I Samuel 1:1-20
“God Answers Prayer – Hannah”
October 20, 2002 - 22^nd Sunday after Pentecost

         “Why not do a scientific study on prayer?” That’s what Jim, a doctor in my church in Nebraska, asked me one morning as we played racquetball. He was fascinated with the idea that the difference prayer makes ought to be empirically observable. As a neurologist, he was often involved with careful studies of the effectiveness of various drugs in treating neurological conditions. Why couldn’t the same method be applied to prayer?

         Because of our conversations about his idea, Jim gave up on his plans to study prayer statistically. Partly he was concerned about the Christian ethics of it all. You would need a control group. “How could you decide with integrity not to pray for a specific group of people?” he wondered.

         Moreover, how could you control all the relevant factors? Suppose you were studying a group of women like Hannah, praying for them to conceive a child? How could you be sure some of your control group were not, like Hannah was, praying for themselves? The human variables in this kind of study would be huge.

         Nonetheless, there have been a significant number of attempts to submit prayer to rigorous scientific investigation. One classic paper was published by Francis Galton in the nineteenth century.[1] In it he offers statistical analysis on existing data in an attempt to de­termine the effectiveness of prayer. He observed the fact that, of all people, sovereign heads of states, kings and queens, probably receive more prayer on their behalf than anyone else in the world. Daily prayers are offered in every church in England for the long life of their sovereign. Yet analyzing the death ages of sovereigns compared to the general population showed that, if anything, kings and queens live shorter lives than others.

         Some positive results have appeared in more contemporary investigations. There are two studies on the effect of praying for patients in cardiac care units in San Francisco and Kansas City.[2] A British experiment looked at how prayer affected the recovery rates for nearly 3,400 patients with bloodstream infections.[3] And in South Korea, scientists looked at the success of in-vitro fertilization embryo transfer in relationship to prayer.[4]

         Other efforts at making prayer scientific have included studies of the effect of general religious commitment on recovery from depression,[5] and studies on the results of praying for plants, an attempt to eliminate the human, psychosomatic variables in the experiment.[6] The examples are many. My friend’s feeling that the results of prayer ought to observable and measurable is apparently shared by a number of people.

         The Bible, however, presents a different picture of prayer. God’s answers are not to be found in double-blind experiments involving a statistically significant sample of randomly selected individuals. Instead, God responds as He did to Hannah, with loving compassion poured out on the heart which approaches Him in faith. God’s answers are not randomly distributed, but specifically directed to the soul in need.

         Hannah’s need arose from an intolerable domestic situation. It’s all there in verse 2. As often happened in that anarchic time of the judges, her husband Elkanah had two wives. The problem was that the other wife, Peninnah, was a regular baby-machine, but Hannah had never borne a child. The pain of childlessness can be miserable today, but in those days it was unbearable. Children were a blessing from God, so people incorrectly reasoned that a childless woman was cursed by God. Her whole reason for existing was in doubt. She was a person without a purpose.

         Making things even worse for Hannah was the fact that her husband openly demonstrated the fact that he loved her more than Peninnah. Every year they went up to worship and sacrifice at Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant was kept in those days. Meat was rare in their diets and so portions of the sacrificial meal were a great prize. Elkanah gave Peninnah portions appropriate to the number of her children. But, as verse 5 explains, he always gave Hannah twice what Peninnah got. This, of course, provoked Peninnah, who in turn was constantly provoking Hannah. She would keep it up until Hannah started crying and left the table.

         Elkanah then would try a typically male strategy for dealing with a weeping woman. He would go and try to cheer her up by pointing out the good side of things. Verse 8 tells us that after urging her to come back and eat, he would remind her of his love, saying, “Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” If you are picturing this properly, then you know that Hannah would have looked up at him with that tear-stained female expression which says, “You are so sweet, but you just don’t understand!” Then she would start sobbing even louder.

         Let me just offer an aside here, and say to all you men that if you ever needed a reason for believing that it’s a really bad idea to be married to more than one wife, here it is: A houseful of women who are either bickering or crying.

         This kept up year after year until one day in her weeping, we see in verse 10, Hannah began to pray. Her prayer was so fervent that she almost foolishly included a vow: If God would only give her a son, then she would dedicate him to the Lord’s service for his whole life.

         The old priest Eli was sitting nearby and saw Hannah praying. He didn’t hear her, because she was praying silently, says verse 13. Here is a glimpse of one major difference between us and the people of Bible times. Praying and even reading silently was almost unknown. Men and women then were less interior than we are now. Praying was always done out loud. Reading was with the voice as well as the eyes. The expression of thought involved the body. Even though silent, Hannah still moved her lips.

         So Eli thought Hannah was drunk and he rebuked her. But she explained that her strange actions were in fact the most heartfelt prayer. In verse 15 she tells him that she hasn’t been pouring wine or beer, she’s been pouring out her soul to God.

         In verse 17, we see that Eli understands and has compassion on her. He blesses her and adds his own prayer that God will give her what she asks. It’s not clear if Eli knows that he is being prophetic, but Hannah obviously feels something has changed. She finally eats a meal and goes home with a happier countenance. She believes what verse 19 says, “the Lord remembered her.”

         Thus we come to the happy conclusion of this text, “in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son.” She named him Samuel, which in Hebrew, Shemuel, sounds like a combination of the words for “hearing” and the word for “god.” So in Samuel’s name, Hannah acknowledges that she has a son because God heard.

         Hannah’s prayer and the answer she received is a universe away from calculated stud­ies attempting to uncover some small percentage point which marks the statistical difference in outcomes produced by the act of praying. You don’t get 3.9% of a baby. For Hannah the difference was a hundred percent. The woman who was childless prayed and now she was nursing her son. She didn’t find the percentages in her favor. She found the God to whom she poured out her soul. He heard her and He answered.

         As we think together about God’s providence, you might wonder how God’s plan for the world can include this kind of intimate, individual and personal answer to prayer. After all, if God knows all that will happen, and is causally involved in making it happen, what difference could our prayers make? Long before it ever happens, God knows both what we will pray and what He will do. In what possible way could prayer change the course of the providential plan He’s had from eternity? Wouldn’t it make more sense if God did work by statistics, building a little “prayer factor” into the way the world runs?

         Some Christians have come to the conclusion that, from God’s point of view, prayer really doesn’t change anything. Remember the occasionalists who think that every event in the world is caused by God alone. They would say that praying in no way changes what God intends to do. In God’s perfect control of everything He has simply determined that He will sometimes act when people pray. He’s doing what He planned to do anyway. But our prayers aren’t the reason. It’s just better for us if prayer appears to make a difference. We pray for the effect it has on us, not for its effect on God.

         Without going quite as far as the occasionalists, many Christians have been drawn to this idea that prayer changes the one who prays, but doesn’t much affect God. After all, most of the time there is no observable, quantifiable change in the course of events result­ing from our prayers. It is easy then, to rest in the thought that prayer is mostly a kind of meditation, bringing you peace and spiritual growth, but not really affecting the course of events in the world.

         Hannah would be totally baffled by this line of thought. Until God actually responded and assured her that He would change the course of events, her prayers gave her no comfort at all. Verse 10 says that she wept and prayed “in bitterness of soul.” I doubt she would have bought the idea that prayer was a sort of meditation bringing her inner peace.

         No, the biblical concept of prayer is a petition which captures God’s attention, which invites His response, which looks for Him to do something. Prayer in the Bible changes things. So recently some evangelical Christians have gone to another extreme in their understanding of how prayer might change what God does.

         The theological movement known as “open theism” believes that for prayer to really work, to actually have some effect on God, it must be the case that God has not planned or even known everything which will happen in the future. The future is open, not only for us, but for God. Just like you and me, He is waiting to see what will happen. So prayer makes a huge difference. The divine plan is still being developed. As we pray, God adds those prayers to His decision making process and responds accordingly. Prayer actually changes God’s plan. He is working it all out as He sees how events unfold.

         But open theism also is not true to the Bible’s concept of prayer. The God of the Bible knows the future completely. His plan is complete from all eternity. Psalm 139 verse 16 says “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” In Matthew 6:8, Jesus says, “your Father knows what you need before you ask.” Our needs and our prayers have been known by God forever. It is no help to our understanding of prayer to adopt the view that God is making it all up as He goes along.

         Somehow we must hold tight to two biblical attitudes. One is that prayer is significant. Praying really does affect the course of events. The other is that God has known what He is going to do from the beginning. Putting these two together is not easy, but I would like to offer the following suggestion, using a clue in our New Testament text, Luke 11, verses 9 and 10.

         Jesus makes strong promises about prayer: “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” These verses teach us that God’s answers to prayer are conditional. He gives, if you ask. He reveals, if you seek. He opens the way, if you knock. God responds, on the condition that we do in fact, pray.

         Yes, God has known all along that He will answer our prayers. But His plan to answer is based on something else He has always known. God knew whether we would pray or not. And He planned accordingly. Part of His planning for our lives is a conditional plan, based on what we choose to do. If we choose to believe and pray, He has planned to answer our prayers. If we choose not to pray, then His plans for us are different. As Hannah discovered dramatically, praying changes everything, including God’s providential plan for us.

         Sure, God could give us all the blessings He wants to give us, even if we didn’t ask in prayer. But as every parent here knows, there is something good about being asked. There is a benefit not just for a parent in the warm feeling of being needed, but also for a child who learns to ask in the right way. You know your children are growing up and maturing as they learn to ask for things that are really good for them. They develop respect for others as they learn to ask with love and politeness – to say “please,” for one thing. And they are growing in character as they learn to ask with patience, realizing they cannot have every­thing they want right away. God offers us the same sort of lessons in spiritual character as we learn to pray in right ways.

         And realizing that God listens to our prayers like a loving father listens to his children offers us one last reason for rejecting the idea that we can submit the act of prayer to the scrutiny of a scientific study. Answers to prayer are not a function of some spiritual law like the natural laws science examines. They are the result of personal interaction. God is not a cosmic force. He is a loving Father who responds to us as one person to another. If praying makes some small statistical difference in my chances for recovery, what kind of hope is that? One chance out of 95 instead of one out of 100? That’s just playing the odds.

         But if in prayer we have the opportunity to talk to a person who really cares for us, who knows all our pain and worry and fear, as He knew Hannah’s, then we have the hope of touching His heart, of changing His mind and His plan, of calling forth all the love He has for us.

         As I told the children, our daughter Joanna has been praying for and asking us for a rabbit for over a month now. Part of what hindered her acquisition of a bunny was my wife’s good common sense. Practically speaking, another pet just complicates life. Who is going to feed the rabbit and clean the cage? Who’s going to take care of it when we go away? What happens when it gets sick? So Beth said no.

         But eventually Joanna’s patient insistence touched Beth’s heart. She saw how much this meant to our daughter. And so Beth relented and gave Joanna the opportunity to prove she really would take care of the new pet. Thinking about occasions just like this, Jesus said, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” If a little child can touch the heart of her mother so that common sense is set aside and love prevails, then our prayers can touch the heart of God so that justice is set aside and love and mercy prevails.

         Of course, as you know very, very well, we do not always get what we ask for in prayer. That’s the subject of next week’s sermon. But Jesus makes it clear that one gift is always ours when we ask. To everyone who comes to Him asking through faith in Jesus Christ, God gives the gift of Himself. He gives His Holy Spirit, who takes up residence in our hearts and brings us ultimately into all the joy we’ve ever asked for… and more.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2002 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj