Hymn of the Week: Just As I Am, Without One Plea
Glory to God: #422

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns.

Published by Upper Room Books 2021.

The book can be found here: https://upperroombooks.com/

For Everyone Born
Text Shirley Erena Murray 1998
Music Brian Mann 2006

For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star overhead,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!

For woman and man, a place at the table,
revising the roles, deciding the share,
with wisdom and grace, dividing the power,
for woman and man, a system that's fair,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!

For young and for old, a place at the table,
a voice to be heard, a part in the song,
the hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
for young and for old, the right to belong,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!

For just and unjust, a place at the table,
abuser, abused, with need to forgive,
in anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy,
for just and unjust, a new way to live,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!

For everyone born, a place at the table,
to live without fear, and simply to be,
to work, to speak out, to witness and worship,
for everyone born, the right to be free,
and God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!

Hymns extol God’s goodness and bind the individual’s soul to God. Hymns also have an impact on society, on us as people together, and on the church’s work out in the world. When the earliest Christians sang “Christ is Lord,” it was a protest against the Roman Empire’s claim that Caesar was lord. Slave spirituals were codes: “O Canaan, I am bound for Canaan” was biblical, but it was also a dream of escape to Canada! “We Shall Overcome” lifted sagging spirits during the Civil Rights movement. Even the revival of “God Bless America” after 9/11 revealed the power of a song to galvanize hope.

Given the disturbing debates within the churches over issues like same-gender marriage, race, or immigration, it’s not surprising that new music has emerged. In “All Are Welcome” we sing “Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. Here the love of Christ shall end divisions . . .All are welcome in this place.” It is never enough just to sing “All Are Welcome,” any more than it is to ask who might feel welcomed and why, and we feel restless ourselves until it really is all who are welcome.

Another lovely song achieving hymn status is “For Everyone Born.” The gospel isn’t just for some subset of humanity – those who are like us or politically correct or good patriots or straight. John Wesley sparked the Methodist revival by preaching “prevenient grace,” which is God’s loving and empowering regard for all who have accomplished just one thing: being born. The church’s task isn’t to pass judgment, condemn, or hunker down behind our secure walls. We dream of becoming a safe place for everyone. For that to happen, we have to get busy doing what Jesus told us to do: creating justice; discovering and spreading joy, and making peace instead of division. The hymn says this is God’s joy too! “God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy.”

“Everyone Born” is redundant, isn’t it? Everyone born would be . . .everyone. You, other readers of this book, others singing the hymn, and people who would never do either were once a microscopic blob in mom’s womb, dependent, fragile, a wonder. You were there before your mom was aware – but God knew. Psalm 139 probes the marvel of life in utero, the sheer miracle of being born, that mind-boggling transition from a dark, warm aquatic zone out into the chill air and bright lights. You’re born. Vulnerable. Asking only for tenderness and love.

This is why the Christmas story is what it is. God thought I want them to know me, to love me. Instead of coming down as a mighty warrior, God came as an infant, vulnerable, dependent, like everyone born. Jesus spoke mysteriously about being born again. That’s not an emotional vibe at a revival service. It’s the realization that we are like newborns: dependent for each breath, nourishment, and gentle handling, like everyone born. And so we sing and welcome and never rest until everyone born has what the hymn details: clean water, shelter, a safe place for growing, belonging, being heard, mercy – “a star overhead.”

Dorothy Day taught us Christian table manners. “Let’s all try to be poorer. My mother used to say, “Everyone take less, and there will be room for one more.” There was always room for one more at our table.” And Jesus reminded us to invite to our dinner parties not those who can invite us in return but rather the poor, maimed, lame, blind - which, if you think about it, really is everyone born! And if they don’t show up, we go out and urge them to come and join us. (see Luke 14: 7-14).

And the freedom the hymn invites us to at the end is interesting. We can’t be free until the other guy is free. Sure, those of us who live in America might feel free. But we are in bondage we aren’t even aware of. We miss the joy. We miss out on the richness of a shared life with others who have been born. We get stuck in society’s bog of anger and anxiety, isolation and trendiness.

The old saying is that you can never be happier than your unhappiest child. God wired the world so that we can never be free until others are free; we can never grow until others grow. God made us for connection, not to those like us but to those who are like God. And that is everyone born.

Jim Forest. Love is the Measure. A Biography of Dorothy Day, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 135.

Hymn of the Week, a Lenten Journey: March 28, 2022