Our choir sang today an anthem I've known for decades from a favorite CD of "Music of the English Church," Richard Farrant (1530-80)'s "Lord, For They Tender Mercy's Sake." We didn't sound as good as the Cambridge Singers, but it hardly mattered. What had the congregation all atitter were two of the congregational hymns we've not sung before - "Methodist hymns!" as members of the congregation raised in that tradition delightedly described them. Of one, "Lead Me to Calvary" (below), a fellow lay member of the choir announced with approval: "this is a revival hymn!"
Both were new to me, as have been other hymns from the collection Lift Every Voice and Sing II: An African American Hymnal which our new music director has been introducing us to. Not all these hymns originated in Black churches, but most are American. It's a musical heritage foreign to me in ways the Anglican choral tradition is not. I'm almost embarrassed to confess that I've recognized a few from movies, including the churches (mainly white) in old westerns!
But the appearance of these hymns in our shared life has been hugely important to many who grew up with them. My fellow choir member left the churches of her youth because of their conservatism, winding up in an Episcopal church in Kansas City after looking for a church which offered open communion and equal participation for women in all things. This made theological sense to her but their music was strange and unwelcoming; it felt like a "divorce" from the hymnody she had loved. And our return to it makes her and others glad in ways I can hardly imagine. (I grew up in a Vatican II Catholic church so hymnody was not a strong suit.)
All this makes me aware of how fortunate we are in our music director, who understands his work as "music ministry." His broadening of our range of hymns and anthems has resonated with many in the congregation, and led to discussions of the role and meaning of music in our liturgy we've never had. If the language of revival hymns is in turn challenging to some of us, why do we put up with the endless royalty language in the Anglican hymns?
