START WITH SCRIPTURE:
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
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OBSERVE:
It is important to understand the back story of our lectionary passage today. We remember that Hannah had been infertile. When her husband Elkanah made his annual pilgrimage to Shiloh (the home of the ark of the covenant), she accompanied him there. One year her prayers to the Lord for a child were so fervent that Eli, the high priest, had blessed her and said,
“Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him” (1 Samuel 1:18).
Hannah did become pregnant and gave birth to Samuel. What is most amazing is that she was so grateful for this blessing that after Samuel was weaned, she took him back to Shiloh and offered him up to serve in the house of the Lord:
“For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:27-28).
In this week’s lectionary reading, we see the growth and maturation of the child Samuel. He wears a linen ephod in his service for the Lord, which was a type of ritual garment that the priestly caste wore.
And Hannah manages to stay in touch with her son as he grows up by visiting each year for the annual sacrifice, bringing with her a new linen ephod that presumably has been tailored to accommodate Samuel’s growth.
The yearly sacrifice to which this passage refers is likely the Day of Atonement. This was a solemn fast day for all Israel; and the high priest offered a sacrifice to atone for the sins of all the people.
In our passage, as Elkanah and Hannah come to Shiloh, the high priest Eli annually blessed them and prayed for their fertility:
“May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”
The priest’s prayers, and Hannah’s, were honored:
And the Lord took note of Hannah; she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters (1 Samuel 2:21).
Samuel’s growth and development from a child into a man of God now will take center stage:
Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.
This sets the stage for the events that will end the priesthood of Eli and his corrupt sons, and catapult Samuel into prominence as one of the preeminent judges and prophets in the Old Testament.
APPLY:
Parenting is an exquisitely painful and joyful experience. The moment our children are born, we begin to let go of them. As they mature, they begin to grow away from us as they make their own decisions.
This is as it should be. The purpose of parents is to eventually become obsolete as the governing force in our children’s lives. Every emotionally healthy parent’s goal is to provide opportunities for their children to mature into emotionally healthy adults.
Hannah has done this far earlier than any of us might be willing to do. When Samuel is weaned, perhaps sometime between 18 months and five years, she turns him over to Eli to be raised in the house of the Lord.
In a sense, that is where Christian parenting should begin. When our children are born, we begin by turning our children over to God. As parents, our job is not to shape these little ones into our own image, but to act as God’s proxies with our kids.
As with Samuel, our responsibility is to create the conditions so that our children may:
grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.
RESPOND:
There is great relief in following Hannah’s example — but I don’t mean that we should take our kids down to the local church and drop them off until they’re 18!
No, here’s what I mean — if we recognize that our children belong to God before they belong to us, we can have confidence that God is far more concerned about their growth and well-being than we are.
That is reassuring to any parent!
Our Lord, parenting is not easy. Even for those of us whose children are grown, we continue to fret over the decisions of our kids. Help me to remember that, like Hannah, I’ve turned my children over to you. And I trust you to help them to grow in stature and in favor with you. Amen.
PHOTOS: "Roots and Wings" by Andrea Hernandez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
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