Today’s post is written by Chad Fothergill. Chad serves as cantor to the Lutheran Summer Music community, is editor of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians journal CrossAccent, and is author of Sing with All the People of God: A Handbook for Church Musicians.

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav’n.
No ear may hear his coming; but, in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.
(ELW 279, st. 3)

Throughout the past several weeks, posts about Advent and Christmas planning have begun to appear on social media forums for worship leaders. Like conversations about Holy Week and Easter during the pandemic’s onset, these prompts and discussions ask important questions: What will these seasons look or sound like this year? How will liturgical practices and local customs adapt to essential measures—masking, distancing, abstention from singing, and more—that slow the spread of a deadly respiratory virus, the long-term effects of which still remain unknown?

As a cantor, I’ve read such conversations with a mixture of interest and exasperation. There is much creativity in our midst, and many are faithfully planning with appropriate responsibility and care.

And yet, some appear reluctant to abstain from practices that, for the sake of our neighbors’ wellbeing, need to be shelved for a season. As my spouse, a physician, recently wrote, it is imperative that we distinguish between “wants” and “needs” during these uncertain times. A wise colleague keenly observed that many persist in attempting “to continue producing the same products at the same rate on the same scale, despite their drastically changed contexts and circumstances.” Although treasured rituals may provide solace and comfort, perhaps especially at Christmas, attempts to preserve or project “normalcy” are, at this time, fraught with peril—not only physical dangers from the virus, but distractions from the church’s mission to serve a world in need. For many communities, such “normalcy” continues to perpetuate poverty, unequal access to health care, and unjust treatment before the law. Wringing our hands over aesthetic choices risks ignoring those deprived of basic choices.

As we have learned these past months, the pandemic compels us to rethink patterns and assumptions, the abundance and amenities that we take for granted. We have heard stories of care and empathy alongside episodes of selfishness and greed. Though tragic, the pandemic invites us to think more carefully and intentionally about Christmas, to peel away crusty accumulations of nostalgia so that we might find deeper meaning in the temporary absence of brassy spectacle or candlelit ritual.

The first Christmas was a small gathering and probably not so quaint, especially when one imagines the realities of birthing an infant in a lowly stable (ELW 269). An angel choir announced the news not to wealthy elites, but to poor shepherds in their fields. The birth of Jesus was politically significant for people awaiting fulfillment of God’s promise after centuries of imperial abuse. As two noted scholars have summarized, most of those empires “behaved as empires do, with their attendant oppression, injustice, and violence.” According to Matthew’s gospel, news of Jesus’s birth ultimately sent the despotic Herod into a murderous fit of rage; his fragile, paranoid ego and naked thirst for power led to widespread death and destruction.

Advent and Christmas invite us, like Mary and Elizabeth, to ponder mystery (ELW 258), to embrace the plain and understated, and expect God to turn the world around (ELW 723). Christmas is not contingent on our lighting candles while beloved carols are hummed or sung by a soloist. Christmas is not contingent on seasonal cantatas or choral music, even small-scale works for a few voices. Perhaps it will suffice to let the angels in Luke’s gospel serve as your choir this year? Christmas is not contingent on the sentiment or nostalgia evoked by the sights, sounds, and trappings that seek to package, market, and commercialize it.

We don’t always need to reenact Jesus’s birth with a pageant, but we often need to refresh our understanding of incarnation, covenant, gift, hospitality, humility, and other keywords of the Christmas story. How does your community attend to those who have no room at the inn? Assist those for whom silent nights are impossible because of unemployment, food insecurity, or domestic violence? Care for neglected children? Comfort those whose nights are too silent during times of grief and loss?

And yes, we need assembly encouragement for these things—to hear powerful Advent prophecies proclaimed in our midst, to sing the Magnificat, to pray. I, too, yearn for the return of physically gathered assemblies that breathe and sing together. And I realize the importance of Christmas liturgies (or any liturgy) for those enduring separation, isolation, or grief. Technology has facilitated powerful preaching and proclamation, praying, and music making during these months—neither are those to be discounted!

But, in this time and place, I think there are more pressing concerns than how to light candles while physically distanced or schedule services like a liturgical version of Ticketmaster. Could funds for battery-operated candles be instead diverted to a local shelter or food bank? Instead of worrying about streaming licenses for the King’s College version of that favorite carol, could we devote time to teaching its stanzas and melody so that families can sing at home, even play just the melody on an instrument? Can you help provide access to hymnals—even if borrowed from the church—to facilitate singing at home?

Like the paschal cycle—Lent, Holy Week, and the fifty days of Eastertide—there are many ways to bring rituals of the incarnation cycle—Advent, Nativity, time after Epiphany—into the home: Advent wreaths and evergreen adornments, Advent calendars with a word or song for each day, trimming and blessing a tree for the twelve days of Christmastide, baking together, and blessing the home on Epiphany with a marking over the main door (20 C+ M+ B+ 21). Many of these and more are described in resources such as Sundays and Seasons, as well as in Gertrud Mueller Nelson’s wonderful book To Dance with God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration. Many congregations are exploring how to deliver items to their worshiping community for use in the home; such gift boxes serve as tangible reminders that we are still connected as the body of Christ. Consider sending an Advent devotional or family activity cards. The Taking Faith Home resource from Milestone Ministries offers additional ways families can connect the Sunday lectionary texts to our life together. If households do not have access to a hymnal, these could be loaned or purchased. Candles or materials for simple craft activities could also be included.

During these months, silent and empty sanctuaries have reminded us that the church is not confined to buildings. Before us is an invitation to do more teaching, to set aside the what and how of liturgical logistics and focus instead on the why of it all. While worship planning requires careful attention to a variety of contexts, may we also direct our thinking toward these larger concerns and to our neighbors, and be open to the blessings, challenges, and lessons that follow.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Artwork by Laura James. Nativity, 1996 (c) Laura James. Used with permission. laurajamesart.com

Scripture invites us, creatures of God, to join the whole creation in singing. Psalm 96 calls us to “Sing a new song… all the earth.” Our songs join the trees of the wood, the thundering seas, and the joyful fields.

As we approach the October 4th commemoration of St. Francis of Assisi, worshipping communities may be considering how best to focus on creation care in worship and in daily life. Although we often highlight ecological concerns on specific days and seasons, raising our voices with and behalf of creation is best an on-going practice.

Several hymns and songs in All Creation Sings call forth our praise for the wonders of the natural world. Yet creation also cries out in lament (Romans 8:22-23). Hymn writer Jeannette Lindholm has written the hymn “Before the Waters Nourished Earth.” Included in the Lament section of ACS, its creation imagery abounds.

Before the waters nourished earth or night imagined morning,
a Love conceived the universe and reveled in its forming.

This Love remained as time revealed the loss of Eden’s glory
and, grieving, holds in memory each tragic human story.

Lindholm wrote this text for a memorial service of a friend who had died by suicide. At this friend’s funeral, Psalm 23 was read. Lindholm chose the tune ST.COLUMBA to pair with her new hymn with the hope it would call to mind “The King of Love, My Shepherd Is.” Perhaps singing that tune suggests the verdant pastures and still waters of Psalm 23. Indeed, the universe formed is one of beauty even amid tragic loss. This is the universe that holy Love conceived and in which Wisdom delights. (Proverbs 8:22-31)

Yet as this hymn’s origin and its words convey, we grieve. Waters dry up. Pastures flood. Fires decimate forests. Our delight turns to horror as we witness the catastrophic effects of climate change, especially in places around the world too easily forgotten or neglected. And as creatures, we grieve for ourselves and those we love, especially when death comes too soon. Holy Love, though, holds every story, even the ones we skim over or want or omit entirely.

Despair, so deep it bears no name, or sorrows paralyzing
cannot revoke Love’s faithful claim to dwell within our dying.

When hearing the groans of creation, we too readily tune out. Sorrows can keep us stuck in patterns of injustice; climbing death tolls from a pandemic become numbers on a page or screen. It is all too much. And yet: there is nowhere we can go where God does not dwell. (Psalm 139)

The final stanza of this hymn expresses hope amid another grief: our inability to join creation’s song as a full body of singers, gathered in community, delighting in one another’s presence.

The Love that called creation good all goodness still is bringing.
This Love turns death again to life and silence into singing.

The hopeful, soaring quality of ST. COLUMBA renews our faith that silence will not be the end. The friend of the hymn writer who inspired this hymn’s creation was a choral director and singer and Lindholm had her beautiful singing voice in mind as she wrote this final stanza.

As promised in Revelation, at the end all creatures will gather in song. Our songs of lament tell the truth of the despair and destruction within and without. We need to voice such lament to God in prayer and song. Yet we pray that as God promised, Holy Love dwelling within and among us will do a new thing. That new songs will spring forth. May it be so.

Before the Waters Nourished Earth
Text: Jeannette M. Lindholm, b. 1961
Music: Irish Melody
Text © 1996 Jeannette M. Lindholm,  admin. Augsburg Fortress.
Permission required for further use by contacting Augsburg Fortress or One License 

Storm and Stillness, Breath and Dove,
Thunder, Tempest, Whirlwind, Fire,
Comfort, Couns’lor, Presence, Love,
Energies that never tire:

May the church at prayer recall that no single holy name
but the truth behind them all is the God whom we proclaim[1]

Our scriptures —and the liturgies, prayers, and songs informed by the scriptures—offer us abundant images for God. This abundance matters, especially as the church seeks to broaden its use of expansive and inclusive language. How do the ways we speak and sing about God reflect the abundant life God intends for God’s children and for all creation?

One year ago, this month, the fifteenth ELCA Churchwide Assembly adopted the social statement, Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Call to Action. In calling for new commitments and actions as a church, the statement notes in article 27:

This church is committed to the deepest Christian understanding of the Trinity revealed through Jesus Christ and to the importance of imagining and speaking about God in faithful ways that expand rather than limit the expression of God’s self-revelation and mystery…Employing inclusive and expansive language for and images of God helps human beings approach and encounter the God of beauty and love who reveals God’s self to humanity in rich and mysterious ways.

To assist the church in accessing an expansive treasury of imagery, All Creation Sings, the forthcoming liturgy and song supplement to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, will include the informational appendix, “Scriptural Images for God.” The book’s introduction to this list of images describes its contents:

This selection of one hundred images from the New Revised Standard Version Bible testifies to the plethora of biblical images available for addressing the triune God. Thanks to this wealth of biblical imagery, we can complement those beloved images that we know well with the wide range of other images found in sacred scripture, thus enriching the language of our prayer and praise.

This list of images begins with the heading, “In the scriptures, God is imaged…” The list of one hundred images follows, each one paired with a biblical source. The word “image” refers not to a picture, but to the word “pictures” that are possible through metaphor, symbolic language that points beyond itself to a greater truth or reality. For example, “vine: I am the true vine (John 15:1).” Complementing the “Scripture and Worship” entry in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (pp. 1154–1159), this appendix in will be a helpful resource for preachers, prayer writers, and all who are looking for the biblical sources for worship language.

The hymn stanza quoted above is one of many hymns and songs in All Creation Sings that draws upon metaphors listed in “Scriptural Images for God.” Even with such a treasury of language, words will never be enough; they will fail to express the mystery of the divine power we call Trinity. Our shouts for joy or our sighs too deep for words must suffice at times. Yet our words form our faith and shape who we believe God to be in relationship with the world God so loves. The songs and prayers we teach our children will remain with them for a lifetime. As Principles for Worship reminds us,

Language used in worship has power to form and shape believers, sending us from the assembly to live as merciful and just people who serve the mission of God in this world. (Principles for Worship, Application L-4C)

In providing this new appendix as well as a diversity of images in song and prayer, it is our hope that treasured language —both old and new—will enrich and shape our worshipping communities in praise of God and in love of neighbor.

[1] “Source and Sovereign, Rock and Cloud.” (Stanza 3) Text: Thomas Troeger © 1986 Oxford University Press.

When we gather for worship, we gather to be sent. Our baptism into Christ sends us into the world. During the pandemic this sending has taken on a different character. In a time when we are advised to stay home for the sake of our neighbor, what does being sent look like? How can we best go forth in peace and serve the Lord, share the good news, and remember the poor?

One need that surfaced as part of the development process of All Creation Sings was a desire for more hymns and songs connected to the Sending. One way that All Creation Sings responds to this need is by including nine Sending hymns of different genres (this does not include several other hymns and songs placed under other topic headings that would serve well as sending hymns).

Often the titles of hymns associated with our being sent from worship feature words like “go” or “send.” One hymn that will appear under the Sending topic heading in All Creation sings is “Let Us Enter In” by Ray Makeever. Despite what a first glance at its title might suggest, this is not an editor’s mistake. This song was composed by Makeever as part of a liturgy, With All Your Heart, that he wrote for Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis in 1984. In that liturgy, this piece functioned as the post-communion canticle. Here’s the first stanza:

Let us enter in to the song of thanksgiving and freedom.
Let us enter in to the long line of people in need.
Let us enter in to the strong mind that God is still living.
Healing, forgiving–Let us enter in.

Notice that our entering in does not describe an entrance into a building for worship but to our callings in other places. Makeever noted in his introduction to this setting that its contents reflect his concern for personal and social justice as well as in the congregation “where we struggle with the hardships of life, we seek the encouragement of one another, we hold fast to the hope of God in Christ Jesus, and we celebrate the breakthroughs as they happen” (Introduction to With All Your Heart, p. 5). The rhythmic and melodic accents of this piece lead to the word “in” and the repetition of the opening phrase at the end of each stanza solidifies that we are indeed to enter boldly into the world. You can listen to a recording of Bread for the Journey singing this song at the end of this post.

We may not be able to enter our church buildings right now. We may not be able to carry out our sending-oriented ministries in the same way. Yet as Bishop Eaton has reminded us on many occasions, the church has never closed. We as God’s people are still entering into the lives of those in need: in prayer, in serving those most affected by this pandemic, in protests for racial justice, in providing food and other necessities. We are entering into difficult conversations, entering into the grief and loss of our neighbors. Yet God goes before us and the Spirit leads us.

Let us enter in to the place where our God has preceded.
Let us enter in to the face of the fear and the pain.
Let us enter in to the grace of the love when it’s needed.
Death is defeated! Let us enter in.

Let us enter in to the heart of a world that is broken.
Let us enter in to the start of a hope we can share.
Let us enter in to the part where we call one another
sister and brother. Let us enter in.

We look forward to that time when our singing together in person forms and shapes us for our mission in the world. In the meantime, may the words of our songs, both familiar and new, bless us for our comings and goings, our gatherings and sendings.

A list of the contents of All Creation Sings as well as a digital preview can be found at https://www.augsburgfortress.org/promos/all-creation-sings/.

Let Us Enter In Recording by Bread for the Journey

Let Us Enter In
Text: Ray Makeever, b. 1943
Music: Ray Makeever
Text and music © 1983 Ray Makeever, admin. Augsburg Fortress.
Permission required for further use by contacting Augsburg Fortress or One License

A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?” (Isaiah 40:6)

There are times when words fail us, when we search for what to say but crying out or sighing must suffice.

Yet there are also times we can turn to crafted words we have come to know through scripture and the church’s liturgy: “We confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” “Have mercy on us.” “O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending…”

We pray in all times and circumstances but the specific words we use evolve over time. These changes reflect the needs of the church that is always “beset by change, but Spirit-led” (ELW 729). The forthcoming worship resource, All Creation Sings, includes a section of “Prayers, Thanksgivings, and Laments.” These prayers for assembly and devotional use address a number of topics and circumstances for our time. These include the health of our planetary home, but also the health of our relationships in church, family and society. Page ten of the preview for All Creation Sings provides a brief outline of the topics addressed.

In several instances the prayers may be contextualized by adding a name, country, or situation. When we need the words in a given moment, such prayers give us a beginning point from which we make the prayer speak to a particular time or situation.

Many of you know that the ELCA’s publishing ministry, 1517 Media, is located in Minneapolis. As employees gathered online to pray after the murder of George Floyd, the following prayers from All Creation Sings gave us words for this moment.

Rise up and come to our help, merciful God, for we are in need. Our spirits are weighed down with fear; our bodies feel as fragile as the dust from which we came. All that we have trusted seems hidden from sight. Although this moment has come upon our nation/city, you have not forgotten us. We do not trust in our own power or strength, but in your steadfast love in every generation. Show us your face in this time of trial, remind us of your faithfulness, and save us for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, your own mother looked on when your life ended in violence. Our hearts are pierced with grief and anger at the death of (George Floyd). We commend him to your wounded hands, and his loved ones to your merciful heart, trusting only in the promise that your love is stronger than death, and that even now, you live and reign forever and ever. Amen.

Our prayer, in and with all creation, includes such words and melodies of lament, of indignation, of pleading, and ultimately of hope in God’s presence and mercy. In the months and years ahead, we hope the prayers included in this new resource will give the church needed words for the moments when we ask, “What shall we cry?”

When we must bear persistent pain
and suffer with no cure in sight,
come, Holy Presence, breathe your peace
with gifts of warmth and healing light.

These words by Ruth Duck are the opening stanza to “When We Must Bear Persistent Pain,” a hymn that will be included as one of two hundred hymns and songs in the forthcoming worship resource, All Creation Sings. As this resource was developed the themes of “lament” and “healing” were identified as topics needing additional assembly song. Such songs are needed in every time but now as we are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, the need is ever more pressing.

Some of the hymns in All Creation Sings that have been written more recently take on new meaning as we sing alone in our homes or via digital means. Adam Tice profoundly expresses the depth of our suffering at this moment in “Sometimes Our Only Song Is Weeping.”

Sometimes our only song is weeping; our only sound is gasping breath.
Sometimes it seems that God is sleeping while our brief lives are bound in death.
Who hears the song our sorrows swallow and offers hope to calm our fears?
When all our words seem frail and hollow, God heeds the prayers within our tears.

We know as people of God that such suffering has been encountered and sung about in the Psalms and in the hymns of every generation. Consider the sixteenth-century hymn “In the Midst of Earthly Life” penned by Martin Luther and in a new translation by Susan Palo Cherwien.

In the midst of earthly life fear and death beset us;
who attends and hears our cry, who does not forget us?
You only, God, you only.
In you our forebears put their trust, hoped in you and were not crushed.
Holy and righteous God! Holy and mighty God!
Holy and all merciful Savior! Everlasting God!
Though death would torment us, let us not sink in the dust.
Lord, have mercy.

In every time and place God’s people plead for mercy yet trust in the promise that God will never forsake us. Sometimes we address God in lengthy poems; sometimes we use short refrains that reassure. “Don’t be afraid, my love is stronger, my love is stronger than your fear,” sings a refrain by John Bell, echoing the biblical assurance to not be afraid. In Richard Smallwood’s song “Total Praise,” such praise arises not when all is seemingly well but “in time of the storm … [God is the] source of my strength.”

You may be deeply lamenting the loss of singing together in these days while still clinging to the promises expressed in the songs you’ve treasured. When we do come back together, perhaps these new hymns and songs will join those you’ve always known in expressing the sorrow of these days but also the hope in Christ that sustains us.

May these words by Shirley Erena Murray inspire such hope:

Let my spirit always sing,
though my heart be wintering,
though the season of despair
give no sign that you are there,
God to whom my days belong,
let there always be a song.

“When We Must Bear Persistent Pain” by Ruth Duck © 2005 GIA Publications, Inc. “Sometimes Our Only Song Is Weeping” by Adam M. L. Tice © 2015 GIA Publications, Inc. “In the Midst of Earthly Life” © 2005 Susan Palo Cherwien, admin. Augsburg Fortress. “Let My Spirit Always Sing” by Shirley Erena Murray © 1996 Hope Publishing Company.