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Leeks and Liturgy
Some thoughts on Battle Hymns
POSTED 07/04/10, 03:13 PM EST BY STEPHANIE ORTOLANO
I'm writing from Cincinnati, Ohio, on the first leg of our "Summer Vacation" which will continue on to Montana and Idaho (and numerous stops in between!). This morning, while getting ready for church, I was musing about the hymns in every hymnal I've ever perused, you know the ones I'm talking about, the ones in the section entitled "National Songs" or "Patriotic Tunes". The hymns that I would (almost) never choose for a regular Sunday service because the language is always seems to cross the church-state line for me. When I go to church, I want to sing about the Kingdom of God, a place so much more vast than a "mother country". Even so, I started humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic in my head while dressing the girls and getting breakfast ready.So imagine my surprise when the sermon at Mount Washington Presbyterian, my husband's family church, was about these hymns (it is the Fourth of July after all). The pastor, as usual, gave me some new thoughts on these old tunes. About four times a year, he tries to shake up the usual sermon by teaching rather than preaching on the stories behind selections from the hymnal. This Sunday included America (My Country 'TIs of Thee), Lift Every Voice and Sing, and... The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The theme, though, was not "patriotism" or even "the Kingdom of God", but instead, "freedom". Riffing on St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the sermon came back again and again to the idea that freedom is what God has to offer, even though we usually get it wrong and have to keep on working to expand that circle of inclusion. Amen.
(Make sure to check out the Greenblade book discussion on Take this Bread, which I could not put down!)
When I was in public elementary school, we sang some patriotic songs every morning after reciting the pledge. They were not, however, battle-themed. The ones I remember in particular are "America the Beautiful" and "You're a Grand Ole Flag." It makes me sad to think children do not learn these songs anymore. Many schools have eliminated music classes altogether.
National songs should be part of a civic education. It appears, whether one supports it or not, churches have taken on the responsibility where state efforts have been inadequate (cf social welfare, immigrant acculturation services, etc).
This Fourth of July, I stepped into a little, dark church by the Californian seaside. The way some people write memoirs, the entire West Coast (if not all of liberal-minded, American literati) is hostile to Christian belief. While their portrayals might prove true in their own way, that night I sang Evensong with excerpts from 17th and 18th century prayer books. Could the Founding Fathers have imagined our small gathering, young and old praying for our president in many different accents, with a woman priest officiating?
Francis Scott Key wrote the words to the national anthem in the midst of the War of 1812. Those words were sung again, America at war again, as surely as they will be sung some day during yet another conflict to come. To the Nunc Dimittis, the sun's red glare sank outside over the surfers and the last of the sun-worshippers. The fruit vendors put blood oranges away as the palm trees waved.
Somewhere in San Diego, there is a hotel emblazoned with - not one, but two - billboard-sized signs, one for each wall facing the highway. The two declare "JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, not a swear word" and feature little crosses for decoration, a la Bible belt.
I didn't go see fireworks that night. As I told my host, I didn't need to. I'd already seen what I needed to see.
A light to enlighten the nations, even California.