Pentecost 15
September 6, 2015
Grace, Mankato, MN
Psalm 8
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Beautiful Savior, King of Creation, Son of God and Son of Man…
This summer we have been putting some of our favorite songs in conversation with scripture and our lives of walking with God. We have called this series “Singing Our Faith” and I think that it’s been great. Today we end with Beautiful Savior and Psalm 8, but it also represents a beginning. I’ll say more about this later. Beautiful Savior was nominated by Dorothy George and Quentin Peterson. It was their Confirmation song back in 1938. I didn’t even know they had Confirmation songs. I can understand how meaningful it is. We sung it at my mother’s funeral 32 years ago and I still tear up when I sing it.
We don’t know who wrote the either the text or tune for Beautiful Savior. The original German text ("Schönster Herr Jesu") appeared anonymously in a manuscript dated 1662 in Munster, Germany. It was published in the Roman Catholic Munsterisch Gesangbuch (1677) and, with a number of alterations, in the hymn book Schlesische Volkslieder (1842). The translation, primarily the work of Joseph A. Seiss, was based on the 1842 edition and first published in the Sunday School Book for the use of Evangelical Lutheran Congregations (1873). Another well known translation based on the 1842 version is the anonymous Fairest Lord Jesus, published in Richard S. Willis's Church Chorals and Choir Studies (1850). Apparently Beautiful Savior is the Lutheran version and Fairest Lord Jesus for the rest of the Protestants.
We do know a little bit about Seiss (originally Seuss). He was born and raised in a Moravian home in Graceham, MD 1823. After studying at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg and completing his theological education with tutors and through private study, Seiss became a Lutheran pastor in 1842, though both his father and his bishop discouraged his study for the ministry. He served several Lutheran congregations in Virginia, Maryland and notably two churches in Philadelphia where he died in 1904. Known as an eloquent and popular preacher, Seiss was also a prolific author and editor of some eighty volumes including several hymnals.
The tune appears to be an eighteenth-century tune from the Glaz area of Silesia and has always been associated with this text. It was first heard among haymakers in 1839 and subsequently written down, but it seems to have roots further back, to at least 1766. After Franz Liszt used the tune for a crusaders' march in his oratorio The Legend of St. Elizabeth (1862), the tune also became known as ST. ELIZABETH. By 1850 the tune had come to the United States in Willis’ collection mentioned earlier. An arrangement of Beautiful Savior has been sung by many college choirs, the St. Olaf College choir perhaps the most notable.
It’s easy to see connections between Beautiful Savior and Psalm 8: they both use exalted language and extol creation. Psalm 8 is the first hymn of praise in the Psalter and the only one exclusively praising God. The psalmist looks at the moon and the stars and stands in awe of all that God has made. The psalmist doesn’t equate creation with God, but can see God’s handiwork throughout it all.
The psalmist then declares two things about humanity’s place in creation that seems at odds with each other. The first is an overwhelming sense of humility because of our size in relation to all creation. Though human beings at that time didn’t have the same understanding of cosmology we do, they certainly share our feeling of inferiority compared to the immensity of the universe. Yet, the psalmist also declares that in this vastness, God has given as a special place in creation, an authority that is derivative of God’s own. A little lower than God, we have dominion over everything God has created.
This is a good text for us to read today, for a number of reasons. First, we need to remind ourselves that with this incredible God-given authority comes great responsibility. The French call it noblesse oblige. With great authority comes great responsibility. Second, this is a great lead-in to the start of this year’s narrative lectionary that we begin next week in Genesis. In essence, we have the creation story here where humanity is made in God’s image as created co-creators. Next week we will hear the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Lurking in the background of that text is the story of the Fall, how humanity disobeyed God. That brings us to number three: dominion does not mean domination. Though I’ll have more to say next we, we realize how far short we are, both in our care of creation and how we treat one another as fellow children of God. It is difficult to talk about the pervasiveness of racism and its effects, but it is important that we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the AME Church to recognize today as “Confession, Repentance and Commitment to End Racism Sunday.” We are obligated to do this precisely because of the role God has given to us.
Finally, we always come back to God, because that’s where both Beautiful Savior and Psalm 8 begin and end. We remember that Jesus is not only Lord of creation and the Nations, but we also remember that his exaltation was through his lifting up on the cross and resurrection. Following the Beautiful Savior means being a suffering servant as he was. Yet it also means that we are not in this alone and it means that through God, new life comes out of brokenness and chaos.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Beautiful Savior, King of Creation, Son of God and Son of Man,
Truly I'd love Thee, truly I'd serve thee,
Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown.
Amen.
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