Rend your hearts and not your garments

Rend your hearts and not your garments, let repentance never cease.

Fast with weeping and with mourning, let your cries to God increase.

Turn to God with all your heart, so that sin and wrong depart.

 

Let your heart be broken fully for the sin we all have done.

Swayed by fear and filled with hatred, webs of wrong that we have spun; 

Turn from such indulgence now! Our God longs to show us how.

 

Let your heart be broken also for the right we have not done;

Works of love and life-repairing that we still have not begun.

Let us turn to God aright and do justice in God’s sight.

 

Now return to God Almighty all of your allegiance due; 

Slow to anger, sure in loving, gracious, merciful, and true,

Turn to God with all your heart, so that sin and wrong depart.

 

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, March 2021; after Joel 2:12-13

MUSIC: Tune LUX PRIMA, Charles Gounod, 1872.

Another visit to scrpture texts primarily associated with Ash Wednesday, written within the framework of Lent more generally. The outer verses derive from Joel, while the second and third verses point towards the repentance we need to engage, for both "sins of commission and sins of omission" as they were called when I was young. (Also, I did not know that there was a tune by Charles Gounod in our hymnal.). 

You teach us (A Chorale of Humility)

You teach us, if in union with you we choose to live, 

In sweet and sure communion with all the love you give, 

Our gifts should not be posing or full of false display; 

But in your love disclosing you give us words to say.

 

To hallow and adore you and seek your reign to come,

You bid us pray, and then do for all, not only some; 

To seek you in a still space, a quiet room to pray – 

Not public noisy, loud place of vain, coarse show and play.

 

Teach us in time of fasting to lay earth’s pleasures down

With hope and smile yet lasting, not sore or gloomy frown.

Lead us to lay aside here those treasures we adore,

But cling to gifts you hold dear and give to make us more.

 

Wipe out our preening bluster, reject our prayers of pride; 

Refuse vain words we muster with no true faith inside.

Forgive our rude transgression, and lead our prayers to be

Full sure and true confession that only you we see.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2021; after Matthew 6:1-21

MUSIC: Suggested tune PASSION CHORALE, Hans Leo Hassler, 1621. 

 

 

A hymn from Lent, after a fashion. Much of this Matthew 6 material appears in the lectionary for Ash Wednesday, so maybe the connection isn’t too farfetched. I confess that as these words selected this tune in my head, I was hearing Paul Simon’s guitar more than Bach’s organ.

 

Like Waves Upon the Shore

O God of time and all our years,

Of all that comes and came before,

Hold us against our doubts and fears 

That crash like waves upon the shore.

 

We’ve acted out in cruel ways,

Indulged in hates we should abhor.

Our anger flared in fiery blaze

And crashed like waves upon the shore.

 

You claim all peoples as your own;

Against those neighbors we’ve waged war. 

Lord, still the furies that we’ve sown

That crash like waves upon the shore.

 

Cast out our fear, tear out our hate,

Upon our souls your grace outpour.

Your restoration we await,

That flows like waves upon the shore.

 

Fill us with love, and give us poise 

So that, repenting, we restore.

Make us the vessel for your joys

That flow like waves upon the shore.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, January 2021.

MUSIC: Tune O WALY WALY, English folk melody.

An attempt to imagine a particular situation of repentance.

With the rising of the sun

With the rising of the sun, we wait for the Savior,

Long-foretold, the Promised One, born of God’s own favor.

He who comes from Bethlehem, told in prophet-story,

Stands to feed God’s children all, full of power and glory.

 

With the rising of the sun, we wait for the Savior,

Long-foretold, the Promised One, born of God’s own favor.

Come to tear the powerful down and lift up the lowly,

He is God’s own Mighty One, and his name is holy.

 

With the rising of the sun, we wait for the Savior,

Long-foretold, the Promised One, born of God’s own favor.­

He comes now to do God’s will, all that is God’s pleasure,

And to sanctify us all, as our God does measure.

 

With the rising of the sun, we wait for the Savior,

Long-foretold, the Promised One, born of God’s own favor.

One who comes to save us all, healing and restoring,

This is he who makes our hearts joyful and adoring.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, January 2021, after Advent 4C scriptures

MUSIC: Tune TEMPUS ADEST FLORIDUM, Piae Cantiones, 1582

 

Part of the Advent Hymnary project.

 

How then shall we live

How then shall we live, and what then should we do?

If someone has none, then give one of your two.

Take nothing by force; do not threaten or goad.

Collect nothing more than what your work is owed,

 

How then shall we live, and what then shall we do?

Bear fruit of repentance; give God what is due.

Claim not to inherit some virtue or worth,

But make your heart open for godly new birth.

 

How then shall we live, and what then shall we do?

Rejoice in the Lord and rejoice again too.

Let gentleness from your example be clear,

And know in all truth that the Lord now is near.

 

How then shall we live, and what then shall we do?

Give nothing to worry, but hold what is true: 

That God who surpasses all that we can know

Will guard heart and mind as in Jesus we grow.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, January 2021, after Luke 3:7-18 and Philippians 4:4-7 

(Advent 3C)

MUSIC: Tune CRADLE SONG, William James Kirkpatrick, 1895

 

Part of the Advent Hymnary project

The Lord began a work in John

The Lord began a work in John, 

then dwelling in the wilderness.

Repentance was the word he gave 

to those all bound in sin’s distress.

“Prepare the way now for the Lord, 

            and make his paths all straight and true.”

 

The Lord began a work in you

            before you e’er could know or say, 

And that same Lord will see that work

            until the coming of that day, 

That day of Christ, our saving Lord, 

            whose word is faithful, just and true.

 

Now as this work in you goes on,

            we pray your love may overflow

With knowledge and with insight sure,

            that you might see the way to go;

Onward to Jesus Christ, our Lord,

            who keeps you blameless, pure, and true.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, January 2021, after Luke 3:1-6 and Philippians 1:3-11 (Advent 2C)

MUSIC: Tune SUSSEX CAROL, English carol; arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1912

 

 

Part of the Advent Hymnary project

 

 

When the song of the ruthless is stilled

The peoples of power and strength shall rejoice

To see your salvation fulfilled; 

Your praise shall go up and your glory resound

When the song of the ruthless is stilled.

We shall praise and rejoice when the song of the ruthless is stilled.

Yet those who oppose you shall tremble with fear

To find their designs unfulfilled; 

Their fire shall be doused and their noise shall be hushed,

When the song of the ruthless is stilled.

We shall praise and rejoice when the song of the ruthless is stilled.

 

For you are a refuge and shelter secure;

This you have desired and have willed.

The ones in distress shall be sheltered and saved

When the song of the ruthless is stilled.

We shall praise and rejoice when the song of the ruthless is stilled.

 

So how shall we live as we wait for the time

When God’s true design is revealed?

How then shall we struggle and strive for that day

When the song of the ruthless is stilled?

We shall praise and rejoice when the song of the ruthless is stilled.

 

 

Text: Charles Spence Freeman, January 2021 (after Isaiah 25:3-5)

Music: Tune VILLE DU HAVRE, Philip P. Bliss, 1876