When Israel's people fell away

When Israel's people fell away, complaining and aggrieved,

They begged for Moses then to pray their suffering be relieved.

Like all the serpents on the ground whose poisonous bite did kill,

He made a serpent out of bronze according to God's will.

 

Then Moses placed that snake of bronze upon a pole on high,

So those who suffered serpent-bite could see it and not die.

As Moses lifted up that snake out in the wilderness,

So was the Son of Man raised up, the Son of Righteousness.

 

God loved this fallen world so much his only Son he gave,

So those who followed would not die, but they the Lord would save.

God did not send his Son to earth to punish or condemn,

But so the world in all its fullness might be saved through him.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2024, after Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-17.

MUSIC: Tune KINGSFOLD, English Country Songs, 1893; harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

 

 

So in considering the passage from John I wasn't optimistic about finding a way to a hymn text, but somehow the idea of dipping into the Numbers reading seemed to provide a "running start" to developing the fuller hymn. I never expected to find a way to set verse 16, but there it is. 

This is my Father's house

This is my Father's house, and not a marketplace!

These cows and sheep stand far too deep; this is a rank disgrace!

This is my Father's house, not moneychangers' grounds!

These cannot stay; clear all away 'til God's true grace abounds.

 

This is our Father's house, a place of earnest prayer; 

And those who truly seek our God are surely welcome there.

This is our Father's house! No more with worldly things.

Let sacred space be filled with grace as all God's family sings.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2024, after John 2:13-22.

MUSIC: Tune TERRA BEATA, Franklin L. Sheppard, 1915.

 

 

Somehow, Jesus's exclamations about the corrupted Temple as "my Father's house" evoked this tune, after some struggle, and the text took off as the second stanza became one for the church today to sing. 

Three Ash Wednesday Hymns

Three possible hymn texts for Ash Wednesday. The first, from about a decade ago (!!!), not based on any particular scripture, has something of a childlike quality to it (and yes, a slant reference to a fictional boy wizard in that first stanza). The second includes one of the principal scriptures assigned to Ash Wednesday in particular set to a tune I can only imagine is familiar, even if my mind hears it a little differently than most churches will. The final one takes up another Ash Wednesday text with a little more resoluteness, and reminds me that Charles Gounod, the nineteenth-century French composer of operas and other classical works, actually did spend some time in England composing hymn tunes for English use. 

These ashes marked upon the brow in strokes both dark and fine--

No lightning bolt, no magic spell found in this cross of mine.

But what, then, does this marking do? These faces that I’ve seen

Marked with that sooty, smudgy cross; what do these ashes mean?

They tell me I’m a child of God, yet made of dust and clay,

And that in time this mortal form returns to dust some day.

And yet the cross reminds me, too, this life is not in vain;

That any day lived in my Lord is never loss, but gain.

Though years be short, and life be quick to flee our feeble hold,

Oh, let me live in God’s good will in years both young and old,

And when this mortal body takes its final, dusty rest,

My soul will not be without hope, but be forever blessed.

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, 2014
MUSIC: Tune: CAITHNESS, Scottish Psalter, 1635

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. 

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.

When Jesus told his followers

When Jesus told his followers the trials that were to come,

He spoke in truth, held nothing back, relentless as a drum.

But Peter would not hear this word, and his rebuke was strong;

Yet then his Teacher called him out, and he was named as wrong.

 

For those who would this Teacher claim, the path was stark and clear:

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus dear.

For you who to your own life cling will lose it all the same,

But you who let your own life go a new life you will claim.

 

How will we live, what shall we do, in answer to this word?

Will we, like Peter, let our faith by human things be blurred?

Or will we lay aside such things of human-bound design

And follow as our Savior leads, and hold to things divine?

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2024, after Mark 8:31-38.

MUSIC: Tune RESIGNATION, USA folk melody, Lewis's Beauties of Harmony, 1838.

 

 

Sometimes, it seems, we might need to be more diligent about understanding how some of the hard scriptures still apply to us. This text is an attempt to lean into that task. 

Then Jesus came from Nazareth

Then Jesus came from Nazareth, his home in Galilee,

And was baptized in Jordan's flow by the baptizer John.

On rising up from Jordan's depths his opening eyes did see

Torn-open skies, descending Spirit; God's beloved Son.

 

Immediately he was compelled into the wilderness,

By Satan tested forty days before his trial was done,

With wild beasts in remote terrain of danger and distress;

But angels came and ministered to God's beloved Son

 

Then Jesus, with his testing done, returned to Galilee,

And there began his holy task to spread to everyone

The gospel of God's kingdom drawing near for all to see.

And so began the saving work of God's beloved Son.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2024, after Mark 1:9-15.

MUSIC: Tune KINGSFOLD, English Country Songs, 1893; harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

 

 

A text for the first Sunday of Lent in which the gospel of Mark, in its typical manner, makes quick work of the baptism and testing of Jesus and launches into his ministry with what might be in modern terms described as his "mission statement" or maybe "topic sentence." Mark does make quick work of things.