Universal Church – The Raynville Rambler

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Lord of the Church, we pray for our renewing” by Timothy Dudley-Smith. As the first line suggests, it’s a corporate hymn that seems more meaningful when sung by a church congregation (perhaps especially at an ecumenical gathering) rather than by an individual. Some of the hymns we’ve sung in the ‘ministry and mission’ section have been more individual (such as “I the Lord of sea and sky”) and it’s good to balance these with the corporate ones.

In its three verses, each beginning “Lord of the Church”, we ask Christ (for it is He) for our renewing, blessing and uniting. The first two verses also mention the Holy Spirit, who we ask to “burn for our enduing*, fan the living flame” and fill us. The three requests of uniting, blessing and renewing belong together: where the church is not united in faith and action, it cannot expect to receive the fulness of Christ’s blessing, nor of the Spirit’s renewal.

The words do acknowledge the difficulties we have in this area: “we turn to Christ amid our fears and failings, the will that lacks the courage to be free, the weary labours all but unavailing… from our restless striving”. Instead we ask to be “brought nearer [to] what a church should be” and to be led by Christ until “one Church triumphant one new song shall sing”. That will only be fully accomplished in the life to come, but we must still strive towards it, with his help.

The suggested tune, and I can’t imagine the author had any other in mind, is the one variously known as the [London]Derry Air, or Danny Boy. Its long lines don’t make for easy singing unless you know it well, and the folk tune covers quite a wide range, but I find it comfortably fits my tenor range, and I enjoyed singing this hymn.

* Just as an aside: John transcribed and sang this as “burn for our enduring”, which may make some sense, but “enduing” is how it is printed in this book and elsewhere. An archaic verb, but defined as “to invest or endow with some gift, quality, or faculty”. So we are asking the Spirit here to endow us with his gifts, which makes more sense. An even older definition of “endue” apparently is “’induct into an ecclesiastical living” but I don’t think the author here expects everyone to pray to become an Anglican vicar!

Bishops from around the world at the Lambeth Conference in 2008.
Photo Credit: ACNS/Sweeny

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Church of God, elect and glorious’ by James Seddon. Although a relatively modern hymn (undated, but the writer was born in 1915 so it’s from the 20^th century) the style is that of older traditions of hymnwriting and the suggested tune, Lux Eoi by Arthur Sullivan, is a late Victorian one.

The text of the four verses seems to be based on 1 Peter chapter 2, describing in the first part of each verse the ideal of the Church of God – elect and glorious, holy nation, chosen race, God’s own special people, called into light, citizens of heaven, royal priests. It goes on, in the second part of each verse, to expand on what that might mean in practice: telling of and demonstrating God’s infinite love, being light in the world, finding fresh hope and purpose in Christ, prayerful and joyful service of others.

This ideal of the universal Church isn’t as popular in hymns or sermons as it used to be, the emphasis nowadays in most churches being either on our individual conversion and spiritual formation, or the local congregation and its service to the local community, or the Christian role in worldwide causes of justice and peace that bring in those of all faiths and none. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but the idea that God has set apart the Church (in the sense of all Christian believers) as a special body of people with a unique role in the world, seems to get left behind.

But it needs to be there, in balance with those other levels of understanding of what it is to be a Christian, if we are to retain our hope of making a difference in an increasingly challenging world. You and I may not be able to do anything practical about the problems we hear of faced by people on the other side of the world. But we can pray for our brothers and sisters in local churches there who are equally part of Christ’s body, and have the humility to recognise that they will be praying for us too.