5-26-24 Music
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This is a Sunday I always look forward to, when we join together to worship in the yard. I remember my first Sunday on staff, showing up early, ready to roll up my sleeves and start lugging chairs. I grabbed a few instruments from my office, headed outside, and was bowled over by the legion of folks that already had us ready to go. To see the Body of Christ in action at Grace was fantastic. Thanks to all of you who believe that “many hands make light work.”
While I am on that topic, sometimes it takes specially gifted hands, and even feet too! I want to thank Kim Crowley and Lynn Clayton for accompanying worship the first three weeks of Theresa's parental leave. Lynn has also been accompanying Wednesday night rehearsals, a task that often comes with the unenviable frustration of trying to read my mind. We are so fortunate to have so many folks sharing their gifts.
This Sunday, as we head outside for Memorial Day, we will have a different feel, using some folk instruments, our voices, and the sounds of nature, as the soundtrack of our worship. It is also the First Sunday after Pentecost, a day set aside on the church calendar to focus on the uniquely Christian theology of the Holy Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit; Mother, Christ, Paraclete; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; however you feel you can best imagine and address God who is three-in-one and one-in-three; I hope you will feel connected to this God-web as we worship together.
Worship is based around three of the lectionary scriptures for the day: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; and John 3:1-17. Each of these scriptures will, in turn, be matched with two hymns that reflect on them, one old, and one new. Each of the older hymns will be a beloved standard that can be found in each of three hymnals: Chalice Hymnal, Baptist Hymnal (1975), and Baptist Hymnal (1956). Feel free to grab a Chalice Hymnal, or one of the old hymnals, off the rack- if you need the words at all. Each of the new hymns will be a new text set to a different folk tune. There will be an additional hymn that will serve as the offertory and the doxology, which gives us a grand total of seven hymns! Plenty of fodder for this week’s blog, if you’re still reading here is the sneak preview:
Prior to reading Isaiah 6:1-8 we will sing the hymn most often sung on Trinity Sundays, Holy, Holy, Holy. You can often get an idea of the theology of a hymnal by looking at the first hymn, so its no surprise that it is the first hymn of Baptist hymnals printed in 1956, 1975, 1991, and 2010 (Celebrating Grace).[2] It has almost as high a place of honor in Chalice Hymnal, as hymn number 4 (the top spot belonging to Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee). Reginald Heber’s (1783-1826) meditation on the Nicene Creed, Isaiah 6, and Revelation, will quickly have us waist deep in worship, and to hear again of Isaiah’s dream.
Following that reading we will sing together the first of our folk hymns, an Adam Tice (b. 1979) text invoking the presence of the Holy Spirit, Beautiful Spirit, O Comforter Come! I particularly love the way the second stanza of Adam’s text invites the congregation to breathe and stretch together as one. My choir is used to this practice as we begin each rehearsal. Those of you in our congregation who practice yoga or dance may have done similarly. How often do we invite the Holy Spirit to loosen our bodies that we may follow where God is leading our dance?
Breath in our voices to sing as you sing;
loosen our body to move at your call.
Open our eyes to the gifts that you bring,
filling our worship, embracing us all.
This text is paired with the beloved Irish folk hymn SLANE, which most of you know as Be Thou My Vision. You can see the music below.
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Following our Call to Stewardship we will sing together another hymn that combines new text and beautiful old folk tune. This time it is a Trinitarian Hymn, a technical term that typically refers to a four-stanza hymn, the first three meditations on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the final stanza in praise of God. A famous example of this would be the Navy Hymn, Eternal Father, Strong to Save (CH 85). As we take up the offering we will sing the first three stanzas of My Lord of Light, by Christopher Idle (b. 1938). The final stanza will serve as our Doxology, or hymn sung in praise of God. It is set to the British folk ballad, Barbara Allen.
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Following the Time with Children, we will have two more hymns bookending a reading of Psalm 29. To prepare for the psalm, we will sing stanzas 1 and 3 of the great Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) hymn, To God Be the Glory (CH 72). This hymn is fairly unique in Crosby’s corpus, as most of her hymns focus on the experience of the Christian, this hymn is all about describing God’s glory. While my personal theology is in disagreement with some of the hymn’s focus on atonement, I cannot deny the power of singing together “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Let the people rejoice!” Also of note is the brilliant end to the final stanza, “but purer and higher and greater will be our joy and our wonder, when Jesus we see,” written with hope by the hymnist, blind from birth.
After we read Psalm 29 we will hear Richard Vinson lead us by singing We Long to Know Her, a text by Jacque Jones (b. 1950), sung to the same tune we usually know as O Danny Boy. Those of you who have heard O Danny Boy sung, whether by a group of Irish lads, or by Moira Rose,[5] know it is a song with a wide range. This means it isn’t the easiest to sing by a group of people. That said, you are welcome to sing along on the parts you are comfortable with, and at other times just enjoy Richard’s tenor.
Jacque shares that she wrote We Long to Know Her in response to a challenge from Adam Tice, and the Mennonite publishing group, to incorporate imagery we use for God that is thought of as “feminine,” but without referencing reproduction. As such I thought it would pair well with our Call to Worship, where God is addressed as “Midwifing Spirit.” Jacque states that initially she was “taken aback, (never haven) written any hymn that assigns God a gender, always thinking God encompasses all genders” before coming to the realization that “to shy away from the feminine in God when through the years we have so often regarded God as masculine… is to have an incomplete vision of God.” You can read more of Jacque’s commentary here. My hope is that we will sing this text again in the future, though perhaps with a different tune like STAR IN THE EAST, as a gathering hymn. The whole hymn is fantastic, but I want to highlight the end:
Heart of the holy and hands of the sacred,
godhead uniting compassion and might:
bearing your likeness impatient to greet you,
we come to worship in awe and delight.
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The final focus scripture is the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus found in John 3. To prepare for it we will sing Fairest Lord Jesus (CH 97). This hymn of unknown authorship dates back to 17th century Germany. Often the words to Beautiful Savior are included as a fourth stanza, but we will not use them this time. We will sing just the the three older stanzas that begin with “fairest” or “fair.” I think there is something to thinking about the multiple meanings of the word, “fair,” as we sing, and read the exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus.
Our last hymn after this wonderful day of singing is another by Adam Tice which he wrote as a meditation on John 3:16 through the lens of care for all of creation. I have intentionally chosen this text as a callback to our Creation Care themed worship a month ago, as we worship and sing together surrounded by our little section of God’s Creation (God’s weather patterns permitting that is). Initially Adam wrote this text with “For God so loves (present tense) the world” as a refrain to each couplet. For example:
God placed us in creation to dwell on earth with care
and lightly live as stewards of water, soil, and air.
For God so loves the world.
However, as I read his text, my mind began to connect it to a clever English and Appalachian folk song about giving, receiving, and thinking. “I gave my love a cherry, that had no stone…” was coming together with “God Placed us in creation to dwell on earth with care” that with a little massaging became the inspiration for this whole service. Affectionately known as the “Riddle Song,” I don’t know that it has ever been used for a church hymn before- a quick perusal through hymnary doesn’t lead me to believe it has. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of singing it as I have.
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Rather than sing “For God so loves the world” at the end of each stanza, we will end our time making music together by singing it four times in a row at the end of the hymn. All of this talk of Trinity, Creation, and “What does it mean to be born anew?” can be brought to that point.
For God so loves the world.
Amen.
I can't wait to sing these with you.
Chris
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And now some things to listen to as you go through your week. I’ll resist the urge to give you 3 or 4 links for each of the 7 hymns 😅
First, for our three “old favorites.”
A traditional singing of Holy, Holy, Holy at King’s College:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBAps6KOzNU
And a relaxing setting accompanied by some lovely guitar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIKyRL9YVSA
Someone on Youtube has recorded many traditional hymns with a very chipper 4-part a capella that somehow just makes me smile. Here is To God Be the Glory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwI7TuLaPFs
(there is a similar recording of Holy, Holy, Holy too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQQRZaTerE
and Fairest Lord Jesus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SAjtznsCWY )
And, speaking of Fairest Lord Jesus, enjoy this beautiful and bassy performance by the group Jehovah Shalom Acapella. They bring in some of those aca-awesome chords.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwTzxiUaf24
And some relaxing harp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBP0Z5gxyI
And now for the folk hymns. Most of these are new pairings, so recordings of the text we are singing with the notes is not available. However there are countless lovely recordings of the tunes to choose from.
For Beautiful Spirit, O Comforter Come/SLANE here is a beautiful brass band: https://youtu.be/vxUDkHboMFY
And a gorgeous rendition by folk group, The Riverside:
My Lord of Light actually comes out a recent Lutheran hymnal, and one of their churches put together this lovely recording. https://youtu.be/GrSIXgqP9Uk
Being a folk song, there are countless variations on The Ballad of Barbara Allen, here's John Rutter's sung by the King's Singers with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Orchestra (talk about an all star line-up):
Which is about 180° from this also gorgeous collaboration between Dolly Parton and Irish group, Altan:
O Danny Boy by the Irish Tenors!
And an aging Johnny Cash, possibly recorded live at the Woody's Funeral Home chapel. Will confirm with Bernie.
Contrast that with 17 year old Joan Baez singing I Gave My Love a Cherry.
Does anyone else want to be Paul Robeson when they grow up?
As I said, there are so many great renditions of each of these. Please share your favorites on the Facebook page.
Happy listening, my friends.
Chris
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[1] Holy Trinity Illustration, Stained glass from St Etheldreda's church in Ely Place, London, photo by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P. This image was first published on Flickr. Shared under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs. Image found at https://www.worldhistory.org/image/5408/holy-trinity/
[2] I don’t know why the Southern Baptist hymnal of 2008 demoted Holy, Holy, Holy all the way to 68, but I’m sure we can all come up with some theories or jokes as to why.
[3] Beautiful Spirit, O Comforter, Come! #60491 Words by Adam Tice ©2008 GIA Publications, Inc. Used with permission under OneLicense.net #A-720486.
[4] My Lord of Light #20555 Words by Christopher Idle, ©1982 Jubilate Group, The. Used with permission under OneLicense.net #A-720486.
[5] Any Schitt's Creek fans reading this? https://youtu.be/Dm19HG37jQM
[6] We Long to Know Her #VT044W Words by Jacque B Jones ©2019 GIA Publications, Inc. Used with permission under OneLicense.net #A-720486.
[7] For God So Loves The World (God Placed us in Creation) - #100973 Words by Adam Tice, ©2016 GIA Publications, Inc. Used with permission under OneLicense.net #A-720486.