Hymn singing

On hymns: "The birth of Jesus was announced in song, and the last act of worship of our Lord and his disciples was the singing of a hymn. Sacred song, rooted in the Hebrew tradition, occupied from the first a preeminent position in Christian worship. The earliest hymns were psalms and canticles. Initially the people sang them, though by the fourth century in the East, and by the seventh in the West, they had become part of the liturgy and a matter for the clergy and the choirs. Not again until the time of the Reformation was the hymn restored to the people as their rightful heritage in worship." From Service Book and Hymnal (Lutheran), music edition, 1958, p. 285

Work on this hymnal began almost 70 years ago--Lutherans were from many traditions, languages and ethnicities, but they managed to include nearly 80 American authors. Explanations and history in old hymnals are very interesting. It's a tremendous loss to just use words cast on a screen. You miss so much information.

Using a hymnbook for devotions

We do not use the 1995 "With One Voice" hymnbook in our Sunday worship at UALC. In fact, we rarely use a hymnbook at all since the words of the hymns are cast on a screen (I don't like this, but someone thought Lutherans needed to have their hands free of books--smile). I'll address the Confession at a later time after I've done a little research. I checked out a copy from the church library. A few of the hymns are . . . underwhelming. Others fresh, even if the range looks a bit challenging for us older folk. I did notice the awkward detours around male pronouns--then you see Father and Son are also scarce. (Diety in many modern hymns and prayers if mentioned is gender neutral and described by function.) The exceptions are Spirituals, or something very old and unsingable from the Didache or possibly a Latin chant. This removal of the male pronouns puts a heavy burden on the overworked first person pronoun--I, me, my, we, us, etc. Then the gender and diversity themes start to rise.

Oh, Praise the Gracious Power (Text by Thomas H. Troeger, b. 1945)

vs. 3
Oh, praise inclusive love,
encircling ev'ry race,
oblivious to gender, wealth,
to social rank or place.

This one will probably not make the next cut (after all, this hymnbook is already 13 years old and missed the gay marriage battle).

As Man and Woman We Were Made (Text by Brian Wren, b. 1936)

As man and woman we were made
that love be found and life begun
so praise the Lord who made us two,
and praise the Lord when two are one:
praise for the love that comes to life
through child or parent, husband, wife.

This one is quite scriptural, but I haven't tried to sing it.

"I Am the Bread of Life" (text: John 6, adpt. S. Suzanne Toolan, SM, b. 1927)

"I am the Bread of life.
You who come to me shall not hunger,
and who believes in me shall not thirst.
No one can come to me
unless the Father beckons."
"And I will raise you up,
and I will raise you up,
and I will raise you up
on the last day."

I say Amen to that!

Some familiar gospel hymns appear too, always a joy to read through, such as "Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling," or the wonderful sending hymn (Welsh tune) we often use at UALC, "Go, My Children, with My Blessing," or the great Fanny Crosby's "Blessed Assurance." She was blind and wrote 8,000 hymns, so it would be difficult to leave her out of a hymnbook that wants greater representation by women. I also hummed through a few toe tapping Catholic hymns we sing in Cursillo.

395

The new Lutheran hymnal

In our congregation, I haven't heard anything about the new hymnal for ELCA, although from time to time I read about it on the internet. These things take a long time to work through, and our congregation does very little that other Lutherans would recognize anyway, so we are not the audience. At our Mill Run location, there are no hymnals. I use the hymnal for hymns if it matches what's on the screen just because I hate to totally lose my music reading ability; occasionally it is needed for liturgy, but not often. So what I have here are comments (used with permission) excerpted from an e-mail from another Lutheran, a choir director in another denomination, who does know music and liturgy and attended a regional workshop:

"There were 141 registered; majority was made up of pastors, choir directors and those interested in ELCA worship. The presentation team consisted of 5 pastors and 2 laymen from the Northern Illinois Synod. They went through one complete service setting as well as playing a very fine DVD hosted by Rev. Mark Hanson on the birth and completion of this new hymnal.

From the voices around me, I knew I was in the company of people who love to sing, know how to sing and have little trouble with rhythm or range.

I was impressed with the amount of information contained in this new hymnal. The line drawings, alone, were worth the price of the book.

But I came away feeling that those who put the hymns together did not give much consideration to range: many ran up to Ds, Es and even Fs on the treble clef. Too high for most congregations.

And the number of choices of service settings, prayers and responses was overwhelming. Putting hymns from WOV and the purple Hymnal Supplement into this new ELW was a great idea, but they overdid it on the liturgical variety.

I know it's been over 30 years since the green hymnal publication but I left the meeting wondering if the cost to each congregation was worth the gain in newer, more contemporary hymns and ten Holy Communion settings."

Ten communion settings? Silly me, we're lucky at our church to use one and only the older people know it. I'm almost afraid to see what 10 different settings can do to gender-free pronouns.