6-30-24 Music

Lauryn’s Call to Worship for this Sunday has all, together, saying “Come! Let us worship the God of surprises!” to which Royce will respond, “Let us worship the God who never lets us go.” May we sing together in this Godlove of surprise and embrace. Our first hymn highlights God who never lets us go, as we sing Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above (Chalice Hymnal, 6). The second stanza is the hook here:

Our God is never far away,

but through all grief distressing,

an ever present help and stay,

our peace and joy and blessing.

As with a mother's tender hand

God gently leads the chosen band;

to God all praise and glory!

My universalist side sometimes chafes against language like “chosen band,” as if we aren’t all God’s chosen, but it rhymes so well with “as a mother’s tender hand.” It is that tenderness that is with us in grief, and that serves as the lens for “God who reigns above”-not distant, but here.

Following the Prayers of the People, we will sing a Ruth Duck hymn, written in 2005, she wrote for Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. I am thankful to Wesley for taking me in for a semester after BTSR closed. It is a very “Grace Baptist hymn,” in that it reflects the way Grace (and Wesley Seminary) value how the arts step in and help fill in some of the gaps in our understanding of God’s work in the world. It echoes a favorite Hans Christian Anderson quote, “Where words fail, music speaks.” It serves as a link between the parable of the mustard seed, elaborated on in All Good Gifts (are sent from heaven above), and how God can use those gifts in ways we can hardly imagine. Twenty-five years ago I would have never imagined God would use an atheist knowitall like Chris Crowley to make music in the church, yet here we are. We will sing Since Words Alone Cannot Convey with the Scottish tune BROTHER JAMES AIR, which we last sang in October with The Sun is on the Sea and Shore (CH 3). Few tunes end with repeated “high do,” or the highest note in the scale, the way this does. It provides some extra emphasis on the last line, “as you make all things new.”

Our final hymn will send forth our intrepid mission team, as they prepare to do great work in DC, and join in that work of “making all things new” which ends both the second and third hymns this week. This is a Day of New Beginnings (CH 518), is Brian Wren’s take on these thoughts of God doing the new, unexpected, and great. It looks forward to next week, when we will come back together again around a literal table, as well as the work the Mission Team will be doing around real and metaphorical tables, “to show and share what love can do.” Sam Young, the writer of the tune for this lovely hymn, left explicit instructions on the “warm, Broadway ballad.” Michael Hawn quotes Dr. Young as saying he, “ended all stanzas except the last on a dominant V [most hymn tunes end on the tonic or home chord]. The tune should not be sung any faster than the quarter note = 110. At the last ending the singers may choose to sing any note in the Eb chord, holding it indefinitely without accompaniment.”

All of that is a music theorist way of saying it ends each stanza unresolved, open, and unhurried. God’s work continues, and we can find our way in and with it.

Keep singing, friends.

Chris

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Sometimes Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above is presented with percussive and/or loud brass accompaniment, giving it a sense of triumphalism- GOD REIGNS ABOVE SO PAY ATTENTION! I prefer this simple four-part piano harmonization, which feels much more intimate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQSnJE64F8

Similarly simple, check out this beautiful setting of Psalm 23 to BROTHER JAMES AIR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeKwU9cKqoo

And I am a sucker for harp, accompanied by bird song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB4y0ofGjkY

I might need to do a creative arrangement of NEW BEGINNINGS, as I was surprised at how little there is on YouTube of this lovely hymn. This recording from a Disciples of Christ church in Ohio is a lovely representation, however, and give you a sense of the open endedness. Plus the minister presiding at the communion table has a nice voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoZkmUZXBm4

We’ll have to put our own voices out there too. Have a good rest of the week, yall.

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[1] While I appreciate the crisp clarity of our clear glass windows at Grace, I also loved the kaleidoscope glass we had at Chamberlayne Baptist Church, now Bethlehem Baptist Church. On Sunday mornings our kids loved to bask in the colorful lights streaming through the window. I took this photo one Sunday.

07-07-24 Music

6-23-24 Music