The Longest Night
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah was the mother of Samuel. Like so many mothers found in scripture, becoming a mother came late and was no less than a redemption of life itself from the abyss of meaninglessness. Her prayer after becoming Samuel's mother--the text above--became the model for Mary several centuries later as she prepared to birth the Messiah, laying the foundation for the Magnificat. And her prayer, like the Magnificat, is the celebration of a great reversal--the radical intervention of God that upends power as it is, becoming power as it ought to be--the vindication and liberation of the Least of These.
Tonight is the longest night of the year, the winter solstice, for the Northern Hemisphere. Astronomers also promise that tonight, the longest night will also be the darkest night seen in 500 years.
But, of course it is, mutter and mumble so many of us this year.
This year has been one of continuing upending.
Terrorism continues its mad march around the world, with one more grievous incident interrupting the joy of revelers in Berlin as a truck drove right through them. Violence continues to tear and rend us. A brazen assassin guns down a Russian diplomat in Turkey in full view of the TV cameras, all in the name of retaliation for a civil war that threatens to completely submerge Syria into a sea of innocent blood whose deepest trench is in Aleppo. Yemen continues to devolve in its own civil war. Africa endures the endless blips and blares of tribal violence with modern weapons. Even a Buddhist country like Myanmar witnesses atrocities aimed at the Muslim minority within her borders.
When even the Buddhists are engaged in war, something is horribly off kilter and upended indeed.
Here, we prepare for the unknown as Donald Trump assumes the Presidency. He surrounds himself with oligarchs and continues to fan the flames of discord between the different pieces of our social fabric. We do not have any idea how this new period of government is going to play out. Many, many of our neighbors are genuinely afraid for themselves and their families. Others, unfortunately, feel licensed to spew whatever hate lurks within their hearts because of the tone of Mr. Trump's candidacy. Divides that had remained hidden behind veils of distraction are now in full view. Cities at odds with the countryside. Ethnic minorities at odds with the ethnic majority, knowing soon that majority will be so no longer. Young folk at odds with their elders, neither having the slightest means by which to understand the thinking and actions of the other. Straights at odds with the LGBTQ community. The religious at odds with the irreligious. Workers with their hands at odds with those who are paid for their thinking. The poor at odds with the wealthy. All the cracks are now visible. The sides are all lined up against one another.
Darkness descends. A long night opens.
Enter Hannah.
She comes with a message from God, one she has felt come to life in her wiggling, drooling, crying son--a new life she had given up all hope of ever seeing, knowing, and holding in her arms. Her dark night interrupted by the infusion and blast of God's holy light. And she knows and so she sings that it is inescapable proof that God comes for those who are farthest removed from feeling blessed, comfortable, or at ease. God comes for all those left out, left behind, and left for dead. It's all there in her song. There will be an upending--an ultimate reversal--when all that is lost will be found; when all that is trampled underfoot will be raised; and when all that is abandoned by the mad, mad world will be claimed as beloved. All of that is in her flowing stanzas of redemptive grace.
God's light will not be bound by any dark night.
God shines forth with a dawn that nothing else can dim. It is a light that flows from the eternal compassion that is God. God is not a noun--God is a verb. God is love. God will not rest until every child breathing knows they are loved, no matter how strongly, vehemently, or violently we work against such inclusion. God slams God's table before us--yes, it is a slam because it is so radically different from anything and everything we see and create ourselves. Luke and Matthew make a point of using every single one of Caesar's self-descriptions of his power as they describe the newborn babe in Bethlehem--Son of God, Savior of the People, etc.--to describe a child the religious and political communities deem so dangerous that they collude to launch a pogrom against all little boys, 2 and under, who might be this child (Matthew). But he is a child who is "good news of great joy for all people" (Luke) because his power has no madness within it, but rather truly and perfectly seeks the welfare and the good of all people--every single child ever born.
But bear in mind the caveat--to realize his redeeming grace, we will have to stand against the world as it is, upending conventional wisdom.
To be part of Christ's upending, we will need to be upending ourselves.
We will have to reach across any and all divisions.
We will have to be there for Muslim refugees seeking peace instead of war. We will have to be there for those who hunger because of economic inequity ready to not only feed them, but upend the systems that bring them into their state of want. We will have to stand with anyone and everyone that everyone else declares an outsider to bring them to the table. We will have to become reformers who will not simply accept a religion colored, shaped, and formed by its host culture instead of being true to the God at its center.
In so doing, we bring the light into the darkness.
We also bring the transformative, transcendent power of God into a world that so desperately needs transformation and transcendence.
And in so doing, we come to joy. Listen again to Hannah's song--it reverberates with joy. She has felt God at work within her. She has found life as God meant it to be.
So can we.
This longest night, let light shine. Sing to the Lord! Bring the Lord to the world!
Hannah was the mother of Samuel. Like so many mothers found in scripture, becoming a mother came late and was no less than a redemption of life itself from the abyss of meaninglessness. Her prayer after becoming Samuel's mother--the text above--became the model for Mary several centuries later as she prepared to birth the Messiah, laying the foundation for the Magnificat. And her prayer, like the Magnificat, is the celebration of a great reversal--the radical intervention of God that upends power as it is, becoming power as it ought to be--the vindication and liberation of the Least of These.
Tonight is the longest night of the year, the winter solstice, for the Northern Hemisphere. Astronomers also promise that tonight, the longest night will also be the darkest night seen in 500 years.
But, of course it is, mutter and mumble so many of us this year.
This year has been one of continuing upending.
Terrorism continues its mad march around the world, with one more grievous incident interrupting the joy of revelers in Berlin as a truck drove right through them. Violence continues to tear and rend us. A brazen assassin guns down a Russian diplomat in Turkey in full view of the TV cameras, all in the name of retaliation for a civil war that threatens to completely submerge Syria into a sea of innocent blood whose deepest trench is in Aleppo. Yemen continues to devolve in its own civil war. Africa endures the endless blips and blares of tribal violence with modern weapons. Even a Buddhist country like Myanmar witnesses atrocities aimed at the Muslim minority within her borders.
When even the Buddhists are engaged in war, something is horribly off kilter and upended indeed.
Here, we prepare for the unknown as Donald Trump assumes the Presidency. He surrounds himself with oligarchs and continues to fan the flames of discord between the different pieces of our social fabric. We do not have any idea how this new period of government is going to play out. Many, many of our neighbors are genuinely afraid for themselves and their families. Others, unfortunately, feel licensed to spew whatever hate lurks within their hearts because of the tone of Mr. Trump's candidacy. Divides that had remained hidden behind veils of distraction are now in full view. Cities at odds with the countryside. Ethnic minorities at odds with the ethnic majority, knowing soon that majority will be so no longer. Young folk at odds with their elders, neither having the slightest means by which to understand the thinking and actions of the other. Straights at odds with the LGBTQ community. The religious at odds with the irreligious. Workers with their hands at odds with those who are paid for their thinking. The poor at odds with the wealthy. All the cracks are now visible. The sides are all lined up against one another.
Darkness descends. A long night opens.
Enter Hannah.
She comes with a message from God, one she has felt come to life in her wiggling, drooling, crying son--a new life she had given up all hope of ever seeing, knowing, and holding in her arms. Her dark night interrupted by the infusion and blast of God's holy light. And she knows and so she sings that it is inescapable proof that God comes for those who are farthest removed from feeling blessed, comfortable, or at ease. God comes for all those left out, left behind, and left for dead. It's all there in her song. There will be an upending--an ultimate reversal--when all that is lost will be found; when all that is trampled underfoot will be raised; and when all that is abandoned by the mad, mad world will be claimed as beloved. All of that is in her flowing stanzas of redemptive grace.
God's light will not be bound by any dark night.
God shines forth with a dawn that nothing else can dim. It is a light that flows from the eternal compassion that is God. God is not a noun--God is a verb. God is love. God will not rest until every child breathing knows they are loved, no matter how strongly, vehemently, or violently we work against such inclusion. God slams God's table before us--yes, it is a slam because it is so radically different from anything and everything we see and create ourselves. Luke and Matthew make a point of using every single one of Caesar's self-descriptions of his power as they describe the newborn babe in Bethlehem--Son of God, Savior of the People, etc.--to describe a child the religious and political communities deem so dangerous that they collude to launch a pogrom against all little boys, 2 and under, who might be this child (Matthew). But he is a child who is "good news of great joy for all people" (Luke) because his power has no madness within it, but rather truly and perfectly seeks the welfare and the good of all people--every single child ever born.
But bear in mind the caveat--to realize his redeeming grace, we will have to stand against the world as it is, upending conventional wisdom.
To be part of Christ's upending, we will need to be upending ourselves.
We will have to reach across any and all divisions.
We will have to be there for Muslim refugees seeking peace instead of war. We will have to be there for those who hunger because of economic inequity ready to not only feed them, but upend the systems that bring them into their state of want. We will have to stand with anyone and everyone that everyone else declares an outsider to bring them to the table. We will have to become reformers who will not simply accept a religion colored, shaped, and formed by its host culture instead of being true to the God at its center.
In so doing, we bring the light into the darkness.
We also bring the transformative, transcendent power of God into a world that so desperately needs transformation and transcendence.
And in so doing, we come to joy. Listen again to Hannah's song--it reverberates with joy. She has felt God at work within her. She has found life as God meant it to be.
So can we.
This longest night, let light shine. Sing to the Lord! Bring the Lord to the world!
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