Usually it’s the tune that sticks with me, whether it be hymns or even those Disney songs that our younger children prefer (for some reason), so much so that it seems as if it cannot escape me for days on end. But every once in a while, the words will lay hold of me just as much as the music. For some reason, it happened recently with “For the Fruit of All Creation” (ELW #679), specifically in the third and final verse:
For the wonders that astound us,
for the truths that still confound us,
most of all, that love has found us,
thanks be to God.
As someone who continues in hope to grow with better writing, I marvel at those who can do so in the poetic form. The story so goes with this particular author, The Rev. Fred Pratt Green, is that following his retirement as a Methodist minister in Great Britain, he was hoping to dive into his passion for painting. Of course, the church reached out for further ministry help. Except, they were asking for a different kind of ministry this time. Word had gotten out about his talent with poetry, and so as many in the church recognized that far too many songs in congregation hymn books were not connecting with the current life circumstances for those in the pews, The Rev. Fred Pratt Green was asked to artistically fill the gap, so to speak. Nearly 300 hymn texts came to further life from his writing; the vast majority of which came after his retirement. In our red Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal alone, you will find 12 of them.
For the concluding words to “For the Fruit of All Creation,” I find his words to be brilliant, even a magnificent way to describe faith. For all the wonders of joy experienced in (hopefully) family, friends, the Creation, church, and numerous other ways in this life, even to the point that it is actually “astounding” how much joy can still be encountered amidst a world that we are told how far gone it is from any goodness whatsoever. And yet, we can be deeply “confounded” by the truth of God’s never-ending mercy and relentless grace, while also perhaps just as “confounded” by the truth of the human condition that doesn’t always respond in kind with its treatment of each other. But “most of all, that love has [somehow] found us, thanks be to God!” Sometimes the Gospel words are meant to stick…forever. Amen (so let it be).
In Christ,
Pastor Brad