Hymns: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Introduction: Comparison is the Thief of Joy

Teddy Rosevelt has fairly quickly become one of my favorite US Presidents.

That dude would just occasionally leave the White House for months at a time to go hunt moose, and wouldn’t tell anyone. What a guy!

But he also gets credit for one of my favorite sayings, one that I think we ought to pay more attention to in our world:

Comparison is the thief of joy.

If you want to absolutely wreck whatever happiness you have in this life, just go ahead and compare your happiness to someone else.

Go ahead and watch the plastic version of humans on Instagram and compare yourself…you’ll lose your joy.

Go ahead and compare the way our country is now with the way it used to be…you’ll lose your joy.

Go ahead and compare yourself to your neighbor…you’ll lose your joy.

Believe it or not, I think the story of the author of our hymn today has a lot to say about this comparison game, and how much it can wreck us.

The Hymn

Author’s Story

In what might be the most generic sounding name of a hymn writer we will explore in this series, Come Thou Fount was written by Robert Robinson.

He was born in 1735 in Norfolk.

He was originally a hairdresser, as we can see from this photograph!

In 1752 he heard a sermon by George Whitefield that changed his life.

In case you don’t know George Whitefield, he’s a bit of an intense preacher.

A real fire and brimstone type.

Robinson, who was rumored to be an alcoholic, wanted a change in his life.

And so that fire and brimstone, turn or burn, get your life together appealed to him.

He gives himself to the religious life, and takes on a Calvinist-Methodist Church as their pastor.

A few terms in the hymn are worth exploring at this point, so we know what we’re talking about:

An Ebenezer

This one has an interesting double meaning:

1) An ebenezer is a direct reference from scripture:

1 Samuel 7:10–12 NRSVue

As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel, but the Lord thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were routed before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them down as far as beyond Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah and named it Ebenezer, for he said, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

“Here I raise my ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come.”

2)Or… an ebenezer was a kind of chalice, a cup for drinking wine out of, and to raise one’s ebenezer was to raise a toast.

“Here I raise my ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come.”

Hey God, here’s a toast to everything you’ve done!

A Fetter

According to the source of all knowledge in the universe, Google:

A fetter is a chain or manacle used to restrain a prisoner, typically placed around the ankles.

This makes sense too if we think about it: sometimes we use it’s negative way more.

When you are free spirited and not at all tied down, we call you “unfettered.”

“Let that grace now like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee.”

Let me be chained by grace to God, not to all the places that my wandering heart might want to go.

Which leads to this interesting story in John today:

John’s Gospel

Peter is reinstated

Remember the story:

On the night of Jesus’ trial, Peter is sitting out in the courtyard.

And just as Jesus predicted, three times someone comes up to Peter and tries to associate him with Jesus.

And all three times, Peter denies even knowing Jesus.

The last time he even throws out a curse for good measure, which feels so on brand for Peter.

So Peter is in a bit of hot water with Jesus.

We read in our story today that three times, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him.

The first time, enthusiastic response. “You know it boss!”

The second time, maybe a little more muted.

The third time, Peter is cut to the core.

Because sometimes healing involves a little bit of pain before we can move forward, doesn’t it?

After all of that, Jesus says the same two words that started it all:

Follow me.

This is what Rabbi’s say to their disciples when they formally invite them to service.

Three denials. Three chances to un-do them.

This is the definition of grace.

Peter is broken and fallen out. Jesus puts him back.

After such a beautiful, beautiful moment, let’s play a game!

What’s the first thing Peter says?

Oh my goodness, thank you Lord! I’m so hooked on this thing!

Does he sing a worship song?

Does he start preaching a sermon?

Is he just standing there in stunned silence?

No…first thing that happens after this beautiful moment is Peter sees John walking behind them, and says…

What about him?

Ahhh…comparison is the thief of joy, isn’t it?

Or perhaps we could put it another way:

Even in the light of grace, even in the light of restoration…

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.

Robinson knew a little bit about that wandering heart.

One a train car once, a woman was sitting in a car with Robinson himself, but she has no idea who he is.

She is new to the faith, and she’s rather ironically reading the words to Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

“That hymn has given me so much pleasure” she said; “its sentiments so touch me; indeed, I cannot tell you how much good it has done me. Don’t you think it very good?”

“Madam!” said the stranger, bursting into tears, “I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds If I had them to enjoy the feelings I then had.”

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.

Robinson apparently got so caught up in the allures of fame tied up with being a pastor (or at least it used to…) that he lost track of why he got in it in the first place.

In fact, he started raising the wrong kind of ebenezer, as tradition suggests he fell of the wagon and resumed his drinking ways.

He was so busy saying “What about them?” that he forgot the grace that binds him like a fetter to God through Christ.

What about us?

Maybe you understood last week that we are wretches

Maybe grace caught a hold of you in a new and meaningful way.

And then maybe you asked…what about them?

People who aren’t Christians.

Boy, those are easy targets, aren’t they?

They don’t believe like us, they don’t look like us, they don’t act like us.

Isn’t it easy, in light of all the grace that Christ bestows upon us, to point at them and say “What about them?”

And by that we usually mean “Hey God! All that fear of punishment I was having? I think you ought to dish it out on them!”

People who view the world differently than you.

These are folks that are in no short supply, are they?

Yes, I know I’m forgiven God…but what about the democrats?

Yes I know I’m forgiven Jesus…but what about the republicans?

Yes I know I’m forgiven Jesus…but what about socialists?

Yes I know I’m forgiven…but what about them?

People who you would rather not extend grace to.

Let’s be honest…there are some people that we would rather not see receive any kind of grace…from God or from us.

How do I know? Because I’m betting when I said that a face flashed across your mind…

Yes, even that person, the really annoying one, or the one that irks you, or even the one you could count your enemy, even that person is fearfully and wonderfully made.

God has counted all the hairs on their heads every bit as much as he’s counted the hairs on yours.

God extends grace to them…why won’t we?

No, to all of these comparison games, Jesus asks us the same question that he asked Peter:

What is that to you?

For a bit, maybe it’s ok to focus on your own relationship with God.

Maybe it’s ok to remember the times you’ve denied Christ in your own way.

Maybe it’s ok to hear Christ ask you if you love him, one for every time you walked away.

Maybe it’s ok to hear Jesus ask the same question again, no matter how many times we’ve failed, “Follow me.”

If someone else is in a different spot than you, what is that to you?

Maybe we ought to raise our own ebenezers, maybe we ought to allow grace to be our own fetters for a while.

What should we do?

Fill up on grace

Last week I read a passage from The Ragamuffin Gospel, because when I think of Grace I think of Brennan Manning.

And why stop there? :)

In his book Mortal Lessons, Richard Selzer, MD, writes:

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks.

“Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles.

“I like it!” he says. “It’s kind of cute.”

All at once I KNOW who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to hiss her crooked mouth and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

Oh to Grace, how great a debtor.

In fact, in so many ways, I think that’s what we’re about to do at the table.

We’re about to remember that Christ, in spite of our broken nature, bent down from heaven to show us that the kiss still works.

We’re about to remember that Christ, is willing to make all the adjustments on his end for this grace to work.

We remember that no matter how many times we denied him, all Christ has ever asked back from us is our love.

We remember that we can raise an ebenezer around this table, that so far God has helped us, and we have no reason to doubt that he’ll help us further.

We remember that our hearts are bound to grace, because they are awfully prone to wander, aren’t they?

We remember that we are filled with grace, so that we can give it away too. Just like Jesus taught us.

Come thou fount of every blessing…tune our hearts to sing that grace.

Amen.