The full topic/title of this hymn is "Onesimus & Philemon; Honor in Humble Service." These "heroes of the faith" were a runaway slave and his master, both of whom (while separated) came to Christ through the apostle Paul, who then reunited them. The whole story is sketched out in Philemon, the briefest of Paul's New Testament epistles. As a last resort I could pair the hymn with a tune I have used before, CHRISTE, WAHRES SEELENLICHT; but I am hoping I can stir up one of my hymn-writing friends to contribute an original tune, and one better structured to make sense of the rhyme scheme.
Christ, to serve all men You came,
Lashed and bound to set us free,
Crowned with thorn, arrayed in shame,
Kissed with whip, enthroned on tree,
Forced a bitter wine to drink:
When on humble tasks we think,
Call to mind Your lordly fame
Set aside on Calvary!
One Onésimus, a man
Useful more in name than deed,
Fled his master, ere God’s plan
Bade Paul plant the gospel seed.
Thus did Christ, their Lord and Slave,
Choose both slave and lord to save;
What in uselessness began
Was for useful service freed.
Well the one served Paul in chains;
Yet though slave and free are one,
Paul commended him with pains
To his lord, Paul’s other son:
Both begotten by one word,
Equal grace on each conferred,
Cleansed alike of vice’s stains,
Aught between them pardoned, done.
Lord, as with Onesimus,
Make us willing, patient, true,
Brave, devout, industrious,
Fruitful, useful unto You.
Like Philemon, let us live
Fellow sinners to forgive,
And to those be generous
Who the deeds of service do!
EDIT: David P. Werner contributed the original tune ONESIMUS for this hymn. I think it's breathtaking:
3 comments:
Thank you for sharing this (though I apologize for being several years late catching this). If someone was to adapt these words for use in a worship service, what copyright information would be needed (CCLI number, etc.) (or what other arrangements would need to be made to make this happen…, besides finding a melody that most of the “audience” would know)?
To start, I'd encourage you to try Mr. Werner's melody. It's really quite catchy. Go ahead and use it but give David Werner (or whoever) credit for the tune and me, R.D. Fish, credit for the words with "copyright 2016, used with permission." If you're making any alterations to the text, please run them by me first. rdfishjr at gmail dot com. Thanks!
PS sorry to be so slow to respond! My blog has been filling up with spam comments lately, so I hadn't seriously dug for real ones for a while.
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