Silly Episcopal Hymns

And here we were thinking that the evangelicals had all the silly hymns.

Sandwiched between a Mormon sacrament meeting this morning and a Presbyterian installation service this afternoon, Jerusha and I caught an Episcopal "contemporary" service where Phil was playing the piano.  He sounded terrific.  The hymns, however, were downright funny. 

It seems that when Episcopalians go slumming, muscally speaking, they like to sing songs that sound like the ones evangelicals do, only with more anglicisms.  There's no other explanation for a song like this, whipped out to commemorate All Saints' Sunday.  It ranks right up there with "Earth and All Stars" as one of the top hymns to make me burst out laughing in the middle of the service:

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor,
And one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God -- and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

To be fair, the words we sang were slightly modernized (uh, modernised), but I swear to God that shepherdess was in there. You also have to realize that the hymn is sung at a rollicking pace that leaves you breathless and not a little anxious that the bloke sitting next to you is actually a saint, and I say, weren't you just sloughing off and wondering what's for lunch while he was being patient and brave and true?

The goal of the hymn, written in the 1920s by a British mum with the unfortunate name of Lesbia Scott, is to help children understand something important: saints are not merely those who lived a long time ago in a galaxy far away.  They're not just names in a history book. They're all around us:

You can meet them in school, or
In lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too.

Which is why, when Catherine of Siena shows up at your door at 4 p.m. on the dot, you'll want to serve her tea and scones.  Just don't be surprised if she doesn't eat anything.

My favorite part, though, is this one:

And one was a soldier,
And one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there’s not any reason—no, none in the least,
Why I shouldn’t be one too.

Oh, please, Mummy, why can't I be devoured by a wild beast? Those saints of old had all the fun.  I want to be eviscerated too! Pleeeease, Mummy!

I know the Episcopalians in America have been worried lately about all the conflicts: gay marriage, a female presiding bishop, etc.  It's been hard to think of a good tagline.  But I have a suggestion:

Episcopalians: Great preaching.  Very silly British hymns.

Comments

[Debra Rienstra]

Oh, Jana. You are wicked and oh-so-accurate. I have sung this hymn and suppressed giggles myself. It is a piece of work. I hope Phil gave it a fittingly plinkity-plunkety arrangement.

[Jana]

Oh, excellent! Does this mean that the hymn has proliferated to the Dutch Reformed community as well? Outstanding. I thought it was just the Brits.

[Marky Aden]

Terrible preaching. Love the hymns. What's wrong with silly? You some kind of snob?