Sermon of the Week:
No Insignificant Question-Significant Hymns, The King of Love my Shepherd Is
A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on September 26, 2021.
Part five of a eight-week sermon series inspired by questions submitted by the Kirk community.
Special Music: Hymn of Heaven
Hymns: Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine
The King of Love My Shepherd Is.
Keywords: Hymns, Ecumenism, King of Love My Shepherd Is #pcusa
Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Psalm 23
and Luke 15:1-6
Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-733469.
All rights reserved.
I’m a cradle Presbyterian.
What we mean by that
is that I was born into this tradition,
rather than claiming it later as an adult.
Well, I did claim it, through confirmation as a teenager,
And I thought about it a lot more, even after that,
But this faith of ours was more or less given
as a gift to me from my parents, my family.
Not everyone is so lucky.
I would have rejected a similar gift
had my parents been part of a different sort of community, I think.
I don’t mean that to be an exclusivist sort of statement.
I see a lot of beauty and truth in many other faith traditions,
Certainly in other Christian traditions,
And we Presbyterians like to say
that we are A faithful way of being the church
not THE faithful way of being the church.
A lot of our peers see things quite similarly
The Disciples of Christ
Methodists
UCC
American Baptists
The ELCA Lutherans.
I have deep respect for some moody Orthodox and some edgy Catholics
and many progressive evangelicals
Though most of those now talk about being FORMER evangelicals,
Deconstructing the place from whence they came,
Hurting from the anger and the fear that somehow came to reside
At the center of their tradition,
the use of shame there to construct a community
That is more about control than it is about freedom in Christ.
I watch that deconstruction journey of theirs
with understanding and substantial agreement.
I’d probably be actively deconstructing that faith too
if that had been the gift I had been given.
Instead, I’m a Presbyterian
With all of our quirky ways of journeying toward God on the way of Jesus Christ.
We hold the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
We balance order and ardor,
law and grace,
We are moved by a God of Justice and Mercy and Love
And want to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We value the gifts of all of the people who call this church their church
And we ordain everyday people to the work of elder and deacon
And through that ordination we share power and oversight and responsibility.
In the words of one of our confessions,
We seek to stand where Jesus stands,
against injustice, with the wronged,
and we want to be people of reconciliation in the world.
We find salvation and purpose there.
All that was a gift given to me.
And to be given that vision of the faith,
to find ones place, ones purpose, within it,
That was a comforting, challenging, life-giving gift,
One that magnifies love in the world,
Dares to mend places that are broken
Leverages power and resources to make a difference
Cultivates humility and respect for others.
Now, we’re a big tent sort of church,
With a few cradle Presbyterians, like me,
and many, many others who found their way here
for whom we are a fit, and who make this tent their home.
We seek to learn from others,
share what we know with others,
and we welcome anyone
who wants to follow God on the way of Jesus,
because we’re not THE way to be the church,
we’re A way of being the church…
a good way, we believe,
a faithful way, with God’s help, we believe,
but we know that no one person,
and honestly no one community,
has it all figured out.
That I lucked out and found myself here, of all places,
Is something that I’m truly grateful for,
And I’m delighted to be walking this particular road with all of you.
///
I was thinking about all this this week
When I was sitting in a local Catholic church
attending a funeral mass.
As someone who has been so nurtured
in our particular tradition
There was quite a bit there, at that mass,
that felt different, you know,
out of the ordinary.
And honestly that’s ok.
We are different.
We, officially, certainly have some core teaching
that diverges from our Catholic siblings,
and more than five hundred years have passed
since we protestants became protestant
and left the Catholic Church.
But even so,
Sitting in that Catholic church,
Participating in the funeral mass,
I found myself welcome there,
In that beautiful space,
Praying for the family and friends of the beloved
Reading mainly from the same scripture texts
that we use at our funerals here
Expressing in similar words
the hope and the promise that we share
That there is life abundant and life eternal.
What particularly struck me, for today’s reflection,
As we worked our way through that service,
Was the hymnal that they used,
The music that we,
as the worshipping community gathered there,
were asked to sing.
Two songs: first, a song called Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!
Set to a tune by William Chatterton Dix,
And then a song called Sing With All The Saints in Glory,
Written by Jeremy Irons and sung to Beethoven’s tune Hymn of Joy,
Which we know better as Joyful! Joyful! We Adore Thee.
And wouldn’t you know, I knew both of them.
Because I had grown up singing Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!
That’s in our hymnal, actually.
We’ve sung it.
And I regularly quote from that Jeremy Irons poem
in my own funeral sermons.
It had me thinking a bit about our own hymnal,
The one in our pews.
All things considered, our hymnal is still a new hymnal,
Published just nine years ago,
After an intentional process
Where a group of pastors and church musicians and professors
Considered thousands of hymns and songs,
and commended the eight or nine hundred or so
for faithful worship in all of our Presbyterian Churches
near and far.
And while it is a Presbyterian Hymnal
Reflecting our particular theology and perspective and commitments
It is a remarkably ecumenical book
with songs that are sung in all sorts of Christian communities
mostly in English, but some with verses
in Spanish, Korean, Indigenous Native American dialects
all to the Glory of God.
I love how the introduction to our hymnal
expresses the hope of our particular kind of church.
Here’s what you’ll find written there:
This we know (it starts).
We know this hymnal will change lives.
We know this hymnal will inspire the church.
We know these songs will enliven worship in powerful ways.
We know the familiar songs will sing anew.
We know the new songs will speak truth.
This we pray (it continues).
We pray that as we sing together from this hymnal,
We will come to have a deeper sense
Of our unity in the body of Christ.
We pray that the Holy Spirit
Will bring surprises
And breathe new life into our churches
Through this hymnal.
This we hope (it concludes).
We hope the cover imprint fades from greasy fingers.
We hope the pages become wrinkled and torn from constant use.
We hope our children will sing from this hymnal—
we hope our grandchildren will too.
///
The music we sing together matters.
And I’m struck by the power it has to connect us to our faith.
The first hymn I ever remember singing as a kid
was Jesus Loves Me This I Know.
Shortly thereafter was This Little Light of Mine.
And then They’ll Know we are Christians By Our Love,
Also known as We are One in the Spirit.
I can still picture the church organist going after it
Week after week
Putting all her energy into playing that music
I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine…
Those hymns formed my faith in such important ways:
Jesus Loves Me.
Our faith can be a light that helps others see, find comfort and warmth,
And the most powerful way to be people of faith is through loving other people.
Two of those three hymns of my childhood
made it into our new hymnal
And I smile every time I sing one of those.
Sometimes we’ll sing a song these days
And I’ll remember opening
the faded red hymnals of the church in Atlantic, Iowa,
where I first learned them.
Sometimes we try a new song,
Might go well, might not,
And I’ll make a mental note to remember that music changes over time.
Some of you have grown up in a church,
Some of you are relatively new to all of this
But what are some of the songs
that have helped shape and form what you believe?
What is some of your favorite Christian music?
Not all that music ends up in a hymnal, of course.
Some of it might be the work of choirs and specialists.
Some of it might be too rock-n-roll to fit neatly on a single page.
But music has been a powerful part of Christian Worship for many of us.
I know that, for many in this community,
not being able to sing together
Was one of the hardest parts of our pandemic precautions.
But we sing, when we’re able,
Because people of faith have sung together for a long long time.
Some beautiful passages of scripture were likely songs, originally,
And for many generations the psalms themselves
were the hymnal of the church.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, it says, in the good book,
And so we try, whether we are wonderful singers
Or just a bit off pitch
When the time comes for us to sing a hymn together.
What church songs matter the most to you?
///
We’re turning in this sermon series
To consider the question:
What are some of our favorite hymns,
What do they help us better understand about our faith?
As we can see, this is not an insignificant question,
Because hymns not just nurture our faith
But also connect us with all sorts of other faithful people
Past, present, and future,
Of different denominations and traditions and languages
And, particularly, they help us encounter the God
That is at the heart of our faith.
Eryn and James and Mich and I all thought a bit about this question
And we’re going to look at four different hymns
That bring particular joy and meaning for us,
Hopeful, perhaps, that this sort of reflection
Will make your own singing just a bit more meaningful
And may help you connect with whichever songs matter the most to you.
Eryn starts us off this week with
The King of Love my Shepherd Is,
set to an Irish melody called St. Columba. [Read more…]
