Intentional Faith

A Thought for Thanksgiving Day

I have learned that thanking God for the following can lift my heart to see above the problems of this world:

His beautiful creation. I grew up in a summer resort in New Jersey, where living close to nature was part of my life – pine trees, water and gorgeous sunsets. My early attention to the beauty of God’s world gave me added appreciation for the amazing variety of plants, creatures, and scenery God has provided for us to enjoy. When I praise God for something He made, it increases my joy. Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field … Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29).

The provisions of life. Even though we say grace, we may take the food we eat for granted. We’d enjoy it much more if we were grateful! The next time you eat one of your favorite foods, be thankful for its availability. Many people in the world only have plain rice to eat. When we think of our less-privileged, hungry brothers and sister in Christ, let’s pray, “Lord, give us this day our daily bread.”

Everything we have comes from God. Ecclesiastes 5:19 says, “When God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work – this is a gift of God.” When we thank God for our families, our home, warm clothes and all the conveniences that make our lives easier, we are able to enjoy them even more.

Fellowship of the saints. Wherever we Christians go, we can find brothers in sisters in Christ. That is His fellowship, His church. When we grieve or feel depressed, our brothers and sisters comfort us and pray for us. Their prayers help bring healing and wisdom and carry us through troubled waters on the wings of God’s grace. Many of us Christians take for granted our church, pastor, and fellow Christians. It is sad that we must be struck by some calamity before we realize the blessing our spiritual family can be to us.Our Lord has given us the fellowship of the saints for our enrichment and increase of joy. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

God’s promises. The Bible is full of God’s promises, especially the psalms. Many times when troubles have been abundant, I have opened my Bible and found a precious promise for me that has proven to be a great comfort. But we don’t have to go through troubled times to appreciate God’s promises. His blessings are new every morning.Thank God! The Lord has promised us freedom from anxiety, along with His peace that passes all understanding, if we simply trust Him with everything (Philippians 4:6-7). He promised to supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19), supernatural joy to His followers (John 15:11), an abundant life (John 10:10) and answered prayers (John 14:14). Let’s not forget to thank Him!

The greatest gift God gave mankind was His only begotten Son, who gave His life to grant us forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. Through His Spirit God gives us joy, peace, and victory. Let us rejoice in our Lord and give thanks to Him in all things!

Clinton C. Cox declared this about the deliverance thankfulness can give us, “John Henry Jowett said, ‘Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.’ This is a most searching and true diagnosis. Gratitude can be a vaccine that can prevent the invasion of a disgruntled attitude. As antitoxins prevent the disastrous effects of certain poisons and diseases, thanksgiving destroys the poison of fault-finding and grumbling. When trouble has smitten us, a spirit of thanksgiving is a soothing antiseptic.”

Thanksgiving is one of God’s great gifts to us all.

A Closer Look

At the other end (at the bottom, really) of the power spectrum in this story, however, is a distressed and seemingly powerless woman at prayer. Shiloh is a very important place of worship, with the ark and the tabernacle present (the temple, of course, does not yet exist), so the priest Eli must have a heightened sense of his own importance and responsibilities, and keeping the order would be one of them. A person can’t just come into the holy place (walking right past the important man at the door) and be odd, or drunk, or out of order. We have to maintain our decorum! But there is something deeper going on here. There’s the problem, the uneasiness, of people going “straight to God” with their prayers, without the intermediary the priest represents. That, too, may ring a bell for us today, if we think we can’t speak directly to God but need a minister to do so for us. Eugene Peterson has described the scene beautifully as a contrast between the highly ritualized, liturgical worship of Eli’s priesthood and the deeply personal “prayer of the heart” uttered by the desperate Hannah, who takes her case directly to God. Ironically, Peterson observes that the rabbis would consider Hannah a “model of authentic prayer.” And of course, through Scripture, her prayer has been long-remembered, and was even echoed by Mary, the mother of Jesus, in her own time of maternal need. When we remember and tell the story of Hannah in every generation, her model of trusting prayer influences the life of the world far beyond the beginning of one monarchy long ago.

The content of her prayer, however, is strangely confounding. Reading only this passage from the lectionary makes us wonder why Hannah vows to give back the very gift she wants and needs so desperately. Jo Ann Hackett’s commentary is very helpful as she reminds us, first, that having a son would validate Hannah in her society, and second, that Hannah was taking the long view about childbearing. We know from the verses that follow this week’s passage that God answers Hannah’s heartfelt prayer with the child that she then returns to God right after the baby is weaned (and after she has given him a name that marks him as a gift from God). Can we imagine taking a baby to the place of worship, as the end of chapter one recounts, “She left him there for the Lord” (v. 28c)? Hannah has achieved respectability by producing a son, even if she doesn’t get to keep him. We might wonder how she can bear to give up such a precious gift. Hackett explains that Hannah had a plan, and it worked, because a “firstfruits” gift – of animals, of the harvest – was given “in hopes of receiving in return the blessing of continued fertility”; we know it works because we read in chapter 2 that Hannah, remarkably, produced five children after Samuel.

Still, there was no assurance of those other children when Hannah fulfilled her vow and took Samuel to the house of the Lord and left him there. While our theme this week speaks of praise for the Holy One, Bruce Birch urges us to see such praise as “the giving back of grace,” a spiritual practice we would do well to learn. What does “giving back grace” look like in your life?

Hannah is important in the history of Israel long after the story moves on to (male) prophets and kings who have much more power and receive much more attention in the Bible. Her name, which means “grace,” fittingly begins the story of the monarchy, what Walter Brueggemann calls “a tale of ‘grace alone.'” However, this broken-hearted, misunderstood and mis-judged woman also leads us to further reflection on our own prayer life. Brueggemann provides a thought-provoking commentary on where prayer has gone in most of our churches and our lives today. He is keenly observant and discomforting as well, not unlike those Old Testament prophets about whom he writes so evocatively. Hannah comes from “a praying people” who put God not just in the center of their life but all through it. And…

A Closer Look

The theme of barrenness recurs in the Old Testament, as we read last week in Walter Brueggemann’s discussion around Naomi’s barren then suddenly fertile future in the Book of Ruth, which promised the same kind of future to all Israel. We recall that Brueggemann sees in barrenness the lack of a future, so Hannah’s pregnancy, an amazing gift from God in response to prayer and promises, is fulfillment and future not only for her but for all Israel, for Samuel will be the man of God who helps Israel establish a monarchy. With a strong leader, the people wouldn’t just do what was right in their own eyes, but would be led by, and accountable to, something greater than themselves. And that “something,” as we have noted, would be blessed by God. It is remarkable but consistent with the biblical narrative that great things seem to come from what looks like nothing, from humbleness, from what appears small or barren. It reminds me of the desert, and the way a land that appears dry and without life is actually teeming with all sorts of activity, and all sorts of possibility. Is that why we’re drawn to the wilderness to refresh our spirits? God does amazing things in the most unlikely places, and through the most unlikely people.

Perhaps, for us today, the notion of God “ordaining” national leaders is hard to translate. In fact, centuries of religious wars and other troubles make many of us wince when political leaders claim they are “called by God” to their positions of power. But we might also long for our systems of leadership – how we choose our leaders, and how we hold them accountable – to be worthy of God’s blessing, if they are fashioned in such a way that they further our shared ability to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).

A Closer Look at This Week’s Text

In those days, things were rough: at the end of the book of Judges, we hear that “there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (21:25). This is not a good situation, but it does sound familiar to us in our own culture, when many of us are old enough to remember the motto of the 1960’s: “Do your own thing.” As the fabric of our society loosened and frayed, more and more of us went it alone, doing what we wanted and focusing on our own needs and desires. Perhaps “authority” had earned the distrust and disdain in both settings, and ancient Hebrews and modern Americans alike reacted against bad leadership. Still, it seems to be human nature to gravitate, especially in chaos or on the edge of chaos, toward having someone strong in charge, so it’s understandable that the people of ancient Israel decided that they needed a king to rule over them.

Telling the story later, the Scripture establishes the significance of this development, so the blessing and guidance of God are important to its success. And God often blesses and guides – and works – through human agents. Not just human agents, but rather humble ones. True, Elkanah seems prosperous and important enough to have two wives, many children, and the means to travel with them. Still, there’s nothing particularly charismatic, nothing special about him that we might expect of the father of the great prophet Samuel, who would end the period of the Judges and begin the story of the monarchy. John C. Holbert points out that the “nondescript” Elkanah was even the great-grandson of “Tohu (Hebrew for ‘waste’).” Elkanah’s words in the story illustrate the ordinariness of his own preoccupations while his wife dreams of a son whose whole life would be dedicated to God.

The son of Hannah and Elkanah, Samuel, is one of those “change agents” that God uses, in this stage of the long story between exodus and exile, to initiate the monarchy that would produce the great king, David. In the two books that bear Samuel’s name, we learn more about the prophet as we read the entire story, but not in our text this week, where we hear that Samuel’s birth, indeed his conception, is remarkable because of a woman, his mother Hannah. After two weeks of hearing the story of Ruth and Naomi, we spend another week seeking – and finding – God at work on the margins of society, where the women of the Bible lived. Like Sarah before her and Elizabeth much later, Hannah is “barren,” putting her, in a patriarchal society, even more at the mercy of a man. However, like Rachel before her, Hannah also seems to be the better-loved wife. She has husband’s Elkanah’s love in spite of her inability to produce a child, which is her primary function and means to honor in that culture. (We certainly have heard this story before, about the barren wife in a patriarchal society who longs to produce an heir.)

Elkanah’s profession of love for Hannah just for her own self sounds remarkably modern, and is perhaps a glimpse of what marriage is, at its best, in any culture or time. Or could it be, as several writers observe, that his response to Hannah’s suffering exhibits insensitivity, or worse, self-absorption? Does Elkanah’s question about his being worth more than ten sons sound, as Martin Copenhaver suggests, like the well-intentioned but often hurtful advice to “count your blessings” when someone is suffering from loss and grief? Presumably, we don’t need to say very much about “sons,” rather than “sons and daughters,” as a standard of happiness, but in any case Elkanah’s self-esteem is in great shape, if he thinks he’s worth more than ten sons to his wife. Jo Ann Hackett points out the “easy-for-you-to-say” nature of Elkanah’s words of comfort, since he already had plenty of sons and daughters by Peninnah “to remember and honor him.” It makes his response sound as if the world is organized around him; we wouldn’t be likely to call Elkanah…

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 20th century
“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into the sky – up – up – up – into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.”

The prophet Samuel is one of those "change agents" that God uses, in this stage of the long story between exodus and exile, to initiate the monarchy that would lead to the great king, David. In the two books that bear Samuel’s name, we learn more about the prophet as we read the entire story, but not in this passage, where we hear that Samuel’s birth, indeed his conception, are both remarkable because of a woman, his mother Hannah. After hearing the story of Ruth and Naomi, we now seek – and once again find – God at work on the margins of society, where the women of the Bible lived. Like Sarah before her and Elizabeth much later, Hannah is "barren," putting her, in a patriarchal society, even more at the mercy of a man.

However, like Rachel before her, Hannah is also the better-loved wife. She has husband’s Elkanah’s love in spite of her inability to produce a child, a woman’s primary function and means to honor. We eavesdrop as Hannah, without the aid of priest or liturgy, prays the prayer of her heart, pouring out her need and her pain, and making a promise to God that she would later keep when she turns her son over to the house of the Lord.

The fulfillment and future that Hannah experiences is also the fulfillment and future of Israel itself, and of the people of faith who walk in their footsteps. What if reading the story of Hannah had an impact on our prayer life, individually and communally, right now? What if we examined our spiritual practice each day, and the worship we share in our congregations, and searched for the places where our prayer springs from our deepest need and a deep trust that God hears our prayers and will respond?

Remember to take advantage of the simple blessings in your home. Take time to light a fire in the fireplace, have coffee in a comfortable chair or take a leisurely bath.

Make your bed. You won’t believe the improvement this will make in the morning.

Someplace, keep an empty shelf; someplace, keep a junk drawer.

Enjoy the good smells of home. Take a moment to appreciate the fragrance of an orange or freshly laundered towels.

If something’s important to you, make a space for it in your home.

Always put your wallet and keys away in the same place.

Except for holiday decorations, seasonal items, and hand-me-downs that will be used in the next few years, be very wary of “storing” things.

Every room should include something purple.

No one regrets replacing a burned-out light-bulb.

Count your blessings. Lift a prayer of thanksgiving. Tell someone you love them.

Make this a good day!

It used to be only death and taxes were inevitable. Now, of course, there’s shipping and handling, too.

When they say Doctors are practicing, they aren’t kidding.

Old Testament: Job 42:1-6, 10-17. The writer’s literary ploys make this text difficult to follow. The free translation of The Good News Bible presents its gist in the most understandable language.

Job learned that he did not know, and would never know, everything. Some questions, like why God lets terrible things happen to good people, are unanswerable. Children tend to assume (and adults often reinforce that assumption) that there are answers to every question and that adults know them all. Children also assume that if they work hard enough, they eventually will know all the answers too. Job’s story is an opportunity to introduce unanswerable questions and the possibility of living comfortably with them because we can trust God, who does know the answers.

As Halloween approaches, children focus on mysterious, scary stories and phenomena. Older children test their abilities to face fears in dealing with the unexplainable. This week before Halloween, Job insists that though there are things we cannot explain, we do not need to be afraid. God understands them all and is in full control.

Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22. This psalm makes most sense when read in context. It is a prayer David offered after his escape from Abimelech, and one that Job might have prayed as his trials ended. The language of the New Revised Standard Version reflects these contexts most clearly and is easiest for children.

As they listen, children catch individual phrases about God’s dependable care. Hearing the verses literally, alert children who have broken their own bones wonder whether verse 20 is a mistake, or perhaps an indication that they are not among the righteous.

Epistle: Hebrews 7:23-28. Last week’s Epistle reading highlighted the ways Jesus is like a high priest. This week, the focus is on the ways Jesus is better than any human high priest.

Children place more value on Jesus’ permanence than on his perfection. Dependability is important to them. Especially those who must regularly find new "best friends forever" when they move, and those who move from household to household within their extended families, crave a relationship with God and Jesus that lasts "forever and ever, no matter what."

Gospel: Mark 10:46-52. Without help, children hear this simply as another healing story that demonstrates Jesus’ power. They can be helped to find more meaning in it by specifically comparing James and John with Bartimaeus. James and John were insiders, friends who had been with Jesus for some time, and so should have understood what Jesus had been teaching and doing. Bartimaeus was an outsider, a blind beggar along the road. No one expected him to understand anything. Mark’s surprise is that it is Bartimaeus who knows what to ask for, and he who responds by becoming a follower of Jesus. With such explanations, older children enjoy Mark’s subtle point that James and John were really the "blind" ones who could not "see" what Jesus had been telling and showing them, while Bartimaeus was the one who could "see" clearly.
Watch Words

Mystery is a good word for things we do not understand. Begin with Halloween mysteries (maybe a local ghost story or spooky legend) and mystery stories (many adults and children know the Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew series), then go on to describe the mysteries of real life.

Be careful about priestly vocabulary. To many children, a priest is a Roman Catholic minister, and a sacrifice is giving up something you want. The sacrifice out in baseball is closer to the Old Testament sacrifice.

Before using blind metaphorically, compare what James and John failed to see with what the physically blind Bartimaeus could see.

Be sure to use this material in your review before devoting with your child this week.