When Jesus saw the people of power

When Jesus saw the people of power and high place

Seek out a seat of honor and then to fall from grace,

He taught all those who listened a lesson on false pride, 

How to avoid such downfall, lay arrogance aside.

Seek not the place of honor, seek not the place of power; 

Instead, find humble setting, lest pride your soul devour.

 

Seek not your neighbor's favor in hope of like return, 

But let your gifts be given for those the world would spurn,

Those who cannot repay you, whose favor holds no sway;

Then blessing will come to you that resurrection day.

Our Jesus teaches living in true humility

Will bring true exaltation for all the world to see.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, June 2022, after Luke 14:7-14

MUSIC: Tune THAXTED, Gustav Holst, 1918; various harmonizations.

 

 

Given my musicological past, I'm inevitably going to give in to the temptation to set a text to any tune that is lifted out of classical music of some kind. This challenging tune got caught up with an upcoming lectionary text with few good hymn options, and this is the outcome of that meeting.

 

 

 

When will your people learn to live

When will your people learn to live within the blessings that you give?

Why do the ones called by your name bring on your church such pain and shame?

 

Why must your followers claim to be soldiers of Christ for all to see?

Where are the servants that you seek? Those who know "blessed are the meek"?

 

What kind of witness is this, where this world sees hate instead of care?

Power that should be all yours alone such leaders grasp and claim to own.

 

When we your love ought to extol, why then by force seek to control

Those whom, in serving, you we please, who once were called "the least of these"?

 

When will your people learn to live in love you call us all to give? 

Come, shatter now these hearts of stone; make us to live in grace alone.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, June 2022.

MUSIC: Tune MENDON, German melody; harm. Lowell Mason, 1831.

 

 

Just ... because.

We gather here, Lord Jesus

We gather here, Lord Jesus, to give you thanks and praise

For this, your faithful servant now at the end of days.

We know, even in dying, that this one yet shall live;

Now for this full assurance, to You our thanks we give.

 

And yet, our hearts are broken, and yet our souls still grieve;

This loss is yet so painful, this loss without reprieve.

We weep and mourn, dear Savior, not out of rank despair,

But since, when next we gather, this friend will not be there.

 

So hear our prayers, Lord Jesus, so hear our thanks and praise,

And hear, as well, our sorrow, the cry that we upraise.

Hold close our grieving hearts, Lord, and your dear comfort give,

So that, in your sustaining, we who survive might live.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, June 2022.

MUSIC: Suggested tune WIE LIEBLICH IST DER MAIEN, Johann Steurlein, 1575.

 

 

In my time in the pastorate, I've performed far more funerals (excuse me, Services of Witness to the Resurrection in PCUSA-speak) than baptisms or weddings. I've had more than a few occasions to consider that balance between the hope in that witnessing to that resurrection and the mourning and sorrow that is not negated by that hope, unless you're some kind of unfeeling something. After all those times, this is finally the result.

Behold, I stand and knock

"Behold, I stand and knock upon your door."

Hear what the Lord is calling us to do: 

"If you will hear and open up your door, 

I will come in with you."

 

"For those I love, my discipline is sure."

Hear how the Lord is calling us today; 

"Therefore, repent, with yearning true and pure;

Come, now, repent and pray."

 

"For those who conquer, I have made a place;"

Hear now the Lord; now listen, look, and see!

"Those who endure will join me face to face 

For all eternity."

 

O church, now listen to the Spirit's call; 

Open your ears and hear the Spirit's cry! 

Let us repent, and give to God our all; 

On God alone rely.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, June 2022.

MUSIC: Tune PEACE, George Whitefield Chadwick, 1890.

 

 

This hymn came from a desire to work with a tune that was not familiar and also rather atypical for a "traditional" tune; to set a tune by George Whitefield Chadwick, one of the main subjects of my dissertation and research in my musicological past life; and most simply to avoid falling out of practice. Regrettably the scriptural text does not appear in the RCL; if I ever decide to embarrass myself by trying to preach a sermon series on those seven letters at the beginning of Revelation, it will come in handy then, I guess.

Come celebrate this newborn child of God

Come celebrate this newborn child of God!

Sing songs of joy and shout your praise abroad.

Behold this wonder! Let your hearts be awed! 

Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

See how this babe, who looks so frail and small,

Is yet a child of God our all in all 

And will, one day, hear God's own holy call.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

Now let us all, here gathered in God's name,

Bear witness to God's honor and God's fame

So this same child might our true Savior claim.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

Give thanks to God, Creator of us all,

And to our Lord, once born like this child small,

And Spirit true who will not let us fall.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, March 2022.

MUSIC: Tune SINE NOMINE, Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

Written in honor of the (then-forthcoming, now-accomplished) birth of Mary Evelyn Traynham to Anna and Blake Traynham.