The author Stephen Vincent Benet tells a fanciful story about a man by the name of Jabez Stone. Jabez Stone lived in Cross Corners, New Hampshire. We are told that he wasn’t a bad man to start with, but he was an unlucky man. If he planted corn, he got borers; if he planted potatoes, he got blight. He had good enough land, but it didn’t prosper him; he had a decent wife and children, but the more children he had, the less there was to feed them. If stones cropped up in his neighbor’s field, boulders boiled up in his.
One day Jabez got sick of the whole business. He’d been plowing that morning, and he had just broken a plowshare on a rock he could have sworn hadn’t been there the day before. Then and there he vowed he would sell his soul to the devil for as little as two cents.
Well, the devil was right on the spot and he took Jabez up on his offer. He came the next day with all of the necessary documents to be signed in blood by Jabez. And after that day Jabez’s luck changed. He became prosperous and a very respected member of his community. The devil lived up to his part of the bargain. But at the end of seven years, when it became time for Jabez Stone to pay his debt with his soul, he began to think that it wasn’t such a good bargain after all.
Jabez got the idea that the only one who could possibly get him out of his predicament was the best lawyer whoever lived: Daniel Webster. Webster, a man who couldn’t refuse a fellow New Hampshireman and who loved a good challenge, took the case. And when the devil appeared, through some great maneuvering, Daniel Webster got him to agree to a jury trial. Now the jury wasn’t a desirable lot, for it was composed of 12 of the worst men this country has ever produced, and who had gone to their reward. But they were Americans, and when Daniel delivered his closing speech, waxing eloquently about their beloved America, even their hardened hearts were stirred, and they ended up delivering the verdict of not guilty.
Stephen Vincent Benet, of course, was interested in telling a story of patriotism, not pietism, and of the legendary Daniel Webster. But in concocting that story, he also ended up telling us a great deal about human nature, for Jabez Stone is a most human figure. What made him most human of all was his willingness to sell his eternal soul for a few years of prosperity.
We are God-fearing men and women who wouldn’t dream of selling our souls to the devil in so many words, but one doesn’t have to say the words in order to “sell out” to the prince of this world. The selfish act, the unkind word, stubbornly holding on to principle when deep down you know it’s not the right principle, passing on that juicy bit of gossip, and today of course you can do it so easily by email, that decision not to be honest “this one time,” and a host of other things all amount to the selling of our souls.
And another thing that makes Jabez so human is that he never gets around to acknowledging his guilt. When it came time for him to fulfill his part of the bargain he used human means to solve an eternal problem, and in the story he gets away with it! But the eternal problem still remained—his relationship with God. It would have spoiled Benet’s story, but all Jabez Stone would have to have done was gotten down on his knees, confessed his sin, and asked for forgiveness, with the intention of course not to sell his soul again. The devil would have lost his hold on Jabez.
Martin Luther knew this and spoke eloquently of this aspect of our human struggle and God’s response when he wrote the favorite hymn, “A Mighty Fortress.” The third stanza sums up this struggle:
“And though this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us;
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo his doom is sure,
One little Word shall fell him.”
The Word of whom Luther speaks is Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God. It is Jesus alone who can save us from the tyranny of sin and free our souls. It is he who brings us here today; for unlike Jabez Stone, we know that the way to him is through acknowledging our guilt and asking his forgiveness. For we know and trust the words of scripture: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him shall have eternal life.” “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
Ash Wednesday
1 March 2017