I associate the name Ichabod with bad Disney movies and a moderately good book about a whale. (On the set reading list in the USA only: it is a bit like reading Baxter: if you are a Kiwi it is a patriotic duty.
Haere Ra is Maori: it means Farewell. And Ichabod means the glory has departed Israel.
Farewell to Hiruharama –
The green hills and the river fog
Cradling the convent and the Maori houses –
The peach tree at my door is broken, sister,
It carried too much fruit,
It hangs now by a bent strip of bark –
But better that way than the grey moss
Cloaking the branch like an old man´s beard;
We are broken by the Love of the Many
And then we are at peace
Like the fog, like the river, like a roofless house
That lets the sun stream in because it cannot help it.
James K Baxter
I don’t read Melville, and I’d recommend Eliot, Donne or Blake over Baxter. But to the text, and what we can learn from it.
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A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. When he arrived, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out. When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said, “What is this uproar?” Then the man hurried and came and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety-eight years old and his eyes were set so that he could not see. And the man said to Eli, “I am he who has come from the battle; I fled from the battle today.” And he said, “How did it go, my son?” He who brought the news answered and said, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great defeat among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been captured.” As soon as he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.
Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, about to give birth. And when she heard the news that the ark of God was captured, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death the women attending her said to her, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.” But she did not answer or pay attention. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel!” because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.”
The fall of the house of Eli after the battle had some symbolism in it on two levels: it was the fulfilment of a prophecy (and in those days there was a prophet in Israel) and it was also a sign of the defeat of Israel. The Ark was now with the Philistines.
They had fought like men, for they did not want to become part of an Israelite hegemony. But they were about to move into a generation or two of destruction, for next came Samuel, then Saul, then David, and then Solomon, who ruled from the Tigris to the Nile. Moreover, the Philistines are — as a people — no more. Their spiritual descendants destroy ancient monuments in the Middle East and remove good art for modern trash in the West, but the people of the ships died with Carthage and Tyre.
The nation that could mourn the departure of the glory survived.
We can take the mother of Ichabod as a good example: her husband might have been evil and a brute, but she did speak truth. And as she mourned for the end of a period of ministry, so should we. The dissolution of Mars Hill (and the death of many other mega churches), the apostasy of the mainline churches, and the falling of this current Pope into fashionable errors should not make us rejoice, but grieve. For the glory of God is not made visible in such actions.
Even though I think the leadership of Mars Hill, or the Romans, or particularly the mainline churches is corrupt and rotten. It is akin to the sons of Eli.
It may be, indeed, that we need to go small and simple and consistent and, as the Anglican Prayer Book says, pray to live a Godly, Sober and Quiet life.
But I know but one thing: if we reject the power and glory of the Gospel, as individuals and congregations and nation, then the glory and blessings of God will depart. This is a pattern. And past behaviour, with other peoples, has some predictive value in this time and place.
Pray that we repent, lest our sons names again become Ichabod, and poets write again of despair, as did Baxter.
