The Gospel According to Leonard Cohen

REFLECTIONS
November 22, 2009

Do you ever have the experience of reading something and hearing it as song? Better still have you looked at something and then realize in the visual, something which made the experience more rich? Several months ago while choosing scripture for worship, I read I Samuel 1:4-20. It is the story of Hannah going to the Temple at Shiloh to pray that God might give her relief from her barrenness. The priest of the temple, Eli, who upon witnessing her immersed in prayer assumes she is a drunken prostitute, and confronts her. Hannah protests and begins to explain her petition, however, the Priest either in mercy or perhaps it was embarrassment tells her that the prayer is answered. She leaves the burden lifted, the double blessing is in the next chapter, her pregnancy and birth of her son, Samuel, is told through a song she sings in chapter 2:1-10. This song of Hannah is one which Mary, the mother of Jesus, knew by heart and she would use this as the pattern for her own song about the birth of her Son, recorded in the first chapter of Luke’s gospel.

When I read the exchange between Hannah and the Priest Eli, the words became as music. Not a traditional hymn or lite lyrical piece, rather I heard the words as a Leonard Cohen song. If you think you don’t know his work, you are probably wrong. He is a prolific songwriter and many artists have recorded his music. His voice for some may be an acquired taste, however, I find his style moving and deeply spiritual. He writes and sings with a precision and edge which explores life fully, and freely exposes its flaws and quirks.

Hannah is the barren yet favored wife of Elkanah. His other wife Peninnah belittles and badgers Hannah making her life miserable. Hannah has come to the temple seeking relief from the torment and if a miracle is possible, a son to call her own. The priest is a doofus (a technical theological term) but not without power as God’s agent in Shiloh. When Hannah leaves that temple, she knows something is different but is not aware of exactly what transpired. Which brings me that question of seeing and not fully experiencing.

A while back Sue and I were having coffee at an outdoor mall. While talking, we took notice as a young family came out onto the patio. A mom, dad, perhaps an uncle and two little girls perhaps three and five years old. The girls began dancing immediately. They heard the music I had been deaf to or at least ignoring. Sue and I looked at each other and laughed as they danced with wild abandon, emitting a freedom I simply don’t recall.

Dr. Joey K. McDonald
First United Methodist Church
4832 Tujunga Avenue, North Hollywood, CA 91601