Eli Legacy that did that. That taught you your words of prayer were not enough. When what really happened is that Eli just didn’t get, couldn’t, or wouldn’t grasp Hannah’s language of prayer.
There are a lot of reasons people step away from houses of worship. If this resonates, let me just say that I get it. But more importantly, God gets it. What I want you to know is that when God had to choose between the religious authority and the person praying, God didn’t choose the structure. God chose the person. God chose Hannah. God’s not gonna choose the institution, ever, over you.
But that doesn’t mean giving up on church. Church is a collection of humans, a gathering of imperfect people. The church’s job is to approach our call to serve with humility, never making the Eli mistake of expecting the church’s way to be yours.
Prayer
Help me, O God, to keep the prayer alive. In your holy name. Amen.
About the AuthorKaji Douša is the Senior Pastor of The Park Avenue Christian Church, a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ, in New York City.