To the Least of These -- Randy Gill

 

He’d just found out that his friend was behind bars. That’s what it was, with no sugar-coating. Shock, disbelief, disappointment – those were all present on the day that Randy Gill discovered something about a friend, a guy with whom he’d felt a certain camaraderie existed. His friend now wore an emotional weight about his neck, perhaps not unlike a millstone that brings someone low, threatening to drown him. Such a person, one who has disgraced himself, might be in the same quandary as the homeless, destitute soul we too often see at the traffic light, a battered creature asking for a handout. (The image ‘Least of These’ shown here is the placard used by a group at this blogger’s church, a group that seeks to help homeless people in Washington, DC each week.) “To the Least of These”, Randy thought, as he studied scripture and cried out with his insides after mourning his friend’s circumstances all night. And so, with that prayer, Randy helped something productive emerge from a tough situation. Hear Randy’s own thoughts about this below, and consider the phrase ‘there but for the grace of God, go I…’, probably something that we all ought to contemplate the next time we see a fellow human in a deep struggle.

 

One afternoon I learned that a dear friend of mine had been arrested. A secret life none of us would have imagined had suddenly become very public. It was humiliating to my friend and devastating to all of us who loved him. In the days that followed he lost his job, his reputation and was fearful he’d lose his family. I couldn’t stop thinking about how a life could totally change in an instant and my heart broke as I tried to decide how to respond to someone I had loved and admired for years.

 One morning, after a sleepless night, I sat down at my piano and started playing a simple melody. I began thinking about Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 about responding to the least of these. The second verse was actually written first – a direct response to my friend:

 May we reach out to the broken - The beaten the battered

To all who have fallen - Disgraced and ashamed

May we be a comfort - Loving forgiving

and offering grace in Your Name

 That was my prayer. I wanted to respond to my friend with the same grace the Father had shown me. The first verse and chorus were meant to broaden the scope of the song. I’ve always loved the simplicity of the chorus.

 To the last, to the lost, to the least of these. Let us be Jesus today.

I’m happy to say that my friend is doing well in a new career and his family has remained supportive of him throughout his long rehabilitation.

Thanks Randy, for reminding us about the attitude of grace….there’s never too much about Jesus that we can share today.

 

See here some biographic information on the song’s author: Randy Gill | Directory | Lipscomb University

 

Many thanks to Randy Gill, the song’s author/composer, for sharing his memories of the song with this blogger on 9/4/2023.

 

The image of ‘Least of These’ was obtained from the Fairfax Church of Christ Website: https://fxcc.org/ministries/local-outreach/

From the Inside Out -- Joel Houston

Joel Houston’s pedigree could not be better for what he does. His parents, Brian and Bobbie, are the pastors of the Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia – they are its founders. His grandfather Frank was the senior pastor of the Sydney Christian Life Centre. The third generation of faith…Joel could easily think ‘How can I miss?’ in Christian music ministry in Sydney, where mom and dad and grandpa have been pillars. But, each one’s faith must be his own. That’s what the title of the song “From the Inside Out” and its lyrics that Joel wrote in 2005 imply. Externals like family name and upbringing might make you seem familiar, but what Joel says in the song seems to come from a different direction. Joel Houston learned music from an early age with his parents’ encouragement. It started with piano, but he soon gravitated to the guitar. In 2002, he sang with the Hillsong United’s debut album, and over the next several years continued to contribute both vocally and instrumentally, culminating when he became the group’s creative director in 2008. What had he learned up to that point? Perhaps it’s best said in what’s in the song’s words that he wrote at the midpoint of that six-year journey, when he was 26 years old, five years into the 21st Century. He calls God by two names: Everlasting and Neverending. They’re names that call to remembrance the grace and mercy that He extends to believers, not just once or a few times in one’s lifetime, but continually. And, as the song’s title indicates, Joel must have sensed even at this age that this quality of God is crucial, perhaps something that he observed in the two generations of Houstons who’d come before himself. It wouldn’t be surprising if their life examples told him that Christianity starts germinating inside each believer. Joel came from good stock – an advantage, right? But good parents and grandparents are, after all, outside of me. I need something internal to make me cry out in my own voice. Call out to His Spirit (often metaphorically seen as a dove, like in the picture), Joel Houston says in “From the Inside Out”. It emanates from the album “United We Stand” that was recorded in October 2005 and released in 2006. The Spirit is for each individual, but isn’t it great that when believers grasp that notion, that’s when we can all unite through Him, as the album’s name tells us? That’s what the members of Hillsong United promote. God on the inside – that’s where He starts. And, it’s where I keep goin’ to really find Him, over and over again. Biographic information on the composer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Houston The Hillsong church website: http://www.hillsong.com/ Composer’s comments in a press interview: http://www.thefish.com/music/interviews/11618087/United-Front/

Wonderful Grace of Jesus – Haldor Lillenas

If you’ve not heard the name Haldor Lillenas, you may in fact know something about him through a song that sounds familiar, perhaps one that appears to be written by Virginia Rose Golden, Laverne Gray, Richard Hainsworth, Rev. H. N. Lines, Robert Whitmore or Ferne Winters. They’re all pseudonyms that Lillenas used to publish his own songs. If you’ve ever been in a church (especially a Nazarene church), you may have sung one of his 4,000 hymns, perhaps the most well-known of which is “Wonderful Grace of Jesus”. Or, maybe you’ve sung from some sheet music that came from the Lillenas Music (Publishing) Company. He’s the same guy, a Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductee in 1982.

Lillenas wrote the song “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” in 1918. He was in his early 30’s (32/33 years old), and the pastor of a Nazarene church in Auburn, Illinois. He and his wife Bertha Mae had little to no money after buying a home nearby, but that didn’t impede Lillenas’s productivity. With $5, he bought a rundown organ from a neighbor, and composed this song soon thereafter. His family’s strong faith had been evident in Lillenas’s early life, probably even before their emigration from Norway to the United States in the 1880s. But, it may have been the events in 1906 that set the stage for Lillenas’s spiritual growth and the genesis of the song. That year in Astoria, Oregon, Lillenas committed himself to Christian work, in the wake of his mother’s death and the fervor he felt hearing and singing the songs in that place. Particularly in Portland, Lillenas saw many people come to Christ, an experience that further solidified his decision to work for Him. The impact of God’s grace apparently stuck with Lillenas over the next decade-plus, as he studied and ministered in Oregon and California.

What would happen if I thought about God’s grace for more than a decade? How long would it take to say all that the subject deserves? Might it be something outrageous, akin to Jonah’s experience of being swallowed by a fish (see the picture above)? That was some grace, wasn’t it?! It seems like those were the thoughts Lillenas was mulling over as he composed the song, considering its words. The theme he dwells on is the grandeur, the extreme nature of this grace. One senses that what Lillenas had seen or felt by 1918 overwhelmed him. ‘Greater than all’, ‘the most’, ‘the uttermost’, ‘for all’, ‘matchless’…these are some of the phrases that Lillenas employs to express his feelings about God’s gift. A doubter might accuse him of hyperbole – after all, how great can a song be that was composed on a $5 organ? But, this is just how our God is -- nothing posh is required for Him. You think God will have this ‘cheap’ grace-song playing for us along the streets of gold?

Biographic information on the composer found in the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldor_Lillenas

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/l/i/l/lillenas_h.htm

“The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers.

Amazing Grace – John Newton

It’s a celebrated story, perhaps the most well-known account of how a Christian hymn came to life. It’s also the music chosen for use in more than one major motion picture in the 20^th and 21^st centuries (can you think of some?), 200-300 years after the composer wrote it. I wonder if he had any idea how often this tune would resonate with this planet’s inhabitants. John Newton was a sinner – he said it, not me. And, we all voice those convicting words -- not about Newton, but about ourselves -- when we sing “Amazing Grace”.  I looked close to see if any part of Newton’s story was familiar for me…is it for you?

 

Newton was taught Christian principles by his mother, who died when he was about seven years old. At age 11, Newton’s father took him to sea, to make him a seaman like himself. In short, Newton’s immoral lifestyle for the next several years prepared him to write his composition with an authenticity we all embrace. But, it was a sea-storm in 1748, which upon reflection he thought was his Jonah-like punishment that was the spark that made Newton begin to draw back from that lifestyle. And the slave-trade. That part of his life gnawed at and taunted Newton, too. He finally gave it up in 1755, and by 1764 was preaching instead. But, the life he had lived he could never forget, and in 1773 he wrote the words for a New Year’s sermon (first published later in a hymnal in 1779) that probably most households, even those who neglect worship, know implicitly. Think about what the basic elements of Newton’s experience communicate, and see if “Amazing Grace” still resounds for you. His sermon on that New Year’s Day (according to two biographers [see information below]) was based on David’s prayer to God in 1 Chronicles 17, in which David asks ‘Who am I, Lord…’, a sentiment that must have deeply resonated in Newton’s own heart as he considered himself in the sight of God.  

 

The basics of Newton’s experience are these: He had been taught the truth as a child. He still committed wrong, contravening what he knew was right. An immoral lifestyle, mistreatment of others in his path, ultimately brought him to a low point. He had a near-death experience. He found something (Thomas a Kempis’ book Imitation of Christ) that began to turn him in a different direction. He listened. He changed. The last 43 years of his life were pointed heavenward. Yet, his reflection at 82 years old, near the end of a life spent helping abolish slavery, writing hymns, and leading others to God was still ‘I’m a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior’. Newton never forgot how he had enslaved others, but he never hid this either.

 

What will my hymn sound like when I look back someday? I look at Newton’s verses and wonder if they’ll say what his say. Will mine reflect a hope that transforms regret and shame? There’s always a chance to turn it around if you’re headed the wrong way, Newton says. You know you need to make a choice, one that you know deep down will relieve your fears. Once he got started in the right direction, Newton says he felt protected, and he caught sight of his destination too. That’s kinda like getting a tailwind, and it ought to make me as content and able to anticipate the future as Newton’s latter verses show he did. But, part of Newton must have still been pondering how far he’d come. From a filthy slave ship to a dazzling, everlasting home. No wonder he calls it amazing.   March 2017 update: Here’s a link to a performance and an amazing story (from 2012) about the song’s musical/tune origins by Wintley Phipps at a Bill and Gloria Gaither song event. Makes this song and our God all the more AMAZING!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNuQbJst4Lk

 

Newton’s tune in most modern hymnals has just four verses, but here’s a link to a version with up to seven verses.  http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/m/a/amazing_grace.htm

 

Newton’s story can be found in many places. I used the publication Hymns of Faith, written and edited by Ken and Janice Tate, published by House of White Birches, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, Indiana 46711, Copyright 2000. See the hymn’s story also at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

 

Two biographers also detail the scriptural reference from which Newton preached on the day that the hymn was first sung. See Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song, by Steve Turner, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2002 (pp. 79-89); and Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn, by James Walvin, University of California Press, Oakland, California, 2023 (p. 33).