THANKS-SINGING

(A monthly post on a hymn of the faith.)

Something deep inside me is stirred whenever I open a hymnal and sing—in my heart or aloud—the hymns of its “Thanksgiving” section. Some of them five centuries old, they remain timeless in telling the bigger story of being thankful. One bigger than the annual “turkey feast” day we have in our times.

Take this one by an unknown Dutch patriot, which celebrated the freedom of the Netherlands from a century of Spanish domination. It found its way to a collection of Dutch songs in 1626.

We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;

He chastens and hastens His will to make known;

The wicked oppressing, now cease from distressing,

Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

More wartime—and unimaginable human suffering--birthed another. Europe groaned under a Thirty-Year War (1618-1648), during whose latter years a German lad, Martin Rinkart, was called to be a pastor in Eilenberg, Germany. The walled town turned out to be a city of refuge amid terrible bloodshed and plague. He would spend the last 32 years of his life ministering to the sick and suffering. And he would write the hymn that begins:

Now thank we all our God/With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done, In whom His world rejoices;

Who, from our mothers' arms, Hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.

Matthias Claudius (1740-1815) had a warm-cold-hot spiritual experience. A Lutheran pastor's son, he studied for the ministry but rationalistic influences extinguished his youthful faith. Then in his late thirties, a serious illness drove him back to devotion to God. About that time he wrote a 17-stanza poem titled “Peasant's Song,” inspired by a harvest festival in Northern Germany. Shortened, it became popular throughout the country. An English translator provided the lyrics that start, “We plow the fields and scatter,/The good seed on the land,/But it is fed and watered/By God's almighty hand.” The song shifts to gratitude with this verse:

We thank thee, then, O Father,/For all things bright and good,

The seedtime and the harvest,/Our life, our health, our food;

No gifts have we to offer,/For all Thy love imparts,

But that which Thou desirest,/Our humble, thankful hearts.

Born about the time Claudius died, Henry Alford (1820-1871) in 1844 offered this Thanksgiving hymn:

Come, ye thankful people, come,/Raise the song of harvest home;

All is safely gathered in,/Ere the winter storms begin;

God, our Maker, doth provide/For our wants to be supplied:

Come to God's own temple, come,/Raise the song of harvest home.

While the first verse celebrates the harvest, the next three refer to the final harvest of God's people. This is the final verse:

Even so, Lord, quickly come/to Thy final harvest home;

Gather Thou thy people in,/Free from sorrow, free from sin;

There, forever purified,/In thy presence to abide:

Come, with all Thine Angels, come,/Raise the glorious harvest home. Amen.

I'm aware that some folks consider classic hymns antiquated and useless. I dare to disagree. They're full of theology and bursting with awe and humility, conveying worthy thanks to the God who sustains us.

A choir and beautiful scenery celebrate Alford's harvest hymn in this You-Tube:

ComeYe Thankful People Come - Henry Alford - HD - Bing video

The one that follows is also worth singing-along-with.

BANNER

 My husband likes to glean fruit (to have and to share) after workers have gone through an orchard. He always calls the owner or field man ahead for permission. And that's what happened one early fall day when he told me, “The apples are calling my name.” As a shortie, I'm not much of an apple picker, so I rode along for the outing (a break that we all need in these Covid times) planning to wait in the truck. As I looked out the truck's window down the row of trees, these words came to mind:

His banner over me is love. (Song of Solomon 2:4)

Backstory: The king (presumably Solomon) had found a beautiful commoner whom he wanted to marry. Let's say the hormones bubbled! Don't worry, I won't get into all the veiled (and R-rated) “love” metaphors in this book about human love. But because it's also an analogy of God's extravagant love for me (us), it has phrases worth thinking about it. This is one.

Commentators have a lot of ideas of how to explain the symbolism of this book. Here's what I've decided. Brought to the palace, she felt out of place among all the beauty and finery there. But he tried to assure her that this was to be her rightful place. As he took her to the banquet hall (where all the extravagant celebrations were held), she felt unworthy. But quickly she realized that her connection to him—that he had chosen her—gave her the right to be there. “The banner” could have been the canopy over his throne or as the accepting gesture of his arm over her shoulders. It has a double meaning of the canopy commonly held over a bride and groom in a Jewish wedding.

But Solomon's “song” doesn't stand alone. Jesus said His bride would be the church. He covers us with His amazing love. He pulls out the chair for us to sit at His banquet table. Who'd scoot the chair away from the Master's table and run for the nearest exit? Yet people do.

Back to the apple orchard. As late afternoon came, darkening the shade of the tree canopy, it was harder to see to the end of the row. But the banner of limbs and leaves did not obscure the destination. Along that path there was still work to do—at least for my husband who spotted and plucked the left-behind apples.

Jesus said the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few (Matthew 9:37). We don't have to go to a foreign mission field to locate a harvest. It's all around us, even in places where it seems the harvest for souls is done. It's not. Wounded, broken people abound, still needing to experience His banner of love.

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Perhaps in reading this you're remembering a children's Sunday school song that uses hand motions. Children may not understand the depth of the words they sing, but in time their faith can mature--like those apples on the tree. Here's one based on the Song of Solomon passage:

his banner over me is love - Bing

RIPE

This is the time of year when zucchini grow to the size of footballs and tomatoes engage in population explosions. We don’t grow zucchini. (I got zucchini-ed out in childhood by my frugal mother’s zucchini creations.) However, my husband has a favorite sunny spot by the garage for his yearly “farm” of tomatoes. By September they shout “pick me, pick me!”  We try to share, but find ourselves gifted by other tomato-growers whose plants went into overdrive and don’t realize we have our own stash.

I’ve been reading John 15 in different translations in preparation for a speaking opportunity in October. It’s about grape vines, of course, but in some ways the truths fit tomatoes, especially if we were real savvy tomato-vine-keepers. These three words seem to summarize the passage:

PRUNED: Our heavenly Father is the vine dresser.  He knows what to snip off so that more nourishment goes into the fruit-producing branches. If there’s a sucker vine, off it goes.  Have to admit grapes and tomatoes differ here. Tomatoes need “cages” or supports. Lesson: life’s unpleasant experiences can leave us better or bitter. “Better” if we see them as God’s pruning wisdom. “Bitter” if we think God doesn’t have our best interests in mind when hard, “life-pruning” things happen.

NOURISHED:  The passage talks about “remaining” in the vine. Staying attached to the main vine is the only way the auxiliary vines can get the nourishment to grow grapes. When we go off and do our thing, goodbye healthy fruit. Without a “cage” to support its wimpy branches, the tomato would similarly have problems, flopping all over with the fruit in contact with the ground where they’d be most likely to decay (or feed the local mice and rats). When I “lift up” my Bible off the table by my rocker to read it, or “lift up” my prayer concerns to Him, I am nourished and encouraged.

FRUITFUL: Finally comes harvest, and off come the grapes.  And what’s their purpose? To nourish! To provide fruit that will last (v. 16).  Jesus said, “This is my command: Love each other” (v. 17). Let’s hear it for tomatoes in salads, as sauces, and as lumps of red goodness in kabobs or cooked dishes. Oh yes, tomato juice, if you want to recruit a blender. God is not limited by what He can accomplish through our personalities and abilities. He never intended for us to sit on a platter and be admired at length!

Maybe I’ve been a bit light-hearted about our bumper crop of tomatoes. I remember that when Jesus taught, He used simple object lessons. Many of His listeners were farmers or had a small garden for their family. You don’t leave a crop (or a garden) to itself. It needs care, or you’ll just have what Proverbs described of Mr. Sluggard’s farm: full of thorns and weeds, and its stone wall in ruins (Proverbs 24:30-34).

I wonder if Mr. Sluggard intended to grow tomatoes.  Or zucchini....  

Harvest of righteousness

 
Rolling wheat fields mark much of the land alongside the highway we take to visit our daughter. As we drove past harvesters in action recently, I noticed the conditions of fields. Some had green weeds poking up through the grain.  Others were free of intruders. I remember hearing of how my late Uncle Pete, a drylands farmer in eastern Montana some sixty years ago, took pride in crops that were weed-free, meaning a lot of hands-on work to pluck out the intruders.
 

As I admired the undulating golden hills, I thought of the Bible’s many references to harvest, particularly James 3.  Throughout this letter, James urges believers to make sure their walk matches their talk.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
James said the believer’s walk should have no room for the “weeds” of envy or selfish ambition, which feed into disorder and “every evil practice” (v. 17). Here’s what a believer’s life should “grow”:
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. (vv. 17-18)

Sometimes it’s easier to understand those traits by naming what they are not. One of the “keepers” in my personal library is The Calvary Road by Roy Hession, published in 1950 by Christian Literature Crusade. In his passion for revival in the church, Hession names sins of the “self-life” that we need to ask Christ to cleanse from our lives. They include self-energy, self-complacency in service, self-pity, self-seeking, self-indulgence, self-consciousness and “self” behaviors like touchiness, resentment, worry and fear. Christ can’t fill with His living water a “dirty cup” fouled by such sins. Revival comes with cleansing.

However you see it—a weeded wheat field, or a washed-clean cup—I can’t have that “harvest of righteousness” without honest self-examination and confession. It’s God’s way, and the best way.