On Sunday, Feb. 8, 1931, members of the
newly constructed Riverside Church of New York City, gathered for the
dedication of their building and sang these words composed by their pastor:
It is also remarkable in that it was almost entirely funded
by one man – Baptist layman and oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Jr. – and built
to serve as a platform for a remarkable preacher – Harry Emerson Fosdick.
In many ways the catalyst for the construction of that
church (and the composition of “God of grace and God of glory”) was a sermon
Fosdick preached in 1922 entitled, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Although he
was a Baptist, Fosdick was serving as the “preaching minister” at First
Presbyterian Church of New York. The Presbyterians were engaged in a heated controversy
between conservatives and liberals. When Fosdick set out his liberal manifesto,
the conservatives in the presbytery of Philadelphia took action that resulted
in Fosdick’s dismissal from First Presbyterian. Fosdick then accepted a call to
Park Avenue Baptist Church on the condition that the church’s wealthiest
member, John D. Rockefeller, build a much larger church on the upper west side of Manhattan
near Columbia University. And so Riverside Church was built and “God of grace
and God of glory” was written.
But the important thing is the text.
But I think that this hymn shows that Fosdick had a more
robust idea of evil. He wrote, “Lo! the hosts of evil ’round us, Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways.” The “hosts
of evil” are real. Goodness, especially the divine goodness embodied in Jesus
of Nazareth, will always encounter opposition from the “hosts of evil.”
Here’s
an example: I grew up in the deep South in the age of the civil rights
movement. Dr. King’s Birmingham campaign took place in 1963 when I was eight
years old. The culture in which I grew was deeply racist. I’m happy to say that
I don’t believe my family was deeply racist, but I don’t believe any white
person of my generation who grew up in Alabama could entirely escape racist
assumptions. I believe that I have largely overcome those racist assumptions,
but from time to time I find myself thinking embarrassing thoughts or having
stereotypical reactions to people of other races and cultures.
What I’m
saying is that whenever I am tempted to level the charge of racism against
others, I need to stop and hold up a mirror to my own life. I need to recognize
that what gives racism such power is that it is not someone else’s problem; it
is MY problem and OUR problem. It is rooted not just in the hearts of other
people but in my heart.
Here’s
another example: Fosdick’s hymn also says, “Shame our wanton selfish gladness, Rich
in things and poor in soul.” Selfishness and greed are problems even more
deeply rooted than racism. They are universal problems. I suspect that just
about all of our behavior is at least partly motivated by unconscious
calculations of self-interest.
Even
more than with racism, when we level the charges of selfishness and greed
against others, we have to stop and examine our own hearts for evidence of
self-interest and avarice.
My final
point is also related to Fosdick’s Protestant liberalism. One of the problems
that most concerned him was the problem of war. This year we observe the one
hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War 1. Like many of his
generation, Fosdick was deeply engaged by that war. He was born in 1878 and
ordained in 1903. Fosdick served First Baptist Church of Montclair, New Jersey,
from 1904 to 1915, and then went to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New
York.
During
World War 1, Fosdick traveled to Europe to give comfort and support to U.S.
troops. But the terrible human cost of the war appalled him, and he became a
pacifist, even opposing the entry of the U.S. into the Second World War.
In my
opinion, Fosdick picked the wrong war to oppose, but I admire him for having
the courage of his convictions.
My point
is that when Fosdick wrote, “Cure Thy children’s warring madness, Bend our
pride to Thy control,” he was writing about a very personal struggle.
But the
Protestant liberal tradition that Fosdick represented did not just pray for the
end of war, the end of racism, the end of greed, they did something about it.
They built institutions to accomplish these goals; they lent their support to
movements that worked to put flesh and bones on the words of their prayers.
At the
heart of the American Protestant liberal tradition was the conviction that the
kingdom of God that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel reading is not just a
lovely idea, nor is it God’s work alone. We have an obligation to sow the seeds
of the kingdom, the seeds of justice and peace. We have an obligation to care
for the kingdom, to nurture the field in which the seeds are growing.
It is
hypocrisy for us to pray, “Thy kingdom come” and do nothing to bring about the
coming of God’s kingdom on earth. It is not enough for us to pray “Cure thy
children’s warring madness” unless we are mean it and are willing to have our “warring
madness” cured. It is not enough for us to pray “Give us wisdom, give us
courage” unless we are willing to use the wisdom and courage God will give us
to fight “the evils we deplore.”
There
was much that was wrong in the Protestant liberal tradition that Fosdick
represented. It was often naïve and overly idealistic. But they dared great
things and hoped audaciously. I sometimes fear that we have lost the power to
hope and dare and imagine, and I pray that we will recover those things.
More
than anything else, my hope and prayer for this church is that we will not look
at our limitations but at our possibilities, that we will not look backward but
look forward, that we will imagine all that with God’s help we can be and then
work and pray and give to be a place where God’s kingdom begins to shine
through human weakness.
Fortunately, this church is actually doing something on
behalf of the kingdom. Monday through Friday we feed thousands of people
through our Epicenter on the Parkway. We provide office space, as well as
volunteers, for Nevadans for the Common Good which helped pass legislation to
end the traffic in human life. And at the Rector’s Forum this morning you can
hear the Rev. Mike Patterson talk about what we are doing through the
Lutheran-Episcopal Advocacy Network.
Finally, I would like you to notice that, like most hymns, “God
of grace and God of glory” is a prayer. Every verse addresses petitions to God:
“Free our hearts to faith and praise;” “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage;” and
so on.
Amen.
God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
The church was magnificent. Although Gothic in style, it was
altogether American in conception. Its tower makes it the tallest church in the
United States and the 24th tallest in the world. But what made the
church so very American is that it included not only space for worship and
education but also a gym, a library, and room and equipment for many social
outreach programs.
Fosdick intended for his hymn to be sung to the tune
“Regent’s Square,” a tune we associate with “Angels from the realms of
glory.”
It didn’t become associated with the tune we know and love
and sing it to, the Welsh tune Cwm
Rhondda, until it was paired with that tune in the 1935 Methodist hymnal,
and Fosdick never liked it. When Fosdick was asked why he objected to the use
of Cwm Rhondda with his hymn, he
said, “My views are well known—you Methodists have always been a bunch of wise
guys.”
Fosdick may have been right. If we sing “God of grace and
God of glory” to Regent’s Square, the
emphasis falls firmly on the word “God”: God of grace and GOD of glory…
But when we sing it to Cwm
Rhondda, the emphasis falls on “grace” and “glory”: God of GRACE and God of
GLORY…
I want to make several points about the text:
First, notice what Fosdick assumes about the church of Jesus
Christ: He assumes that the church’s story is an unfinished story.
God of
grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
The
church of Jesus Christ is a story that God is writing. You and I are the
letters and words of the story. We are the materials out of which God is
telling the story of the church.
We are a
hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints. Sometimes the church gets it
right, but all too often we get it very, very wrong. Sometimes we are the guys
with the white hats; sometimes we are the guys with the black hats. Sometimes
we are on the side of the angels; but at other times we are on the side of …
well, those other folks!
The
church is God’s pilgrim people. Like Israel in the wilderness, we journey
toward the promised land. Although God guides us, there is no guarantee that we
will always heed God’s guidance.
We need
God’s help to bring our story to a happy conclusion, to keep us on the right
track, to “bring our bud to glorious flower.”
My second point has to do with the fact that Fosdick
represented the high water mark of Protestant liberalism in America. One of the criticisms of Protestant liberalism is that it
did not take the problem of evil with sufficient seriousness. By and large,
Protestant liberals regarded evil as an illusion or at least a temporary
problem that could be dealt with simply educating people. There is a lot of
truth in that criticism.
But in
the very next breath, Fosdick’s hymn goes on to say, “From the fears that long
have bound us, Free our hearts to faith and praise.”
The “hosts
of evil” are not just “out there,” they are also “in here.” And what gives the “hosts
of evil” such power is the evil, sin, wickedness that is in our own hearts. Indeed,
were it not for the fact that our own hearts are weak and sinful, we would make
short work of the “hosts of evil.”
It is
hypocrisy to kneel and pray unless we are also willing to stand and march and
even fight to build a world in which swords are beaten into plowshares and the
hungry are filled with good things.
None of Fosdick’s goals, none of Protestant liberalism’s
goals, none of our goals at Christ Church, can be accomplished by human
strength alone. Now make no mistake: God assigns us tasks to do. It is ours to
feed the hungry, house the homeless, work to end the causes of war, and so on. But
there is a mysterious interaction between divine grace and human effort in
which prayer is a central part. So we pray and so we work: “Thy kingdom come”
and “On thy people, pour thy power.”
God of
grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.
