Sing a New Song: “God of Grace and God of Glory”

Lesson: Micah 6:1-8

I want to tell you about this pastor who had a case brought against them in the Presbyterian church.  This pastor challenged the conventions of the church – preached that the gospel of Jesus Christ was broader and more inclusive than the traditional view.  And when this pastor went against the tradition, opponents in the church asked the denomination to correct and rebuke this pastor.  And the case against this pastor made its way all the way to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.

And this pastor is: . . .  Harry Emerson Fosdick – the writer of today’s hymn, God of Grace and God of Glory.

Now some of you may guess that this particular story probably drew my attention because I have had the privilege of representing a couple of modern-day pastors who have had cases brought against them in our denomination’s court system for living out a more-inclusive gospel.  But it also amazes me that such a powerful hymn that really lifts up the church – arose out of a time of bitter controversy within the church, and that it was written by one who had felt the blunt edge of that controversy.

Harry Emerson Fosdick was actually a Baptist pastor serving in a Presbyterian church.  In the early 1920s, he was called to serve Old First Presbyterian Church with the blessing of the Presbytery of New York City.   At the time, the national Presbyterian church was embroiled in something known as the Fundamentalist controversy.  There were some in the church then who believed that there were some essential things that you just had to believe to be a part of the church – what came to be known as the Five Fundamentals.  For example, according to them, you had to believe that Jesus was actually born of a virgin, and that Scripture is literal and inerrant.  The Fundamentalists of the day.wanted everyone to sign on to these five things.  Sign on or you are out.

And Harry Emerson Fosdick – this Baptist preacher serving a Presbyterian church – and many other Presbyterians – wouldn’t do it.  And then Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon called, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”  And Fosdick didn’t mince words.  And it was broadly published.  And it made folks pretty angry.

Now because Fosdick was Baptist and not a Presbyterian pastor, the Presbyterian Fundamentalists couldn’t technically bring charges against him, so they asked the General Assembly – the national Presbyterian legislative body – to reign Fosdick in – and to order that his preaching conform to these Fundamentals.  And the controversy raged for years – two consecutive General Assemblies debated the challenge to Fosdick – and in the end this is what they decided:  They invited Fosdick to join the Presbyterian church.  Now Fosdick was no dummy.  He knew that the motivation behind this was that he would join the Presbyterian church, he would then be subject to its discipline, and he would immediately be brought up on disciplinary charges.  So Fosdick sent his regrets to the denomination, and resigned from Old First Presbyterian Church.

Controversy at a General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.

Some of us in this room spent a week last month at a Presbyterian General Assembly with its own share of controversy.  As you may know, every two years our national church gathers for a meeting to discuss and debate (and sometimes decide) issues in the church. This church – First Presbyterian San Anselmo – through our presbytery – brought two initiatives to the national gathering – one to address justice for the Palestinian people living in the occupied territories, and one in support of marriage equality.

And the meeting this year – like so many national meetings lately –  was – well, it was not the most encouraging experience.  Within our church, just as in our nation, there are deep divisions – and this year, the General Assembly was nearly deadlocked on almost every issue.  The Assembly rejected almost every initiative that came to it – including ours – whether the initiative was brought by folks who were more conservative or by folks who were more progressive.  And the votes were close – in an Assembly of 600 people, the votes were often as close as 30 or 5 or 2 votes.

And there were some particular low points – our newly-elected Vice Moderator – a promising young leader in the church – just after she was elected was aggressively pushed to resign over her participation in the wedding of a same-gender couple.

It was disheartening.  The whole experience was a reminder to me of how the structures that we build are as fragile as the folks who put them together.

And so we turn to today’s hymn out of that recent experience in our denomination – and knowing that Harry Emerson Fosdick who wrote the hymn had just lived through a time of controversy – and it strikes me that the first lines of this hymn are more than a little ironic. This is a hymn, after all, that lifts up the church. It sounds almost triumphant. In the second line:  “Crown thine ancient church’s story, bring its bud to glorious flower.”  What story of the church is that?  Is it the story of Harry Emerson Fosdick and the Fundamentalists?  Or the story of our denomination today?

And, as you read on in the hymn, it really isn’t half as triumphant as it sounds at first.  It actually starts to read like a confession for the church.

• “Cure thy children’s warring madness.”
• “Shame our wanton, selfish gladness, Rich in things, but poor in soul.”
• “From the fear that long has bound us, free our hearts to faith and praise.”
• “Save us from weak resignation.”

Fosdick doesn’t mince words.  Even as he asks God to bring the church’s story to glorious flower, he names the human frailty and the dark tendencies that can keep us from becoming all that God intends us to be.  The hymn is at the same time an indictment and a plea for God’s help.

This morning’s Scripture from Micah is an indictment too.  The text starts off saying that God has a case to bring against God’s people.  And the whole book of Micah lays out the charges.  Oppressing the poor.  Large landholders taking the land of the family farmer.  Proclaiming peace, but waging war.  Chapter after chapter.  Verse after verse.  All that leads up to this morning’s Scripture as Micah announces to the people of Israel:  Stand up, because God is bringing a case against God’s people.

It all builds to this moment.  To this indictment. God has summoned the people, and God has a case to bring against the people.  And there they stand.

And in the midst of the tension, there is then this word of grace:  The people respond – What do you want us to do? Do you want us to worship better?  Do you want us to give more? And God answers – through the prophet Micah – and says simply this:

God has shown you what is good.

God has given you all that you need,

and if you really think about it . . .

You know what to do:

Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly with God.

God brings the charges.  And then God answers the charges.

With this word of grace.

You know what to do:

Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly with God.

This hymn asks God for help to do just that.  The hymn doesn’t mince words as it names our brokenness.  And then it asks God for help.  Grant us wisdom.  Grant us courage.  For the living of these days.  For the living of these days.

The text from Micah and this hymn stand in the sobering reality of the day, and then name and claim God’s grace and God’s gift of a faith worth living.  They name who we are and where we are – and they remind us that God is with us.   That God has already given us all that we need. God is ready to equip us for the facing of this hour and for the living of these days.

Grant us wisdom.  Wisdom – the way of life that leads to more life. Wisdom – the experience of God in lived-out life that we come to know in our bones – and that we can pass on to our children.  Grant us wisdom.

Grant us courage.  Someone once called courage “the virtue that makes all other virtues possible.”  Courage – having the heart to stand in the midst of the scariest parts of life – the fears that long have bound us – to appreciate the risk and the cost – and to move ahead anyway – into life.

Grant us wisdom.  Grant us courage.  For the living of these days.  You see, even in our controversy – God accompanies us through the whole of life – through the facing of each hour – through the living of each day – equipping us – empowering us through God’s grace –

to a faith worth living out for the blessing of the world.

That is what Harry Emerson Fosdick is praying in this hymn.  Out of the controversies of his day, the hymn is a prayer of hope and a prayer for God’s help.  And that makes sense considering the occasion for which Fosdick wrote the hymn.  Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote this hymn for the dedication service for a new church that he would serve in New York City – The Riverside Church.  By the end of the 1920s, Fosdick had survived the Presbyterian controversies – and some Baptist ones –when he was approached to become the pastor of Park Avenue Baptist Church. John D. Rockefeller was a leader in that church, and they were planning to relocate the church facility to better serve the needs of the city. Fosdick declined, but eventually made a counter-offer. He offered to help them relocate and start a new church – a new church that belonged to no denomination – that had no denominational limitations on who could be a member.  Fosdick also insisted that the church building be structured not only for worship, but also that it be “amply equipped for community service.”  And the church agreed.  And they built the Riverside Church.

And for the dedicatory service on February 8, 1931, Fosdick wrote this hymn, God of Grace and God of Glory.  Later he would explain, “it was more than a hymn to me when we sang it that day – it was a very urgent personal prayer” –  because he was filled with both enthusiasm and apprehension.

Fosdick said that as the church was being constructed, folks would come to me and say, “Oh, this new church will be wonderful.”  Fosdick reported this to his congregation, and then he said this, he said:

“My friends, it is not settled yet whether or not the new church will be wonderful.  That depends on what we do with it.  If we should gather [only for ourselves] – though the walls bulged every Sunday with the congregation – that would not be wonderful. . . But if in this city, this glorious wretched city, where so many live in houses that human beings ought not to live in, where children play upon streets that ought not to be the children’s playground, where unemployment haunts families like the fear of hell – if we could lift some burdens and lighten some dark spots and help to solve the problems of some communities, that would be wonderful.”

It was as if he had been reading Micah.

We know what to do:

Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly with God.

God grant us wisdom.  Grant us courage.  For the living of these days.

The story of the church is the story of controversy and frustration and sometimes failure along the way.

AND, the story of the church is the story of God accompanying God’s people through all that.

The story of the church is the story of God’s faithfulness to God’s people.  It is the story of how God has created us from the very beginning to live together with God and with each other, and to reach out to a world in need.

The story of the church is the story of how God comes to us in our deepest need, and frees us – from oppression, from ourselves, from the “fears that long have bound us.”  It is the story of how God accompanies God’s people even in our grumbling and complaining and fighting –  sustaining us in the desert places with manna from heaven, and water from the rock.

The story of the church is the story of how God comes to us when we find ourselves in exile – pushed out, left out, alone – and God brings us home.

The story of the church is the story of how God loves us so much that –when we need God the most – God comes to us in Jesus Christ – and teaches us, and heals us, and saves us from all that does us harm.  It is the story of a God who speaks to us through a cross and an empty tomb, and says to us – You know what to do:

Do justice.  Love kindness.  Walk humbly with God.

The story of the church is the story of how God empowers God’s people to go out into the world and serve.  It is the story of how God pours out God’s spirit on all people.  Your youth shall see visions, and your elders shall dream dreams.

It is the story of a church in New York City that in 1931 sought to transcend the denominational controversies of the day and to be a place of worship and service for all people.

It is the story of folks who go to Palestine and plant olive trees – in the hope that all people will one day live in a world of peace and justice.

It is the story of congregations everywhere who open their arms to people who have been turned away from the church, and say to them, you are welcome here.

It is a story of justice and of kindness.

It is the story of a deacon who drives out one night to take dinner to someone who can’t leave their home. Or of the friend who sits at the bedside as a friend faces the end of life.

The story of the church is the story of any congregation anywhere – whether progressive or conservative or somewhere in between – in those moments when we claim the wisdom and the courage and the grace to reach out to a world in need and do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with God.

Harry Emerson Fosdick knew that the story of the church was a story of controversy and of fear and of weak resignation – a story of human frailty in a troublous world.

AND, Harry Emerson Fosdick knew that the story of the church also was – and always has been – the story of God accompanying God’s people – of God empowering us, saving us, free-ing us –

To do justice.  To love kindness.  And to walk humbly with God.

To reach out and to feed and to heal and to shelter a broken and hurting world.

And so Harry Emerson Fosdick – in this hymn – could pray – and fervently had to pray:

Grant us wisdom.  Grant us courage.  For the living of these days.

And in the living of these days – in OUR living of these days, may God crown the ancient church’s story

with the doing of justice,

with the loving of kindness,

with God’s grace and God’s glory.  Forevermore.

Sources:  The stories of Harry Emerson Fosdick, the writing of God of Grace and God of Glory, and the start of the Riverside church are all gleaned from Fosdick’s autobiography, The Living of These Days (Harper & Brothers: New York, 1956); and R. Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick:  Preacher, Pastor Prophet (Oxford University Press:  New York, 1985).