How Do You Measure a Life?

When he was 8, his life was changed forever. His family moved, not far, just 10 miles. But when you are 8, and it is 1743, you know that you will never see your friends again. It would take half a day to walk there, and half a day back. A child of 8 could not be allowed to make that kind of journey. Yet, he was a child who loved to read. So, the adventures on the pages of the books he read became his, and the characters became his friends.

Then, suddenly, before his ninth birthday, his father died. And his mother’s dream that their son would be educated and become a minister died with his father, her husband. The little boy and his widowed mother were left in dire straits. His grandfather, his mother’s father, was a wealthy man, who had never accepted his daughter marrying someone as lowly as his father had been. But, he disinherited her and his grandson, giving him only 10 shillings and a sixpence.

The young boy was angry and bitter, and rebellious. As soon as he was old enough, at 15, she apprenticed him to a barber in London, 111 miles away from home. He was to be the breadwinner for them both. During this time, he, as one historian put it, “associated with a notorious gang of hoodlums and lived a debauched life” (Kenneth Osbeck). Together, they drank and gambled and caused trouble.

One day, he convinced his gang to go and mock a revival meeting the Methodists were having. The great evangelist George Whitfield was preaching. The words he heard that day stayed with him.
That day became an Ebenezer moment, and three years later, young Robert Robinson would become a Christian at the age of 20, and then at 23, a minister. The year before he became a minister, at 22 years old, he would write down some words about the journey of his life.

We sang them this morning, “Come, Thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing your grace. Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise….Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by they help I’m come.”

Robert Robinson knew that he could not have transformed his life himself. God had brought him through. So, the story of the prophet Samuel gathering the Israelites at Mizpah spoke to him.

Israel lamented after the Lord. So, Samuel gathered them together and challenged them that if they wanted to return to the Lord, they would have to put away foreign gods and serve the One True God only. And as they ritualize their commitment by pouring of water and fasting, the Philistines come to attack.
Mind you, the Philistines have twice, recently, defeated Israel. There is no way this is going to end well. They could have gotten the foreign gods back out…the ones that they kept just in case they worked. But they didn’t. They were frightened, but they did not sway in their faithfulness to the Lord. They call on Samuel to pray, and God thunders with a mighty voice, confusing the Philistines in their attack, and the men of Israel pursue them and the Philistines are defeated.

They gather back up and look around. Wow. They are amazed. There is NO WAY they defeated the Philistines on their own. Dr. Eugene Peterson suggests that the significance of this moment is not so much that God has won the victory but that the Israelites were faithful not just on the outside, saying they are God’s people, but on the inside as well, acting as God’s people. The rubber hit the road.

So, there in that spot, Samuel places a stone that he calls an Ebenezer, literally, “stone of help.” It will be a reminder for them of calling on God and God helping them through. It will be a reminder that belief is not enough. Faith must be practiced. Words must be put into action. It will be a reminder of relationship, of working together with God.

What are your Ebenezer moments? Times you cried out to God, and God answered. Times you got through only by the help of God. Times that required you not just to believe, but to put your faith into practice. Times your relationship with God grew stronger.

I am certain for people who live in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, other islands hit by hurricanes this fall, 2017 will be an Ebenezer time. People will look back and see how God helped them through. A family I am good friends with recently marked 22 years since they moved back into their Germantown home after the Thanksgiving tornado destroyed it the year before. They still measure their lives by before the tornado and after the tornado. Four and a half years ago, I rang the bell at West Clinic marking my last chemo. I will forever measure my life by before cancer and after cancer.

How will you measure your life? When has your relationship with God grown stronger? When have you not just believe, but live that belief? When have you worked together with God? What are your Ebenezer moments? They don’t have to be as significant as a hurricane or tornado or disease. Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus that the days are evil, and what he meant is that if we aren’t careful, we let days run into weeks, and into years, and we forget to measure our lives. We forget to recognize how God has been with us along the journey. Maybe it is a family tradition, or a cherished memory.

As a church, we celebrate rituals to help us recognize those Ebenezer times. When we were expecting Nicholas, a little girl, 8 at the time, asked me if I was going to baptize my baby. No, I said. Because in baptism, the parents hand the baby to the pastor, symbolizing that they know this child belongs to God and not them, and then the pastor hands the child back, recognizing that God has chosen them to be the primary guides on the journey of faith. When children are preparing to go to school, we have a Blessing of the Backpacks. Not because backpacks are special, but because just as backpacks go with us to school, so God goes with us. As children become youth, they go through Confirmation, claiming their identity as God’s own for themselves. As youth graduate, we recognize that significant Ebenezer moment as they move into adulthood.

What other moments are Ebenezer times? What other times do you recognize “hither by thy help I’m come”? How do you measure your life? It isn’t about the destination. It is about the journey.
Thanks be to God. Amen.