This Sunday we will hear the well-known scripture from Mark 10: People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. Our music will reflect Jesus’ words.
Our Processional hymn will be Now thank we all our God. Martin Rinkart was a minister in the city of Eilenburg during the Thirty Years War. Apart from battles, lives were lost in great number during this time due to illnesses and disease spreading quickly throughout impoverished cities. In the midst of this, it’s difficult to imagine maintaining faith and praising God, and yet, that’s exactly what Rinkart did. He wrote the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” originally meant to be a prayer said before meals. Rinkart could recognize that our God is faithful, and even when the world looks bleak, God is “bounteous” and is full of blessings, if only we look for them. Blessings as seemingly small as a dinner meal, or as large as the end of a brutal war and unnecessary bloodshed are all reasons to lift up our thanks to God, with our hearts, our hands, and our voices. (Hymnary.org)
The Sequence hymn will be Surely it is God who saves me, written by Carl P Daw, Jr. This hymn was taken from the "First Song of Isaiah," one of the "lesser" Old Testament canticles used by the medieval church. As songs of joy and praise for God's deliverance, these stanzas are the climax to a group of prophecies spanning Isaiah 7-11. Carl P. Daw, Jr. (b. Louisville, KY, 1944), versified these passages in 1981 for The Hymnal 1982, the Episcopal Church hymnal published in 1985. Daw was born into a Baptist preacher's family. He received degrees in English from Rice University and the University of Virginia (Ph.D. in 1970), and taught English at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia (1970-1978). In 1981 he received a divinity degree from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. After ordination in the Protestant Episcopal Church, he served Episcopal congregations in Virginia, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. In 1996 he was appointed executive director of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Daw is a widely respected and often published author of numerous hymns and hymn articles. (Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988)
The children in our Chapel Choir will sing two songs they have learned: Jesus loves the little ones like me, me, me & the classic Jesus Loves Me. Anna B. Warner (1827-1915) wrote this beloved children's hymn text in 1859. It was published in Say and Seal (1860), a novel Warner wrote in collaboration with her sister Susan, author of another popular children's hymn, “Jesus Bids Us Shine.” In this now-forgotten novel a dying boy, Johnny Fax, is comforted by his church school teacher, who sings to him the four original stanzas of this hymn. Warner and her sister Susan wrote popular novels under the pen names Amy Lothrop and Elizabeth Wetherell. They also taught Bible classes for the cadets at West Point, who were ferried to the Warner home on Constitution Island. After she died, Warner was buried with military honors at West Point in honor of this service. She wrote devotional poetry and compiled two collections: Hymns of the Church Militant (1858) and Wayfaring Hymns, Original and Translated (1869).
Our Communion hymn will be Put Peace into each other’s hands, by Fred Kaan (1929-2009). The text reads like poetry with beautiful illustrations, such as: As at communion, shape your hands into a waiting cradle; the gift of Christ receive, revere, united round the table. Kaan’s hymns sought to address issues of peace and justice. He was born in Haarlem in the Netherlands in July 1929 and was baptized in St Bavo Cathedral. He lived through the Nazi occupation, saw three of his grandparents die of starvation, and witnessed his parents’ deep involvement in the resistance movement when they took in a number of refugees. He became a pacifist and began attending church in his teens. Having become interested in British Congregationalism (later to become the United Reformed Church) through a friendship, he was attended Western College in Bristol. He was ordained in 1955 at the Windsor Road Congregational Church in Barry, Glamorgan. In 1963 he was called to be minister of the Pilgrim Church in Plymouth. It was in this congregation that he began to write hymns. The first edition of Pilgrim Praise was published in 1968, going into second and third editions in 1972 and 1975. He continued writing many more hymns throughout his life. (hymnary.org by Dianne Shapiro, from obituary [www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/fred-kaan-minister-and-celebrated-hymn-writer-1809481.html])