Jacob's Well 1/14 Number 2: Raising a New Ebenezer

During the opening worship this morning, we sang Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," with a different second verse than the one I am used to singing. The traditional second verse is:

Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I'm come;

and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God;

he, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

It may be that many don't really "get" the imagery at the beginning of this verse...that Ebenezer thing. Those wise biblical theolog blog readers out there know that that Ebenezer thing refers to the "stone of help" that the prophet Samuel erected after the Israelites were victorious over the Philistines. I have heard it described as an altar, a place of offering thanksgiving ... so that the hymn writer (Robert Robinson, by the way) was sharing with us his gratitude to God for the leading of the Spirit in his life.

The last time I thought about that Ebenezer thing came on Christmas Eve morning, when I worshiped at Faith UMC (Grain Valley..and Blue Springs, really), the first day they were in their new building. David Hackett, the spirit-filled, marvelous pastor there, prayed a prayer that day in which he called upon God to lead us in erecting a "new Ebenezer"...and I have been thinking about that image ever since. A new Ebenezer...that is what Faith UMC is doing---moving into a facility which will enable ministry in a way their old building could not...and that building will not be a place that those good folks point to and say "look what a good thing we've done!" Instead, David was reminding them, in his prayer, that this building could be for them an altar of love and praise, the place that marked the miraculous working of the spirit in this day and age.

I was so struck by that image...a "new Ebenezer" because that is what I believe that the emerging conversation is helping us mainliners to erect. If new occasions really do teach new duties, one of our duties might be to struggle with what it means to praise God with a new song in a new land. And sometimes it does feel like a struggle. God still gives us the victory through Jesus Christ---in one of the workshops that I teach, I use the Wesley quote which came just after his heart warming experience. Wesley tells us in his journal that temptations were assailing him later that evening:

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and He “sent me help from his holy place.” And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always conqueror.

I want to always remember that I live under grace, that when I feel like I am "fighting with all my might" that is when I need to take a deep breath and laugh. Or when I get one more person say to me, "I don't know what the heck you're talking about" when I talk about this emergent stuff, I need to relax my shoulders and realize I just haven't found the right way to describe this, that I am being too heady, and probably trying too hard. I want to raise a new Ebenezer not so I can show off how good I am at raising a new Ebenezer but in order to re-energize my own faith and church, in some small way. Each day, really calls for a new Ebenezer---ten years ago, I would have raised my Ebenzer to thank God for my husband, my nearly eight year old daughter and my nearly six year old son. I would have thanked God for a new appointment at Community UMC. And I would have prayed at that altar for my mother's health and thanked God for my sister's care for our mother. Now, I raise my new Ebenezer to pray fervently for two teenagers who often need something which I can't fully describe and that I surely don't know how to give; I would pray with thanksgiving for the completed lives of my father, my mother and my sister, who now rest eternally with God; I would thank God for the joy of real friendship and a couple of very neat people whom I could call on day or night--who don't mind to tell me when I am being stupid or self-deprecating and who love me no matter what; and by a larger circle of caring colleagues with whom I work and minister. I raise my new Ebenezer that I can say to God, "by thy help I'm come" through a second charge conference season and am entering a second appointive season, and feel healthy all the way through and have had the occasion to be fed by the creativity of the clergy and laity of my district. I raise my new Ebenezer that I have been given strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. I raise my new Ebenezer and say "thank you God, for Robert Schnase" and for a vision that is empowering old men to dream dreams and young women to see visions of what our conference can really be.

I am prone to wander, as this blog entry proves ;-). Lord place your seal, your brand upon my heart so that whether I am contemplating that old altar of your redeeming love or seeking ways to build a new one, I will always be reminded that I am your precious child, and thatby thy help I can be the blessing you are calling me.