embodied – Salvaged Faith

Text: 1 Samuel 1:1-18

Where does it hurt?

I distinctly remember an incident when one of my nephews took a tumble and as soon as they hit the ground the wails and the tears began.

I rushed over to offer comfort and care.

Where does it hurt? I asked…

And though they couldn’t form the words, they could point to the scrape on their elbow.

“Oh no!” I replied. “It’s so bad we might have to cut your whole arm off!”

And suddenly the tears turned to giggles and a kiss and a hug from Aunt Katie made everything better.

Oh how I wish that hugs and kisses from aunts could make every hurt go away so quickly.

But the reality is that we have all experienced pain and suffering.

We try to put on a brave face and when someone asks we say we are fine.

But there are days when we are not.

And on those days, we need someone to see us.

To acknowledge our pain.

To hold it up as truth, rather than to dismiss or minimize it.

I am thirty-nine years old. I have been married for fourteen years. And my spouse and I have been unable to have children.

We have nine nieces and nephews that we love dearly and two cats that are our babies.

But we do not have children.

And some days that hurts.

I know that there are other folks in this room today that have known this kind of hurt.

The pain of infertility or miscarriage or the loss of a child.

Some of you have known the hurt of Hannah from our scripture today.

And when I think about Hannah’s story… and my own story… and maybe your story… I have to first acknowledge that Hannah is more that that one piece of her story.

Hannah is a daughter. And a wife. And a faithful believer.

She is loved.

She is whole and complete just as she is.

And… there are days when it hurts.

Our scripture for today talks about how every year the family would make their annual pilgrimage for worship and sacrifice.

And every year, that experience brought her pain.

It was the pain of how Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah would taunt and bully her for not having children.

It was the pain of how her husband would try to minimize her pain, “why are you upset? Aren’t I enough for you?”

And it was even the pain of how those who served in the sanctuary made assumptions about what was wrong with her.

In the Message translation of this passage, it says: “Every time she went to the sanctuary of God she could expect to be taunted.”

Can you imagine if that place that is supposed to be holy and safe is the place where it hurts the most?

Well… some of you can.

The church is not perfect.

And at times has been downright terrible.

I confess and lament that the church and its people has been the source of harm.

It is not okay.

And I hope and pray and work so that this church is a place of God’s grace and love and mercy and welcome… for everyone.

When Hannah went to the sanctuary of God, she felt the hurt of childlessness more profoundly than at other times in her life.

And the text tells us that faced with others who couldn’t/didn’t listen to her hurt, she pulled herself together, and pretended that the pain wasn’t there.

Oh – how often do we do that.

We hide our pain.

We smile through gritted teeth.

We have been dismissed so many times that we start to feel that what we are experiencing is shameful.

Whether it is a job loss… or addiction… or a loved one in prison… or your mental health… or chronic pain… we carry the hurt quietly.

But all alone, in the sanctuary, in prayer… Hannah spoke aloud her hurt to God.

As Lisle Gwynn Garrity created this image for our worship series, she thought of this woman.

She writes, “In Hannah, I see a woman who has been mocked, shamed, diminished, and ignored. However, she refuses to be silenced. In the presence of her pain, she grits her teeth, pours her heart out before God, and insists that we see her: “Just look at my pain and remember me!” (1 Samuel 1:11) I decided to render her body as fading into the scene to symbolize the invisibility she feels, and also the vulnerable transparency she exudes.” (A Sanctified Art)

“Look at my pain. Remember me,” she cries out.

And friends, here is the gospel truth.

God hears our cries.

In the presence of God, all hurt is seen.

It was there that Eli, the priest, came across her weeping.

He initially made assumptions… she must be drunk… carrying on like that.

But having just been honest with God, Hannah finds the courage to be honest with Eli.

“I am a very sad woman.” She replies. “I am carrying a great burden.”

And for the first time… someone sees her hurt.

Eli can’t fix it.

He can’t make any promises.

But he sees her.

He sees her pain.

And he prays for her… praying to the God who knows all our hurts and who is always with us.

And here is the powerful thing about being seen.

When we are seen, we are no longer alone.

The hurt might still be there… but suddenly it isn’t something that we have to carry by ourselves.

Our passage for today says that once Eli sees her and prays for her, Hannah is able to get up.

She is able to find some peace.

She walks away and she no longer feels that deep sadness.

As I think about the stories that Rev. Brittany shared about her work with the homeless, there are so many problems and hurts in this world that we cannot fix.

But it is enough to be seen.

To be treated with dignity.

To know that someone is standing alongside us in the midst of it.

There are people in each of our lives that are hurting… for one reason or another.

And sometimes we feel helpless and hopeless because we can’t solve their problems or make it all go away.

But friends, all you need to do is listen.

Be present.

See them. Remember them. Walk with them.

Drop a card in the mail.

Leave a voicemail.

Look them in the eyes.

Hold their hand.

Let them be more than the place where it hurts, without ignoring that sometimes… it does hurt.

And folks… if you are hurting… this place is a safe place to share.

Please reach out to me… I am happy to sit with you, cry with you, yell at the heavens with you…

And there are lots of other good folks right here that are willing to do the same.

You are not alone.

My gym regularly has challenges that help us to stay motivated and accountable with one another and our goals. For almost three years, Elite Edge has pushed me and shaped me and it is an important part of my week and how I care for myself.

But I have to admit that I have this internal struggle going on with one of the key reasons I go and show up and put all sorts of limits on what I eat in order to accomplish the goals I set there:

I don’t always feel comfortable in my body.

I actually remember why I signed up in the first place. I had looked at this image of myself in a conference news story and it was rounder than I remembered it being. A lot rounder. To be honest, I hadn’t stepped on a scale in a while. I was filling my life with work and family and wasn’t doing much to take care of myself in healthy ways.

There are two parts of this realization that are important. My relationship with my body was virtually non-existent. I just wasn’t paying attention to it. And from a health perspective, that’s not a great thing. I was experiencing a few symptoms of dis-ease that I was ignoring but that photo of myself caused me to ask some questions of my doctor. I want to be strong and healthy and full of life as I age and this was a moment to change the story I was writing for myself. And I did.

But it also stirred up all sorts of anxiety about how I should look. What other people thought about how I looked. What I thought it meant to be young and sexy. How society portrays what a fit body looks. And success at this gym was predicated around lowering our weight and losing inches, which wraps itself all into those expectations of body image that we should be smaller, thinner, more like the images we see in the media.

There are a hundred layers of this that could each be pulled back: double standards, the objectification of women’s bodies, class and racial expectations of beauty, consent and sexual violence… and they all gravitate around a harsh reality. We do not allow people to feel safe and comfortable in their own bodies. We do not respect one another’s bodies.

These over-sexualized expectations and fat-shaming perspectives are all around us. They dominate our advertising. They feed our economy as they are used to drive our consumer desire to buy products that will help us achieve these goals. And I buy into them sometimes. It’s honestly the thing that got me to stop into the gym that morning. I was willing to try something new, to spend my money, to buy into this crazy idea that I could lose twenty pounds in six weeks… because I didn’t like what my body said about who I was.

Now, having been to this gym for a few years, I have a completely different relationship with my body.

I know how strong it is.

I have walked people of all different bodies and sizes and shapes walk into that gym and we all give that session our all and leave equally sweaty and gross and energized.

I know that I do five straight minutes of jumping jacks and know every single muscle that goes into one… because those muscles hurt for nearly a week after.

I wear skinny jeans now. And I never felt comfortable in them before because they accentuated how large my thighs were, but now, I daily wear form-fitting leggings to the gym and there are huge muscles there and I don’t hide them or cover them up and no one cares or judges. And having that space where I could stop worrying about what someone else things freed me up to stop worrying in other places too.

I notice how different foods and drinks impact how I feel in a given day. Which give me energy and which leave me feeling tired and bloated.

Because I’m more comfortable in my own skin, I’m also more comfortable in my own sexuality and that part of my relationship with my spouse has grown as we actually talk about how what we are doing makes us feel and I have let go of shame or embarrassment about how I think I look.

And in all of these three years, I’ve been a variety of different sizes. I take breaks from healthy eating. I have seasons where I push harder at the gym and where I give myself a rest. I try to focus more on what is leading to my overall health, rather than getting too wrapped up in what the scale says.

And yet… there is this part of me that still cares.

Still cares about wanting to look a certain way.

Still is uncomfortable when the scale reads over a certain number.

Still worries about the curves and love handles.

This winter, instead of a numbers based challenge, my gym is focusing on non-scale victories and so we each set three goals. And one of those primary goals for me is to get to a point where I am more comfortable in my own skin.

Where I don’t just pay attention to my body, but I love it.

I embrace it no matter what the scale says.

I respect it by taking care of it to the best of my ability.

I cherish it by holding to good boundaries between myself and others, protecting it from the actions or words that could harm it.

I celebrate it openly in the world instead of feeling shame or guilt.

I’m not there yet… but I’m working on it.

This past weekend with the Super Bowl, much has been said about Shakira and J.Lo but I have to say the very first thought I had was: look at how their bodies can move!

Here are two women, older than I am, who just shared with us a celebration of who they are with every cell of their bodies.

I saw the incredible strength it took to climb and maneuver a body on a pole. (and honestly, I thought Cirque du Soleil before someone mentioned a “stripper pole”)

I saw the sweat and hard work of incredible footwork.

I saw curves and sparkle and life and energy.

I saw a full-throated embrace of a cultural reality that is not my own through words and music and images and bodies.

I saw two women who were absolutely comfortable in their own skin… who trusted their bodies and their identity and celebrated it in front of the world.

Maybe if the first thing we see is sex, it’s because we aren’t comfortable with bodies. We aren’t comfortable with our own… or with other people’s.

Maybe it’s because we have already bought into the belief that every body is an object, rather that belonging to a person with a story and feelings that come in flesh and blood. We have no respect for the bodies of others – especially those who look or sound or think differently than us.

What if we were comfortable enough in our own skin that we could allow others to fully celebrate and be comfortable in their own without judgment or revulsion or drooling?

What if we allowed the bodies of others to teach us, inspire us, push us, free us from our own limitations?

What if we created space for all bodies, for everybody, to be celebrated and cherished, embraced and respected?

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