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. 

A "good trouble" hymn

When Jesus came to temple grounds,

His heart was vexed most sore

To see the merchants in their stalls 

As if this was a store.

 

He drove the moneychangers out

And set God's creatures free; 

He saw this sacred, holy space

Should not a market be.

 

The temple priests were horrified;

The sellers, filled with fear.

For Jesus, this act told the world

Good trouble time was here.

 

When church gives up its guiding star

To business or to state, 

Good trouble is our holy call,

Before it is too late. 

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, 17 July 2025 (fifth anniversary of the death of John Lewis)

MUSIC: Tune McKEE, African American spiritual; Jubilee Songs, 1884; adapt. Harry T. Burleigh, 1940. 

Today was the fifth anniversary of civil rights legend and Congressman John Lewis, and several protest events (billed under his phrase "good trouble") were held around the country today. My schedule didn't allow for one (none were nearby) but this text, derived from one of Jesus's acts that might well be the antecedent of "good trouble," arrived today. As is often the case, the tune helped set the text free in my head. The "underground hymns" aren't dead yet, sir...

There Is No Christ

How does an age come so afoul

Of all that Jesus said and did,

Now bound to empire's cruel abuse

With hate and rage no longer hid?

Such acts of evil, done with joy,

Pure meanness acted out with bliss;

Do not blaspheme the Lord's name so!

There is no Christ in such as this.

 

How does this church, in Christ made one,

By Spirit led to God's own work,

Turn crazed and stray so far from truth - 

So drunk with power and gone berserk?

How does this church defend itself 

When they Christ's life and words dismiss?

This is not "faithful" anything!

There is no Christ in such as this.

 

How will the churches left behind,

Belittled, scorned, yet holding fast

To how Christ lived and what Christ taught,

Endure and keep faith to the last?

Let not despair derail us now,

No hopelessness drive us amiss;

This is not how the Spirit leads!

There is no Christ in such as this.

 

In Christ shall we withstand and stand,

Condemn the false, raise up the true,

Bind up the wounds and shelter those

On whom the hateful spit and spew.

Stand in Christ's love and Spirit's power,

In God's true grace to bear witness;

This is our work! This is our call!

Christ is revealed in such as this.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2025.

MUSIC: Tune ST. PATRICK, Irish melody,  arr. Charles Villiers Stanford, 1902.

Another hymn of sorts responding to the time in which we live and the failure of the church or some large portion of it to do the right thing.

Stand down, O "men of God"

Stand down, O “men of God,”

To war is not your call;

Brothers in Christ, this is your work:

To love and to serve all. 

 

Stand down, O “men of God,”

No more of lesser things.

Live as our Jesus showed us how

So his true witness sings.

 

Stand down, O “men of God,”

Your work is not to hate;

This does not glorify our God

Whose love for all is great.

 

Stand down, O “men of God,”

Don’t lord it over all;

Women and men are both alike 

Ordained in Jesus’s call. 

 

Stand down, O “men of God,”

Alone is not your call;

To serve together is your work,

Brothers and sisters all.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2025,

MUSIC: Tune ST. THOMAS, Aaron Williams, 1763.

 

Not a hymn for a worship service, at least not one I can immediately imagine. More like a teaching hymn? Self-instruction? Chastisement? I don't know, but I couldn't stop myself from writing it. 

God of salvation

God of salvation, make us to be

Witnesses for you, saved and set free.

Help us be faithful, O God of love; 

Fit us for service like hand and glove.

We are your children all over the earth,

Made in your image and filled with your worth!

God of salvation, make us to be

Witnesses for you, saved and set free.

 

This is our mission, this is our care:

Widow and orphan having their share,

Lowly uplifted, hungry ones fed,

All to have shelter, roof overhead.

We are your children all over the earth,

Made in your image and filled with your worth!

God of salvation, make us to be

Witnesses for you, saved and set free.

 

As scripture tells us in words so true,

How we treat these is how we treat you.

Sharing the gifts you faithfully give:

May this be always how we will live.

We are your children all over the earth,

Made in your image and filled with your worth!

God of salvation, make us to be

Witnesses for you, saved and set free.

 

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, June 2023.

MUSIC: Tune MFURAHINI, HALELUYA, Tanzanian melody.

 

 

Not all of my hymns are written with any great lofty spiritual motivation. Sometimes I just manufacture a challenge for myself. In this case, it was pointed out in one of my classes today that "love," an obvious candidate for a lot of hymn texts, didn't have a great set of rhyming words once you got beyond "above" and "dove." Of course, I had to come up with a text that found a different rhyming word. *Of course* I did. Nonetheless, with a little touching up here and there this could be a useful hymn, and at minimum getting acquainted with this tune is a definite win.

Lord, our tears are not yet dry

Lord, our tears are yet to dry; 

Still to you we lift our cry.

Open up our eyes to see

What our work for you must be.

 

Come, dissolve these hearts of stone;

Make new hearts for love alone.

Touch minds closed and locked away;

Flood them with your light of day.

 

Lift our souls from dark despair; 

Show your purpose everywhere. 

Take our strength and make it new,

Fit for serving only you.

 

Fit our prayers with strong new feet,

Marching only to your beat

So that lives may yet be freed

From the fear this world does feed.

 

Lord, our tears are yet to dry

As we lift to you this cry:

Heal us now and make us whole,

Strength and mind and heart and soul.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, May 2022.

MUSIC: Given tune SONG 13, Orlando Gibbons, 1623.

Preferred tune TEBBEN, Timothy Hoekman, 1979. Copyright 1985 Faith Alive Christian Resources (hence not give here). 

Another text in response to tragedy, this one takes the shape of a prayer with more lean towards moving forward and doing what God leads us to do. Mark 12:30 becomes a framework for full commitment to the work of making right what is wrong, in this case, as God leads. I became acquainted with the composer of the preferred tune in graduate school (he was actually on my dissertation committee), though I only recently learned this tune (in anthem form) and became interested in making a text for it. This wasn't the prompt I would have chosen, but the two do seem to fit together. As the tune is under copyright it is not reprinted here; hymnary.org lists it as appearing in fourteen hymnals (I do know it's covered under OneLIcense.net at least). For the greater convenience of those who would like to use it quickly and may struggle with copyright issues, it is given here with an Orlando Gibbons tune that is, I feel fairly safe to say, outside the bounds of copyright.

Do not pray for peace

Do not pray for peace 

Until you yearn for justice

Until that yearning is so strong 

You cannot be at rest

 

Do not pray for peace

Or reconciliation

Until you're filled with great desire 

To make right what is wrong

 

Do not pray for peace

Until you loathe oppression 

With so much holy raging fire 

You cannot let it stand

 

Do not pray for peace

If you will not take action

If you cannot show God's own love

Unto "the least of these"

 

Do not pray for peace

If all you want is safety

If all that matters in the end

Is that you are not harmed

 

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, March 2022

I don't know if this is a hymn or not. It doesn't fit to any tune I know, and I'm not a tune composer enough to make one for this text. All I know to do is to throw it out there and see if any hymn tune composers take an interest in making a tune for it.

Crying out from the ground

Adam's sons walking out to the field, 

Cain with rage, jealous rage, in his eyes,

Rising up, strikes with harm in his heart.

Abel falls to the ground and he dies.

See our God, from on high:

Hear the sorrow for his child; hear the sound.

Know that God, from on high,

Heard his blood crying out from the ground.

 

Through the years, countless numbers have died,

Shot or hung, all because of their race; 

It is sin, it is crime and much more

To see justice denied in each case.

See our God, from on high:

Hear the sorrow for his children abound.

Know that God, from on high,

Hears their blood crying out from the ground.

 

If we say we seek justice for God,

And the Spirit we seek to obey,

Then this wrong we can no more deny

And this truth can no more turn away.

See our God, from on high; 

Let this sorrow in our hearts now be found.

Like our God, so may we

Hear their blood crying out from the ground.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2022.

MUSIC: Tune SWEET BY AND BY, Joseph P. Webster, 1868. 

 

 

Background: on February 19 I attended a Soil Collection Ceremony sponsored by a local remembrance group with support from the Equal Justice Initiative, an act of remembering the lynchings of five different individuals (one a child), from the 1880s to the 1920s, in the eastern towns of this county. Soil from roughly the lynching cites had been collected and added to two jars, one of which will stay in this county and the other will go to the EJI Legacy Museum in Montgomery. This text comes of taking in and processing this experience. (I will admit that placing this text, with its focus squarely on remembering wrongs done on this earth, with a tune associated with a rather heaven-as-escapist-fantasy song does have some satisfaction.)

Psalm 146 (a collaboration!)

 It's been a while since I posted here, but that doesn't mean I haven't written anything. This link will take you to Psalm 146, a paraphrase of that psalm written in collaboration with Greg Scheer. Folks who follow congregational song will likely recognize the name (his work does show up in Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal). 

Somehow he got my name, apparently from someone involved with The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and he invited me to try out a psalm for him to set. Psalm 146 has been my favorite psalm for a while, I think, and no one else had claimed it, so I gave it a shot.

If you actually look at the hymns I typically post here, you'll know that virtually all of them are written to existing hymn tunes (or the occasional folk tune or other), and Scheer's style is typically different. This was the occasion to stretch myself, which I should probably do if I intend to continue writing words for congregational song (which feels like a calling at this point, so...). 

Permissions for use would need to come from Scheer at this point, if that is something anyone would intend to do. For me, it's been a new and enlightening experience and one I'd be happy to do again, if I'm not getting interrupted by travel and medical exams and other stuff. 

That isn't the only thing I've been working on; I'm trying to do English versifications of Japanese hymns, if you can believe that. But I feel something of my own coming on, so perhaps it will show itself before the end of the month. 

Prophetic voices in our land

Prophetic voices in our land, whose praises now are sung,

Were met with violence in their time, too often shot or hung.

 

Too often church stood idly by in pose of righteousness,

When we are called to shout God’s truth and make a holy mess.

 

Denounce injustice, shout down hate, make faithless leaders hear;

This is our call, and not to cower in craven, fawning fear.

 

Those voices silenced long ago are calling still today; 

To live in truthful justice is the only kingdom way.

 

So let the church, in holy awe, live into God’s command, 

And work for justice everywhere, beginning in this land.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, January 2022

MUSIC: Suggested tune McKEE, African American spiritual; Jubilee Songs, 1884; adapt. Harry T. Burleigh, 1940.

 

 

I don’t think I would call it a hymn for MLK Jr. Day, but maybe a hymn inspired by it?

 

 

Manger scenes and hanging greens

Manger scenes and hanging greens, signals of a season;

Are we, in these festive scenes, searching for a reason?

Have we in our sound and song, ‘hope” and “joy” and “glory,”

Somehow got the meaning wrong? Have we lost the story?

 

Listen to the prophets’ call, pointing to deliverance;

Righteousness for one and all, making hope and difference.

Justice is their constant cry, peace their faithful calling;

Pointing to redemption nigh, warning us from falling.

 

Hear the songs that call us near, pointing to a Savior. 

Zechariah makes us hear of God’s coming favor.

Mary knows God’s blessing true, strength and mercy showing.

John, baptizing, calls anew for repentance growing.

 

See the visions yet to come, sights that leave us reeling.

Yet we see through all of these Jesus’ own revealing. 

Hear the call to stand and wait, watchful and unfailing; 

Never fearing any fate, knowing God’s prevailing.

 

As we make our way ahead, seeking out the stable,

Let us, by the Spirit led, live as we are able:

Doing justice, seeking peace, righteousess fulfilling,

Keeping watch with hope and joy as our Lord is willing.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, November 2021.

MUSIC: Suggested tune TEMPUS ADEST FLORIDUM, Piae Cantiones, 1582. 

I'm not sure what this one is nor where it came from. I can only surmise that the preparation for Advent this season seems fraught with the urge not to "lose the plot" of the Christian walk in the progress through Advent to Christmas. Maybe that's a particular concern in a time when even the most faithful of us are susceptible to the urge to seek comfort at the expense of faithfulness? I don't know, but make of it what you will. 

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

In days of old your star that shone

In days of old your star that shone 

            Led seekers to the holy place

Where God the Son in human flesh

            Was sheltered in a lowly space.

With great rejoicing they gave gifts

            Of frankincense and myrrh and gold,

Then traveled back to distant homes

            To ponder what they did behold.

When light you give shows us great joy,

            Our hearts are drawn to sing your praise.

We glorify your holy name

            And seek to love you all our days.

But there are days your light will show

            The truths we long to never see:

The roiling violence, rage, and hate

            That we insist just cannot be.

 

We hide our eyes, as best we can,

            From seeing what we have become:

A fearful tribe that will not name 

            The sin to which we now are numb. 

The hates of gender, race, and clan

            We try to claim aren’t really there

Are rendered clear when you command 

            That we oppose them everywhere.

 

So shine your star, unfailing Light,

            On hatreds we seek to avoid,

Lest all our witness to your love

            Be rendered false and then destroyed.

Annul our fear and charge us now

            To name such hate as cruel sin;

And then at last as we speak out,

            Refine our souls with fire within.

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, 6 January 2021

MUSIC: Suggested tune ST. PATRICK, Irish melody, arr. Charles Villiers Stanford, 1902; alternate tune YE BANKS AND BRAES, Scottish melody, arr. John L. Bell, 1989, copyright 1989 WGRG Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.), hence not reproduced here.

I have always (or at least since hymn writing became a thing for me) wanted to write an Epiphany hymn. This wasn’t the circumstance I was seeking for doing so.

Prepare your hearts

Prepare your hearts, prepare your minds, the reign of God comes near!

The prophet’s voice cries out to all; let all God’s people hear!

            Let all God’s people hear!

Make straight the pathway of our Lord; prepare a road to be

The highway of the Holy One for all the world to see!

            For all the world to see!

No one will hurt, no one will harm in our Lord’s holy place;

Our Lord will judge with righteousness and show the poor God’s grace,

            And show the poor God’s grace.

So welcome one another all, to give God glory true,

And so prepare the way of God in all you say and do,

            In all you say and do.

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, 2019, after Advent 2A scriptures.

MUSIC: Possible tunes:

            CHRISTMAS, G.F. Handel, arr. Lowell Mason, 1821.

            WINCHESTER OLD, Este’s Psalms, 1592 (without repeated last line)

There are two deliberate projects at work in this set of hymns for Advent A; the use of some fairly well-known Christmas tunes that might not get quite as much play at Christmas as some others (i.e. I'm pretty unlikely to use ADESTE FIDELES as a part of this set), and to write (with the exception of the hymn for 4A) texts that reference all of the given scripture readings (except the psalm) for that given Sunday. The reference may be slight, as here with the brief allusion to the Romans reading in the final stanza), but hopefully they show up at least a little. 

Lord, when surrounded

Lord, when surrounded by calls to fear and hatred,

And idols false are thrust before our way,            

Then teach us hope and peace as your path for us,

And be alone our comfort every day.

When those who lead us make for our adoration

Idols of nation and security,

Call us, as Micah did, to yearn for justice,

And you alone our mighty fortress be.

Help us remember you are a God of nations,

And nations all your life and Passion share.

So, when we claim that you are only our God,

We place ourselves outside your guiding care.

Teach us surrender to your salvation only,

Turning aside from prophets false of war,

‘Til we abide with you in perfect fullness,

Singing in praise and joy forevermore.

TEXT: CSF, 2013

MUSIC: Tune: DONNE SECOURS (altered), Scottish Psalter, 1635