Wisdom and Courage for Living These Days

Many singers and church musicians are fond of quoting the phrase, "the one who sings, prays twice." It's good theology. 

A corollary to this truth, however, is that hymns are in fact prayers set to music. Sometimes the music gets in the way of the text, or distracts from it, or even overtakes it. The goal, it seems to me, is for the tune to enhance the prayer and breathe deeper meaning into the words. When that happens we use all our senses to pray, and indeed pray twice or maybe even more than that.

Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote the words to God of Grace and God of Glory in 1930 for the dedication of The Riverside Church in New York City. There is an excellent reflection on this hymn that I commend that can be found here. 

I do hope you will read it, like now. When you do (but even if you don't) I want to highlight two points the writer makes. First, Fosdick wrote the hymn for the tune, Regent Square. When the Methodists paired his words with CWM Rhondda in 1935, however, it stuck. (I love it that Fosdick was not amused; noting that "the Methodists have always been a bunch of wise guys!") I find myself wondering what he would have said about Episcopalians who felt the need to offer a third tune in The Hymnal 1982, Mannheim, which I've never heard sung before and that's fine by me. By the way, since I'm already well down this rabbit hole, I'll add that I tried for longer than I care to admit to find a version of some choir or church singing this prayer the way the poet intended it to be sung, paired with Regent Square (which is a lovely tune by the way AND familiar) but no one seems to have done that or at least has not recorded doing so. I am tempted to revise my funeral plans to request that Fosdick's preferred tune be used when I die. I should add that I have nothing against CWM Rhondda, although I can't say that about Mannheim. I just find it odd that if we are going to have two choices in the Episcopal Church we didn't offer the one the poet preferred... 

OK, moving on! The second point that Dr. Hawn makes in the Discipleship Ministries reflection linked above (please do read it!) is the more important one to this post: Fosdick wrote these words in the throes of the Great Depression and between two world wars. "Cure us from this warring madness," indeed...

The prayer that I have been praying lately is like a litany that repeats at the end of each verse: "grant us wisdom, grant us courage..."

• for the facing of this hour
• for the living of these days
• lest we miss thy kingdom's goal
• serving thee whom we adore

The words seem to have "worn well" even nine decades later. I commend the entire poem/prayer to you and maybe someone serving a parish or singing in a choir will humor me and sing it to Regent Square one of these days and then let me know how it goes and send me the recording...

But for this post, in facing this hour and living these days (so that we do not miss the kingdom's goal and more faithfully serve the One who has created us in love) I'm struck by this plea for wisdom and courage. I'm struck now, as I have been for many years, that these two need to go together. Wisdom without courage can become something sheltered in an ivory tower. Courage without wisdom - well that can be just dangerous. But wisdom and courage together? That combination can change the world. It seems to me this is a worthy prayer not just for individuals but for faith communities. It seems to me worth remembering that it was written to dedicate a church, a great church at that, one that continues to serve the neighborhood committed to social justice.   

I have a love-hate relationship with congregations as I think most clergy do. They can be petty and myopic and forget that they are a manifestation of the Body of Christ on a weekly basis. Vestry meetings can be places where wisdom and courage are in short supply. And yet...I remember traveling to Alabama on the fiftieth anniversary of Jonathan Daniels' martyrdom and hearing a vestry member who kept bringing up integration in his parish until he wore them down. He showed wisdom and courage for the living of those days. 

While it may be possible to follow Jesus on our own and it may indeed be true that God can be at work in the neighborhood whether or not the church shows up, I still have not figured out how we share the love of God in the neighborhood without gathering a people committed to that purpose. When people gather to tell the old old stories and break the bread and say the prayers they form community; it seems to me that wherever this happens, it is going to look something like a congregation. And it also seems to me this week after celebrating All Saints Day is as good a time as any to remember that we are called to serve on governing boards and to preach from pulpits and serve at altars and greet newcomers as people who are trying, with God's help, to be saints of God. 

To say this another way, when congregations fulfill their purpose and live with wisdom and courage, they can be light and salt and yeast in the neighborhood. And the world so desperately needs congregations to live this way now as perhaps never before, or at least now as "not since the 1930s." The world needs for the Church to be the Church. Grant us wisdom. Grant us courage. For the living of these days.