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.”