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Were continuing a sermon series today called Aha Moments where were looking at stories of people in the Bible who had a sudden moment of clarity about God. It was like where they had this moment of Oh, now I get it. Now I understand. These Aha moments helped these people know God better. You and I can know God better by having understanding these Aha moments. So in this series were going deep into the stories to learn what they can teach us about having an Aha moment. The whole purpose of the series is to know God better. Two weeks ago I shared the story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah. We saw how David learned that God is a God of second chances. Last week Sarah Parker shared a story about the Prodigal Son. Today Im going to share the story of Hannah and the Aha moment that she experienced when everyone was saying no to her dreams. Were sharing resources in this series. One resource is this brochure that is in the bulletin. Im helping each of us go deeper by writing a devotion on the story that were exploring. If you use the devotion this week youll go deeper in learning the story of Hannah. In the middle of this brochure is a place where you can take notes. I believe that God might say something to you that youll want to write down and remember. On the back is a place for prayer requests. This week I asked this question on my Facebook page. SLIDE When I say the phrase, famous woman in the Old Testament, what is the first

thought that comes to your mind. I was amazed at all of the responses I received73 of them. Let me read them to you. It will give you a flavor of who people believe is the most important women in the Old Testament

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Theres no definite answer to the question who is the most famous woman in the Old Testament. It shouldnt surprise you that my response to the question would be Hannah. Its no accident that Amy and I named our daughter, Hannah. Shes named after the biblical character, Hannah. I love Hannah because she had a dream and she never gave up on her dream. Even when powerful people in her life discouraged her dream, she kept dreaming. Hannahs dream was to have a baby. She had an Aha moment because of her dream. I gravitate to dreamers. This is the picture on the top of my Facebook page. Like John Lennon said, I want people to imagine what life could be. Its not Hannahs particular dream that grabs me, but her capacity to keep dreaming. I want us to be a congregation of dreamers. If someone came up to you and said, what is your dream what would you say. I hope that each of us can identify our dream. What is a dream? I liked a definition that John Maxwell shared. SLIDE A dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it. John Maxwell Its this idea of being captured by something that is larger than us that is so energizing. Im not talking about daydreamingI like day dreamers, but the dream Im talking about is different than a daydream. Im not talking about a pie-in-the-sky dreama wild idea that has not strategy or basis in reality Im not talking about a vicarious dreamthat is a dream we live through another person. This dream Im talking about is ours. Its something were willing to devote our life to living out. Were willing to put in the hard work to achieve it. The dream captures us. We

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realize that our dream wont happen overnight and we will experience plenty of obstacles. Even when people say no to the dream we are not willing to give up on our dream. Thats a dream. A dream is something big. The dream that Im talking about is so big that we really only have one. This past Sunday I went over to a fundraiser for Hope 4 Youth. They are an organization that just got started a year ago. In one short year they have developed a drop-in center for teens who are homeless in Anoka County. At the fundraiser on Sunday they shared that their dream is to end homelessness in ten years among teens in Anoka County. In fact in one of the presentations on Sunday someone wrote a letter in 2024 that described how life will look differently in Anoka County because no teens are homeless. I was completely captivated by that dream. Im willing to participate in that. Im willing to put work into that. A dream is big, and it brings people in. You might ask, whats your dream, Paul. My dream involves this church, this community of people that we call Chain of Lakes. My dream is that we are community of people who are authentic and Christian. Were real, genuine, and honest; we dont hide parts of ourselves with others; what you see is what you get; theres no manipulation; were always above board. Our authenticity is rooted in our relationship to Jesus Christ. Jesus was authentic, and so are we. This authenticity is part of being a Christian community. My dream is to be a place where strangers get to know each other. They become friends. We can never have too many friends. Friends dont just stay friendsfriends grow to be followers of Jesus Christ. Were disciples. We can easily say that were disciples, were followers of Jesus Christ. Because we are disciples we go out and make an impact in the world. We work to end teen homelessness; we are willing to be mentors with kids at an elementary

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school, we throw fundraisers for organizations in the community and give them the proceeds. Because of our presence the community is stronger. Theres an impact We take worship, prayer and participating in a small group very seriously. We are constantly asking ourselves if we are growing in our relationship to Jesus Christ. And we are in the worldnot only to bring people to Christ, but to share his love and justice with people. We help the hurting and are willing to confront structures that cause pain to people. We do all of this by living out the Core Values of Hospitality, Relevance, Acceptance, Outward Focus, Investing in future Generations, Healthy Disagreement, Joyful Love. We realize that this is Gods Church. You might saythats a lot of words for a dream. And it is. I can chisel all those words down to two. The two words are extraordinary blessing. My dream is that people in this community and especially people who are outside of our community will be blessed in an extraordinary way. Do you want to sign up? Through all the ups and downs of starting this church that has always been my captivating dream. Hannah had a dream. She continued to believe in her dream even when people around her said no. She had an Aha moment about God. Lets look at her story. I want to divide it into four parts. SLIDE Hannahs tears There were three characters in this part of the storyElkanah, Penninah, and Hannah. Penninah and Hannah were both married to Elkanah. They lived in Ramah. Every year their family would go to the village of Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to God.

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This was a big deal for the family. This might have been the only time of the year when the family left Ramah. They probably didnt have special clothes, but if they did the family would wear them. Why did they go to Shiloh? At Shiloh was the ark. What was in the ark? The ark had the tablets that God gave to Moses. We know of that as the Ten Commandments. People believe that God resided in the ark. This was a very holy place. When they got to Shiloh, Elkanah, as the head of the family, offered a sacrifice at the entrance to the ark. It was goats meat or some other sort of meat. After the sacrifice the family would enjoy a meal. The meal was made up of the sacrifice. Penninah and her children receive a portion, and Hannah received a double portion. Why did Hannah receive a double portion? She couldnt have children. The story says that she was barren. Elkanah loved Hannah and had compassion for her because she couldnt have children. Why was being barren so significant? In the culture of that day a prime function for women was to have children. Woman lived to have children. If a woman didnt have children, then that was a big problem for the family. Not only that, but people applied religious meaning to not having children. The story said that God closed Hannahs womb. Dont take that literally, of course. Its not like God came and put a zipper on Hannahs womb. Im not even convinced that God intentionally closed Hannahs womb. Lets push into this. People placed religious meaning on significant events. The language that we might use today is an act of God. We call natural catastrophes an act of God. Take our snowstorm on Thursday. Was that an act of God? I know that part of us believe that. I came to work on Friday and as I was coming to the entrance to the Lovell Building some of the

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people down the hall were having a smoke. When they saw me they pointed to the snow and said, you must have really made God mad. We laughed about it. I dont believe that God intentionally causes snow storms. If we brought a meteorologist in her that person could explain what happened. In the same way Im not convinced that God intentionally caused Hannah to be barren. A doctor could probably explain couldnt do that. Some would say that this was an act of God; God closed her womb. What made this even more of a problem for Hannah is that Penninah taunted Hannah. The story said that she provoked her severely; she irritated her. Penninah was mean. I think of her as the evil step sister in Cinderella. Every time the family would go to Shiloh, Hannah had to be reminded that she couldnt have a child. Hannah had a dreamshe wanted to have a child. But her body didnt let her have a child. The people who were around her didnt have compassion for herthey ridiculed her. Elkanah was the only person who was identified as having compassion for Hannah. She wept. She sobbed. That leads to the second scene of the story SLIDE Hannahs prayer After experiencing this criticism for years about what she was told that God did to her, Hannah prayed to God. I find this remarkable. Hannah was told that God didnt want something for her, but Hannah refused to accept it. People probably told Hannah that it was Gods will that she didnt have a child. Hannah didnt accept what some thought was Gods will. You remember the story in the New Testament of the unjust judge. There was a widow who came and asked for justice every day from an unjust judge. Eventually the judge gave her what she wanted, not because the judge became just but because of her persistent.

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God is not an unjust judge. But we could have understood if Hannah viewed God that way. Hannah (dont you just love her) kept praying. Hannah had a dream. This is what a dream will do. When we have a dream we dont accept what other people say or think. A dream is so captivating and important. The power of the dream is more important than what others say. Hannah prayed: Say her prayer with me. Say it like youre singing. SLIDE O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head. Hannahs dream was not even for herself. Hannah was willing to give her son away as a Nazirite. A Nazirite was a special class of person. Hannah wasnt even going to benefit from her own dream. Which leads to the third scene of the story SLIDE Hannahs determination As H prayed at the entrance to the structure that housed the ark, the priest Eli saw her. Eli saw Hs lips moving, but nothing came from her mouth. Eli never came across as a scoundrel in this story, but we learn later that his two sons were scoundrels. We can deduce that Elis sons learned some of their bad behavior from Eli. Eli tried to shame H. When Eli saw Hannah he said this: SLIDE How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.

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Eli had a lot of power as a priest. Hannah had no power as she couldnt even accomplish what women were supposed to accomplish. We could have understood if H had given in to what Eli said even though she knew it was not true. Hannah told Eli that she was not drunk. She said that she wasnt pouring out a drink she was pouring out her soul to God. . H told the trutheven when the truth could have gotten her in trouble. Which leads me to the fourth part of the story SLIDE Hannahs dream. When Eli saw that Hannah wasnt drunk he blessed her. Go in peace, he said and may God grant your petition. Hannah went back to Elkanah. The next day the two got up early and worshipped together. Then they went back to their home in Ramah. The two knew each other. We know that means they had sexual intercourse. Guess what happened. Hannah became pregnant. Her dream came true. Despite all of the obstacles and impedimentsher dream came true. Despite all of the people around her who told her to forget her dreamher dream came true. She had a sonwe know of her son as Samuel. Samuel became one of the most important prophets in the history of the Old Testament. He helped choose Saul as the first king of Israel and then David as the king of Israel. Hannahs dream had a long-term impact on the world. Here we are almost three thousand years later and were talking about Hannahs dream. This is the lasting power of dreams. Its possible that one of our dreams could still have an impact in 3,000 years. Whats the Aha moment? What did Hannah learn about God. God rewards dreamers. Our dreams might not happen right away, we might experience a lot of resistance to our dreams,

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there will be days that it seems impossible for our dreams to happen, but if we stay faithful God will reward our dreams. Hannah learned that. She eventually had three sons and two daughters. Which leads me to a final story about dreaming. This past Thursday I had the privilege of visiting with Lena Truong. We talked about her dad who passed away two weeks ago Friday. When I came to visit her I asked her if she would tell me about her dad. After hearing his story I asked and Lena gave me permission to share this story. Lenas dad had a dream for his children. He wanted them to have a good life. They grew up in Vietnam. When the Vietcong took over the country Lenas dad and brothers had to escape. They left the country at night and went to a refugee camp in Thailand. Lena and her mom stayed in Vietnam. A terrible war and difficult politics forced their family to be apart from each other. This went on for a while. Then a church in rural North Dakota sponsored Ls family to come to the United States. This church had obviously never met them. But they believed in Jesus teaching of welcoming the stranger. So Ls family was re-united in a small town a hour west of Fargo, North Dakota. It was a long ways from Vietnam. They started their life here in the United States. Lenas dad worked blue collar jobs. Because of his hard work and Lenas mothers hard work Lena was able to go to the University of Minnesota. She met James there. The two were married. She now had a good job, a loving husband, and a beautiful little girl. Her two brothers and one sister also are living a good life. One man had a dream for his family. He knew that he had to leave his family and his home country to live out that dream. Now half a world away we are watching his dream come true. God rewards dreamers.

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Today were coming to celebrate Communion. Jesus had a dream for our own lives. He shared it through his life, death and resurrection. Because of his dream we are given the gift of salvation. We will live forever. This gift of salvation is meant for us as we live here on earth. After you receive Communion today were going to have two prayer stations. You are encouraged to come forward and share your dream. Then well pray about it with you. If you dont know your dream, ask that God would make clear the dream for your life. God rewards dreamers. This was Hannahs aha moment. She learned something from God. We can learn from her.