I give thanks to my God

Refrain:

I give thanks to my God

Every time that I remember

All your love for the saints

And your faith in our Redeemer

I give thanks to my God.

 

Verses:

Let the sharing of your faith

Be effective for our Savior

When you see how that faith

Works for good in all endeavor

 

Refrain

 

Now in love you know to do

For the "useless" ones among you

How to love and accept

As a sibling, not a stranger

 

Refrain

When we welcome those who come

With no status, power, or favor

Then our faith shows that love

Is the way of Christ our Savior

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, August 2025

MUSIC: Tune WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, Irish melody

       (Note: The tune is public domain but harmonizations or arrangements may vary 

        and may be under copyright.)

Yep, it's a hymn on the book of Philemon. Not an exact paraphrase, by any means (I mean, I hope you don't have people in your pews who have to be told to set their slaves free), but hopefully drawing a lesson from it. The word in quotation marks refers to Paul's play on the name Onesimus in verse 11. 

A Hymn for Resistance

Resistance is a holy act when empire now holds sway,

Like that empire with iron fist, which ruled in Jesus's day.

To feed and clothe and shelter those once called "the least of these"

Will anger tyrants bent on power, but will our Jesus please.

 

Resistance is a sacred work in times when hatred thrives,

When those who seek supremacy crush holy human lives.

To care for those of different skin gets punished as a crime,

But Jesus lifts up human folk of every race each time.

 

Resistance is in every age our mandate and our call,

Until the day when, like our Christ, love is from all, for all.

Until that day we feed and clothe, we shelter, care, and love,

To live as Jesus lived on earth, to love like God above. 

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, August 2025

MUSIC: Tune KINGSFOLD, English Country Songs, 1893; 

              harm. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

 

 

This is a hymn very unlikely to be sung on a Sunday morning, unless the congregation is headed out to a march or protest immediately after worship. 

When teaching for the Sabbath

When teaching for the Sabbath in synagogue one day,

Our Lord did see a woman who could not make her way.

Bent over and unable to stand up straight or tall, 

For eighteen years she lived so, with no hope seen at all.

 

When Jesus saw her waiting, he called her out and said,

"See, woman, you are free now," with hands placed on her head.

Immediately she straightened and cried out earnest praise,

Rejoicing in renewed health to last her all her days.

 

The synagogue's own leader was vexed and wroth and sore

That healing work had happened on Sabbath, not before.

Our Lord called out his error and challenged his false ways,

And all the people mocked him, but Jesus heard their praise.

 

Is healing ever wrong or somehow out of place?

Are there some circumstances to turn away God's grace?

When Jesus, on the Sabbath, did help her stand up tall,

He showed that healing comes forth in any time and all.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, August 2025, after Luke 13:10-17.

MUSIC: Preferred tune MERLE'S TUNE, Hal H. Hopson, 1983 Copyright 1983 Hope Publishing Company. 

Alternate tunes: 

AURELIA, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1864.

VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN, Melchior Teschner, 1614; harm. William Henry Monk, 1861.

MUNICH, Neuvermehrtes Meiningisches Gesangbuch, 1693; adapt. Felix Mendelssohn, 1847. 

 

The hymn-writing impulse might be back; having some clarity about my future apparently helps, as this is one of two hymns I wrote in one day after being unable to write much all summer. Since the preferred tune is under copyright I don't print it here; the given tune, VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN, is one most congregations sing on Palm Sunday.