Saturday, December 1, 2012

"Sing to the Lord a new song"

Among the many challenges Year D presents, beyond the sermonic, is the fact that so many hymnals and songbooks overlook these texts as well. Search through the scripture index of your denomination's hymnal, and the odds are that, if the text is not in the lectionary, neither is it going to appear in your lectionary-based hymnal.

One of the wonderful things about the liturgical history of the church, however, is the fact that preachers who may not have had any particularly outstanding musical gifts, when they put their minds and pens to it, came up with some great hymns and spiritual songs, sometimes a tune, sometimes a lyric or psalm paraphrase, and in certain cases both.

Wouldn't it be cool if a gaggle of Christian songwriters, or a flock of shepherds, so to speak, applied themselves to the challenge of writing new hymns and songs based on Year D texts? Yeah, I think so, too. I say, go for it.




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