January 16, 2025

2nd Sunday After Epiphany

Christmas has officially past, and we are moving into eight weeks of Ordinary Time, so called because it is “Ordinal” or “Counted” time in the Liturgical Year. On this Second Sunday after Epiphany in 2025, foremost in many of our minds will be the Presidential Inauguration the next day.

That fact has certainly affected our choice of hymns and our Opening Voluntary. The Choir will open our Worship with a hymn text written by our ninth President, John Quincy Adams. It has been set to several hymn tunes which were all unfamiliar to me or too challenging to sing, so I texted it to the tune Saint Flavian. The text is Adams’ paraphrase of Psalm 43 and part of a manuscript he placed in his pastor’s hand in 1841 which contained a complete metrical version of the Psalms and some hymns. It seemed particularly poignant and appropriate to sing at this time in our country:

Send forth, O God, Thy light and truth, and let them lead me still,
Undaunted, in the paths of right, up to Thy holy hill.
Then to Thy altar will I spring, and in my God rejoice;
And praise shall tune the trembling string, and gratitude my voice.
O why, my soul, art thou cast down? Within me why distressed?
Thy hopes the God of grace shall crown; and yet shall make thee blessed.
To God, my never-failing Friend, I bow, and kiss the rod;
To Him shall thanks and praise ascend, My Savior and my God.

It makes me long for an incoming President that possessed such a love for the wisdom of Scripture!

Our own Upendo Choir will bless us with a Choral Prelude and Offertory this Sunday, singing “Mimi Na Nyamba Yangu Nitamwumbia Bwana’ (I and My Spouse Will Sing to the Lord), and “Nitamwambia Bwana Kwa Kuwa Yeye Ameniona” (I Will Sing to the Lord Because He Has Blessed Me). It is always a blessing to experience their Spirit-filled and energetic praising!

At Communion, our Chancel Choir will sing Harold Friedell’s best-known hymn/anthem Draw Us In the Spirit’s Tether, written in 1957 during his professorship at Union Theological Seminary, and sung during every gathering of their students and alumni since it was written. The text from 1931 by Percy Dearmer is one of my favorites, with its reference to the Mark 5 story of the woman who touched fringe of Christ’s robe and was healed. The last verse of the hymn is a profound message for our everyday lives:

All our meals and all our living
Make as sacraments of you,
That by caring, helping, giving,
We may be disciples true.
Alleluya! Alleluya!
We will serve with faith anew.

Our closing hymn A Place at the Table continues the theme of being true disciples in Shirley Erena Murray’s stunning social justice text, culminating in the chorus “God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy”. I pray that our worship here at Grace always helps to prepare, inspire, and energize us to continue Christ’s work on this earth.

With a grateful heart,
Kenton