Choosing a hymn
31/01/15 04:42
It has been 20 years since the United Church of Christ published the New Century Hymnal. The song book now has gained widespread acceptance in UCC congregations and is one of two hymnals that our congregation uses in addition to a supplemental hymnal. You can never have too many hymns, I suppose. It is a bit awkward having different hymnals and we have more than we can store in the pews, so we find ourselves switching out hymnals from time to time. Obtaining the “new” (now 20-year-old) hymnal didn’t diminish our love for the older hymnal, which had been the staple of our congregation’s worship for half a century.
No hymnal is perfect. Although the New Century Hymnal was controversial in some of the changes to the words of familiar hymns, there is nothing new about the controversy. I have a collection of hymnals, and one 19th Century Hymnal has an extended forward that discusses the editor’s choice of “old” vs “new” hymns and the reasons for changing the words in some of the traditional hymns.
What I have noticed is that the congregations I have served haven’t ever learned all of the hymns in their hymnals. Some hymns are challenging to sing. I often choose hymns by their lyrics. The organists with whom I’ve worked frequently have something to say about the tunes and their ease, or difficulty, of singing.
I believe that I’ve had at least five organists question my choice of Thomas Troeger’s “Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit.” I have deferred to the organists, so we won’t be singing it this week in our church. But every third year, when we are in year “B” of our lectionary cycle, the thought of the hymn comes up when we get to the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. The brief story of healing in Mark 1:23-26 is Mark’s introduction to Jesus as a healer. Like most of the rest of the Gospel of Mark, the story is told quickly with intensity and without much detail. Mark is quick to go on to the next adventure.
The hymn lyrics follow Mark’s text very closely and re-tell the incident in an unforgettable way:
“Silence, frenzied, unclean spirit!”
cried God’s healing Holy One.
‘Cease your ranting! Flesh can’t bear it.
Flee as night before the sun.”
At Christ’s words the demon trembled,
from its victim madly rushed,
while the crowd that was assembled
stood in wonder, stunned and hushed.
My friend Art Clyde, editor of the New Century Hymnal, is a bit of an expert in hymn meters and the selection of alternative tunes. Once, when I spoke with him about this hymn, he suggested that we simply go with an alternative tune. He suggested “ode to joy” Beethoven’s famous melody that is the setting for the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You.” My congregation isn’t much for having the music on one page and the words on another even when the tune is very familiar. But my choice not to go with Art’s advice is deeper. The tue, though rhythmically a good fit for the words is emotionally all wrong.
It is one of the challenges of using contemporary music in the church. We have become attached to the things we know and we are often a bit unsure about tackling new challenges.
Troeger’s lyrics, written in 1984, present the modern church with a different dilemma. Trooper has so captured the spirit of the gospel text that the hymn invites us into the mindset of Jesus time, when the nature of illness was not understood. It is unclear what affliction the victim in the gospel suffered. Some have suggested that it was a seizure disorder. Others have suggested a brain disease with a more psychological manifestation. Mark, of course, doesn’t linger on it at all. He uses the language of his day. The man is possessed by an evil spirit.
That language isn’t found in the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Orders (DSM), which is the standard for health care practitioners in diagnosing mental illnesses. I don’t think it even acknowledges diseases caused by evil spirits.
We, in our modern way of thinking, squirm a little bit at the image of being possessed by an evil spirit. “Just because we no longer believe in spirits,” Fred Craddock once said, “doesn’t mean that our world is free from evil.”
It is that dilemma that is addressed so well by the second stanza of Troeger’s hymn:
Christ, the demons still are thriving
in the gray cells of the mind:
tyrant voices, shrill and driving,
twisted thoughts that grip and bind,
doubts that stir the heart to panic,
fears distorting reason’s sight,
guilt that makes our loving frantic,
dreams that cloud the soul with fright.
We may not be the kind of public spectacle that the man healed by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel presented, but we, too, long for mental and spiritual peace. We’ve felt tyrant voices of to-do lists, overwhelming chores, overbooked schedules, and the relentless pace of our modern world. We know how our minds can be gripped by twisted thoughts and doubts. More than any sermon I’ve ever heard preached or any commentary that I have read, the words of Troeger’s hymn make the connection between the event of Jesus ministry so long ago and the contemporary reality of the lives we live.
It wouldn’t be hard to sing that hymn in our congregation. We have an excellent organist and a talented choir. They could teach the congregation the hymn. But somehow I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I had it in the worship plan for this year once again, but the complexity of the service, with our contemporary singers and our balcony choir both singing, a milestones award for children, the sacrament of holy communion and all of the other dynamics of the service, it just didn’t seem to fit in.
After many years as a teacher and dean at Iliff School of Theology, Troeger is now professor of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School. His life has been dedicated to teaching students how to become preachers. I never took a class from him. I’ve never heard him preach or lecture. But he has taught me a lot, nonetheless.
The hymn he wrote won’t be sung in our worship tomorrow. But his lyrics will be incorporated into our prayers.
No hymnal is perfect. Although the New Century Hymnal was controversial in some of the changes to the words of familiar hymns, there is nothing new about the controversy. I have a collection of hymnals, and one 19th Century Hymnal has an extended forward that discusses the editor’s choice of “old” vs “new” hymns and the reasons for changing the words in some of the traditional hymns.
What I have noticed is that the congregations I have served haven’t ever learned all of the hymns in their hymnals. Some hymns are challenging to sing. I often choose hymns by their lyrics. The organists with whom I’ve worked frequently have something to say about the tunes and their ease, or difficulty, of singing.
I believe that I’ve had at least five organists question my choice of Thomas Troeger’s “Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit.” I have deferred to the organists, so we won’t be singing it this week in our church. But every third year, when we are in year “B” of our lectionary cycle, the thought of the hymn comes up when we get to the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. The brief story of healing in Mark 1:23-26 is Mark’s introduction to Jesus as a healer. Like most of the rest of the Gospel of Mark, the story is told quickly with intensity and without much detail. Mark is quick to go on to the next adventure.
The hymn lyrics follow Mark’s text very closely and re-tell the incident in an unforgettable way:
“Silence, frenzied, unclean spirit!”
cried God’s healing Holy One.
‘Cease your ranting! Flesh can’t bear it.
Flee as night before the sun.”
At Christ’s words the demon trembled,
from its victim madly rushed,
while the crowd that was assembled
stood in wonder, stunned and hushed.
My friend Art Clyde, editor of the New Century Hymnal, is a bit of an expert in hymn meters and the selection of alternative tunes. Once, when I spoke with him about this hymn, he suggested that we simply go with an alternative tune. He suggested “ode to joy” Beethoven’s famous melody that is the setting for the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You.” My congregation isn’t much for having the music on one page and the words on another even when the tune is very familiar. But my choice not to go with Art’s advice is deeper. The tue, though rhythmically a good fit for the words is emotionally all wrong.
It is one of the challenges of using contemporary music in the church. We have become attached to the things we know and we are often a bit unsure about tackling new challenges.
Troeger’s lyrics, written in 1984, present the modern church with a different dilemma. Trooper has so captured the spirit of the gospel text that the hymn invites us into the mindset of Jesus time, when the nature of illness was not understood. It is unclear what affliction the victim in the gospel suffered. Some have suggested that it was a seizure disorder. Others have suggested a brain disease with a more psychological manifestation. Mark, of course, doesn’t linger on it at all. He uses the language of his day. The man is possessed by an evil spirit.
That language isn’t found in the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Orders (DSM), which is the standard for health care practitioners in diagnosing mental illnesses. I don’t think it even acknowledges diseases caused by evil spirits.
We, in our modern way of thinking, squirm a little bit at the image of being possessed by an evil spirit. “Just because we no longer believe in spirits,” Fred Craddock once said, “doesn’t mean that our world is free from evil.”
It is that dilemma that is addressed so well by the second stanza of Troeger’s hymn:
Christ, the demons still are thriving
in the gray cells of the mind:
tyrant voices, shrill and driving,
twisted thoughts that grip and bind,
doubts that stir the heart to panic,
fears distorting reason’s sight,
guilt that makes our loving frantic,
dreams that cloud the soul with fright.
We may not be the kind of public spectacle that the man healed by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel presented, but we, too, long for mental and spiritual peace. We’ve felt tyrant voices of to-do lists, overwhelming chores, overbooked schedules, and the relentless pace of our modern world. We know how our minds can be gripped by twisted thoughts and doubts. More than any sermon I’ve ever heard preached or any commentary that I have read, the words of Troeger’s hymn make the connection between the event of Jesus ministry so long ago and the contemporary reality of the lives we live.
It wouldn’t be hard to sing that hymn in our congregation. We have an excellent organist and a talented choir. They could teach the congregation the hymn. But somehow I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I had it in the worship plan for this year once again, but the complexity of the service, with our contemporary singers and our balcony choir both singing, a milestones award for children, the sacrament of holy communion and all of the other dynamics of the service, it just didn’t seem to fit in.
After many years as a teacher and dean at Iliff School of Theology, Troeger is now professor of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School. His life has been dedicated to teaching students how to become preachers. I never took a class from him. I’ve never heard him preach or lecture. But he has taught me a lot, nonetheless.
The hymn he wrote won’t be sung in our worship tomorrow. But his lyrics will be incorporated into our prayers.