421. Proper 6 (Series B)

The lessons for this service, in the somewhat likely event a Sunday after Trinity occurs during June 12-18, are Ezekiel 17:22-24, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (optional 11-17) and Mark 4:26-34. The tune is called SCHWING DICH AUF, but again, it's not the one you may be thinking about, by Johann G. Ebeling (Berlin, 1666; cf. "Come, ye faithful, raise the strain" in TLH); I mean the one by Johann Crüger (1653), cribbed from a German hymnal. However, I reserve the right to use Ebeling's tune another time.

Kingdom, what shall we compare
To your hidden growing?
Lo, a man on acre bare
Lively seed is sowing;
Then, by means he fathoms not,
Even while he's sleeping,
To full ripeness it is brought,
Ready for the reaping.

You grow as the least of seeds—
But a grain of mustard—
Bears the greatest of all weeds,
Birds beneath it clustered.
For with nothing but the word
Into dead hearts planted,
Life is secretly conferred,
Fruit aplenty granted.

God is ready to cut down
This world's great achievements,
While with full grain He will crown
Beggars and bereavements.
Acres bare of help or hope,
Hearts and hands unfruited
Lie within His labor's scope,
In His promise rooted.

Kingdom, know God does not lie,
Ne'er a promise breaking;
When He speaks, the seas comply,
Plains and mountains quaking.
Where His word says, "I forgive,"
Jesus' blood is spattered;
When He calls the dead to live,
Bonds of doom are shattered.

Therefore, in His holy word
Living and abiding,
Trust the promise you have heard,
God's own pow'r providing.
While you eat and play and rest,
Christ His seed is tending,
Spreading it as He knows best
Till our blessed ending.