Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: I Timothy 6:11-19
Once upon a time….or in the early 1860’s for those who prize precision….there was a British clergyman with a hyphenated last name (Baring-Gould) and a somewhat unusual first name (Sabine). That’s right, Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould. And one of the things that was said of him was that he actually performed his own wedding ceremony. It must have been a tad amusing to hear him ask himself: “Wilt thou, Sabine, take this woman (Grace) to be thy lawful wedded wife?” But it must have been a real hoot to hear him reply to himself: “I will.”
Which, of course, meant that when the bride kissed the groom, she was also kissing the minister. Whereupon, I am certain that he took the fee for performing the ceremony out of his left pocket, and deposited it in his right.
While serving as curate of St. John’s Church, Horbury Bridge, Yorkshire, he planned a special sermon on missions one Sunday evening. And failing to find a suitable hymn with which to conclude the service, he wrote one entitled “An Evening Hymn for Missions,” the first stanza of which contained these sublimely beautiful lines:
Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh,
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.
The tune, he remembered from a bicycle trip he had taken through Germany, several summers previous.
Over the course of his ministry, Rev. Baring-Gould was to write many things, including biographies of saints and (get this) books about ghosts, alleged to be haunting nearby British castles.
Which brings me (or rather, him) to Pentecost in the year 1865. In England, Pentecost (which is celebrated on the Sunday nearest the 50th day after Easter) was known as Whitsunday….a linguistic aberration of White Sunday (given that while we wear red on that day, the Brits wear white). The day following Whitsunday was known as Whitmonday, and was a legal, as well as an ecclesiastical, holiday. Since children did not go to school on Whitmonday, the good reverend thought: “Let’s have an outing for the parish children, including a hike to a nearby village (the better to join forces with the children of that parish for an afternoon of songs and games).” But worried that his children might spread out and get lost on the trail, he hit upon the idea of having them march rather than stroll. Alas, none of his Sunday school teachers knew a good marching hymn. Yet knowing his skill with texts and tunes, they said: “Why don’t you write one?” So he did, completing the lyrics in a single evening. In fact, he wrote the hymn in such haste that he never did like some of its rhymes. But others did. And still do. Including me. And many of you. We sang his words, mere moments ago. For you know them as the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
Although he lived to the age of 90 and wrote over 85 books before his death in 1924, the only reasons we have to remember Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould are a pair of hymns….one, a quiet missionary hymn of the evening….the other, a rousing marching hymn of the morning. Incidentally, the tune to which we now sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” is not the one his Sunday school kids would have learned on their Whitmonday march from village to village. They would have sung it to a tune by Haydn, while we sing it to a tune by Sullivan (as in Gilbert and Sullivan). So now you know.
Never in the good reverend’s mind was there any thought of armies or wars in conjunction with the hymn. Rather, it was written for children. And, for many years, “Onward, Christian Soldiers” was sung in but two places….children’s assemblies and outdoor communion services.
Twenty years ago, as denomination after denomination set out to purge and revise their hymnals, there arose a great brouhaha over the militaristic imagery of this hymn. Frequent were the suggestions that it no longer belonged in a proper Christian hymnal. “Take it out,” the purists said. “Kill it,” the pacifists said. “At the very least, rewrite it,” which several did. In fact, if you get bored with the sermon and start browsing through the hymnal, turn to number 555 where you will find the hymn “Forward Through the Ages,” which is simply “Onward, Christian Soldiers” with new verbiage. The controversy raged for months. But just when it seemed as if Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould’s hymn was doomed, the cards and letters started to come. First by trickle. Eventually by avalanche. They came from people, not who remembered the glories of war, but who remembered the glories of childhood. And “Onward, Christian Soldiers” was saved. Which is fine by me, given that I like the hymn almost as much as I hate war.
I like it for a lot of reasons (offered in no particular order).
- I like it because it has enthusiasm and adrenaline.
- I like it because it has action and motion.
- I like it because it takes sin seriously….takes sinners seriously….and takes the desire to fight sin seriously.
- I like it because it recognizes there are things that are oppositional to the gospel, and that laying down in the face of them makes a mockery of the gospel.
- I like it because it recognizes the solidarity we have with those who preceded us….the “saints who have trod,” I mean….and that in accessing the strength of present-day Christianity, we must never discount (as Colin Morris reminds us) those reinforcements camped over yonder hill.
- I like it because (as the letter of I Timothy suggests) there are “good fights,” and that those who fight them (hopefully, in good ways) are those who will know the sweetest sense of closure when their trophies at last they lay down. After all, didn’t Paul say (on the eve of dying): “I have finished the course, kept the faith, and fought the good fight.”
- And I like it because, as a hymn, it knows the true identity of our Commander in Chief (“With the cross of Jesus going on before”).
I suppose I also like it because of its suggestion that a servant church need not necessarily be a wussy church….which (I suppose) grows out of my hope that a servant preacher need not necessarily be a wussy preacher. There are distinctions worth contending for….people worth advocating for….a kingdom worth campaigning for. And we do not come to such battles without wonderful weapons in our arsenal (starting with truth….that two-edged sword….which can help both us and the world come clean, depending on which way we point it).
Alas, some would say that the words “mighty army” constitute a cruel parody of today’s churches. Indeed, fire up any search engine on the world wide web and you will come across this biting satire of Sabine Baring-Gould’s hymn (from which I quote verse three):
Like a mighty tortoise,
Moves the church of God.
Brothers we are treading,
Where we’ve often trod.
We are much divided,
Many bodies, we,
Having different doctrines,
Not much charity.
Chorus:
Backward, Christian soldiers,
Fleeing from the fight,
With the cross of Jesus,
Nearly out of sight.
Ouch, that stings. But I can shake it off, not solely because of what I know about “church,” but because of what I know about “armies.” When an army drills, it looks magnificent. When an army stands inspection, it looks magnificent. When an army parades, postures or poses, it looks magnificent. But when an army does what armies are trained to do, things can get messy. Armies advance. But armies also retreat. They take prisoners and hold hills, even as they are sometimes taken prisoner and yield hills. What’s more, armies suffer casualties (with some of the most courageous work involving the retrieving of the wounded). To be sure, there are those in the army who perform heroically, even sacrificially. But there are others who perform cowardly, given that there has never been an army without its share of slackers and shirkers. Does that sound like any institution you know? Still, there are good armies with good discipline (usually having to do with good leadership). Hopefully, that also sounds like an institution you know. And then there’s this. Both armies and churches have a manual. So let me tell you a “manual” story.
It involves the Quakers (which has nothing to do with the people who make oats in Chicago or furniture in Ohio). Rather, when you think “Quakers,” I want you to think of the Religious Society of Friends….who are known not only for their principled opposition to aggression, but for their daring deeds of reconciliation and wound-binding in the face of great danger (under the auspices of the American Friends Service Committee).
Which brings me to Henry Cadbury of Harvard. Some know him as Luke’s primary translator. Others know him as one of the finest New Testament scholars of the twentieth century. What most people don’t know is that Henry Cadbury was a Quaker (a member of the Society of Friends). Which explains why he laid down his scholarly work at Harvard to roll bandages for the wounded of World War II. Accused by his professorial colleagues of abandoning his translating, he refused to quit his bandage rolling, saying to his critics: “I am translating the New Testament.”
Wow! If that won’t preach, ain’t nothin’ gonna preach. For if that isn’t high on the list of things we are called to do, what is? So let me put it to you. How are you translating the New Testament?
I think many of you are doing it in more ways than you know. Not that you’ve maxed out your potential. Far from it. There’s always room to improve. For unless God grades on a very soft curve, every last one of us is going to go home with a report card that reads: “Needs to improve.” But take heart. Improvement is happening. God knows it’s happening. What’s more, it’s making a difference.
As a case in point, I give you the lady from Gladstone. Not because I know her. I don’t. But because I love her story. Gladstone is in the Upper Peninsula, where (if newspapers can be believed) half the population is presently dwelling in a deer camp. They must kill a lot of deer in Gladstone. Because once a year, this lady from the Gladstone United Methodist Church brings a whole lot of venison down to the Cass Corridor for the feeding programs of Cass Church which serve several thousands of Detroit’s hungry, weekly. The other thing that people of the Gladstone church send down is winter coats. After all, who would have more winter coats than people who live in the Upper Peninsula?
So this lady from Gladstone wraps the coats around the venison, the better to provide insulation. And since she can’t get her hands on a refrigerated truck, she drives 406 miles from Gladstone to Detroit with her air conditioning running full blast (wearing a snowmobile suit to keep her from freezing).
One day that lady’s going to die….of pneumonia, no doubt. And somewhere, two or three miles inside heaven’s gate, Jesus is going to meet up with her and say: “Alice, it’s great to see you again. I’ll never forget that venison you used to bring me, just like clockwork, every December.” To which Alice will say: “Oh my Lordy, you must have me confused with some other Alice. Jesus, I never brought you any venison.”
Which is when she’ll remember Matthew 25:40 (“Inasmuch as….”, go ahead say it with me), not because she is good at memorization, but because she is wonderful at translation.
Like I said, I don’t know her. But we serve together in the army.
