Hello, friends!
This one is by request. Fair warning: it’s a straight-up sermon, it’s serious, and it’s twenty minutes long. As you know, I am the pastor of the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois; this is what I did in church last Sunday. My text was the Good Samaritan parable from the Gospel of Luke.
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I write a lot of music, and often, it’s humorous and irreverent. But one can’t be sassy all the time; that would just be annoying.
Today, I have something serious to share with you: some liturgical music I wrote and used in my church during Lent. It’s a processional, arranged for cantor and choir. (The choir part consists of three simple parts, so it’s undemanding—unless the choir also has to stomp and clap as they process!)
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The sheet music for “Come, O People” is available here, in our Free Stuff area.
Hello, friends! Today was Trinity Sunday at church, and I did my best with a sermon. Maybe I’ll share it with you, one of these days. I did my best to keep it light. But, damn: it’s still a pretty heavy topic, theologically speaking!
After that, I was in need of an antidote: a little silliness. And here it is: in honor of the forthcoming Democratic presidential debates, an advertisement a la Mary Poppins. Wanted: a president for fifty adorable states…
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I’ve spent most of my life immersed in a received Christian tradition that refers to God as male. It’s almost always “He cometh,” and “bless His name,” and “praise Him;” almost never “She cometh,” and “bless Her name,” and “praise Her.” Intellectually, I don’t want to think of God has having a specific gender. But under the weight of all that gendered language, it’s hard not to.
Here’s my own little contribution to address the imbalance: a song called “The Lady Loves Me.”
Do you have an ideal of what a “real man” should be like?
Popular culture seems very confused about this. Action films tend to have leading men who are vengeful and aggressive, quick with their fists and their guns. (There are a few exceptions, of course. God bless Dwayne Johnson!) Our national politics also seems to reward men who are aggressive, abusive, boastful, self-serving, and untruthful.
My father taught me something completely different about what real men are like.This song is dedicated to my father, who turns 85 today. Happy Birthday, Papa!
Update, 4/20/2019: I’ve been asked to post the lyrics to this song. Here they are:
by Adam Brooks Webber
So I said, Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a real man. And he said, Son, I know you can do it. Let me just give you a little advice.
Real men are kind and polite,
Not like in the movies on Saturday night,
Short-tempered and quick with a fist or gun.
That ain’t a man, my son.
Real men are quietly strong.
They’re never abusive. That’s totally wrong.
Bombastical bragging is way too weak.
Real men let action speak.
Real men are ready to work,
Not serving themselves. That just makes you a jerk.
They care for their families, their friends, their town,
Help you up when you’re down.
Real men are honest for sure,
Not fibbing or fudging. That’s so immature.
They may not say much, son, but when they do,
Every word is true.
Real men are kind and polite,
Daddy said as he tucked me in tight for the night.
Remember my words, son, and when you do
You’ll be a real man too.
This heartfelt prayer goes out to all my fellow pastors. Haven’t you sometimes wished your church had a better value proposition—something that was a bit easier to sell?
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It was so much easier in the old days, when we could just threaten ’em with hell. God, I miss the screaming ….
I’ve written a choral piece called “Viriditas,” and in this video I introduce it and sing a little sample while sitting in a cornfield. Viriditas was a favorite word of one of my favorite Christian mystics, Hildegard of Bingen. In Latin, it just means greenness, but for Hildegard it meant much more than that.
Sheet music for “Viriditas” is available in our Free Stuff area. If you get a group together and perform it, please let me know. Send me a video, and I’ll put it up here for all us Merry Mystics to enjoy.
Last week’s episode of The Merry Mystic was a Bible lesson—so today, it’s time for a little quiz. But don’t worry, it’s multiple choice! The quiz is written on the posters I made for last Saturday’s demonstration.
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I treasure the Bible—even though I don’t always agree with it—and it really gets under my skin when people misuse it, as Jeff Sessions and Sarah Sanders have been doing recently. The Bible has quite a lot to say about how we are supposed to treat aliens and strangers. And—spoiler alert!—it isn’t exactly the way our current administration is treating those poor souls fleeing to our country from the south…
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It’s a rainy day in my home town—green and soft—so I’m thinking of Ireland, and of St. Patrick.
In the year 400, the Roman empire stretched all the way to the west coast of Britain. Somewhere near the Severn estuary on that coast, a boy named Patricius lived with his family. He was the son of a curialis, a tax-collector, which made him fairly well off—likely to get an education and to inherit some land, and his father’s tax district as well.
But the Empire was struggling, and the Roman garrisons were being drawn down to deal with unrest away east, which made the west coast easy prey for raiders from Ireland. One night in the year 401, just before dawn, a fleet of black coracles brought raiders to Patricius’ town. The town was looted and burned, and Patricius was captured, bound, and thrown into the bottom of a boat. He didn’t see what happened to his family.
The slave-takers brought Patricius across the Irish sea to Ireland, a land beyond the edge of the known world, where the customs and language were strange and where Christianity and the Roman empire had scarcely penetrated. There he was sold in a slave market.
His master set him to work as a shepherd-slave. With little food or clothing and with no human company, he spent days and nights alone in the hills, tending the sheep belonging to his master. He wrote later that he was chastened and humbled in his new life by daily hunger and nakedness.
I picture the boy Patricius waking before daybreak, cold and naked, surrounded by fears. I picture him renewing his courage with prayer. There’s an old type of prayer called a lorica. The word originally meant a piece of armor, a Roman soldier’s breastplate, but a lorica prayer is a prayer invoking God’s protection, figuratively armoring yourself with the love of God. And there’s an ancient lorica that tradition says was written by Patricius himself: the Breastplate of St. Patrick.
It has been set to music many times. I’m singing my own version of it today.
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P.S. If you haven’t tried my serialized fantasy romance, The Pastor and the Priestess, you can check it out here. It’s fun, and it’s free. I’m releasing one installment every week. (We’re up to Chapter Five: “Not Naked”!)