While America has decided on a new trajectory for our nation and it's participation in the world, there is a lot of work to do to recover from the divisiveness of these past years. Our national and global politics is still riddled with trouble. That trouble needs to be dealt with. And we need strong politicians of integrity and vision to guide us. But we don't place our ultimate trust in those at the top. No, hope is rising from down below, among us, and through the visions, commitments, and determination of the most ordinary people everywhere. This sermon celebrates the gifts and power of ordinary people everywhere. This sermon on 1 Samuel 4 points the way for all of us to be "Midwives of Tomorrow" and agents of a hopeful and flourishing future.
1.
In his final words to America last summer, Congressman John Lewis, improvising on the teachings of Jesus, urged us all to lay down the heavy burdens of hate so that peace might finally triumph over violence, aggression and war. He urged us to “walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
Millions have walked “with the wind.” But not enough have, not enough to turn the tide. And so today, America seems to be locked inside the gridlock of ideological opposition, racial division, and political gamesmanship—violence, aggression, and internecine war. America has voted, but I don’t know anyone who’s truly happy. Anger toward each other, frustration at each other, disillusionment over each other, and polarization between each other all grip, painfully, our hearts and minds.
Echoing Jesus long ago, Congressman Lewis said last summer, “Lay down the heavy burdens of hate and division so that peace can triumph over violence and aggression.”
But that’s not happening. Not right now.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
But it won’t happen—we won’t lay down the heavy burdens of hate and division—if we give up now. We won’t find peace, we won’t taste justice, if we give in to despair and despondency and do not find ways to work, as ordinary people—despite what our politicians do—to dismantle the divisions that plague us.
We need people, millions upon millions of ordinary people, to keep hoping that something new is being born among us and to help bring it into being—something none of us have ever seen before.
2.
The Bible has a lot of stories that help us see what ordinary people can do to give birth to a future no one has ever seen before. I want to tell one of those stories today. It’s a story taken from First Samuel, a collection of stories from the early days of Israel. The stories are set in the events taking place in the Middle East nearly three thousand years ago. It’s a story that’s honest about loss and fear, confusion and anxiety, and a nation’s uncertainty about the future. It’s also a story about the durable hope of ordinary people.
The story begins here: Israel and the Philistines are at war. In a single, traumatic, life-defining day, thirty thousand of Israel’s troops are slaughtered. The husbands and fathers and sons of the nation lie dead. This is a huge personal crisis, but it’s more—it’s also a crisis of national security. Everyone is now vulnerable to death. And to make matters even worse, the ark of the covenant has been captured by the enemy.
The ark of the covenant is not merely a religious symbol, nor is it merely a symbol of national pride. The ark mediates the presence of God. For these people, where the ark goes, God goes. The ark, the box containing the most sacred of Israel’s religious artifacts, now is in the hands of Israel’s enemies; God is captured; God is essentially gone.
This is terribly hard for us to imagine, and we Christians would like to correct the story at this point; we know that God is no more kept in a box than in a building. But we can’t edit the story to fit our understanding, for the story wants to paint the completeness of the fearsome events that have swept Israel into crisis and into an experience of an utter loss of hope . . . almost.
The news of this terrible battle comes to Eli, who has served as priest over Israel for forty years. The story tells us that he is ninety-eight years old and blind. He is waiting for news of the outcome. The messenger arrives with the grim report: “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great slaughter among the troops; your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead.” This is bad enough. But it gets worse. The messenger continues with the most devastating news: “and the ark of God has been captured.”
At these words, Eli collapses. Falling from his priestly chair, he breaks his neck and dies. Tens of thousands are dead. God is gone. There is no more priest. The whole supporting structure of politics and religion have collapsed.
Not a cheerful story, and you might resent me telling it. But here’s why—it illustrates the nature of hope. Hope is cherished most by those who know its opposite. Only those who know despair are truly capable of doing the work to keep hope alive.
3.
After this crushing death of Eli, and all it symbolizes, the story turns its attention from men and war, politics, and religion, to the drama of a single, pregnant woman and a midwife. And this is so important, for the hope that changes the world is birthed from the ground up, in hidden places, among the most ordinary, unsuspecting persons. The storyteller spotlights the birth experience of an unnamed woman and a few unnamed midwives.
Notice, all the men have names. But for the storyteller, their world is dying and the new one that’s being born is born among a small group of unnamed women and through the miracle of a single woman’s womb.
We who’ve read the rest of the Bible know that this small thing is no small thing after all. For at another time when masculine power—its violence, aggression, and warfare held people captive to fear and insecurity—there arose another story of another pregnant woman giving birth to a child. Remember? “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”
The hope that changes the world is birthed from the ground up, in hidden places, among the most ordinary, unsuspecting persons.
Now back to 1 Samuel—
This pregnant woman is known only as Eli’s “daughter in law,” “the wife of Phinehas.” But this woman and her womb will do what males in all their power cannot do. And of course (as is always true of those who are used by God to birth something divine), she is quite unaware of her power—her body seems powerless and puny in comparison to the machines of war and the statecraft of male-dominated politics and religion.
“Upon hearing the news that the ark of God was captured, and that her father-in-law and husband are dead,” she is thrown into childbirth. It seems that death is going to be the only word spoken on this dismal day. Dying, she delivers her child. And as she dies, her lips mouth these final words to those around her: “Ichabod,” which in Hebrew means, “Where is the glory?” “Call the boy Ichabod,” she says.
Ichabod is not a great name for a child. But on this day, it is the only word she feels will fit the nature of the day.
4.
But now, and here’s the important part, as she was about to die, the women attending her say to her, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a child.”
This isn’t the last time we hear this hopeful refrain. Many centuries later, into a new night of fear and despair another messenger of hope will whisper:
“A child is born to us!” “Do not be afraid!”
A baby, so fragile, born under the shadow of death and into the structures of powerful and violent men—a baby was gathered up and a tended by a few unnamed midwives who whispered:
“A child is born to us!” “Do not be afraid!”
A baby, guarantee of the future, promise of life’s relentless power over death. A baby, adored by the simple, welcomed by the humble, God’s glory glimpsed by those who will never walk the corridors of power:
“A child is born to us!” “Do not be afraid!”
I wonder who are the midwives now. Who are those who behold the new hope that’s rising, even when others may not see it?
Despite the divisions that still plague us and will plague us for quite some time now, I wonder where those midwives of the future are working now.
They are working now. I know they are. Hidden. Determined. Under the radar, at least for now. And others will join them.
The big world of global politics is riddled with trouble. And that trouble needs to be dealt with. But it’s not at the top where we put our hope. No, hope is rising from down below, among us, through the visions, commitments, and determinations of the most ordinary people everywhere.
The future does not depend on those with well-known names; the future is emerging among the no-names: with you, with me, and people like us throughout our nation and around the world.
One era is dying, another is being born.
The midwives of tomorrow are among us; they are us.