From Mary Huff & Andrew Henderson 

We’ve had several requests for the text of our Hymn Sing on Sunday. I’ve included it here with the additional hymn that we did not sing, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, as our vote counters were so efficient! Enjoy!

Nearly 35 years ago, on October 1, 1989, a similar gathering was held here at MAPC to sing hymns, though instead of gathering to call our 6th pastor, it was to celebrate the retirement of MAPC’s 3rd pastor, Rev. Dr. David H.C. Read. We were closing one chapter and looking to the next chapter. David (and please excuse my familiarity with names if you prefer a different one for him), but I am certain that David would undoubtedly be tickled to have an accomplished, fellow University of Edinburgh scholar preaching in this pulpit today, sit in his office on the 7th floor, and serve among us.

For that hymn sing in October, David relayed stories of his favorite hymns to the congregation. Many of you may remember that day that the congregation, under the leadership of Dr. John Weaver and our choir, sang the hymns lustily, as the great John Wesley directed “Sing hymns lustily and with good courage”.

 Thanks to Anne Connor, who shared her recording of that day, Andrew and I enjoyed listening. I’ll relay a few stories and tell a few new ones, too.

David Reade’s mom was a music teacher, but according to him and based on my observations of hearing him sing on recordings, David’s mother never managed to teach him to be an accomplished singer. She did teach him to love hymn singing and to be musically enthusiastic. I encourage you to sing enthusiastically, or sing well, or even try both.

MORNING HAS BROKEN – Hymn 469

David said that he thought his mother would have loved Morning Has Broken, with its Gaelic lilt. David loved the hymn, too. Speaking to the able chair of our Pastor Nominating Committee the other day, Stephanie Nichols Ford related to me that one Sunday morning at MAPC, David forgot his glasses, which I understand happened regularly. Realizing the sermon was coming up and his had no glasses, when the hymn began, David leaned over to Associate Pastor Chuck Amstein and SANG, “I’ve lost my glasses! Go up and get them….”

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David loved Be Thou My Vision best of all hymns, and when Andrew Henderson and I took a poll of the favorite hymn of this congregation several years ago, Be Thou My Vision was the clear winner, too. But, did you know that when Aaron and Laurel Janklow were married several years ago, the hymn at their wedding was also Be Thou My Vision? Great minds? Yes, indeed.

BE THOU MY VISION – Hymn 339

In 1989, David said, when he turned to the page in our former hymnal, “This book says ‘Slowly and with dignity’ but that is just nonsense. It goes with a real sort of lilt to it, so that’s the way we’re going to sing it.” He also directed that we all sing Stanza 1, All. Stanza 2, low voices. Stanza 3, upper voices.

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Now, I’m going to go off topic here for a moment. Finding out what David’s favorite hymn was, and then finding out that same hymn was the hymn chosen for Laurel and Aaron’s wedding, I wondered, “what were our other senior pastors favorite hymns?” So, I asked Andrew, “What is Fred’s favorite hymn?” Andrew said, “I’m not absolutely sure, but if I had to guess, I would say The Church’s One Foundation OR When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. It’s not often that Andrew doesn’t know or remember these details exactly, so I called Fred to ask. He said, “That’s easy, The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ, Our Lord.” Per usual, Andrew was right.

THE CHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION – Hymn 442

For our 4th Senior Pastor’s favorite hymn, we’ll sing my favorite verses, Verse 1 and Verse 4. Andrew, might I request that you really let it go in on verse 4, and animate the powerful text with the power of the instrument?

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Now, because I’ve put Andrew on the spot and may have poked the bear, let’s remind him now of our wedding. We cared about two things when it came to our wedding. The first was, at the end of the day, that we were married to each other. And the second was the music. We spent months putting off the planning and then another few months disagreeing about nearly all the music. We never agreed on the procession out, so we just had to have our friend, Paul Halley, improvise. However, we did not disagree about the hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, one of our favorites. Interestingly, Love Divine was also our 5th Senior Pastor’s favorite hymn.

We’re going to sing all four verses, but we are going to do what I like to call “a John Weaver special”, and we’ll sing the outside verses, verses 1 and 4, to Hyfrydol, and we’ll sing the two interior verses to Abbot’s Leigh, the tune we could both agree upon for our wedding.

LOVE DIVINE, ALL LOVES EXCELLING – Hymn 376

Both tunes are monumental hymn tunes, and I think they both “deserve a place in the choir”, as the old saying goes. I’ll be interested to see which tune you like best.

In conclusion, I’d like to point out how important it is that we sing. MAPC has long been a singing congregation. We sang on that day in 1989 closing one chapter, and we sing today, embarking on a new one. We are part of a long tradition of the singing church, and the words and melodies bind us with the past and will remember us to our siblings in Christ in the generations to come. The Apostle Paul commanded God’s people: “You sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.”

When I Andrew and I teach the MAPC confirmands each year, we discuss the importance of singing the psalms each week in church as we can be sure that Jesus did likewise. So, thank you for singing, today and always. And, another 35 years AND next week, we’ll be together here singing again.