351. Proper 3 (Series A)

As the non-festival half of the Church Year settles in (what our high-church types like to call Ordinary Time), LSB Series A starts to look like a continuous reading (lectio continua in high-church-speak) of the Epistle to the Romans and the Gospel according to Matthew. For Proper 3, for any Sunday after Holy Trinity that happens to fall between May 24 and 28 – and remember, Propers 1 and 2 are Pentecost and Trinity Sunday – our texts are Isaiah 49:8-16a (previously the first lesson for Epiphany 8), Romans 1:8-17 and Matthew 6:24-34 (also the Gospel lesson for Epiphany 8). So, obviously, the Epistle will be the focus this time. The tune is ST. EDWARD (a.k.a. ST. EDMUND) by Charles Steggall (1849), which I've found set to the hymn "Songs of thankfulness and praise" in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book and the Common Service Book.

Saints of Christ, be not ashamed
Of the Gospel, penned or preached!
Where its tidings are proclaimed,
Sullen hearts of stone are breached;
Vice is changed to grateful love,
Inward gazes turned above;
For within its simple sound
Grace and saving power abound.

No mere data, to appraise
As of use or otherwise,
It has power the dead to raise,
Tearing blinders from our eyes.
No mere offer, to reject
Or accept as one may choose,
What it vows it will effect
Both on Gentiles and on Jews.

For the word is God at work
Both to slay and make alive;
In it, His just judgments lurk,
Whereby we are justified—
Both through faith, which faith demands,
And to faith, which faith creates.
Raise we then our hearts and hands,
Since the righteous live by faith!