537. St. Matthias Hymn

Continuing my planned set of "Heroes of the Faith" hymns based on the Feast and Festivals schedule of Lutheran Service Book, the next up would be the Purification of Mary and Presentation of Our Lord (Feb. 2), on which I've already delivered a hymn. So let's skip to Feb. 24, the feast of St. Matthias, the guy who was chosen by lot to replace Judas Iscariot in the original 12 apostles. Post-Vatican II, the Roman church celebrates his feast day on May 14. Lessons for the service are Isaiah 66:1-2, Acts 1:15-26 and Matthew 11:25-30.

I can dispose of what Scripture reveals about Matthias in less time than even Thomas and Titus. It's all in that pericope from Acts 1, which only mentions his name twice. Early Christian writers variously identified Matthias as one Tolmai (father of Bartholomew?), Zacchaeus (the wee little man from Jericho, Luke 19), Barnabas (who accompanied Paul on his early travels, Acts 4-15), and that Nathanael who came and went from the company of disciples in John 1 and 21. Traditions about where Matthias went and what he did as an apostle are equally contradictory, mentioning such far-flung mission fields as Ethiopia and modern-day Turkey and Georgia and alternately claiming he was stoned and beheaded or that he died of old age in Jerusalem.

The procedure of casting lots for a decision (like, "Justus Joseph-a.k.a.-Barsabas or Matthias?") is interesting and brings to mind two charming stories. One is how my dad recently decided whether to accept or return a call to serve as pastor in a dual parish in Montana. He put multiple copies of the numbers 1, 2 and 3 in a hat – 1 meaning "no," 2 "yes" and 3 "draw again" – and drew pieces until he had an answer. A 2 fell on the floor and was put back in the hat. After praying for God's guidance, he then drew a 3, threw that slip away and drew again – a 2. Well, he's in Montana now.

The other story comes from my vicarage, where my supervising pastor opened a voters' meeting with a devotion based on this Acts 1 lesson. He then waxed poetic about how it might be for the church to make choices by lot rather than a popular vote. Someone raised his hand and said, "But Pastor, then we wouldn't be in control," and the pastor shot back, "Exactly!"

According to Apostle Peter (speaking in Acts 1), both Matthias and Justus Joseph were among the disciples who had accompanied the apostles throught Jesus' ministry, from the time of His baptism by John until His ascension. He was required, Peter says, to complete the complement of witnesses to Jesus' resurrection. Oddly, Luke (author of the book of Acts) concludes that Matthias was numbered with the eleven apostles, which kind of sounds like their attempt to restore the twelve didn't quite take. Perhaps it could be argued that the 12th spot really went to Paul. But one has to respect the concept of prayerfully leaving the choice up to God via a lottery-type drawing. Like the guy said, we're not in control! And God calls whom He will!

So ... how does one write a Christ-centered hymn about this mess? Well, let's try this:

To God, whose throne is heaven,
Whose footstool is the land,
What temple can be given
But what He shaped by hand?
The poor and contrite heart
That trembles at God's roaring,
That cries out for restoring—
Thereon rests God's regard.

Christ from the wise and prudent
His holy secret hides,
And yet the infant student
Thereto He gladly guides.
Christ—meekest, gentlest, best—
To those both sorely harried
And who His light yoke carried
Has pledged eternal rest.

Let those by God elected
Trust, and in no wise doubt,
That they will be perfected
And greet Him with a shout.
Our lot with Him is cast;
And as He chose Matthias,
He will do justice by us
And call us home at last.

Zootopia 2

I generally try not to make a practice of seeing the sequel to a movie I haven't seen, but I made an exception this weekend because I genuinely needed to go to the movies and I couldn't think of any other movie playing within an hour's driving radius of home that I wanted to see. For context, this beat out Marty Supreme, Anaconda, Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Housemaid, David (which I'd already seen) and the runner-up (by an inch), Song Sung Blue. The Spongebob movie had been playing last week and I refrained from seeing it as well. I feel bad about my reluctance to see Z2 now. I actually had a pretty good time. There's a lot more to this animated movie about a city of more-or-less anthropomorphic animals than you would expect, including jokes (and dramatic beats) that parents and film buffs in general will enjoy. Like Auntie Trunchbull's chocolates, it's too good for children. And though I wouldn't know, I heard from a dad who was seated in the row behind me with his wife and kids that this movie is actually better than the original.

The cast is a blast. And it goes on and on. Headlining it as a rabbit-fox pair of buddy cops, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, are Ginnifer Goodwin (previously Snow White on TV's Once Upon a Time) and Jason Bateman (Michael Bluth on Arrested Development). Joining them are recent Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies, Everything Everywhere All At Once) as Gary De'Snake, Andy Samberg (Hotel Transylvania, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as Pawbert, the misfit runt of a powerful family of lynxes, David Straithairn (Delores Claiborne, Good Night and Good Luck) as Pawbert's villainous dad, Macaulay Culkin and his partner Brenda Song as a couple of Pawbert's lynx siblings, Shakira as a pop-singer gazelle, Idris Elba as a Cape buffalo police chief, Michelle Gomez (Missy on Doctor Who) as a razorback cop, an outrageous Patrick Warburton (The Tick, The Emperor's New Groove) as Zootopia's horsey mayor, Danny Trejo (Machete) as a reptile, Bonnie Hunt (Return to Me, Jumanji) as Judy's rabbit mum, June Squib (Nebraska) as her grandma, Wilmer Valderrama (NCIS, That 70s Show) as a zebra cop, Jean Reno (Leon: The Professional) as a pair of goat cops, Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Resident Alien) in multiple roles, John Leguizamo as an anteater, Maurice LaMarche (voice of The Brain, the lab rat that kept trying to take over the world) as a shrew mobster ironically known as Mr. Big, Josh Dallas (Prince Charming on Once Upon a Time) as a pig, Tommy Chong as a yak, TV chef Nick DiGiovanni as an iguana barback, Tig Notaro (Star Trek: Discovery) as a grizzly bear, Ed Sheeran as a sheep who (funnily enough) is seen getting sheered at a barbershop, Michael J. Fox as (duh) a fox, Josh Gad (Olaf in Frozen) as a mole, Mario Lopez (Saved by the Bell) as a wolf, Robert Irwin (the late Steve Irwin's son) as a koala, Jenny Slate (SNL, Bob's Burgers) as a villainous sheep from the previous installment, Mark Smith (Rhino on Gladiators) as (like, duh) a rhino, archival recordings of the late Tiny Lister (president of Earth in The Fifth Element) as a fox who goes undercover as a baby bunny, Dwayne Johnson as a dik-dik (snort) whose only audible line to my recollection is a brief scream when he gets blasted out of a tuba (don't ask), and among several animation studio honchos making cameos, Disney CEO Bob Iger as a tiger weatherman. Whew!

So, it's a movie with a lot of speaking characters in it. Obviously, being open to diversity is a not very subtle theme. The hero bunny and fox have to overcome differences of personality and culture to work together and solve a case involving a forbidden reptile in the all-mammal city, who seems to be trying to steal a precious artifact of one of the city's founding lynxes. But there's more to the maguffin than meets the eye. I mean that literally. And the outcome is two rookie cops having to go on the run, framed for crimes they didn't commit, trying to get to the bottom of things and clear their own names while being chased by other cops as well as fiendish bad guys. There are perilous pursuits and escapes, a potentially deadly betrayal, lots of close calls and some therapeutic work on the central relationship, which a well-timed movment of levity just barely saves from being too on-the-nose. There are film buff Easter eggs, satirical gags (nothing is spared) and downright breathtaking scenery, art, animation and animated-character acting. It has a good story, good dialogue, good voice acting, the whole works. I fully endorse this movie.

And now, to the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Danger, division and structural collapse in a crumbling, mountaintop chateau. Or whatever that was. (2) Judy and Nick are warned not to refuse an offer of food when they visit the reptiles' speakeasy ... and are immediately put to the test with a bowl of squirming grubs. (3) The climactic crisis in which snake venom and antivenom play key roles. Actually there are so many scenes that I could have put on this list, including everything surrounding the Marsh Market as well as a thrill ride in a sloth's hot rod. Here I am, a well-known (?) hater of sequels, wondering where this franchise will go next.

536. St. Titus Hymn

Continuing my hymn-writing tour of the Feasts and Festivals lectionary in Lutheran Service Book, I've decided to skip past New Year's Eve (because it doesn't fall under the "Heroes of the Faith"), as well as the Circumcision and Name of Jesus (Jan. 1), the Confession of Peter (Jan. 18), St. Timothy (Jan. 24) and the Conversion of Paul (Jan. 25), which leads us to Jan. 26 and the feast of St. Titus. Funny how Timothy and Titus bookend Paul like that. But other than New Year's Eve, I've already written hymns for these other celebrations; see the links back here.

What does Scripture tell us about Titus? He is often mentioned in Paul's epistles as a protégé and partner in preaching the gospel. Paul addresses an entire epistle (letter) to Titus, calling him "a true son in our common faith" and trusting him to operate independently, such as leaving him behind in Crete (Titus 1:5), commending him to the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 7, 8 and 12), and bringing him along to Jerusalem (Galatians 2). In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul confesses to feeling anxious without Titus in Troas. In Titus 3, Paul urges Titus to join him for the winter in Nicopolis. In 2 Timothy 4, his last writing from house arrest in Rome, Paul mentions that Titus traveled to Dalmatia, across the Adriatic in what is now Croatia and Montenegro. However, the way Paul connects this with a complaint about his supporters bailing on him makes it unclear whether Titus went there as an evangelist or to escape martyrdom. If Paul is complaining about Titus, it would be the only hint of discord between them; so let's let his descriptions in 2 Corinthians and in the epistle to Titus stand as a glowing record of service to the gospel and to Paul personally. Readings for Titus, according to LSB, are Acts 20:28-35; Titus 1:1-9; and Luke 10:1-9.

Equip the church, O Savior,
With stewards of Your grace,
Blameless in their behavior,
To serve in every place;
Fit them to oversee us,
Your faithful word hold fast
And by sound teaching free us
From our vain works at last.

Secure their hearts from loving
Wine, money, pow'r and ire,
Kind and high-minded proving,
Drawn but to holy fire.
Incline our hearts to hear them,
To curb hostility,
To succor and to cheer them
And follow faithfully.

Through Tituses among us
Your kingdom, Lord, draws near.
Wherever life has flung us,
Through them Your voice we hear.
Enrich them with Your Spirit
To preach in parlous lands,
And grant that we who hear it
Hold up their weary hands.

ART: An icon of "Holy Apostle Titus of Crete" from 14th century Kosovo.

535. St. Thomas Hymn

Another "backfill" in my Heroes of the Faith hymn project, this feast on Dec. 21 (per the Lutheran Service Book; it's July 3 in Roman Catholicism) commemorates the apostle who was absent when the resurrected Jesus first appeared to His disciples, and who famously wouldn't believe them when they told him Whom they had seen. But a week later – and note that well, it figures in the lessons for the first Sunday after Easter – he was with them when Jesus appeared again, and Jesus offered him the look-and-touch test he had avowedly held out for. And then, as the Gospel lesson for the feast (John 20:24-29) tells us, Thomas immediately confessed his faith in the words, "My Lord and my God!" After which Jesus gently chided him for his seeing-is-believing attitude.

That's most of what we know about Thomas from Scripture. Both his Aramaic name and his Greek "a.k.a.," Didymus, mean "twin." The synoptic gospels only mention him once each, in a list of the 12 apostles. John gives him a couple of lines, including the melancholy remark, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him," in John 11; and the question, "Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?" in John 14. He was also in that group that met Jesus by the Sea of Galilee in John 21 (see also St. Andrew); and he was with the other 11 surviving apostles when Matthias was selected to replace Judas Iscariot in Acts 1. The rest is folklore and tradition, such as the belief that he was killed with a spear in India. And there are also a couple of apocryphal (and heretical) gospels attributed to him.

Other readings for St. Thomas' day, according to LSB, are Judges 6:36-40 (where Gideon puts God to the test) and Ephesians 4:7-16, obnoxiously omitting verses 8-10. Someone needs to shake that lectionary committee to its senses, in my opinion. So, on to the hymn!

Our Lord and God, arisen from Your rest,
Forgive us when we put You to the test.
Bear with our weakness, as when You spoke peace
To Thomas, that in faith we may increase.

When we are weak, encourage us by sign
And sermon to believe Your grace divine,
Still giving men to shepherd us and teach
Such faith that we might in Your nailprints reach.

For in full view of Thomas and the ten
You freed the captive, giving gifts to men;
You rose above the skies, all things to fill,
Your presence and Your peace to bring us still.

Our Lord and God!—We join in Thomas' creed—
In You is life and light and all we need;
Grant that we be on all Your riches fed,
And grow in truth and love to You, our Head.

ART: Martyrdom of St. Thomas by Peter Paul Rubens, public domain.

534. St. Andrew Hymn

The feast of St. Andrew the apostle is Nov. 30. Why write a hymn about it now? Well, it's a "backfill" for my cycle of Heroes of the Faith hymns for future book Profitable Hymns – actually the first (in church year order) of the saints' days that I plan to cover. The readings Lutheran Service Book appoints for it are Ezekiel 3:16-21, Romans 10:8-18 and John 1:35-42. It's often mentioned, if "often" is the word for whenever Andrew's feast is observed, that it's significant that he's the first apostle feted in the church year – in fact, the start of Advent is pegged to his feast – since he was the first apostle and missionary of Christ, the one who went to his brother, Simon Peter, to say, "We have found the Messiah," and brought him to Jesus. Eastern Orthodoxy calls him Prōtoklētos, First-Called.

There's a tradition that I like, hinting that the other disciple of John the Baptist, who joined Andrew in turning aside to follow Jesus, was John (the apostle and evangelist), since it would be just like him to omit his own name from the story. And so I like to imagine that a similar scene played out between John and his brother James; and with Philip and Nathanael joining the party later in John 1, by the time Jesus performs his water-into-wine miracle in John 2, the number of disciples who were traveling with him might have been at least six.

Andrew isn't one of the inner trio of disciples with Peter, James and John. However, he joins them as the fourth disciple in a couple stories, such as the calling of four fishermen at to follow Jesus (Matthew 4, Mark 1), the healing of Simon's mother-in-law (also in Mark 1) and their questions about the signs of the end (Mark 13). He has a line in the John 6 account of the feeding of the 5,000. In John 12, Philip (who, like Andrew, is from Bethsaida) involves him in a request from some Greeks who want to see Jesus. Other than that, Andrew's name only comes up in lists of the apostles. So we have to look outside of Scripture for any significant data about him. Tradition holds that he was crucified on an X-shaped cross, preaching the gospel throughout the two agonizing days he took to die. And there are some other medievally weird superstitions about him that I won't go into here. So, on to the hymn!

O Lord, how lovely are the feet
That run to bring us tidings sweet,
The feet of those who publish peace
And preach the captive's glad release!
Yea, when the Spirit's bowstring bends,
Their fletch'd words fly to all earth's ends.

Behold the Lamb, the baptist said
When he had bathed Messiah's head.
Then Andrew, on that saying's power,
To follow Jesus turned that hour:
First called to learn the gospel's sound,
First witness that the Christ was found.

Today, dear Lord, the faithful wish
For Andrews, who for souls will fish.
Such witnesses, such preachers send,
Who strangers seeking You befriend,
Who bring to You in prayer their need
And all Your hungry children feed.

For Andrew, since the first be last,
His wages were both sharp and vast—
To summon Simon to the Lord;
To die proclaiming Jesus' word.
With him we would the Savior see;
Come, Lamb of God, so let it be!

David

I traveled a couple hours, round trip, to see this movie yesterday – the animated musical David, from Angel and whatnot. Without any big-name stars in the voice cast, it is well-acted, with beautiful art and superb animation that brings to convincing life so many details, from the weave of fabric to the dust and scrubby vegetation of the desert, the movement of hair and the rustle of wind in the grass – not to mention the way clothing moves against flesh. The animated characters are striking to look at and none of them particularly suffer from that "uncanny valley" that has so long bedeviled computer-assisted animation. And its depiction of young David's early rise from shepherd boy to king of Israel, while not always spiritually deep – especially during most of its musical numbers – at least doesn't leave me feeling like theologically spitting something out, as did (for example) the recent animated Jesus movie, Light of the World.

I thought the David and Goliath bit played excellently. David taming Saul's madness with music was fairly well done. Characters like the flamboyantly wicked King Achish of Gath and even some of Saul's minor hangers-on left definite impressions. You'll remember Saul's hairy-armed armor bearer, a nervous courtier, a lazy little brother, a vivacious baby sister, some of David's comic-relief lieutenants and other members of a colorful cast, with some family drama livening up the storyline. Above all, there is a sometimes villainous, sometimes sympathetic Saul, a loyal friend in his son Jonathan, and the especially striking portrayal of the prophet Samuel. And boy, are those Amalekites creepy!

I would almost say I have no complaints about this movie. But, while I'm not going to ding it doctrinally, as I did Light of the World, I do feel it went a little soft on its portrayal of David after his bout with Goliath. I mean, outside of a musical montage depicting him and Jonathan kicking enemy butt up and down the borders of Israel, it doesn't really show David doing anything. While he and his cronies do put on Philistine uniforms (supposedly in a ruse to attack them from the rear as they meet Israel in battle), the film shies away from depicting the one year and four months David spent actually serving under Achish according to 1 Samuel 27 – though, to be sure, David only pretended to be raiding the Israelites when in fact he was exterminating his people's enemies. I guess that would have been too harsh for a kids' movie, or perhaps too complex for the desired pacing of the story. But I think the movie could have done better than just have him pull back from the battle (conflated with Saul and Jonathan's fatal campaign) and do nothing.

Then there's the way David saves his families and those of his comrades from the Amalekites. In the Bible, he actually raided them and delivered the captives, including (ahem) his at the time two wives. The movie scrubs the wives from the storyline and replaces them with his parents and younger siblings, and all the other women, children and elders who were captured from Ziklag. It also scrubs anything that David effectively does, replacing the raid (which would have been, you know, violent) with a bit of business where he gets captured and is about to be executed when the captives cowboy up and deliver themselves. And him. It left me struggling to see why the kingdom rallied to him, when he never really did anything.

A third opportunity this movie misses, probably on purpose, is a potentially spooky scene in which Saul conjures Samuel's ghost, resulting in a prophecy of death. That would have been vastly more impressive than the way the movie conveys what came between Samuel (before his death) and Saul. But it does establish a theme involving a piece of the king's cloak being torn or cut off, which pays dividends later.

I call these instances of the film shrinking back from the jagged edges of the story, childproofing them to a fault, and thus (if you think about it, as I unfortunately tend to do) robbing it of a goodly share of its dramatic power. It could be a more inspiring and thrilling film, on a deeper level, I think. And the lyrics of its songs could be a little more to the point, sometimes. I do appreciate the use of such psalmic language as "Why, God, have you forsaken me" at low points in David's career. I appreciate that the film at least doesn't paper over the dismal and depressing times that even heroes of the faith have to go through. And overall, I give this movie my seal of approval, for what it's worth.

And there are really Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The whole Goliath sequence. (2) David, pursued by Saul, has an opportunity to sneak up behind him and stick a sword in. That he doesn't, and why he doesn't, is spot on. (3) David's raiders (including his until-then often unsympathetic oldest brother) show up just on time, with the sunrise, in a scene that I like because of its clear and welcome allusion to the arrival of Gandalf, Eomer and his cavalry at the crucial moment in the battle of Helm's Deep. Yeah, so it's a Tolkien moment in a Bible movie. I loved it.

533. Holy Innocents Hymn

Today is the commemoration of the Holy Innocents, a.k.a. the fourth day of Christmas. This concluding installment in the trilogy of saints' days immediately following Christmas focuses on the boy children of Bethlehem, aged 2 and younger, whom Herod commanded to be slain based on the tidings of a newborn king that the eastern magi had brought him. The church counts them as martyrs, and the celebration carries a lot of resonance particularly with people who have buried their own dear children. According to the Lutheran Service Book lectionary of feasts and festivals, the lessons for today are Jeremiah 31:15-17, Rev. 14:1-5 and Matthew 2:13-18. And in this instance, I actually have a tune in mind – COMMITTAL, a tune I wrote in 2014 for the burial hymn posted here, and which I later paired here with a subsequent hymn about civic duty.

Weep, earth, for the babes whose blameless blood
Was spilled and for baptism thus sufficed;
Yet heaven will make the matter good,
As sure as they now belong to Christ.

For though they fell foul of Herod's rage,
Unmade by a tyrant's lust for power,
Another cause glows from Scripture's page:
They served our Lord Jesus in that hour.

Now rest from your weeping, Israel's wife:
Your sacrifice will not lack reward.
Your babes shall be raised to joyful life,
When unto the land returns the Lord.

Till then, let this comfort heal your smart:
For twelve times twelve thousand voices strong,
They bring to the Lamb with unspoiled heart
Firstfruits of the Spirit—perfect song.

ART: "The Massacre of the Innocents" by Angelo Visconti, 1829-1861, public domain per Wikimedia Commons.

Afterword: Apparently, a "Heroes of the Faith" section in Profitable Hymns is going to happen, with a hymn for each date on the LSB sanctoral calendar with the following exceptions, mostly because I've already covered them: the Confession of St. Peter; the Conversion of St. Paul; New Years Eve & the Circumcision and Name of Jesus; the Marian feasts of Presentation, Annunciation and Visitation; Holy Cross Day (because I don't hold with it); All Saints (here and here); and Reformation Day (here and here). If I continue posting them on the day of each observance, my next assignment will be due on Jan. 24 (St. Timothy), but then I've also written a hymn about him; and I may want to backfill with the first two installments in church-year order, St. Andrew (Nov. 30) and St. Thomas (Dec. 21). Anyway, look for more of these hymns in the near future!