Feeling Childish
“I wanted to go forward for children’s time, but I thought I might embarass her,” she said, pointing at Pastor Carole. “I would have said ‘I’m two — a hundred and two!’”
Gertrude smiled at me. I’d been hearing stories about her for a week, but this was my first change to meet the little fireball. She was wearing a pink floral dress and almost reached my shoulder. She’d come up to me after the church service, grabbed my hand and started talking.
“You should have come on up,” I responded. “How about next week?”
The smile deepened. “Do you dare me?”
“Yes. I dare you.”
Gertrude’s birthday was Wednesday. For her 102nd birthday, she called the pastor to have lunch — OUTSIDE in the nearly 102 degree heat. She lives on her own and apparently likes to hitch “rides” with any congregant walking by. She takes an arm and strolls right along.
“May God bless your family,” she said as we walked toward the door. “May God give you joy — we all need more joy in our lives.”
I think joy found me in the form of a 102-year-old child.
Gospel in a Sitcom
While watching an episode of All in the Family, “Edith’s Crisis of Faith,” a few nights ago, I found myself thinking about Jesus. Funny how that happens; but why shouldn’t Jesus show up in a sitcom? Back in the day, he certainly showed up in lots of places considered odd by those who knew how a Messiah should act and with whom he should be found.
Even the disciples had a hard time dealing with folks who weren’t, according to their understanding, truly religious. They were used to seeing Jesus do the miraculous. In time, they would even come to understand that much of what Jesus did, they could do as well. But they had little tolerance for the outsider. Consider this conversation recorded by Mark in chapter 9, verses 48-41 TNIV:
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”
That’s what made me think about Jesus as I watched All in the Family. In this particular episode, Michael, the Bunker’s son-in-law, the meathead, was Jesus.
Beverly LaSalle, a female impersonator was in town, where he was to appear at Carnegie Hall, and came to visit his friends, Archie and Edith. Michael left the Bunker house with Beverly, walking with him to the taxi stand. On the way, they were attacked and severely beaten. Both of them were taken to the hospital. Michael’s injuries were not too serious. Beverly was not so fortunate; he died just hours after the attack.
Beverly’s senseless death left Edith sad and angry—angry at God. “How could God allow that to happen?” she asked. She was inconsolable. When Christmas Day came, habit led her to dress and step out the door to attend church; but she got only as far as the front porch. She wasn’t going, she told Archie, Michael, and Gloria. It was Christmas, but there was no joy.
Later in the day, Edith prepared and served the traditional Christmas meal; but she refused to offer the blessing, leaving that to Archie.
“Lord, A. Bunker here,” Archie began. Edith left the room to sit alone in the kitchen.
Michael told Archie he had to talk to her. Archie explained that he already had. “I told her that what is is. Then I told her that what was was. And then I told her, most important of all, what’s gonna be is gonna be.” It was time for Jesus to take over.
Michael walked into the kitchen and sat with Edith. She acknowledged that she was mad at God. She added, “I don’t understand.” Michael asked her if she had ever had a subject in school she didn’t understand.
“Well, yeah. Alegbra! I never could understand it.”
Michael asked, “Did you quit school because you didn’t understand algebra?”
“No,” Edith replied. “I couldn’t quit school just because I didn’t understand algebra.”
You could see a glimmer of understanding dawning in her eyes, and then encompassing her face. “Ohhh . . . .”
Reentering the dining room with Michael, Edith stood to offer the blessing. “Lord, E. Bunker here.” She acknowledged what she didn’t understand, and then her prayer moved into thanksgiving for all she did understand and all she had.
To Edith, Michael Stivic, the atheist, became the Mediator, Jesus. A. Bunker may also have played a role.
“No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”
Be on the alert, Jesus might show up at your kitchen table; and who knows, he might not be the Jesus you were expecting.
There is so much in life that we don’t understand, even after a lifetime of living. So, give thanks for what you do know . . . it might just be enough.
And the Right Answer is…
This is my second summer working as a Collegiate Congregational Intern, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship program giving young students the opportunity to experience church work in all its forms. This summer I’m working at my home church, where I’ve been asked to help lead a program called Conflict Kitchen. We’re spending the summer talking about areas in which the U.S. is at war, the history of the conflict, peacekeeping strategies, and so on, and discussing how all these things affect the church.
Well I’m all about the church and all about peace, so this sounded like a job handpicked for me. As we began planning for the summer, my pastors and I discussed the way this whole thing came about, with questions a young child in our church had been asking about why bad things happen in our world. And when I sat down to write an introduction to the program for worship this Sunday, instead of words pouring out (I’m very good at rambling about things I’m passionate about) I was suddenly stuck by how much of this topic I don’t understand either. What right do I have to teach anybody why and how evil things happen in our world? What right does anybody have, seeing as, unless you are God, no one understands these things?
I think that’s one of the bigger problems with being a 21st century Christian. We live in a world of instant gratification, where everything we ever wanted to know is a few clicks away on the laptop or iPad. So we think we need to be able to provide that same kind of security in the presentation of our faith. That seems to be what leads to so many of the conflicts that happen among members of the faith community. We’ve decided that we need to have an answer about everything, so we decide what we think the answer is and stand by it. When our faith becomes a list of all the right answers to all the right questions, then, inevitably, there is someone else who’s wrong. The church becomes a group of people who are right and a group of people who are wrong, instead of loving, unified community.
Paul’s description of the church found in I Corinthians 12 can’t be achieved if we’re fighting over the right answers: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.” When our faith becomes a divisive question of who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s no longer the faith we were designed for at all.
More importantly, our desire to have all the answers causes our faith to lose the mystery that I think is one of the more beautiful things about being a Christian. If we knew everything there was to know about God, would that really be God anymore? One of my favorite quotes from Rob Bell is, “The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God.” It’s not all supposed to make sense right now. Every single detail about the decisions God made in creating our world and designing our lives is not supposed to be as easy to access as search results on Google. That’s the beauty of it. It’s hard to explain how there can be beauty in the unknown to a world that wants to know everything, but the beauty is there if you take a moment to see it.
There are some really tough questions we wish we could know the answer to: why do people spend so much time trying to hurt each other, why do young people die before they get the chance to really live, why does a country founded on the premise of freedom to be oneself so quickly forget that purpose. No matter how much we try, we’re not going to fully understand God’s hand in those situations or any other.
What we have control over is our hand, our work, our life. What if we spent less time trying to decide why God lets evil happen in the first place, and more time pursuing what God would have us do in the face of this evil? See, I think God provided part of the answer already; it’s just so obvious we usually miss it. The answer is us. We are the body of Christ. We are the kingdom of God coming to Earth. We are God’s response to the evil in the world, if we’ll let God shape us for that purpose. What is that going to look like?
Well……maybe soon we’ll find out.
We have a winner!
David-Jamel I. Wiliams is the winner of the Barnes & Noble Nook FaithLab gave away during the CBF General Assembly in Tampa this week. Congratulations David-Jamel!
Both Sides of the Fence
A couple of weeks ago I took an early lunch break and went to El Mercado, the famous Mexican market in downtown San Antonio. I was looking for a traditional embroidered dress from Oaxaca and it didn’t take long to find exactly what I wanted. Since I hadn’t been there in a while and the shops weren’t crowded, I took a little extra time to browse. I picked up a large bottle of vanilla and took it to the register to pay.
As I waited for the proprietor, an older Hispanic man, to run my debit card, I noticed he had posted the following quote next to the counter: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
I smiled and nodded with approval. I’ve used passages like this one for years when talking with groups of cultural insiders. I assumed the man posted this scripture for the benefit of a similar audience. Surely, many of his customers, both tourists and locals, needed to be reminded to show hospitality to newcomers.
Then, in a flash, it occurred to me that maybe the shopkeeper and my fellow customers were actually the insiders. Maybe some of them were descendants of the Canary Islanders who settled in this part of New Spain in 1731. Perhaps others had ancestors who were among the Native American groups who lived in this part of North America long before my ancestors showed up in the 1800s.
When I read passages of scripture like the one above, I’m used to being the one in control. I study and interpret the verses, deciding if the words apply to me in my context today. If I’m satisfied that they’re relevant, I make the choice to do what they say. But what if I were not the cultural insider? What if I were the newcomer to the city and came across those words in Leviticus? I wouldn’t be in a position of power, deciding to welcome the stranger. I would be the one praying that others might welcome me and my family. I might be the one, who, after years of hostility, had given up hope that those words had any real meaning.
There’s an icon by Brother Robert Lentz called Christ of Maryknoll. It shows Jesus standing and looking through a barbed wire fence, his hands resting on the wires. At first glance one might assume that He’s a prisoner being held behind the fence, but it’s equally plausible that He’s on the other side of the barrier looking with compassion on the captives.
Today on World Refugee Day I want to make the choice to stand with the Christ who is on both sides of our borders, welcoming and waiting to be welcomed.
Thinking for Ourselves
I remember when my son Albert was about 7 or so, his pediatrician made the following statement, “Albert will be a wonderful adult….if he survives to adulthood.” The point the physician was making was that Albert did not take things at face value; he asked questions and would not take a simple answer. In other words, the efforts of his mother and me to raise someone who would speak truth to power and seek real answers to questions were succeeding.
I was reminded of this the other night while doing some interfaith work. I was speaking with a young man from a different religion and he apologized every time he asked a question. It was not quite the tentative flinching of a dog making sure he will not be hit for getting too close, a dog who has been hit too many times before, but it was uncomfortably close. It was clear that asking questions was strongly discouraged within the curious young man’s congregation when he was growing up.
When I teach religious school, I want my students to ask questions and to probe. I want them to use their critical faculties and intelligence when addressing questions of Jewish belief, Bible, and ethics. It is part of what we do in our tradition to raise up good Jews, good members of the people who “wrestle” with G-D, good descendents of Abraham who asked of his Creator, “Shall not the Judge of all the Earth be just?” (Gen. 18:25).
Now this business of raising questioning children is not without its aggravations as a parent. Indeed, it can be dangerous in situations where quick obedience is necessary for safety and some provision must be made for that. However, we do not raise our children to be children forever, we raise them to be adults and able to act as strong independent voices for justice and the repair of the world.
We have seen the danger of blindly following leaders whether political or religious. In the religious world we have seen unscrupulous and charismatic leaders take advantage of their followers for monetary gain or lead them to destruction as in the incidents in Jonestown and Waco. We may feel despair as seeing fellow citizens uncritically taking political positions on both the left and right or even making scientific judgments based on the pronouncements of their spiritual leader or leaders.
It must be remembered that while there are cases of abuse, I firmly believe most religious leaders and followers, even in the most authoritarian traditions, are fully sincere and trying to serve G-D the best way they know how. Neither do I suggest that this approach does not have merit. We cannot and should not all be the same in our approach to religious truth and practice.
You might think that Jews do not have a tradition of charismatic leadership that discourages questions. This, however, is not the case. Within the Chasidic movement, started in the 18th century, there was a great deal of loyalty within a given branch to its leader, or rebbe. The level of loyalty and openness to the questioning of the rebbe varied from group to group. Yet, even though I spoke tolerantly of some authoritarian approaches above, I find this strain within Judaism disturbing. It is not just because of the possibility of abuse, and there have been abuses, but the whole idea feels contrary to the shift that was made after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 c.e.
In the sacrificial cult of the Temples, our sacrifices were made by the priests. They carried out the ritual of sacrifice for us and we worshipped vicariously through their acts. However, with the ascendency of rabbinic Judaism, growing out of the democratizing Pharisaic movement, we became fully responsible for our own worship in our thrice daily prayers, adherence to the commandments, and acts of loving kindness.
Yes, we deferred on the interpretation of the law and practice to the rabbis and scholars who were the decisors on such issues. Yet rabbis were not viewed as infallible and our traditional texts recorded the debates among the rabbis. Even Moses is shown losing his temper, making mistakes, relying on his father-in-law for good advice, and, even, committing murder. However, among some of these Jewish groups, loyalty to the leader was of high value and he, it was always a he, was viewed as somehow beyond merely human. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, who I like to quote and had many profound insights, also said, “When I take money from someone, I am actually giving him something. My taking is actually giving.” I must admit to having some difficulty with that. Do not get me wrong, when helping others, we should be grateful for the opportunity to do good. However, while I believe Rabbi Nachman to be entirely sincere in his statement, it flows from the sense that he is closer to G-D and can affect some level of reconciliation for his follower with The Holy One because of the rabbi’s merit. The follower, in helping to support the rebbe, partakes, in some way, of the relationship between rebbe and G-D.
I have observed my teachers’ teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi as he has withdrawn, in Lurianic terms, performed a tzimtzum, to make room for others to ascend to leadership. He could have made himself into an unquestioned leader of his followers modeled on the authoritarian master seen in the past, but he consciously did not. Like Washington refusing a crown, Reb Zalman allowed for growth and the passing of the torch and now, when we who study would like to hear more from him, he demurs. It is in his withdrawal that I find my highest respect for him as a leader and a teacher and makes me want to understand what he is trying to teach, even when I disagree with him on a particular issue.
Make use of teachers. Seek wisdom from the wise and in observing all people. Appreciate the saintly and those devoted to a life of service. But never give up your autonomy; never check your brain at the door. You must be prepared to stand up and say no, I do not agree and I will not follow. As our father Abraham did when questioning G-D and when Nachman’s Chasidic contemporary, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev put G-D on trial for injustices to the Jewish people, speak truth to power and follow your conscience and the soft murmuring voice within that calls you to both justice and kindness.
Turning and Taking a Look
I was glad that an elderly member of my congregation called me at work on Friday. Even though it has been a stressful week in the life of the rabbi, and next week promises to be equally crazy.
But I was glad anyway.
Because if she hadn’t called, I would never have taken the call.
And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have picked up the receiver.
If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have looked up from my computer.
And then I wouldn’t have turned around in my swivel chair.
I certainly wouldn’t have put my feet up on the other chair to talk to her.
And I wouldn’t have looked up from my desk, and out my window.
I wouldn’t have lifted my eyes and realized that it was about 4:00, p.m., 1600 hours, nearly COB.
I lift my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?
My help comes from the HOLY ONE, the maker of heaven and earth. – Psalm 121.
I’d never have known that the light of the Friday afternoon was fading, but it was gleaming, golden off the large metropolitan hospital across the road from the Synagogue.
I’d never have realized that the light gleamed a copper gold almost like the pink gold limestone of Jerusalem, offset by shadows of a deep, almost cobalt blue.
But she did, and I did, and just outside the window, a squirrel was scampering around, probably hoping to find some nuts.
A huge bird came in for a landing on “my” tree across the patio.
Traffic roared along the interstate highway, visible now through the bare trees between our property and the road.
That weekend, we read the Torah portion of Shemot – “names.” The first word of the portion, a list of names of the literal children of Israel who came to Egypt to become a nation, great mighty, and numerous , gives the Torah portion its name, and since this is also the beginning of the book of Exodus, it gives the whole book its Hebrew name.
The story covers a lot of episodes – in addition to setting the scene, a new Pharaoh’s fear of the strangers in his midst leading to hate and to an attempted genocide, a desperate gamble to save a Hebrew baby from a proto-Holocaust, an improbable adoption of said child who becomes Moses; Moses’ coming of age, his sudden attempt to halt a slave’s beating that goes horribly awry; a panicked flight; a chance meeting that becomes a courtship and marriage, there is also a pastoral scene of tending a flock that leads to an encounter that changes history. An encounter between a former Egyptian prince turned simple Midianite shepherd with a burning bush and the voice of none other than the Holy One, Blessed Be.
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes in his breathtaking work, Honey From the Rock: how long would one have to look to know that the bush was not burning up? Only once Moses has said, “now let me turn and see this marvelous sight” does God speak to him. Kushner mentions another character from the Talmud, Choni the circle-drawer – who in a time of drought stands in a circle he has drawn in the dust and refuses to budge until God saves the people from destruction. To show that nothing – not a bush, not a circle drawn in the sand – and I must add, not a ringing telephone – is beneath the dignity of being an Entrance, one of those Gateways to Holiness that are anywhere and everywhere.
Take off your shoes from your feet, for the place upon which you stand is holy ground. Exodus, 3:5.
L’shalom,
Justin
Rabbi Justin Kerber serves at the Temple Emanuel in St. Louis Missouri.
Spotting God… When Urine Trouble
One of our cats urinated in the side-pocket of my gym bag. Parenthetical Statement #1 – (What a lousy way to begin blog.) Parenthetical Statement #2 – (I thought my wife was the only one irritated with the gym bag resting beside the sofa.) While I commend the accuracy of his aim, his choice of target may require a contract to be issued on his furry tail.
The timing of his discharge was insignificant compared to the timing of my discovery. The bag was packed and ready to go. I hastily picked it up and threw it in the back of the VW – as is my daily habit. Arriving at the gym, I grabbed the bag, stuffed it in a locker, and proceeded to push and punish by body for over an hour. I took a shower…and then…then I opened the bag to retrieve my clothes. BANG! An unseen acidic mushroom cloud rose from the vinyl-lined, portable locker.
What’s a guy to do? I got dressed. Trying to mask the odor that had penetrated my clothing, I dabbed on a bit of Aramis cologne. (Which I now realize smells a bit like cat urine.)
Not wanting to break the stride of my day, I headed to the coffee shop to write…and here I am. Several patrons have hurriedly passed my table, glancing in my direction with squinted, wondering eyes. A few others have outright stared. I’ve conjured several verbal responses to their odious ogling. Remaining close to the truth, “It’s the last bit of Aramis from a bottle I bought back in the 70’s.” To the guys, “Haven’t you ever smelled someone with an incredibly overabundant supply of testosterone?” And to this one cute blond chick, “I’m in heat…interested?” But if you think my wife gets mad about me leaving the gym bag lying around….
In the church, we are marked by baptism…and people should know it; they should just be able to tell. In life, we are often marked in other ways. We’re ‘cat people’ at our house. And in God’s creative construction of the feline framework, cat people get marked. I like God…most days.
(In what ways has baptism ‘marked’ your life? How can we more regularly present ‘baptismal influence’ to congregations…even during services when we are not celebrating baptism? Post a ‘comment’ and let us know.)
When sermons take on lives of their own
“Your sermon from two weeks ago really hit home for me.” Hers was the kind of response that every preacher wants to hear. Being the attentive and alert preacher that I am, I responded, “Tell me about that.”
When she finished telling me how my sermon had “hit home,” I wasn’t certain that she heard the sermon I preached. Alas, this is not a new experience—for me or for any other preacher who has dared to hear how his/her sermon was heard.
The late Dr. George A. Buttrick was the best of my preaching teachers. He retired from his Presbyterian pastorate and moved to Louisville in the 1970s. He was invited to teach at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he was welcomed as the giant he was. Dr. Buttrick was opposed to sermons being recorded; and he was not too sure that manuscripts should be printed for reading by others, though he certainly thought the preacher should write. It clarifies thinking, he told us. Sermons, he told us, exist only in the context of preaching, in the meeting of the preacher and the congregation.
Through more than three decades of preaching, I have expanded on what Dr. Buttrick taught me. It seems to me that the sermon is more than the meeting of the preacher and the congregation. In the mix, from the preparation to the delivery to the hearing, the Spirit is also at work. Given that we preachers fail often at this all-important task, we should be grateful for the role the Spirit plays.
For a long time, I’ve known the role the Spirit plays in both my preparation and my delivery. How many times have I faced yet another Sunday coming, have studied the text, and wondered what in the world I was going to say. More often than not as I have given myself to the task, the sermon has emerged from the chaos of my mind.
Thankfully, the Spirit doesn’t take a holiday once I’ve typed the final word of my manuscript. (Yes, I still follow Dr. Buttrick’s admonition to write the sermon. It does clarify my thinking and my delivery.) Stepping to the pulpit to deliver the sermon over which I’ve labored, I’m often surprised by what ends up being the sermon delivered. On many Sundays were my congregants to have a copy of the manuscript, they would be surprised by what they hear. The sermon delivered is often not the one written. It has taken a while for this preacher to trust the ongoing guidance of the Spirit; but to the extent he does, his preaching has improved.
So, given the fact that the sermon delivered is often not the sermon prepared, why should I be surprised by a congregant who heard a sermon different from the one delivered? Actually, I’m not; and with a few years of maturity under my belt, I’m not even bothered by it—well, most of the time I’m not. Some years ago when a congregant told me that he liked hearing me as much as he did Jerry Falwell, I did wonder if my sermons were being clearly delivered or heard!
Sermons have a life of their own; and because they do, there are congregants who gather for worship who hear more than “a word from God.” They hear “a word from God for them.” Dr. Buttrick said that the sermon is always a dialog between the preacher and the hearer. It is; and when it is a real sermon, it is a dialog between the hearer and the Spirit.
What could be better than to gather for worship to offer our praise and thanksgiving to God, to make our confessions, and then to discover the God to whom we’ve spoken is speaking back—speaking back even through the cracked vessel of the preacher’s sermon!
Spotting God… In Telemarketing
I am about to break the code. Like a magician sharing the secret of his sleight or a fraternal brother divulging the distinctive nature of a handshake, I am about to break the code. I recognize that I may incur the wrath of every former and present pre-pubescent male…but…the time has come. This breach of sacred secrets is prompted by my need to make amends – on all our behalves – to the Ministers of Music who have frantically flailed their arms before us in an effort to get us to sing together. Well, here goes…
We ‘back pew boys’ have been massacring hymn lyrics for decades. Our parents have watched us from the choir loft. They have gleamed with pride as they observe our smiling faces projecting sound at the top of our lungs. In the communal roar of the congregation, however, they could not hear our specific voices and vocalizations…thank God…
What ‘back pew boy’ has not sung…(to the tune of At the Cross)
At the bar, at the bar, where I smoked my first cigar
And the fumes of smoke rolled away (rolled away).
It was there, by chance, that I tore my Sunday pants
And now I have to where them everyday.
Or…(to the tune of The Old Rugged Cross)
On a hill far away, stood an old Chevrolet
It’s tires were all tattered and torn.
But I loved that old car…(etc, etc…)
And of course, that popular Easter classic…(to the tune of Low in the Grave He Lay)
Up from the grave he arose
With a great big pickle in his nose…
(Settle down, it’s only the hymnal, not the Bible.)
And finally…(to the tune of Lead on, O King Eternal)
Lead on, O Kinky Turtle
(and I’m not sharing the rest of those lyrics…)
Last week, a telemarketer contacted me at the church office. He was selling video/sound systems for worship centers (his language, not mine.) I told him we leaned a little more liturgical and had no need for the system. He quickly countered, “Dr. Dant, these systems give us the ability to feel the Spirit of God without having to fumble with pages and papers. As choruses, scriptures and outlines are projected on one single screen, we can corporately focus on this fixed point and the Spirit is better able to unite us as a body. Any church interested in experiencing spiritual and numeric growth would welcome these tools and methods of ministry.”
I further explained that I have never been critical of such tools and methods; I refuse to take up arms in the worship wars. I truly believe that people experience God and express their love for God in a multitude of ways. I am happy that other churches offer these avenues of praise. However, our church has enjoyed an influx of new members over the last decade – most are young adults with young children seeking to reunite with the traditional rituals of the faith. I ended my comments by inviting him to attend one of our services and get a taste of our style of worship. His response? He told me he wasn’t particularly religious and had not attended church since he was a child. Hmmm…. At that moment, I think God shed a tear. I also believe God chuckles at ‘back pew boys’ who massacre hymns. God knows you’re only teased if you’re loved. I like God.
(Feel free to share your ‘best’ abuse of a hymn.)
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