The lessons for this Sunday between Sept. 11 and 17 are Genesis 50:15-21, Romans 14:1-12 and Matthew 18:21-35. If it's a weird hymn, chalk that up to my stupidity; I kept catching myself forgetting the rhyme pattern and having to go back and rewrite lines, which never seemed to rise to the level of their ill-rhyming predecessors. And if its ending seems to be abrupt, that may relate to the feeling I got that if I kept working at it, it was only going to get worse. Anyway, the tune is WACHET DOCH, ERWACHT, from
Praxis Pietatis (1662). The old
Ev. Lutheran Hymn-Book paired it with the hymn "While with ceaseless course the sun," while suggesting SPANISH CHANT as an alternative tune; I'm more familiar with this hymn being set to CHRISTE, WAHRES SEELENLICHT, but at any rate, that makes this another hymn-tune ripe for reviving.
When my brother wrongs me, Lord,
How oft must he be forgiv'n?
Christ says, "Let him be restored
Sev'n, nay, seventy times sev'n."
Shall you be forgiven such
When you grudge a tenth as much?
Weigh your mercy in accord
With the mercy you are giv'n.
Bear with one whose faith is weak;
Nor indiff'rent things dispute,
Lest a wounded branch you break
Which the Lord might bring to fruit.
Some partake while some abstain;
Therefore must Christ die again?
Need we give offense, or take,
As if Jesus' blood were mute?
Live or die, we are the Lord's;
Thus we eat or fast to Him
Who to strong and weak affords
Graces running o'er the brim.
Be the harvest green or dry,
Lo, the hour is drawing nigh
When, in unimagined chords,
All will share one thankful hymn.
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