5-5-24 Music
Typically when we read the middle of John 15 the word that jumps out is “love,” with good reason, mostly because it is mentioned 8 times over just a couple verses. However, the connective tissue for Sunday, May 5th is verse 11: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Love creates opportunity for joy, and joy breathes life into love.
Our first hymn comes from early in the 20th century. You may have heard some version of the story where Alfred Ackley (1887-1960) had grown frustrated with a young heckler asking, “why worship a dead Jew?” The story also goes that he nearly wrecked the car while hearing a radio preacher say that it didn't matter if one believed in the literal Easter story or not. Ackley's wife encouraged him to work through those feelings and preach through music, and He Lives! (Chalice Hymnal, 226) was born. Ironically, years later a major criticism of the hymn was that it relies on personal conviction and not biblical narrative. However you choose to understand the story of Jesus’ Resurrection, there is something in that personal and defiant statement, “you ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart!” that works on so many levels. The final stanza's “Rejoice, rejoice O Christian, lift up your voice and sing” moves the singer from frustrated defiance to vindicated joy, confident in hopeful faith - perhaps in contrast to “touch my hands and feet” from earlier in Eastertide.
Our second hymn of this pink candlesque joy Sunday is our Communion preparation hymn, I Come With Joy (CH420), by the great contemporary hymnwriter, Brian Wren (b. 1936). Some days I read the opening line as meaning “I am Joyful.” Other days I read it as “I do not have joy, but at least I am with joy.” It probably depends on how much joy I am feeling. In either case, the hymn begins in the singular, “I come with joy,” and “love laid down for me.” The second and third stanzas join us to the larger community that forms around the table, the “me” of stanza one is now an “us.” By the final stanza “I come with joy” has become “we'll go with joy.” I don't know if community is a prerequisite for joy or not, but it sure does help. Perhaps joy, like children's energy, is exponential.
Our final hymn continues with that movement from “I come” to “we go” and takes that joy right with us as we sing We Will Go Out with Joy. This call and response began as improvisation by Canadian father and daughter musicians Andrew and Hilary Donaldson, eventually becoming the Benediction for her wedding. The syncopated rhythm is indeed joyful, take a moment and sing along with the harmonic smiles in the listening links below.[1]
Happy and joyful singing,
Chris
—
As an aside, sometimes we begin learning choral anthems for a given Sunday long before some of the themes for worship become clear. It is always interesting to see what the Spirit might do with our wildly asynchronous preparation. In this case the choir Anthem, which we will sing as the Prelude, sounds anything but joyful. It takes us back to the garden. Which garden it refers to may be open to your interpretation, but that garden imagery connects us to Lent, Easter and Creation Care themes. It finishes by looking forward to next week and the story of Christ's Ascension. You can listen to Sally Ann Morris’ tune and read Hannah Brown's text here: https://giamusic.com/resource/morning-breaks-the-world-awakens-pdf-du01822
Perhaps I could have swapped this for something more joyful, but I think authentic welcome means acknowledging that some of us may still have stones to roll away to make way for joy.
—
Some pretty things to listen to this week:
When you look up He Lives! in Google, the all-knowing AI attributes it to country star Alan Jackson. He may not have written it, but it's still a quality listen:
And some gospel from Alfred Street Baptist, up in Alexandria:
I Come with Joy sung by the fabulous congregation First-Plymouth Church Lincoln Nebraska. It's a little slow, but slow can be joy filled:
Remember virtual church? The choir did a distance recording, bringing joy in a different way during the pandemic:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-3bib5GdLhrVCcxwy2A8A8D1sqPSZMfi/view?usp=drivesdk
Interestingly there are not a lot of YouTube recordings of this old Southern Harmony tune that are something other than congregation or choir and organ or piano, not that there is anything wrong with simplicity. Perhaps we can do a fun Grace arrangement sometime. In the meanwhile, here is a fun recording for bagpipes of the other, similar, tune this text is often paired with, LAND OF REST:
I believe this is Hilary Donaldson leading a fun acapella arrangement of We Will Go Out With Joy:
You can actually hear her teach it here at the Hymn Society conference in 2013 when it was here in Richmond!
Ours will be a little different, accompanied by piano, and without a key change, but hopefully you get the idea!
Lastly, I didn’t mention this in the commentary above, but we will sing together the Taize refrain, Eat this Bread, Drink this Cup as we partake in communion. You can hear it here:
Happy listening!
[1] We Will Go Out with Joy #109389 Words and Music by Andrew Donaldson, Hilary Seraph Donaldson ©2003. Used with permission under OneLicense.net #A-720486.
Image: Making Joyful Noise. ca. 2016. Murtaugh, Susan.