March 29, 2009 Des Moines
4th in a series on Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
scripture: I Samuel 7:7-14
"Here
I Raise My Ebenezer"
Des
Moines native and best-selling author Bill Bryson recalls how his father, on
family trips years ago, would always stop at roadside historical markers, and
how they were always dull.
“Usually,” he writes, “they
would commemorate something palpably obscure and uninteresting – the site of
the first Bible college in western Tennessee, the birthplace of the inventor of
the moist towelette, the home of the author of the Kansas state song. You knew before you got there that they were
going to be boring because if they had been even remotely interesting somebody
would have set up a hamburger stand and sold souvenirs. But Dad thrived on them and would never fail
to be impressed. After reading them to
us he would say in an admiring tone, ‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ and then without
fail would pull back onto the highway into the path of an oncoming truck, which
would honk furiously and shed part of its load as it swerved past. ‘Yes, that was really very interesting,’ he
would add reflectively, unaware that he had just about killed us all.” [1]
I carry with me similar childhood
memories, though I suppose in my family I was the more curious about what the
markers might commemorate. Riding along
in the back seat I would feel a surge of anticipation whenever a sign would
appear announcing a historical marker one mile ahead. Occasionally we would stop, but it usually
had less to do with historical curiosity and more to take advantage of the
concrete picnic tables routinely located alongside them in those prehistoric
days before fast-food options beckoned us at every intersection. Nevertheless, I would dutifully and
expectantly run over to read the description of whatever had warranted the
special attention, generally walking away as unimpressed as Bill Bryson,
dismissing it as much ado about nothing, but never so dismissive as to curb
interest in checking out the next one.
Come to think of it, we don’t see too
many of those markers anymore – not that they have gone away; it’s just that
fewer and fewer of us travel the two-lane highways where they are customarily
located. Freeways, after all, aren’t
very conducive to the curious pulling over to read a sign, but then nothing of
much significance happens on freeways anyway.
Even if we don’t often notice them, though, the signs are all over the
place – preserving the memories of events that someone believed to be
significant; bronze plaques, granite markers, roadside pull-offs.
Even
around here. Why, not five-minutes from
this very spot – at about E. 1st and Grand –you can stand near the
stone that marks the site of the first crossing of the Des Moines River by a
licensed ferry. Wow! And over in MacGregor you can read the plaque
calling attention to the home of Augustus Ringling where his sons – you
know: the Ringling Brothers – used to
give penny shows. And at a Coralville rest stop, near Iowa City,
you can read about the Mormon handcart trail dating back to 1856 where European
Mormons arrived penniless at the end of the railroad line and built handcarts
they walked across Iowa on their way westward.
You can learn about Pilot Rock over near Cherokee, or the place where
Buffalo Bill William Cody lived near Le Claire; or you can visit the site near
Sioux City where Sergeant Charles Floyd was buried by his colleagues in the
Lewis and Clark expedition.
In
fact, if you pay attention, you could get the impression that significant
things happen almost everywhere – firsts, greats, decisive events, turning
points; landmarks, birthplaces, battles, burials. Who knows how many such moments and events
have been forgotten. But signs mark the
memories of these, because someone was moved by the conviction that we
shouldn’t forget. “Here,” the markers
remind us, “something worth remembering happened.”
You
could say that’s why churches like ours routinely have a communion table
prominently placed in the worship space – the table, less as furniture or
functional accessory, than a reminder, an historical marker, if you will, of
the location where something worth remembering happened. Here, we recall each week in our tradition,
is not simply where Jesus and his disciples shared a meal (which, of course,
according to any geographical sensibility is totally absurd) but rather where
Jesus compared his body to the bread of life, and his blood to the new covenant
sealed therein, offered to us as enduring signs of God’s unconditional love. Here, around this table, we “do this in
remembrance” of him.
People
have been doing such things forever, it turns out: marking spots; determined to remember those
people or places or significant events that shaped and forged them into who
they ultimately became.
In the
Hebrew scriptures, there is a story in which the people of God once again found
themselves up against and besieged by a large and threatening army. The Philistines scared the Israelites to
death, and they begged the prophet Samuel not to quit praying to God on their
behalf. In that way the story sounds a
lot like our prayer lives – stimulated less by devotion than panic, and
preferably put into the hands of the experts rather than tackled on our own. “Holy
terrors, they are coming! Pray, Samuel,
pray!”
And
so, according to the story, Samuel prepared and offered a sacrifice, raised his
voice on the people’s behalf, and lo and behold God answered. The Philistines were sent into disarray by
God’s thunderous voice, disarming them just long enough for the soldiers of
Israel to step in and gain the upper hand and ultimately win the day. And then Samuel took a stone and set it up near
the site where the battle had taken place and made of it a kind of monument – a
roadside marker, if you will – to remind passersby what had occurred
there: not so much a battle, for those
kinds of things happen almost everywhere, but rather a moment when the people
became conscious of the care and leading of God. The stone, to put it another way, didn’t mark
the fight; the stone bore witness to an insight – a great “aha!” – into the
relationship between God and God’s people.
And the stone was given a name: “Ebenezer,” they called it, which means “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
Throughout
this season of Lent we have been reflecting in depth upon the prayerful hymn Come
Thou Fount of Every Blessing,
especially the second phrase of the song:
“tune my heart to sing thy grace.” That, I have suggested since the beginning of
this series, is what the season of Lent has historically been about: the thoughtful, prayerful, intentional
discipline of hearing the pitch of God’s holy intent and tuning our own hearts
to match it. It is the spiritual practice
of offering our lives afresh for whatever God has in store for us, and wanting
our instrument to make beautiful music as far as God is concerned, not
discordant, off-key honks and screeches.
And
so the hymn has prayerfully led us to recognize and confess our proneness to
wander away from God’s intent; our tendency as well not only to wander, but
more willfully to pack up our things and leave.
Sooner or later, we have also acknowledged, we wake up and realize what
we’ve done – or “come to ourselves” as the parable of the prodigal son so
wonderfully puts it. Sooner or later something
happens – a crisis, perhaps; an illness, a dead-end; an encircling army as in
the Bible story – that makes us comprehend how far we have drifted from the
shade of God where we would wish to be, only to frighten us with the daunting
prospect of being unable to get back there on our own. It’s looking back on those moments from a
happier place that we realize that it was only by God’s help that we’ve
come.
It
is, it seems to me, that sort of consciousness that makes us “disciples”. So how do we hold onto that revelation? How do we maintain and even integrate into
our being that grounding wisdom? Samuel
set up a stone and gave it a name, and while I am nostalgic about that idea,
historical markers along the roadside aren’t really going to do it for us. So how else might we go about “raising an
Ebenezer” – erecting markers of one kind or another in our lives that keep
fresh the conviction that God is our only sure source of help and
security. How is that we will manage to
keep steady our understanding that the economy will not save us, neither the
Republicans nor the Democrats nor any of their most charismatic and
barrier-breaking leaders; neither the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, nor Marines? How do we stay grounded in the deeper truth
that no matter how hard we pull on our bootstraps we will never succeed in
finally pulling ourselves up? What are
the “Ebenezers” we might raise to remind us of what God has done?
It
could be that we are raising one now – not with our building materials, but
with our time; in the disciplined habit of setting aside time to worship and
time to read the stories and to pray. Sometimes,
I suspect, we think of worship as a duty – an obligation – but it could well be
that in at least this sense we are doing for ourselves – as a patterning way to
help us remember. It could be that our
tithing each month has less to do with our generosity and more to do with our
remembering. It could be that our
passionate pursuit of justice and the welcome of all has finally to do with remembering
how precious it feels to have been ourselves
so welcomed by God. Surely there are
more interesting ways to spend an hour; more exciting ways to spend a dollar,
and easier, more popular causes to pursue, but if they finally have to do with
keeping in front of us – indeed, building our lives around – the passionate,
grateful conviction that God is our source of strength and help and salvation,
then they are hours and dollars and energies well spent – moments and monies and
scars whose values have been inestimably raised.
Here I raise my Ebenezer: hither by thy help I’m come.
This day we remember.
So may it be tomorrow.