August 26, 2012: The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Aug 26 2012

Hymn: O Worship the King, All Glorious Above!

Robert Grant penned this paraphrase of Psalm 104 and saw it published in 1833. Erik Routley writes that this text is a “good example of the impact on hymnody of the new search for poetic stanzas which [Reginald] Heber so strongly promoted.” Reginald Heber, the writer of “Holy, Holy, Holy,” supplied “the first alternative to the evangelical topical/doctrinal organization of hymnals” which led to further revitalization of British hymnody in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Hymn: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

LindaJo McKim writes, “William Williams, known as the ‘Sweet Singer of Wales’ and ‘the Isaac Watts of Wales’ wrote this text, full of biblical imagery in 1745.” A minister, Williams’ original title for the hymn was “A Prayer for Strength to go through the Wilderness of the World.” Alan Luff, a Welsh hymnody scholar, comments on the world of Williams: “[it] is a mixture of his own Wales and the land of the Bible. So a preaching journey can become both the toiling of the Israelites through the wilderness and Everyman’s pilgrimage through life to the eternal home. The best known of his hymns in English, ‘Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,’ shows the truth of this; in it we are the Israelites seeking food and water in the wilderness and at the end we are passing through the waters of the Jordan to reach final safety on the other side.” Carlton Young notes that “the hymn draws upon strong biblical metaphors, especially from Exodus 13 and 16: ‘manna,’ ‘crystal fountain,’ ‘fire and cloudy pillar,’ ‘crossing the river Jordan to Canaan’s side.’

Hymn: God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand

Daniel Crane Roberts wrote this hymn in 1876 “for a celebration of the Centennial ‘Fourth’ of July.” He writes, “When our General Convention appointed a Commission to revise the Hymnal, I sent it, without my name, promising to send the name if the hymn were accepted… [a committee was appointed] to choose a hymn for the centennial celebration of the adoption of the Constitution. Subsequently it was selected as the ‘Recessional’ at the ‘Bi-Centenary’ of Trinity Church, New York City.”

Anthem: Saints Bound for Heaven

Alice Parker and Robert Shaw collaborated to arrange a number of traditional American folk songs and hymns into choral works during the mid-to-late twentieth century. “Saints Bound for Heaven” was first published in William Walker’s The Southern Harmony (1835). It was published with seven stanzas; the Parker/Shaw arrangement you’ll hear today includes stanzas 1, 2, 5, and 7. In the second stanza, the text refers to “our threescore years and ten;” this is a reference of Psalm 90:10, part of which reads, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong.” 

August 19, 2012: The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Aug 19 2012

Hymn: I Sing the Mighty Power of God

From the Presbyterian Hymnal Companion: This text by Isaac Watts was first published in his Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children (1715), where it was titled “Praise for Creation and Providence.” This was the first hymnal exclusively written for children. Of the volume he wrote: Children of high and low degree, of the Church of England or dissenters, baptized in infancy or not, may all join together in these songs. And as I have endeavored to sink the language to the level of a child’s understanding, and yet to keep it, if possible, above contempt, so I have designed to profit all, if possible, and offend none.

Hymn: Praise the Source of Faith and Learning

Author, professor, and preacher Tom Troeger wrote this text after being commissioned by Duke Divinity School, who asked for a hymn that would serve as a compliment to the school’s motto: Eruditio et Religio-Knowledge and Faith. If you do a Google search for the text, you’ll find it mentioned many times in the blogs of scientists and professors, many of who cite it as a good exposition of science and faith being tied together.

Hymn: Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Paul Westermeyer writes in the Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship: When Anthony J. Showalter was “conducting a singing-school in Hartsells, Alabama, [he] received a letter from two of [his] former pupils in South Carolina” telling him that they had buried their wives on the same day. He wrote back with words of consolation that included a quotation from Deuteronomy 33:27 in the King James Bible: “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” (The translation in the New Revised Standard Version does not say that.) As he thought about this, he wrote the words and music of the refrain of this hymn and asked his friend Elisha A. Hoffman to write the stanzas.

Anthem: Grace

It is good to have a thorough understanding of this hymn’s history to understand the significance of it. From The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion:

            John Newton was born in London and at age eleven went to sea with his father. his mother had die when he was six. By age seventeen he was in the British Royal Navy assigned to a man-of-war. After serving as a sailor on a slave ship, he became a captain, transporting Africans to port where they could be sold for the best price. In 1748 he was caught in a storm at sea and experienced a spiritual awakening…At age forty Newton was ordained in the Church of England despite his formal education.

            With William Cowper, Newton penned Olney Hymns (1779), from which the four stanzas we’ll sing today come. The fifth stanza is actually the tenth stanza of another hymn, “Jerusalem, My Happy Home,” which was included in another hymn collection; it is unclear when it was added to the four originals by Newton. Composer Mark Hayes has set this text to the British folk tune O WALY WALY.

August 12, 2012: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Aug 12 2012

Hymn: When Morning Gilds the Skies

First published in 1828 in a German Catholic songbook, this hymn was titled “A Christian Greeting.” Edward Caswall, who organized it into six four-line stanzas with a double refrain, translated it to English in 1854. He later added eight more stanzas for an 1858 publication. Robert Bridges said this hymn “is of great merit, and I have tried to give a better version of it than the current one [Caswall’s], keeping the original meter, and preserving the old translation, since it is by them that the hymn is known.” The tune LAUDES DOMINI was written by Joseph Barnby for Caswall’s translation.

Hymn: Come Sing, O Church, in Joy!

The text was written by Brian Dill in 1988 for a competition held by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Bicentennial Committee. The theme of the bicentennial year (June 1988-June 1989) was “Celebrate the Journey.” Dill’s hymn was the first-place winner and was designated “The Bicentennial Hymn.”

Hymn: Come Sing to God

Fred Anderson wrote this paraphrase of Psalm 30 for use in Pine Street Presbyterian Church, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was published in Singing Psalms of Joy and Praise (1986), a collection of Anderson’s metrical psalms.

Anthem: Psalm 139

Allen Pote is a native Kansan and studied Church Music at Texas Christian University. He was named a Fulbright Scholar and took his studies to Brussels, Belgium before returning to the States and pursuing further academic work at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He was a full-time church musician for 22 years before committing most of his time to composition. 

August 5, 2012: The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost

Aug 5 2012

Hymn: Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken

The text of this hymn is based on Isaiah 33:20-21 and “gives a general notion of the state of the redeemed in the kingdom of God,” according to LindaJo McKim. Paul Westermeyer notes that John Newton’s hymn came with a footnote referencing another of his hymns, “Zion, the City of Our God.” He writes, “One paraphrases what those who walk righteously, speak uprightly, despise oppression, wave away a bribe, stop their ears from bloodshed, and shut their eyes from evil (Isaiah 33:15) will see in the glorious city of Zion… Though the glories of the city are not absent, they are not the point. The point is God’s grace that evokes our praise.”

Hymn: All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly

Hymn writer Sylvia Dunstan acquainted herself with tunes from the Southern Harmony during the Hymn Society conference in 1990. She says, “After the conference, some of us vacationed at Folly Beach… where I worked out this text, wandering up and down the beach singing the tune HOLY MANNA.” Paul Westermeyer writes, “The text itself picks up the title of the tune in connection with holy communion and then sets up a series of contrasts between before and after: from wilderness and wandering to truth and being fed, from restlessness and roaming to joy and feast, from loneliness and longing to peace and God’s leading.”

Hymn: Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ

LindaJo McKim writes, “This lively ‘Communion Calypso,’ as Fred Kaan titled the hymn, was written at the request of Jamaican composer Doreen Potter. Mrs. Potter, whose family lived on the same street in Geneva as the Kaans, brought the adaptation of a Jamaican folk melody to him and asked him to write a text. He decided on a hymn of celebration for the Lord’s Supper.”

Anthem: Lift High the Cross

This hymn’s language can at first seem quite militant; however, it was originally intended to be a processional hymn proceeded by a versicle, where a liturgical leader would read, “God forbid that I should glory” and the people would respond, “Save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In his commentary on the hymn, Paul Westermeyer says “The hymn itself treads on dangerous waters, however, in the original third stanza by referring to Christians as soldiers and by the line ‘The hosts of God in conquering ranks combine.’ But they can only be understood in light of another line, ‘Praise to the Crucified for victory.’ As usual for the church, the crucifixion’s strange victory stands at the center, and the pretensions of empire are quashed.”

Music during Communion: We Come to the Hungry Feast

Written by Ray Makeever for a communion liturgy, this hymn was inspired through Gordon Lathrop’s speaking about the Eucharist as a hungry feast—hungry for a world of peace, hungry for a world released from hungry people of every kind, and hungry that the hunger cease. Westermeyer writes, “This is not meditative prayer around the table. It is rather prophetic coming, which leads where the Eucharist leads, to going from the table and doing on behalf of a hungry world.”

July 29, 2012: The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Jul 29 2012

Hymn: Lead On, O King Eternal

Ernest W. Shurtleff wrote this hymn for his class’ graduation from Andover Theological Seminary. Its ties to a graduating class of seminarians are apparent; Paul Westermeyer points out that “‘through days of preparation’ after our study, ‘your grace has made us strong.’ Now we enter the battle. The battle is not defined in the empire’s terms, however. The cross is lifted over this enterprise, the journey is in its light, and the kingdom comes not with ‘swords loud clashing nor roll of stirring drums’ but ‘with deeds of love and mercy.’”

Hymn: Fight the Good Fight

This hymn is based on 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” There is little other information regarding the inspiration for this hymn or the circumstances through which it came about.

Hymn: Lord, You Give the Great Commission

LindaJo McKim writes, “The text was written by Jeffery W. Rowthorn at the request of the gradating class of Yale Divinity School in 1978. It was sung at the baccalaureate service. In stanza 3 the original phrase ‘Let your priests, for earth’s true glory,’ which Rowthorn intended to indicate the ‘priesthood of all believers,’ was thought by many to speak of the ordained office so he accepted the variant reading ‘Let us all, for earth’s true glory.’

July 22, 2012: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Jul 22 2012.pdf

Hymn: From All That Dwell Below the Skies

This hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 117 by Isaac Watts. The original hymn had two stanzas (our stanzas 1 and 3). It was edited by Robert Spence for inclusion in the York Pocket Hymn Book of 1781.

Hymn: Take Up Your Cross, the Savior Said

Charless Everest published this hymn at the age of nineteen as “Take up thy cross” in his own collection, Visions of Death, and Other Poems (1833). Paul Westermeyer writes that it has received “substantial alterations,” while Percy Deamer called it “one of those hymns of poor quality which have to be always changed to make them possible for use.”

Hymn: Great Is Thy Faithfulness

LindaJo McKim writes, “This text is one of the few gospel hymns that address God specifically.” Written by Thomas Obediah Chisolm, it is based on Lamentations 3:22-23. The line “no shadow of turning” comes from James 1:17.

Anthem: Rejoice, the Lord Is King

Charles Wesley wrote this hymn, which was initially published in 1744. It was rewritten and published in 1746, and is based on the scripture verse, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, rejoice” from Phil. 4:4 (KJV). The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) contains three stanzas of the 1746 version.

July 15, 2012: The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Jul 15 2012

July 8, 2012: The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Jul 8 2012

Hymn: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven

LindaJo McKim writes, “This hymn text is one of two paraphrases of Psalm 103 by Henry Francis Lyte in Spirit of the Psalms (1834). The original hymn had five stanzas. The fourth has been omitted from Presbyterian hymnals since the turn of the [twentieth] century. It reads: Frail as summer’s flower we flourish;/Blows the wind and it is gone; But, while mortals rise and perish,/God endures unchanging on: Praise Him! praise Him! Praise Him! praise Him! Praise the high eternal One!”

Hymn: Make Me a Captive, Lord

This hymn by George Matheson was first published in his only poetic work Sacred Songs (1890). He titled it “Christian Freedom.” Matheson was a Scottish pastor who, although blind, was an accomplished author and poet. He is perhaps best known for his hymn “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.”

Hymn: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Scholars dispute the circumstances surrounding the writing of this text by Joseph Scriven. One story tells of the sudden death of his bride-to-be the night before their wedding. Another says the hymn was sent to Scriven’s mother in Dublin, Ireland, as a source of comfort when she was seriously ill. When Ira Sankey asked about the hymn’s origin, Scriven said he had composed it for his mother. This hymn is extremely popular in Korea and at the request of Korean Presbyterians it appears in The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) in Korean as well as English.