Hymn With More Questions Than Answers

In her introduction to the Glory to God hymnal, Mary Louise Bringle, the chair of the committee responsible for the hymnal, stated, "More than 65 percent of the blue 1990 hymnal is carrying forward, from old standards to newer favorites like 'God of the Sparrow"‘

This hymn is the second of the "sparrow hymns" to which Waller Brueggemann makes reference in his book based on Glory to God, entitled, A Glad Obedience, where he states, "This wondrously singable hymn was written in 1983 by Jaroslav Jan Vajda, a Lutheran pastor, for a church anniversary at Concordia Lutheran Church in Kirkwood, Missouri." This hymn, which is found at No. 22 in Glory to God, is set in the section of the hymnal entitled, "Creation and Providence," but as Walter Brueggemann suggests is, "one long question, and we may be grateful that this lyrical Missouri Synod pastor did not try to give answers; that would be too difficult for poetic embrace. The questions, however, operate with a crucial theological assumption: namely, that the creatures do indeed speak to the creator. What they say is all covenantal speech because life with the creator is one of relationality. Thu s, the agenda of awe, praise, woe, salvation, grace, thanks, care, life, love, peace, joy, and finally home is the proper discourse of covenantal life. We are not told, and we do not know, how an earthquake can cry, "Save," or how a pruning hook says, "Peace." But we know that the se creatures (along with us), do their creaturely work with faithful regularity. The intent of the hymn, after we are dazzled by creatureliness, is that it speaks directly to the creator and to our own human, creaturely work of the complete agenda from "awe" to "home." In the process the world is redefined away from the rat race of commodities to the real thing, the bottomless mystery of relatedness. Every rabbit and carrot knows this. And when we sing this hymn, we stand with sparrows in "faith, joy, and awe." His words remind us that even in the midst of the COVID-19 virus, as we praise our creator with this hymn, verse two struggles with how we relate to the earthquake s and other storms of life and can still praise our creator as we cry "Woe," and "Save." At the same time, in the midst of all the racial struggles and other divisions in this country and around the world, verse five challenges us with how we relate to neighbor and foe and can still praise our creator as we say, "Love," and "Peace" This is one of seven hymns by Jaroslav Jan Vajda in our Glory to God hymnal. The others are found at 120, 125, 173,193,534 and 547.

— Huw Christopher