LORD OF LIFE LUTHERAN CHURCH

Music Notes

5 September, 2010

“How Clear is Our Vocation Lord.”  This is a new text and tune for us at Lord of Life;  however, it is a hymn which will add a unique dimension to our congregation’s hymnic repertoire.  This text was commissioned by University United Methodist Church of Austin, TX in 1982 as they searched for a hymn devoted to the topic of vocation.  Fred Pratt Green, one of the twentieth-century’s foremost hymn writers, was secured as the text writer whilst the lovely tune was taken from the English composer Hubert Parry’s oratorio (a sacred opera) Judith.   This hymn is now available to Lutherans in LSB.

            One of the hymnal companions writes the following about the purpose of this hymn:

Discussing the concept of vocation in The Oxford Encylopedia of the Reformation, Eric W Gristch notes that in contradistinction to the views of the medieval Church, “Martin Luther modified these views and redefined vocation as a call to serve the neighbor in the world rather than withdrawing from the world. . . Luther concluded that vocations are not good works to appease God but rather witness to faith in Christ.”

This hymn deals with the “joys of service.”  Unlike some denominations—both Protestant and Catholic—we Lutherans have always striven to avoid “works righteousness,” or the idea that our own works merit our reception of eternal life.  Yet, we might tend to forget that good works are the essential by-products of the Christian faith (the entire Epistle of James testifies to this.)  Consider how the first stanza of this hymn treats this seemingly dichotomous relationship, “How clear is our vocation Lord, When once we heed Your call:  To live according to Your Word, and daily learn, refreshed, restored, that You are Lord of all, and will not let us fall.”  The Christian can only live a sanctified life (ie., a life of good works) in response to the call and invitation Christ has already offered.  We do not call to Christ—He calls us!  Any good works we accomplish, then, are a direct result of Christ’s (and the Holy Spirit’s) work in us.  (I am tempted to think here of the many well-meaning Christians who go about wearing paraphernalia reading “WWJD,” or “what would Jesus do.”  This subtle theology of works-righteousness would be improved immeasurably if it were rephrased to WHJD, or “what has Jesus done.”  The focus has then shifted away from our works instead to Christ’s work on the cross, to which we respond in good works.)   This idea of Christ being the focus of our works is found in the fourth stanza which prays, “May we not cease to look to You, the cross You hung upon—All You endeavored done.”  The ultimate good work was Christ’s;  our good works must proceed from a faithful belief of this Good Work.  The second stanza warns that only Christ can repair our “tangled skein of care,” a “skein” being a bundle or knot of some kind.  Our vocations and our good works, then, should always be a witness to the ultimate Good Work of Christ on the cross.