This was the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, and our songs were gathered with anticipation of the Kingdom in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs:
Chariot by Page France
Amazing Grace by Citizens & Saints
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Bonfire by Jameson McGregor
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
How They Fit In:
There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme.
Chariot: This song embodies the longing for God to break into history and deliver the distinctively untragic end to the story God is weaving. The history of Christianity has been marked by a constant sense of waiting on this moment, and this waiting is significant in at least two ways. The first is direct in that we await the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. The second is indirect in that this waiting for God's redemptive project to be completed colors the way we move about in the world--namely, we should allow the vision of the Kingdom in fullness to be the pattern that we live by. We don't have to wait for the Kingdom to come in fullness to live as though it's already here. Because it is here--or can be-- among those who have been shaped by the story of Jesus.
Amazing Grace: This song engages our anticipation of the fullness of the Kingdom of God by reflecting on the way that God's rule has already been present in our lives through God's grace, and it also looks ahead to the joyous abundance of the Kingdom (when we've been there ten thousand years...).
Pulse: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about Pulse then: We sang this song to be reminded of the gift of life that God has given to all of creation, and to lament our tendency to ignore the dignity of this gift in people who are different than us.
Bonfire: This song traces the vast difference between what it is to be God and what it is to be us, and looks forward to the fullness of the Kingdom where the pain brought by this difference is mended. It also notes the fact that the Kingdom breaks through even now and undermines the fears that we have called our refuge.
Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of a couple of things. First, we are a broken people--though we are seeking to become more like Jesus, we often fail at this. Second, Christ has given Himself for us despite our brokenness. We take communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, even though we did not, and do not, deserve it.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM