Hymn of the Day: Come, Join the Dance of Trinity ELW 412
Text: Richard Leach, (1953)
Tune: KINGSFOLD, English folk tune

This hymn text by Richard Leach reflects the name of the church for which it was written, Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut. It was the winning entry in Trinity's 250th anniversary hymn search in 2002, coming to Evangelical Lutheran Worship through New Hymns and Songs (2003).

The church's trinitarian theological insights are expressed here with their historic and intrinsic graceful agility. Yes, they can be ponderous—and they should be as we seek to understand what is beyond our grasp, but they also dance. "Dancing," says Leach, "has a very long association with the Trinity, going back to eighth-century theologians who used the word perichoresis to speak of the interdependence of unity and Trinity. 'Dance around' is a literal translation of the word, but its sense is 'interweaving,' and I use that in the hymn." The images of incarnation in the second stanza reflect Leach's reading of Robert W. Jenson. Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance" and the traditional carol "Tomorrow shall be my dancing day" were "in the back of my mind as I wrote," says Leach. He thought of this as a carol for Trinity Sunday.
What we get here, then, is the church in motion with a winsome welcome by and to the God of its being—an invitation to dance the Trinity's interweaving dance that "began" before all worlds began, to see the Trinity's face in Christ's human flesh and bone, to speak aloud the Trinity's wind and flame that frees us to move, and then to shape the rising song in joy.

Richard Leach is a hymn writer whose hymns have appeared in hymnals of many denominations, set by many composers as anthems. In addition to hymns he has written three cantatas for which Curt Oliver has composed the music. Born in Maine, he studied at Bowdoin College (BA in religion, 1974) and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1978). In 1987, as a pastor in New England, after sitting in at Yale Divinity School on Jeffrey Rowthorn's course on worship, where hymn writing was a topic one week, he began to write hymns. Those written from 1987 until 2007 are collected in Tuned for Your Sake (2007). As a United Church of Christ pastor from 1978 to 1999, his hymns tended to relate to the three-year common lectionary. After that, as a lay member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a business manager of an information systems consulting company, and a homemaker and hymn poet, they have related more to commissions, requests, and specific projects.

Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs [sic: English County Songs], an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar's "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say".

Shaped in classic rounded bar form (AABA), KINGSFOLD has modal character and is both dignified and strong.

Offertory: Tongues of Fire and Hearts of Love Stephen Casurella (1973)

This is a newly composed setting of a familiar and well-loved hymn text by James Montgomery (1771-1854). The son of Moravian parents who died on a West Indies mission field while he was in boarding school, Montgomery inherited a strong religious bent, a passion for missions, and an independent mind. He was editor of the Sheffield Iris (1796-1827), a newspaper that sometimes espoused radical causes. Montgomery was imprisoned briefly when he printed a song that celebrated the fall of the Bastille and again when he described a riot in Sheffield that reflected unfavorably on a military commander. He also protested against slavery, the lot of boy chimney sweeps, and lotteries. Associated with Christians of various persuasions, Montgomery supported missions and the British Bible Society. He published eleven volumes of poetry, mainly his own, and at least four hundred hymns. Some critics judge his hymn texts to be equal in quality to those of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley .

Stephan Casurella was born in England, where he began studying piano, organ and music composition at an early age. After moving to the United States, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in both piano performance and music composition and in 2009 was awarded a doctor of musical arts degree in church music (organ emphasis) from the University of Kansas. Stephan is a published composer who has written for a wide range of media. His works have been performed by soloists and ensembles such as the choir of Chester Cathedral, England, the Thalia Symphony Orchestra, the Xavier University Concert Choir, and flutist James Hall.

O spirit of the Living God;
in all the fullness of your grace,
wherever human feet have trod,
descend upon our fallen race.

Give tongues of fire and hearts of love
to preach the reconciling word;
anoint with power from heaven above
when e'er the joyful sound is heard.

Let darkness turn to radiant light,
confusion vanish in your path;
souls without strength inspire with might;
bid mercy triumph over wrath.

O spirit of the Lord,
prepare the whole round earth its God to meet;
and breathe abroad like morning air,
till hearts of stone begin to beat.

Baptize the nations; far and wide
the triumphs of the cross record;
the name of Jesus glorify,
till every people call him Lord.

Opening Voluntary: “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” Rebecca Groom te Velde

Saint Patrick's Breastplate, a prayer of protection also known as The Deer's Cry, The Lorica of Saint Patrick or Saint Patrick's Hymn, is a lorica; in the Christian monastic tradition, a prayer recited for protection in which the petitioner invokes all the power of God as a safeguard against evil in its many forms. The Latin word lōrīca originally meant "armor" or "breastplate." Both meanings come together in the practice of placing verbal inscriptions on the shields or armorial trappings of knights, who might recite them before going into battle. The original Old Irish lyrics of this hymn were traditionally attributed to Saint Patrick during his Irish ministry in the 5th century. In 1889 it was adapted into the hymn I Bind Unto Myself Today.

Rebecca Groom Te Velde is a third-generation professional organist, following both parents and her grandfather. In 1991 she assumed her present position as organist of First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, OK. She is an active performer, composer, clinician, and adjunct instructor of music at Oklahoma State University.

Closing Voluntary: Prelude in E flat Major BWV 552 J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

While Bach was putting together his definitive Clavier-Übung III, a collection of compositions for organ, he may have had a brilliant idea. Rather then putting his tremendous 'Prelude and fugue in E-flat major in the middle as planned, what if he were to separate them to form the opening of the volume and a surprising finish?

In a volume that was essentially devoted to the Trinity, there could have been no clearer statement than this piece, with all its references to the number three. On paper, that is - as Bach and musicians well into the nineteenth century would have found it unusual or even unthinkable that his Clavier-Übung, including prelude and fugue, would ever be played consecutively in a concert.

Incidentally, we do not know for certain whether the prelude and fugue were actually created together, even though the similarities are almost too marked to ignore.