Rev’d Peter Balbanski
Pentecost + 26 – 1 Sam 14-20, Mk 13 1-11
Today’s collect prayer describes God as a welcoming refuge for the outcast; an upholder of justice for the oppressed; a generous provider willing to look after others in very costly ways. We Christians are meant to embody all that; we who affirm each week that we are the body of Christ on Earth now. But sadly, as we observe National Survivors’ Day, we have to admit that for many people, their experience of us, the Church, makes them fear that these truthful words about God may actually be empty lies. National Survivors’ Day tells us why they can feel that.
If we, the Church, are meant to embody God as safe refuge, justice-giver and gracious provider, we still have a long way to go. What I sent you in my weekly newsletter reveals the Church to be a place where vulnerable people have not been safe. And if we aren’t very careful, Church still is a dangerous place. It takes real, unified commitment, courage, honesty and selflessness for a community to embody the truth about God’s love and kindness. And we’re certainly not there yet.
Today’s readings show us both how to represent God truly, and also how not to represent God to people.
In the first few verses of our reading from 1st Samuel, we see generous love and cruel bullying side by side. Hannah hasn’t had any children. But her husband, Elkanah, ignores the culture of his time and gives a double portion of the sacrifice to her. It means he’s giving her what in their culture should only go to the mother of his first son. So Hannah experiences Grace – which is what her name means. But at the same time, Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, who does have children, bullies Hannah horribly. Same family, good role model, but really cruel behaviour.
Bullying can cut you off from the good that comes to you in other parts of your life. That’s what happened to Hannah. The patriarchal culture that devalued a childless woman, and Peninnah’s on-going, cruel use of it to taunt Hannah cut her off from the healing of Elkanah’s love. She was inconsolable. So she took her grief to the house of the Lord. She wept bitterly and prayed that God might rescue her from her misery. She bargained desperately with God for freedom from her distress. And what happened? God’s representative, Eli the priest, accused her of being drunk. She came to God’s house desperate for mercy and the priest falsely accused her of desecrating the sanctuary by being drunk!
The documents I’ve sent you describe in tragic detail that very same sort of abuse happening over and over again in this diocese – people violated in the heart of their Church family coming back to the Church to appeal for help, for justice, for care, for healing, and instead being silenced, ignored, disbelieved and threatened by the leaders of this diocese. And just like we saw Eli do to Hannah, it was done for the same reason; to protect the institution. Eli’s instinct was to preserve the sanctity of God’s house, and he went for Hannah with accusation and judgement instead of doing God’s work and asking what was so obviously hurting her.
God meets broken people with love, with acceptance, with healing; not with harsh, fearful, reflex judgement and bullying accusation; no, love, acceptance, healing. And God’s little people are the priority; not some building or institution.
Thankfully Hannah stood up to Eli and told him he’d got it wrong. Maybe living with Peninnah had driven her to the point where she wouldn’t tolerate unjustified accusation any more. And mercifully, Eli turned out to be someone who could accept correction; to believe Hannah and behave as a priest should have.
So often, bullying, accusation and threats are cruelly compounded by disbelief, or apparent disbelief. The disbelief that survivors of abuse confront often turns out to be completely insincere. It’s a tactic some people use to protect the institution where the abuse happens; to seek to silence the person who makes a complaint. It’s the same logic at work as Caiaphas’ justification for killing Jesus; it’s better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed. Jn 11.50
The Church certainly isn’t the only institution where this happens. But the point is that it’s the institution where it should never happen. And it must never happen again. The start of today’s Gospel challenges our habit of institution-protection. Jesus’ disciples admire the Temple. But Jesus replies, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’
Buildings and institutions cannot embody the love of God; only communities can do that. And for a community to do that, it takes real commitment and moment-by-moment decision always to prioritise God’s sacrificial love. To get to that point, we need to pray to be converted from fearful, reflex self-protection to courageous, self-giving compassion for others. God’s priorities must be our priorities. That’s how we build safe community. We owe that to all survivors of abuse. Amen