Come Let Us Worship: A Song For Trinity Sunday (Or Any Sunday!)

1st Section
Come let us worship
Come let us bow down
Come let us sing for joy

Lift up your hands
Lift up your voices
Lift up your hearts to the Lord

2nd Section
For he brings us freedom, he brings us hope
To earth from heaven above;

And he comes with grace, he comes with power
He comes with healing love

3rd Section
Jesus Christ, we worship you our Saviour;
Jesus Christ, we worship you as Lord,
With the Father and the Holy Spirit.
We lift up your name,
lift up your name,
Lift up your name in all the world… Singing,

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Father;
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Son;
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Spirit;
What a wonderful God,
Wonderful God,
What a wonderful God you are.


Introduction
At some point during the week between Ascension and Pentecost, I found myself humming a simple tune, and mentally adding the words ‘Come let us worship’. Before long, in my continued contemplation of the tune and words, I discovered that a new melody was presenting itself, and this time the words ‘Jesus Christ we worship you as Lord, with the Father and the Holy Spirit’ had become attached to the new melody.

Procrastinating from the other work I was intending to do that morning, I sat down with my guitar, and began to write. It became evident fairly soon that I was writing a new song for Trinity Sunday. The whole song took about 25 minutes to write, and if ever I have felt as though I simply ‘received’ a song as a gift, this was it! The process of opening myself to the words and melodies that were arriving was like breathing strong, fresh and cold air – the kind you breathe up mountains or by the coast. It was invigorating.

When the song was finished (at least, provisionally so…) I sang it to my wife Sara, and then a few other friends to get a sense of whether it grabbed them. Each of them found that it was very easy to remember – the melody was simple and catchy, and the words just seemed to belong with the melody. So, aside from a couple of melodic clarifications suggested by Sara (herself a singer and songwriter), the song was completed and ready to offer to a worshipping congregation. It was taught to the congregation of St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Holloway on Sunday 18th May 2008 - Trinity Sunday.

Below are a few reflections on the implicit and explicit Trinitarian motifs – both lyrical and musical which inhabit the song. We’ll begin by exploring the lyrical motifs, and then examine the musical motifs, before drawing some theological conclusions.

Trinitarian Lyrical Motifs
Song Structure
Many contemporary worship songs are written with lyrical couplets with some rhyming scheme. In doing so, they are usually building upon a long history in poetry of rhyming couplets in verse. However, ‘Come Let Us Worship’ depends much more on triplets.

The song has three sections. Many contemporary songs have three sections – usually a verse, a pre-chorus, and a chorus. (Some also have a ‘Middle 8’ – which serves as a brief interlude from the dominant scheme of the song.) The verse and chorus are usually roughly equal in length (duration) and the pre-chorus is generally shorter, and serves as a bridge along which we may pass from verse to chorus. However, each of the three sections of ‘Come Let Us Worship’ are roughly equal in length (the third is slightly longer – and more closely resembles a chorus). The song is directly linear – it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Rather than returning to an alternative verse, the song simply repeats in full – maybe twice, maybe three times. (If wanting to conform to a Trinitarian pattern!)

Each section contains two parts, and each part is comprised of a lyrical triplet. In the first section, each line of the first triplet begins with the exhortation ‘Come let us…’. Each line of the second triplet begins with the exhortation ‘Lift up your…’. The second section has two lyrical triplets each beginning with the indicative ‘He brings’ or ‘He comes’. The final section has two parts – each with a pair of lyrical triplets!! (Although the first lyrical triplet is a slight cheat – as only the first two lines begin ‘Jesus Christ’.) The phrases ‘We lift up your name’, ‘Holy, holy, holy’, and ‘Wonderful God’ are each repeated three times in the final section.

Explicit Scriptural Motifs
The first section begins with a traditional call to worship – lifted almost directly from Psalm 95 (also known as the Venite – meaning ‘come’ – and used almost daily in traditional Anglican worship). The injunction to ‘bow down’ and to ‘sing for joy’ picks out phrases from Psalm 95, verses 1 and 4. This section continues with further injunctions to lift up ‘hands’ (1 Tim. 2:8), ‘voices’ and ‘hearts’ to the Lord. During this first section, it is only with the final line that we become aware of who we are being instructed to worship – ‘ to the Lord’. The second section continues by describing the characteristics of ‘the Lord’. But it is only in the third section that ‘the Lord’ is revealed as ‘Jesus Christ… with the Father and the Holy Spirit.’ In this manner, the song echoes the ongoing self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ and through the developing Scriptural witness.

The second section is a lyrical exposition of the characteristics of Christ revealed in the Gospels and the letters of the New Testament. Christ brings us ‘freedom’ (Gal. 5:1) and ‘hope’ (Eph. 1:12, 2 Thes. 2:16). He comes with ‘grace’ (John 1:14), ‘power’ (Matt. 3:11 & 11:20) and the love that is manifest in healing (for example the raising of Lazarus in John 11, or the healing of the synagogue-leader’s daughter and the haemorrhaging woman in Matthew 8-9).

This section rehearses in song that great truth revealed in the Gospels – that Christ is sovereign over heaven and earth. That is to say, his power, rule and scope of influence are not limited simply to ‘heaven’, traditionally conceived as God’s dwelling place – but are also seen exercising their authority on earth, in our corporate and individual lives. And so our hope, has come to earth (where God has made us, his creation, to live) from heaven, where his rule is perfectly realised. Consequently, these two spheres – heaven and earth – are held together by God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. And God’s perfect rule of heaven has now begun to flood the earth with love, power and justice. So that one day, ‘the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.’ (Isaiah 11:9)

The second section celebrates the life of Jesus, and the rule of God seen in his ministry among us. As we celebrate these gifts of freedom, hope, grace, power and healing love that come to us in Christ, we remember that these gifts are not confined to those who interacted with Jesus during his earthly life, but also have been witnessed by each of us who have been called by his name. And so as we reach the climax of the second section, and move into the third, we find that we are bound to call out on that name by which we have been saved – the name of Jesus Christ.

The third section describes Jesus Christ as ‘our Saviour’. In doing so, it is making a clear connection between the Lord Jesus Christ and ‘God our Saviour’ as described by the New Testament writers (Luke 1:47; 1 Tim. 1:1, 2:3; Titus 1:3, 2:10, 3:4). This connection is made even more strongly in Scripture when Zechariah prophetically speaks of Jesus as ‘a mighty saviour’ who is raised up by the God of Israel. (Luke 1:69 – part of the Benedictus.) Jesus Christ is also described as ‘Lord’ – an early Christian confession, made on numerous occasions, but notably by Thomas ‘My Lord and my God’ (John 20:28) and also by Paul, as a creedal confession invoking salvation (Romans 10:9). This first part of the third section concludes with a three-fold commitment to ‘lift up your name’. As the hymnody of Israel concludes with the injunction to ‘praise the name of the Lord, for name alone is exalted [lifted up]’ (Psalm 148:13) so this triplet exhorts those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord to similarly exalt (lift up) his name.

The second part of the third section begins with a classical Trinitarian confession ‘Holy, holy, holy’, echoing the cry of the angelic hosts in both Isaiah 6:3 and also Revelation 4:8. The confession is that together, Father, Son and Holy Spirit truly are a ‘wonderful God’.

Trinitarian Musical Motifs
The musical motifs may be said to be both implicit and explicit – depending on your grasp of musical theory – but it does no harm to highlight them specifically.

Key & Chords (Part 1)
The song was written in the key of G major (although I subsequently transposed it down a tone into the key of F to make the melody more accessible to female singers). The root chord of this key is G major – and is comprised of three notes: G, B & D. This is also known as a major triad. These basic notes of the major key are worth remembering as they feature later on as part of the ‘Trinitarian’ structure of the melody. In the key of G, there are only two other chords that conform to the same structure as the root chord. They are the chords of C major and D major (known as the 4th and the 5th chords of the key according to their place on the scale). They conform in that each of the notes that make up the chord (C, E & G and D, F# & A respectively) share exactly the same interval – the number of semitones – between each note as the root chord. These three chords form the foundation of the song.

Melody
The tune of the song climbs gradually from the start to the finish. The first note of the melody, in the first of the three sections, is a G. In fact, the first section revolves around this G – although the melody departs from the G, climbing above and also falling below, it always returns to the G. So the final note of the first section is also a G. The second section climbs the scale, and hinges around the B – which you’ll remember is the second note of our G major triad: G, B & D. However, there is an ambiguity in the melodic structure of the second section. Although I have just claimed that it hinges on the B, it actually spends a large amount of time departing from and returning to the C – one semitone above the B. Which note then does the melody really depend on? Part of the ambiguity is caused by the fact that the B note, were it the root of its own chord (triad) would necessarily be a minor chord (or ‘sad chord’) in the key of G, whereas, as mentioned above, the C would be the root of a major triad (a ‘happy chord’). And so the second section has a sense of joy, but also of sorrow. The third section of the song sees the melody climb once again, and this time it unambiguously hinges around the D note – the third note of our major triad in the key of G. The melody stays very close to the D for three lines, before dropping back down to the G and climbing with determination back to the D for the climax of the melody. In this sense, both the end of the third section, and also the whole song, may be described as a ‘Song of Ascent’.

Key & Chords (Part 2)
There is something more to be said about the use of chords in the song, for as has been noted above, the second section has a degree of ambiguity about it in relation to the melody. This can also be said of the chords used. The second section begins with a minor chord – Am7. This is okay, as the second chord in the key of G should be minor. However, it also features twice a chord that shouldn’t be there at all! Each melodic phrase of the second section ends with a Cm7 chord – introducing a note, Eb, into a song in which it should have no proper place, being as it does not occur in a G major scale. The C chord we are already familiar with – it is a ‘happy chord’ and has occurred frequently by this stage of the song. And so its subversion by the occurrence of a C minor chord introduces an element of tension – a note of sadness is struck in the midst of an otherwise happy song. The reason for this will be elucidated below.

Some Theological Observations
Creator, Redeemer, Reconciler
It should be evident by now, that in some way, the song traces a pattern of Scriptural revelation, moving from the worship of Israel in the first section (with its heavy dependence on the Psalms) to the angelic cry of Revelation in the third section. The second section focuses so closely on the personal characteristics of the person of Jesus ‘the Lord’, that it sits as a ‘gospel’ in between the first and third sections. It would be easy from this to fall into an approximate scheme which correlates the first section with the Father, the second with the Son, and the third with the Holy Spirit. But of course, this would be to imply a kind of theological Modalism (not the same as musical modalism!) whereby the one God is simply revealed in three different forms or threee different modes of operation and interaction. This is not an adequate Trinitarian doctrine to apply to the song.

All three persons of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are invoked and worshipped in every section of the song. Rather, the song sits more closely to a Barthian scheme of seeing God’s operations as Creator, Redeemer and Reconciler in each section. And so, the first section calls creation to worship the Lord who has redeemed and its reconciling it to himself; the second section speaks of the work of redemption through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth which by ‘grace’ and ‘power’ brings ‘healing love’ to a fallen creation in need of redemption, and ‘hope to earth from heaven above’ to a world that need reconciling to its Creator; and the thirds section rejoices with a doxological song of praise as it both revels in, and anticipates a yet fuller reconciliation to the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In this way, the life of the true God penetrates each section of song, and yet is recognised and identified in the personal self-disclosure of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Eschatological & Eucharistic Leanings
Very briefly, the song prompts us to recognise, anticipate and join our voices in the eternal song of heaven ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’. The song’s second section rehearses the saving work of Jesus. As noted above, the melody and chords introduces an ambiguity in this section, as the unexpected C minor chord speaks of pain and sorrow. This section, with its notes of both joy and sorrow, its major and minor chords which speak of new life, but also of death; resurrection, but also the cross. This reminds us that our eschatological focus has already begun in history. The end, the coming of God’s kingdom, began with the resurrection. Our eschatological focus is enhanced with the Eucharistic themes: we ‘lift up our hearts to the Lord’, we rehearsed the saving work of God, we join the company of heaven in singing ‘Holy, holy, holy’. This song would be fitting at a Eucharist, where ‘as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, [we] proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’ (1 Cor. 11:26)
Amen, Come Lord Jesus.




Graham Hunter
Trinity Sunday
18th May 2008

The Secret of Great Faith

Sermon for 13th Sunday after Trinity (Yr A)
St Mary Magdalene’s Church
Sunday 17th August 2008

Introduction
I wonder whether any of you have ever had a puppy for a pet? I never have done – I had several cats as a child – but never a puppy.

I’ve been told by friends though that despite being incredibly cute, they’re also terrible pests when there’s any food around. Little, organic and noisy waste-disposal units, they follow you around hoping for a bit of your food – even if it’s been only 5 minutes since they devoured their own food, Pedigree Chum or whatever…

This I can well believe, since I do have a dog of sorts in my house. Our son Caleb, you see, is a sort of dog! You see, the name Caleb, in modern Hebrew (or at least the closest equivalent, Calev) means ‘dog’. And indeed, Caleb, like a small yelping puppy, is constantly pestering Sara and me whenever we have any food in our hands.

Food, or drink, that we have prepared and intended for ourselves, ends up being demanded by him – and very often (provided it won’t harm him), we give in to his requests, and he gets to eat a bit of our meal (usually pieces of toast and honey at breakfast).

What then are we to make of the yelping Canaanite ‘dog’ mentioned in or Gospel reading today?

The Shock Of The Story
The first thing to observe is just how shocking Jesus’ actions in the story appear to be. The Jesus we think we know – merciful, gentle, loving and accepting of all – appears on our first reading to refuse to heal the Canaanite woman’s daughter simply because she is not Jewish; and to add insult to injury, goes on to describe her as a ‘dog’.

While this shocking reading may be accurate at one level, it also reveals to us how much we ignore aspects of Jesus’ character and actions in the gospels wherever they don’t conform to the comforting image of him that we each carry around in our minds.

Jesus often withdrew from the crowds; he often withheld healing from both Jews and Gentiles. Jesus got angry and thrashed a whip around in the temple courts, overturning tables. Jesus made cutting remarks while scribbling in the sand, shaming a crowd of the self-righteous, and causing them to skulk away from the women caught in adultery – and to her he issued to simple, yet sharp, command ‘go and sin no more’. A church advertising campaign a few years ago summed it up nicely when they published Christmas posters saying: ‘Meek and mild – as if.’ Our comfortable pictures of Jesus sometimes need challenging.

Jesus was the messiah, the anointed one, the chosen one of God, who would restore God’s people Israel to his purposes. And the purpose of God for Israel, right from the very beginning and the making of the covenant with Abraham, was that through Israel ‘all nations on earth will be blessed, because [Israel] has obeyed [God].’ (Gen. 22:18)

But Israel had not obeyed God, they had not kept the covenant, and it was for this reason that Jesus was sent to be a shepherd for the ‘lost sheep of Israel’ (Matt 15:24). When the lost sheep of Israel were recovered, and the new covenant established, God’s chosen people Israel would become a blessing to all nations. The 12 tribes of Israel are reconstituted in the 12 apostles, and through their resurrection community, the church, God’s peace, hope and love has been carried into all corners of the world.

But it all starts with Jesus being the messiah who would restore Israel to God’s purposes. And maybe the truly startling thing in this passage is that the Canaanite woman seems to already recognise this. For she addresses him: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me.’ (Matt 15:22) And this title, ‘Son of David’, is a messianic title. It means ‘the one who will be a true king in the line of David’. It recognises that Jesus is sent for Israel, not the people of the Gentile nations in the vicinity.

And yet she is undeterred. Although she knows well that the Jewish leaders of the day viewed the Gentiles as ‘dogs’, and probably even more so, Gentile women, yet she persistently cries out after Jesus.

And her persistence leads me to think of a related subject, that of our relationship with God in prayer.

Persistence In Prayer
The Canaanite woman cried out to Jesus for mercy, for healing for her daughter. She probably cried out of desperation, maybe even as a last resort. Maybe she had visited the local priests of the Canaanite people, and maybe offered sacrifices to the Baal gods – the nature divinities of the ancient near east. Maybe she had sought the help of a physician, such as the Greek doctor Luke, who became a companion of St Paul, and wrote the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Maybe she tried all these things, and then turned to Jesus for help.

How many of us find ourselves in the same situation? I certainly do – and to my shame, too often my prayers are prayers of desperation offered when all else has failed. And what is Jesus’ response? ‘[He] did not answer a word.’ (Matt. 15:23) How devastating, how discouraging. We turn to God in prayer, in the midst of our desperation, and he does not answer a word.

Many of us would give up, and seek out help elsewhere. But not this Canaanite woman. Maybe she has heard stories of Jesus healing others, or maybe she has heard some of his teaching, maybe it is simply the Spirit of God revealing to her just who Jesus is, the ‘Son of David’, chosen by God and full of God’s power. Whichever it is, she continues to call out after Jesus. And what do the disciples do? What do we, the church, so often do with those who are noisily interrupting our work and worship? We ask Jesus to send them away. (Matt 15:23)

When I lived in Paddington, I knew a man and a woman who lived in the same neighbourhood, and who occasionally would turn up at the steps of the church. The man was the most arrogant man I’ve ever known, who had been caught up in a form of eastern mysticism, and now thought he had special revelation of God, and he was willing to share this with anyone who’d listen! He was also an alcoholic – and could become quite aggressive and agitated if he wasn’t getting his own way. The woman suffered mental illness, alcoholism, and was caught up in drugs, prostitution and crime. On more than one occasion I witnessed her half-naked and peeing in the street, completely off her face. Both came to church reasonably often – on Sundays and also during the week to the church office. And I used to beg Jesus to send them away!

In their own way, they were desperate for healing from Jesus, and yet it never seemed to come, and their desperate and angry cries simply interrupted me from my work and worship. ‘Lord, send them away’! Yet I am so thankful, that 17 years ago, when I came to Jesus, desperate for his comfort, healing and love, he did not turn me away – whatever some of the youth workers or other members of the church youth group might have wished!

The Canaanite woman persisted, and came and knelt before Jesus, saying ‘Lord, help me!’ She came with humility – kneeling before Jesus. She does not command his help, as one who knows best – if only Jesus would realise what he should do. Rather, she pleads for his help as one who knows her own powerlessness and weakness – as one who knows she can do nothing to help her daughter on her own – but simply trusts that Jesus can help.

Too often, my prayer life takes the form of a managerial supervision meeting – where I sit and tell Jesus what he should be doing in my life. I half-listen to what he is doing, but as I impatiently listen, I’m already thinking of what I’m about to say to him next. I issue my guidance on what he should do to meet my needs, and the needs of my organisation, the church. (And so often I do treat it like my organisation not his!) And then I dismiss him, so I can get on with other things – I’ll check on his progress next week.

And finally Jesus replies to the Canaanite woman. And it is not the reply that she, or we, expected. It is the shocking reply we thought about earlier – that reminds us that Jesus’ priorities are not always our priorities. Or as Isaiah puts it:
‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ (Isaiah 55:9)

But the Canaanite woman is bold and quick-thinking. Maybe she is a God-fearing Gentile, and knows of the promise for Israel to be a blessing to all nations. Maybe she is like the woman who had suffered hemorrhages for 12 years and trusted that just a touch of the hem of Jesus’ cloak would be sufficient for her healing. Maybe the Canaanite woman thought that she could persuade Jesus with clever reasoning. Maybe she simply longs for something, a scrap of hope.

Conclusion
Did Jesus change his mind? Was he persuaded by her clever argument? Or did he simply resist her request initially to test her persistence? I’m not sure we could ever reach a final conclusion on these questions.

But this passage does challenge me to think about my prayer life, and the way I bring my requests to Jesus. Am I bold? Am I persistent? Am I easily discouraged when my prayers are met with silence? Do I pray humbly, or as one who issues commands?

So many questions. So many ‘maybes’. And yet that is at the heart of our prayer life – the great ‘maybe’ at the heart of every prayer we offer. That what we ask may be. ‘Lord, may it be.’

The gospels are littered with examples of Jesus withdrawing from the crowd, and leaving people unhealed. And yet there are just as many examples of Jesus encouraging persistence and perseverance in prayer. It seems that this process is essential for helping us to become followers of the living God – for we may only truly follow when Jesus walks a little way ahead of us on a path we’ve not walked before.

I’ve just finished reading a book addressing the problem of unanswered prayer entitled ‘God on Mute’. In the book, Pete Greig writes this:
‘Sometimes God removes the stabilizers from our bicycle and his hands from our frightened lives. As we grow towards spiritual maturity, every believer is granted seasons of unanswered prayer when god is silent and may even appear absent from the world. At such times, we may be sure that God is weaning us off ‘adult supervision’ but that He has not abandoned us altogether.’
He continues…
‘Growing into maturity – whether it’s in a romantic relationship, a child-parent relationship or in a relationship with God – always involves a steady process of recentring from our own priorities and preferences to those of the other… We begin to pray that God would change our hearts and rewire our motivation. We long to become more like Jesus. We ask God to help us become more humble, more loving and more faithful. It is in answer to these very prayers that God may decide to deny our requests and even withdraw a little from our lives… [Only then can we] truly mature from an us-centred relationship with god to a truly Christ-centred one.’ (Pete Greig, God On Mute, p245-7)

Although Jesus seemed to withdraw and deny himself to the Canaanite woman, her faith was declared to be ‘great’. (Matt. 15:28) Her boldness, her persistence, yet also her desperation and humility were the characteristics of this ‘great’ faith. And indeed, her request was answered – her daughter was healed that very hour.

What did the disciples learn? And what do we learn from this passage? Well, as we’ve just said, something more about the characteristics of faith, something more about persistence in prayer, something more about why Jesus might apparently withdraw himself from us, and finally, that in Jesus Christ every boundary is broken down. That all the division we erect between people – class, culture, wealth, sophistication, righteousness, race, sex and sexuality – that every division is obliterated in Jesus so that God’s blessing may finally reach out to every nation and every individual person on God’s earth.

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Lord Jesus Christ,

Thank you that you have destroyed the boundaries we construct between one another, and the boundary of sin that separates us from God our Father.

By your Holy Spirit, would you make us grow in faithfulness. With every step you withdraw from us, with every unanswered prayer, would you give us the boldness, the persistence and the humility to come chasing after you.

Make us, your church, to live as people of the new covenant, that through us you might bless all nations.

In your mighty name we pray,
Amen.