Ephesians 1:3-14
I learned many things about myself, about God, and about the Church during the many hours I spent in the Chapel of the Apostles during seminary. This small modern chapel hosted liturgies three times a day during the week, most of which were led by students. Seminary students read the lessons, officiated the services of Morning and Evening prayer, and preached the sermons. In the moments prior to the start of each service, the students serving gathered in the sacristy for a brief prayer, collecting ourselves for the work of worship. Some of these prayers were read from the pages of the Book of Common Prayer, others were recited from memory, still others were extemporaneous and pastoral. One student, an upperclassman who I knew for only a short time, surprised me one day by flipping through a hymnal as the notes of the prelude were being played on the organ. I was imagining us singing off tune in hushed tones, crowded around his hymnal as the organ played another song on the other side of the great wooden doors. But he did not sing. He said “Let us pray” and began to read the first stanza of a hymn. When he reached the end of the stanza, he looked up at us and said “Amen.” Sensing my curiosity, he whispered on the way into the chapel “Hymns are poetry set to music, and poetry is prayer.”
I’m embarrassed to admit it had never occurred to me, a lifelong Episcopalian raised with the hymns of the Hymnal 1982 and a student of poetry, to open the hymnal for spoken prayer. I’d sung most of the hymns, and I’d paid attention to the words of many, but never had I considered reading the text the same way I would read any other written prayer. I knew song to be itself a prayerful experience, I understood music to express a depth of human emotion that could not be captured with words alone. But I had never looked between the musical notations the way I had turned the pages of our prayerbook, seeking the right words to express the heart of my faith. Hymns are poetry set to music, and poetry is prayer. Again and again I have found those words to ring true, both in the hymns in our hymnal and in the hymns of praise found in Scripture. The Psalms, our oldest prayers, were written to be sung. Many prophets, including Miriam and Moses and Zecheriah and Simeon proclaimed their prophecies in song. And Paul and his students communicated to the young churches through letters punctuated by poetry and praise, echoing familiar hymns of their worship. If hymns are poetry set to music, and poetry is prayer, then the beginning of this letter to the church in Ephesus is begun in prayer of the most exuberant sort.
The letter to the Ephesians begins with a doxology, a blessing and praise of the God in whom Christ has been given and through whom all creation is blessed. This opening sets the tone for what follows, as we begin our meals and our fellowship and even our meetings with an opening prayer, a moment to recall God’s presence in our midst and an opportunity to ask God’s blessing on our common life. The audience of this letter is invited into a posture of prayer, and we join them in that same posture this morning. What follows this opening doxology is a doubling down of prayer, a hymn of excess and abundance so overwhelming that it feels almost jumbled as we read along, our tongues almost tying on the mouthfuls of exuberant faith expressed on the page. We hear this much as the first audience would have, read aloud by a leader of the community as the rest of us gather round, leaning in eagerly at times and glazing over a bit at others. What we are reading is poetry, a hymn, a song of joy read aloud as prayer.
So what is the topic of this hymn? If it were listed in our hymnal, would we find it in the Christmas section? Maybe with the Hymns of Praise? Or the section on Jesus Christ our Lord? While I think such a rich text as the letter to the Ephesians could be found to inspire hymns in any number of places in our liturgical life, one hymn in particular has been chosen for today that rings very similar notes.
If there is a hymnal in front of you, or if you’re watching this later and can pause to go get one, I would encourage you to turn to hymn 686. If you don’t have a hymnal, that’s okay, I’ll read it to you, and you might recognize it or even know the words already. The words of hymn 686 are based on those of Robert Robinson, and while little is known about the specific influences of his poem, I believe we can find much in common between the spiritual longing of this hymn and the exclamatory faith of the hymn written to the Ephesians.
Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy Grace!
Streams of mercy never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount!
Oh fix me on it
mount of God’s unchanging love.
Here I find my greatest treasure;
hither by thy help I’ve come;
and I hope by thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God;
He to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter
bind my wandering heart to thee:
Prone to wander Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above.
What this hymn prays for is answered in the lavish grace of the hymn to the Ephesians. We are assured alongside the Christians in Ephesus that we are adopted as God’s children through Jesus Christ, that we are bound to God because it is God’s good pleasure to love and keep us. We are reminded of our redemption, of the forgiveness lavished on us by the God who freely calls us Beloved. Again and again this hymn proclaims that to love us and take us to himself is a gift freely given by God, our inheritance the pleasure and delight to the one who gives us breath. The streams of mercy never cease, and this letter begins in a hymn of loudest praise. We are invited with the Christians to whom this letter was addressed to embrace the overwhelming truth that we are loved by a God who is good and whose goodness draws us nearer to him every moment in our journey of faith. Although aware of our trespasses and our need for forgiveness, although we are prone to wander, we are free to delight in God because God delights in us, adopted children claimed and sealed by baptism and formed by the Body of Christ.
Just as the hymn we know as Come thou Fount was once a prayer written in the form of poetry, this poetic beginning of the Letter to the Ephesians is a prayer written in the form of a hymn, a joyful noise of praise and thanksgiving for the mysteries of faith and the certainty of God’s glory. To read it aloud is to give voice to the song of the Spirit that moves us deeper into community, calls us closer to the heart of God. This particular moment in scripture, this particular moment in our common life, offers us a glimpse of heaven, a glimpse of what our life could be if we were swept up eternally in hymns of praise and prayers of thanksgiving. Hymns are prayers, poetry is prayer, to live and breathe as adopted children of God is prayer without ceasing. By the grace of God, let us pray. Always.
Mother A Writes 