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Some of
you may remember when pet rocks were the rage a few years
ago. I never had one, but I can understand something of the
appeal: no kennel fees when you are away from home; no hairs
to brush off skirts or trousers; no messes to clean up; no
aggravation with picky food choices; no annoyance for the
neighbors. One can make a strong case for pet rocks; they
are very low maintenance.
But even
so, I have never been interested in having a rock for a pet.
I must confess, however, that I do have a fondness for them.
So does my wife. In fact, our sons and I bought her one for
Mother's Day one year. It was a large white one that she wanted
for the rock garden. Of course, I bought her one that she
wears on her finger, too, but that is another kind of rock
in another time and another story.
I have
a few that I especially cherish. The rocks here on the pulpit
this morning are from the bookshelf in my study at home. They
come from special hikes across the years. The black band in
this piece of white quartz is charring from having endured
a forest fire, once upon a time. This piece of slate is from
a mountainside along the Appalachian Trail, where I led the
first of my trail hikes for youth. And this smaller one, with
the ragged piece of raw copper jutting out of it, while it
didn't come from the National Park itself, is a remembrance
of the Greenstone Ridge Trail and the ancient copper mines
on Isle Royale National Park. These, along a few others, serve
as book ends now; they are not pets. But, in the spirit of
the Scripture lesson for this morning, I guess you could call
them some of my lesser Ebenezer stones. I do have a fondness
for rocks.
As I said
earlier, I am not alone in that. In the title chapter of her
book, Teaching A Stone To Talk, Annie Dillard writes
of a neighbor by the name of Larry whom, she says, is trying
to do just that-teach a stone to talk, that is. She writes:
"He keeps it on a shelf. Usually the stone lies protected
by a square of untanned leather, like a canary asleep under
its cloth. Larry removes the cover for the stone's lessons,
or more accurately, I should say, for the ritual or rituals
which they perform together several times a day." ...
"Reports differ," she adds, "on precisely what
he expects the stone to say." (Teaching A Stone To
Talk, p.67-8)
I confess
that, on the surface, the idea of talking with a rock seems
like a hard thing to do (if you will pardon the pun). But
when we begin to explore the matter, once we get beyond the
literalness of expecting to hear a voice, we may find that
it can be quite rewarding.
Before
we move to the spiritual realm, consider the literal truth
in the idea of talking with rocks. Take a walk with a Park
Service geologist in some place like Glacier National Park
and you will hear a running commentary about rocks-sedimentary
and metamorphic and igneous; you will hear references to shale
and sand and fossil; you will learn that "upthrust"
does not always refer to rocket engines and that "shift"
does not apply exclusively to the gears of sports cars; you
will come to know that "plates" does not always
refer to dinnerware or "polish" to dress shoes.
It will all be about rocks. One can hardly experience an hour
of such time without concluding that the person doing the
talking had been holding some extensive conversations with
rocks!
Or visit
with oil company research scientists as they study the core
from a diamond drill boring from a mile or so into the earth.
They will study the formations and the composition of the
layers and then they will write their recommendation: "Drill
here" or "Don't waste your time." There really
isn't any magic involved; they have simply been talking with
rocks.
A few
years ago there was quite a media splash about possible new
evidence of life on Mars. It did not come from people with
green skin or three heads or any of the usual old science
fiction stuff, you understand, but from what might possibly
be some very simple, very primitive life forms called "micro
fossils" that, if verified, could indicate that at least
some kind of life once existed on the Red Planet. NASA
chief Dan Goldin said of the discovery: "We're now on
the doorstep to the heavens. What a time to be alive!"
And where
did all of this excitement come from? From talking with a
rock. Like Samuel in our Scripture lesson for this morning,
they even gave the rock a name: ALH84001. They call it ALH
for short. ALH was brought back from an expedition to the
South Pole in 1986. Geologist Roberta Score said that she
picked it up because she was intrigued by the rock's bright
green glow in the blue ice. (I've been there and done that,
haven't you? Picked up a pretty rock, that is? Not at the
South Pole, of course, but at the lake or on the trail.) It
took the scientists seven years to hear what the rock was
saying. It wasn't until 1993 that it was determined that the
rock was from Mars, the twelfth specimen of Martian meteorite
that has been identified. But as the scientists continued
to converse with this 4.5 billion year old rock, dating from
a time when Mars was warm and wet instead of dry and cold
as it is today, it seemed to be whispering about the possibility
of life in those ancient days of Mars. (Story in US News
And World Report, Aug. 19, 1996, p. 44ff.)
Of course,
you don't have to be a NASA scientist or a geologist or even
college graduate to talk with rocks. A few years ago, on one
of our visits from Megan and Katie, two of our granddaughters,
they shared with us their experiences on a combination vacation
and field trip in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We had the pleasure
of being shown some of their treasures. You guessed it: rocks.
From a carefully opened film canister they poured out tiny
pieces of shiny processed copper and green copper ore from
the slag piles of old copper mines that they had visited.
If that was not enough, greatest treasure of all, they let
me handle the small Petoskey stone they had found on the beach!
It is rumored that their other grandfather, who was with them
on the trip, may have been "seeding" their walk
ahead of them. But even so, five and seven years old at the
time, they had been talking with rocks.
But enough
about bookends and geologists and grandchildren. What about
the life of faith?
As I wrote
on the front page of this week's Steeple Notes, much
of the Bible is stony ground and there are quite a few instances
of rocks that help to tell the story of faith. On a study
trip to the Sinai a few years ago, a small group of us stood
around an arrangement of twelve large stones on the floor
of a desert valley at the foot of Mt. Kharkom. A short distance
away, smaller rocks marked the faint outlines of ancient campsites
and, in the other direction, some distance away, the outline
of the mountain was etched against the sky. Standing there,
we read these words from the Book of Exodus: "And Moses
... rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot
of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding
to the twelve tribes of Israel." (Exodus 24:4)
No one
knows whether or not those stones in the desert were the pillars
Moses had set up or if the mountain before us was the one
referred to in Scripture. But those stones spoke to us, nonetheless;
they told us clearly that someone had worshiped here
and left their mark in order that others who came after them
could see and know that holy things had happened here.
In the
life of faith, as in the examples I have mentioned, the secret
of talking with rocks is learning to listen and receive, rather
than approaching them to lecture and tell. The secret in talking
with rocks lies in learning to use the enduring quality of
stones as monuments and markers to events that we want and
need to remember.
That is
the sense in which I have invited you to think with me today.
It was in this tradition that Samuel, that Old Testament bridge
between priest and prophet, set up the stone that he named
Ebenezer and made his monument of remembrance after the battle
with the Philistines.
Ebenezer
probably strikes us as a strange name for a rock. Other than
the first name of Scrooge in Charles Dickens' Christmas
Carol, the name is not very common with us. Dickens has
seen to it that we don't use it very much. You will find one
reference to the name in one of the older hymns of the church.
The second stanza of "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
begins: "Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help
I've come." Unless we know the Bible background, singing
that line doesn't mean anything, and even if we remember the
story, it probably doesn't mean very much. But when a Bible
dictionary tells us that "Ebenezer" means "Stone
of Help," that is another matter. Not that the stone
provided the help, but that the stone bore witness
to the help that had been received.
What Samuel
did that day was part of a long tradition. It was not only
Moses and the twelve pillars in the desert who preceded him;
we are told that Noah had built an altar of stone when the
waters of the flood subsided; we read that Abram did the same
when he came to Shechem and again at Bethel and still again
at Hebron. And do you know the name of that great shrine that
has become the landmark of Jerusalem? Ah, yes, now that you
mention it: The Dome of the Rock. It remembers Abraham's near
sacrifice of Isaac.
Moving
through the generations, we are told that Jacob made a stone
his pillow when he came back to meet with his brother, Esau,
whom he had long before cheated out of his birthright. And
the story tells us that after his dream that night, he made
the stone an altar to remind him that God was in that place
and he had not known it. Joshua remembered the crossing of
the Jordan with twelve stones. Elijah used twelve rough stones
for his altar on Mt. Carmel.
And as
Samuel was not the beginning, neither was Samuel the end of
it. A few years later David would gather five smooth stones
from the brook as he went forth to do battle with Goliath;
and one night, in the wilderness refuge where he hid from
the armies of Saul, he would pour a offering of water from
the well in Bethlehem over a rock as an act of gratitude and
worship for the bravery of the men who risked their lives
to bring the skin of water to him because they heard him murmur
that he would like to drink again from that well. Later still,
Jesus would pray amidst the stones of the lonely places and
beside a rock in Gethsemane and tell his Disciples that if
they kept silent, even the rocks would cry out. He said the
wise man was the one who built his house on the rock; and
he gave the fickle, faltering Simon a name to live up to by
call him "Petros," which is Greek for "Rock."
You thought
that Annie Dillard's friend was eccentric? Not really; there
is a sense in which the Stone Age is still with us. Monuments
and headstones go back to the beginning. But more than this,
we need to set up rocks of remembrance in our lifetimes, speaking
with them, if you will, as we erect them, and letting them
speak for us to those who come after us.
Whether
it is with literal monuments or by memory stones that mark
the pathway of our soul, we need to mark certain moments of
our lives as times and places that we must not forget, for
it is out of such moments and events that the rest of life
really flows, like water from the rock in the wilderness.
These are our anchor points, our touch stones, if you will;
they invite us to stop and think and remember; they speak
to us and for us and anchor us to what is important-a commitment
made, a temptation conquered, a call of God answered, a victory
won, a tragedy transcended, a sin forgiven, a life renewed,
a friendship born, a marriage restored, a prayer answered-our
Ebenezers, if you will-our stones of help; events worth naming
rocks about. We all have them; but without a rock of remembrance
of some kind-whether on a hillside or in our heart-they are
so easily lost in the clutter of things that make up our lives.
It was
in that spirit that you were given a rock when you came into
church this morning. Since you have been kind enough not to
throw it at me so far, let me invite you to take it home with
you today. Whether you call it Ebenezer or something else
or nothing, I leave to you. But name or not, spend a few moments
in reflection on where, back across your life, you have-or
now that you think about it, perhaps you should have-raised
some Ebenezer stone, both to speak for you and to you; a remembrance
of some holy time and place when God touched your life and
left you feeling like grateful Samuel or humbled Jacob or
brave and daring Joshua or stumbling, forgiven Peter, wanting
to leave something there that would last forever.
Let this
small rock this morning be a symbol and a remembrance of one
of those moments; an Ebenezer, if you will. And if no such
experiences come to mind, let me invite you to make this moment
such a time. God is here for you to call upon, even as he
was in the wilderness of the Sinai or on the banks of the
Jordan or the hills of Judea.
You might
even keep this stone around. Put in on your desk or bureau
or on a kitchen counter or a windowsill and "converse"
with it a bit, so to speak. Let it remind you of a God who,
as the Psalmist said again and again, has been and is a Rock
for us-a Rock of refuge, a Rock of strength, the Rock of our
salvation.
There
is another old hymn: "Oh then to the Rock let me fly,
let me fly; to the Rock that is higher than I." That
Rock will always be there for us; more ancient than Mars,
more steadfast even than Snoopy and the rock of the Met!
Thanks
be to God ... our Rock.
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