Dwight A. Moody
Last Sunday morning I did something I should not do. I concluded my sermon with a song. By which, I mean, I sang a song, a song I had written. It turned out to be a good news-bad news affair.
A singing preacher is common is some cultures, especially among the Black Baptists. I don’t know why this is the case and don’t have the energy to track it down. But I’ve been in their services and watched others online where this is the case.
Earlier this year, I watched the video of H. Beacher Hicks leading his congregation at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington DC in singing the old gospel song, “He Will Remember Me.” It brought to mind the mighty sermon he preached for us at the National Festival of Young Preachers a few years ago. It was mighty, in part, because he was preceded by Nathaniel Thompson, dread locks to his shoulders, singing “No More Auction Block for Me.” He was standing in the elevated pulpit, no socks on his shoed feet, in the sanctuary of Highland Park United Methodist Church of Dallas, home to the rich and famous. But I digress ….
The singing preacher, as I was saying, is common in some places but not in any place where I am the preacher. Until last week. I was overcome by the emotion of the moment: scripture, sermon, and the stresses of life and ministry. I will set aside the latter and describe the former: Isaiah 9, about a child being born and the government being on his shoulders. I preached:
That hope and promise found its way into my favorite Christmas hymn, in verse three:
“Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay
close by me forever and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in thy tender care
and fit us for heaven to live with thee there.”
We will sing this on Christmas Eve, I am sure. But it is missing a stanza or two. It skips quickly and easily from the sleeping baby in a manger to the sweet by and by in heaven. “Fit us for heaven to live with thee there.”
This spiritual two step, from infancy all cuddly and kind, straight to heaven all safe and sanitized. That is what we sing but not what we know to be true. It is what is in the hymn but not what is in our experience. It is our fantasy, but it is not the facts. It is our theology but not our text.
This child promised by Isaiah becomes a warrior and a king, a leader and a judge, a ruler and the one who breaks the rod of the oppressor. Verse 8 reads: “You will break the yoke of slavery and lift the heavy burden. You will break the oppressors rod…you will rule with justice and fairness…”
In other words, there is a lot that happens between that sweet little baby, lying in a manger, and that savior ascending into heaven on clouds of glory. We want to love the baby as the bearer of our hopes and dreams, but we are troubled by the man who, as we read last week in Isaiah, was despised and rejected and acquainted with grief and pierced for our sins and crushed for our iniquities.
So, I wrote two stanzas to fill in the gap between the infant lowly and the savior ascending.
How that happened was inspired by (are you surprised?) John Prine. He tells of an occasion early in his career, when he was singing each Thursday night at a small place in Chicago, The Fifth Peg. “I was on my way to sing for the fourth week and thought to myself, ‘Those same people are coming, and I better have some new material.’ So, riding in the car, I composed both the lyrics and the music to the [now famous] song, “Souvenirs.” I sang it for the first time in the rest room of the club before going on state.”
Last Sunday, while riding the 30 miles up the mountain from Travelers Rest SC to Hendersonville NC, I composed the lyrics to two new verses of “Away in a Manger.” I scribbled them down in a black notebook that was sitting in the rider’s seat. It was in such broken English that when time came, five minutes before our worship, to transfer them to clean paper I misprinted some words.
The end of the sermon rolled around, and I said:
My religion is not about how the baby in the manger gets us all into heaven. My religion is about how the baby in the manger breaks the rod of the oppressor, establishes fairness and justice, and brings good news to the poor… .I put my trust in the God who breaks the rod of the oppressor. I put my trust in Messiah who does justice, loves mercy, and walks with God. I put my trust in the child in the manger, whose calling it is to comfort the broken-hearted, release the captives, free the prisoners, and break the rod of the oppressor.
Somebody needs to write some new verses to that hymn.
That’s when I pushed aside my sermon notes and pulled out the scribble verses. I read the first verse as our musician played the familiar music,
Prepare yourself Jesus for what is to come:
for struggle, and failure, for life on the run.
Things are not easy for anyone here.
Walk with us, Jesus, this is our prayer.
That’s when what little common sense I possess and all the ministerial self-restraint that had accumulated over 55 years of gospel work took flight. I was left with three yards of pulpit emotion and the silly notion that something I could sing might just be the capstone this sermon needed.
“I want to sing this last verse,” I said to nobody and everybody at the same time. And a voice from my right sounded right back, “Do it, preacher.” It was one of the black brothers of the congregation, a young gay man who makes his living as a jazz singer.
I took it as the sound of the Spirit and started right in:
Please help me, dear Jesus, through all of my days
to love you and trust you and follow your ways.
When life becomes hardship and nothing seems fair
Sustain me, dear Jesus. This is my prayer.
Little did I know how deep in my soul lay the inspiration of these words. Two days later, a contentious meeting of church leaders resulted in my resignation.
I have two more Sundays and a Christmas Eve service. We will sing all the manger lyrics, the old and the new, at the evening event. Maybe those words will touch the soul of some other stressed-out person and prepare them for some unknown struggle that emerges in the new year.
One thing that will not emerge in any year is me singing to conclude a sermon. Once is enough for me!
Dwight A. Moody
Last Sunday morning I did something I should not do. I concluded my sermon with a song. By which, I mean, I sang a song, a song I had written. It turned out to be a good news-bad news affair.
A singing preacher is common is some cultures, especially among the Black Baptists. I don’t know why this is the case and don’t have the energy to track it down. But I’ve been in their services and watched others online where this is the case.
Earlier this year, I watched the video of H. Beacher Hicks leading his congregation at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington DC in singing the old gospel song, “He Will Remember Me.” It brought to mind the mighty sermon he preached for us at the National Festival of Young Preachers a few years ago. It was mighty, in part, because he was preceded by Nathaniel Thompson, dread locks to his shoulders, singing “No More Auction Block for Me.” He was standing in the elevated pulpit, no socks on his shoed feet, in the sanctuary of Highland Park United Methodist Church of Dallas, home to the rich and famous. But I digress ….
The singing preacher, as I was saying, is common in some places but not in any place where I am the preacher. Until last week. I was overcome by the emotion of the moment: scripture, sermon, and the stresses of life and ministry. I will set aside the latter and describe the former: Isaiah 9, about a child being born and the government being on his shoulders. I preached:
That hope and promise found its way into my favorite Christmas hymn, in verse three:
“Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay
close by me forever and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in thy tender care
and fit us for heaven to live with thee there.”
We will sing this on Christmas Eve, I am sure. But it is missing a stanza or two. It skips quickly and easily from the sleeping baby in a manger to the sweet by and by in heaven. “Fit us for heaven to live with thee there.”
This spiritual two step, from infancy all cuddly and kind, straight to heaven all safe and sanitized. That is what we sing but not what we know to be true. It is what is in the hymn but not what is in our experience. It is our fantasy, but it is not the facts. It is our theology but not our text.
This child promised by Isaiah becomes a warrior and a king, a leader and a judge, a ruler and the one who breaks the rod of the oppressor. Verse 8 reads: “You will break the yoke of slavery and lift the heavy burden. You will break the oppressors rod…you will rule with justice and fairness…”
In other words, there is a lot that happens between that sweet little baby, lying in a manger, and that savior ascending into heaven on clouds of glory. We want to love the baby as the bearer of our hopes and dreams, but we are troubled by the man who, as we read last week in Isaiah, was despised and rejected and acquainted with grief and pierced for our sins and crushed for our iniquities.
So, I wrote two stanzas to fill in the gap between the infant lowly and the savior ascending.
How that happened was inspired by (are you surprised?) John Prine. He tells of an occasion early in his career, when he was singing each Thursday night at a small place in Chicago, The Fifth Peg. “I was on my way to sing for the fourth week and thought to myself, ‘Those same people are coming, and I better have some new material.’ So, riding in the car, I composed both the lyrics and the music to the [now famous] song, “Souvenirs.” I sang it for the first time in the rest room of the club before going on state.”
Last Sunday, while riding the 30 miles up the mountain from Travelers Rest SC to Hendersonville NC, I composed the lyrics to two new verses of “Away in a Manger.” I scribbled them down in a black notebook that was sitting in the rider’s seat. It was in such broken English that when time came, five minutes before our worship, to transfer them to clean paper I misprinted some words.
The end of the sermon rolled around, and I said:
My religion is not about how the baby in the manger gets us all into heaven. My religion is about how the baby in the manger breaks the rod of the oppressor, establishes fairness and justice, and brings good news to the poor… .I put my trust in the God who breaks the rod of the oppressor. I put my trust in Messiah who does justice, loves mercy, and walks with God. I put my trust in the child in the manger, whose calling it is to comfort the broken-hearted, release the captives, free the prisoners, and break the rod of the oppressor.
Somebody needs to write some new verses to that hymn.
That’s when I pushed aside my sermon notes and pulled out the scribble verses. I read the first verse as our musician played the familiar music,
Prepare yourself Jesus for what is to come:
for struggle, and failure, for life on the run.
Things are not easy for anyone here.
Walk with us, Jesus, this is our prayer.
That’s when what little common sense I possess and all the ministerial self-restraint that had accumulated over 55 years of gospel work took flight. I was left with three yards of pulpit emotion and the silly notion that something I could sing might just be the capstone this sermon needed.
“I want to sing this last verse,” I said to nobody and everybody at the same time. And a voice from my right sounded right back, “Do it, preacher.” It was one of the black brothers of the congregation, a young gay man who makes his living as a jazz singer.
I took it as the sound of the Spirit and started right in:
Please help me, dear Jesus, through all of my days
to love you and trust you and follow your ways.
When life becomes hardship and nothing seems fair
Sustain me, dear Jesus. This is my prayer.
Little did I know how deep in my soul lay the inspiration of these words. Two days later, a contentious meeting of church leaders resulted in my resignation.
I have two more Sundays and a Christmas Eve service. We will sing all the manger lyrics, the old and the new, at the evening event. Maybe those words will touch the soul of some other stressed-out person and prepare them for some unknown struggle that emerges in the new year.
One thing that will not emerge in any year is me singing to conclude a sermon. Once is enough for me!
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