I’ve Been Meaning to Ask: Where Does it Hurt

1 Samuel 1:(1-11)12-18

We kicked the Fall off last Sunday as we have for decades, with our annual Rally Day Sunday on the Weekend after Labor Day weekend. Rally Day has looked different in the last few years, from years past. We didn’t have new curriculum for graded children’s Sunday school classes, or first Youth Group/Small Group gatherings to prepare for that evening. We didn’t give out bibles or have new teachers to introduce. But what we did have was each other and the Rally Day brunch we’ve been used to and blessed with. And what we did do was begin to ask a series of questions that will lead us into World Communion Sunday on the first Sunday of October and then into our annual Stewardship Season focus that always follows that through the month of October and into November.

Last week, we asked one another “Where are you from?” Reading from the second creation story in Genesis chapter two, we remembered that we are all formed from the “dirt of the ground” and “the dust of the stars”, and that all of us have been breathed into by the breath of the God – love itself, life, and promise. But we also learned that each one of us comes from a more unique place. At my table, sharing our meal, I learned that we come from places where we rolled on top of 55 gallon drums down the backyard slope; we come from front porches where the neighbors themselves became our sisters and brothers; we come from homes that had no indoor plumbing; and, we come from families whose members traveled around the world and back. Seven other tables shared their responses to “where are we from” in different ways.

In order to build connection and trust, we need to listen to each other’s stories and experiences – over ad over again, if needed. We need to feel seen and known for who we are. We need to acknowledge our “common ground”, yes. And, we do every week that we gather. But we also need to affirm the particularities (and the peculiarities) of our identities, as well. Something we rarely take time to do when we are gathered in this number.

So, we’re doing this more in the weeks ahead. We’ve been meaning to ask. We’ve been meaning to ask, "where are you from”? And so, we did last week. This week we’ve been meaning to ask, “Where does it hurt?” And so, we will … ask it.

Let’s pray together first …

This week’s question is just as personal as last week’s question. If not a bit more so. It implies first of all that all of us … all of us … have known pain and suffering - that these realities are universal. And then it understands that this pain and this suffering are once again “particular”. Look around the room this morning – actually look around or just close your eyes and feel the presence of the people around you, and around this room, and just simply acknowledge the pain and the heartache and the suffering and the hurt that is a part of this community because it is part of someone, or some “ones”, here. Let us understand this, or nothing that follows will make any difference to us.

All of us know some of the particular pain of at least one other person here. Some of us more than one. Some of us many more than one. But take this fleeting moment, in this holy space, to acknowledge the pain others have endured, to feel it, perhaps … the loss of someone we love (parent, spouse, a child, a dear friend); a diagnosis of cancer, or Parkinson’s, or dementia; addictions to drugs or alcohol (or other); car wrecks, broken bones, stitches and splints; an empty nest, a wayward son, a struggling daughter; the loss of income, health insurance, pension benefits. It’s all here, and more … (phew!)

Doesn’t feel like a Sunday morning, all of a sudden, does it? The “joyous gathering of the people of GOD”. Except … this is part of what this day is for. Of what this hour offers and requires of us. And we’re acknowledging it this week. Because before we can fully and truly act, before we can engage in the ministry and the mission that is the heart of this community, we must first acknowledge and believe that pain is real. It is real for each one of us here. And it’s real for every single last person we meet or see, or don’t see, every day “out there”. Bearing witness to each other’s pain helps us to cultivate compassion. And it’s with that compassion – for one another and for the world – that we engage in anything we do as the Church.

Our scripture reading this morning is from the opening chapter of 1 Samuel, in the first testament of our bible. Both first and second Samuel describe the beginning of Israel’s kings. Samuel is the last of the “judges” and was asked by the people in his old age to find them a King so that “that they may be like other nations.” He does that, after much prayer and disagreement.

But the story begins before Samuel was even born. In the opening verses of the book we read that one of the wives of Ramathaim, named Hannah, had no children. She is belittled, patronized, and provoked for her infertility. (The pain of Hannah’s is here in this room, too. Infertility, miscarriages, postpartum depression, sickness, job loss, economic insecurity. We share this story because it is the story of many women – and the partners they may share life with. We share this story to bear witness to this suffering, not to intensify it.)

Because through all the belittling, patronizing and provoking, Hannah never stopped praying and hoping and seeking wholeness. On one such occasion, at prayer in the house of the Lord in Shiloh, she was observed by the priest Eli. Listen for the Word of God …

            Read 1 Samuel 1:12-18. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Hannah’s pain and suffering had been mocked and ignored and then diminished as Eli mistook her pain for “drunkenness.” But it is this moment that she vulnerably and courageously bears all of herself before God, to Eli, transforming herself and him. It is in this moment, in the sharing of her deep pain and sorrow, that she is fully seen and understood. Eli is changed, too. He “turns around,” repents of his way of engaging and blesses Hannah: Go in Peace. She does, as the reading concludes.

And our reading this morning very intentionally concludes with verse eighteen. How many of you were waiting for verses nineteen and twenty? Perhaps a few of you read on even after I finished. In this larger story, yes, Hannah goes on to conceive and bear a child. But this is not the solution to her pain. How could it be when not every woman facing this situation experiences her outcome? Hannah is whole just as she is. So are we. Her deeper pain is in “not being seen”, not being acknowledged, not feeling a part of community and purpose. So is our deeper pain.

But the moment her pain is acknowledged and blessed, she finds peace. Did you hear verses seventeen and eighteen? Before verses nineteen and twenty and conception? She is heard. Another bears witness to her suffering and blesses it. That is what transforms Hannah. Her healing is in being seen, not in getting pregnant. She goes back to her home … and “her countenance was sad no longer”. ^{1 Sam 1:18b}  Her face was radiant, translates another.

As we imagine ourselves in Hannah’s place, we may wonder what we would say if someone stopped us to ask us, “Where do you hurt?” Would we be honest enough to share our pain? And what would we do if that person then accepted the legitimacy of our response? If we were brave enough to share and then we truly felt heard? It would have to be someone we trusted, for sure. I hope each one of us has at least someone like that in our lives – hard as it still may be to share – someone tangible, physically in our lives that we could bear our pain to. But, even if we don’t – if anyone doesn’t, we have this GOD we give our hearts to, and we have this Jesus we follow. It is a faithful thing to “cry out,” to cry forth, to cry …  Might our “hurt” be heard and sanctified through our faith, itself? (Long pause …)

I know a few of you are worried right now that I’m going to invite you to turn to your neighbor to ask, and be asked by them, “Where does it hurt?”

I’m not going to do that. That may be a bit too much, for this hour. But, I am going to tell you that you could. There is at least one person in this room that everyone of us might turn to and share our pain with. And it’s not just me, or Pastor Ashia. You have others, in this room this morning, in this community on any occasion we gather, who would listen and acknowledge your pain. They very likely may even share it.

What would we say if someone stopped us to ask us, “Where do you hurt?” And what would we do if our responses were accepted? Might such honesty with our own hurts and disappointments allow us to be more present with others’ afflictions as well?

Because, honestly, this is where the work of the church begins. This is where we – this imperfect, hurting and hurtful, sinful but forgiven and redeemed group of misfits – finds its call. To ask and be asked “where does it hurt”, and then to listen and respond with humility and dignity … is where we first encounter Christ in this world, in our life. And then … oh, and then … the healing truly begins.

Let it begin ... every hour of the day, every day of the week … Amen.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / September 20, 2026