17 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.3 So watch yourselves.
“If your brother or sister[a] sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’?8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’?9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Jesus Heals Ten Men With Leprosy
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[b] met him. They stood at a distance13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
The Coming of the Kingdom of God
20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed,21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”[c]
22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them.24 For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man.27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.32 Remember Lot’s wife!33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”[36] [e]
37 “Where, Lord?” they asked.
He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”
Footnotes
Luke 17:3The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a fellow disciple, whether man or woman.
Luke 17:12The Greek word traditionally translated leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin.
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Final Hymn “Since Jesus Came into My Heart”, Sunday March 17, 2024 was played by Hetty Jacobs on piano and sung by the Sanctuary Choir and congregation. This was the fifth Sunday in Lent.
Rufus Henry McDaniel, ordained in 1873, turned his profound grief into a timeless hymn after losing his son Herschel in 1913. In 1914, he crafted “Since Jesus Came into My Heart,” a gospel hymn that beautifully encapsulates the transformative journey of faith, resonating with personal salvation experiences. McDaniel’s choice of repeating the impactful phrase “since Jesus came into my heart” throughout the hymn emphasizes the deep-seated change brought by faith.
Scriptural Foundation:
The hymn’s message is deeply rooted in scripture, particularly in 2 Corinthians 5:17, which declares, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” This verse perfectly encapsulates the transformative journey that McDaniel illustrates through his hymn.
Experiencing Transformation:
Each verse of the hymn narrates the significant shift from a life of wandering to one of purpose and direction, akin to the lost son’s return in Luke 15:24. This parable and the hymn alike celebrate the restoration and new life found in coming home to the Father through Jesus Christ.
Joy in Salvation:
The hymn exudes a joy that resonates with 1 Peter 1:8-9, which speaks of “an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” McDaniel’s lyrics mirror this joy, reflecting the profound inner peace and satisfaction that accompany salvation.
Navigating Life’s Journey:
In “Since Jesus Came into My Heart,” there’s a clear narrative of moving from life’s aimless wandering to walking a path illuminated by Christ’s love, reminiscent of Psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” The hymn emphasizes the guidance and clarity Jesus brings to our lives.
Eternal Perspective:
The hymn concludes with a forward-looking view, expressing hope and assurance in the eternal life promised in John 14:2-3, where Jesus assures, “In my Father’s house are many rooms… I am going there to prepare a place for you.” McDaniel’s lyrics affirm the believer’s hope of dwelling with Christ forever.
“Since Jesus Came into My Heart” is not just a hymn but a profound testament to the enduring power of faith and the unifying journey of believers. It continues to inspire and resonate within the global Christian community, proving the timeless nature of McDaniel’s heartfelt composition.
In sum, “Since Jesus Came into My Heart” is a vibrant declaration of the radical change and boundless joy that come with a life surrendered to Christ, offering a blueprint for the Christian walk that is guided by faith, illuminated by divine love, and anchored in eternal hope.
Closing Prayer:
Dear Lord, we thank You for the profound changes You instigate in our lives. Like the joyful declarations in “Since Jesus Came into My Heart,” we too celebrate the new life, direction, and hope You have gifted us. May our lives continue to reflect the transformative power of Your love and grace. Amen.
The Pender UMC Traditional Service Middle Hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” on Sunday October 23, 2022 was played by Liz Eunji Moon on piano, accompanied on guitar by Brian Stevenson and sung the Pender Sanctuary Choir and congregation.
How does a personal poem written to a mother from a despondent son, recently immigrated from England to a relatively remote section of Canada in the mid-nineteenth century, become one of the most widely sung hymns in the world?
Joseph Medlicott Scriven (1819–1886) was born in Seapatrick, Ireland (now Northern Ireland,) and died in Ontario, Canada. After attending classes at Trinity College, Dublin, he pursued a military career, where he trained for service in India; but had to abandon that ambition because of his poor health. He returned to Trinity and graduated in 1842.
SCRIVEN’S LIFE
Scriven’s life was full of tragedy. Following the accidental drowning of his Irish fiancée the evening before their wedding, he moved to Woodstock, Canada West (now Ontario) in 1844, where he led a Plymouth Brethren fellowship and taught. Scriven organized a private school in 1850 in Brantford and preached in the area. Some scholars believe that Scriven may have composed his initial draft of “What a Friend” written during this time.
Moving near Clinton in Huron County in 1855, he read the Bible to railway construction workers who were building the Grand Trunk Railway across the Canada West. By 1857, he relocated to Bewdley, supporting himself as a private tutor to the family of Robert Lamport Pengelly, a retired naval officer. Tragedy struck again when his second fiancée, Eliza Catherine Roach, Pengelly’s niece, died in 1860 of an illness shortly before their wedding. Scriven then returned to ministry among the Plymouth Brethren in Bewdley, near Rice Lake (McKellar and Leask, Canterbury Dictionary, n.d.). Hymnologist Albert Bailey noted that Scriven, a selfless person by nature, was known as “the man who saws wood for poor widows and sick people who are unable to pay” (Bailey, 1950, p. 495).
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography describes what we know about the circumstances surrounding Scriven’s death in October 1886:
His last days were clouded with ill-health and despondency. James Sackville, his friend and fellow-believer, found Scriven ill and brought him to his house. One hot night in 1866, Scriven left his bed without disturbing anyone, probably to drink at a nearby spring: some hours later, presumably having fainted or fallen, he was found dead in the spillway of Sackville’s grist-mill, a few feet from the spring. He was buried in the Pengelly burial-ground in an unmarked grave between Eliza Roach and Commander Pengelly (Macpherson, “Scriven,” n.d.).
A few days before Scriven’s death, Sackville found the dejected Scriven “prostrate in mind and body and heard him say, ‘I wish the Lord would take me home’” (Cleland, 1895, p. 17). It was never determined if his death was accidental or a suicide. A monument was later erected over his gravesite by friends and neighbors. Joseph Medlicott Scriven’s historical marker was placed in Otanabee-South Monaghan, Ontario, Canada, marking his homestead and burial place.
ORIGINS OF ‘WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS’
Scriven published a collection of his poetic works, Hymns and Other Verses, which included seventy-one hymns “intended to be sung in assemblies of the children of God on the first day of the week and on other occasions when two or three are met together in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These were followed by thirty-four scriptural paraphrases “not to be sung in the assembly, but to express truth, as well as convey comfort, instruction or reproof to our hearts, in order that we may walk together in obedience” (Scriven, 1869, Preface). “What a Friend,” the hymn for which he is known, does not appear in the collection, however. Why not?
Some writers have noted that the hymn was written for his mother, who was suffering from illness. Musical evangelist Ira D. Sankey (1840–1908) spread this account (cited in Bailey, 1950, pp. 495–496). This assertion is hard to verify, however. A statement from Scriven’s biography (1895) by James Cleland includes the author’s mother in the dissemination of the hymn but does not clarify other details:
When residing at the house of his friend Mr. Sackville, near Rice Lake, he composed this hymn; making two copies, one of which he sent to his mother, in Dublin, and gave the other to Mrs. Sackville, which the old lady, now over eighty years of age values highly. Probably it was through his mother that the hymn was given to the public (Cleland, 1895, p. 13).
If indeed “What a Friend” were composed as a personal poem, it may explain why it did not appear in the collection the author published in 1869. The personal first-person plural perspective contrasts with other hymns by the author. As one author noted, “almost all of his others are more firmly constructed, without emotional softness, and developed from biblical texts” (Macpherson, “Scriven,” n.d.). Carl Daw Jr. has also noted the differences between “What a Friend” and the author’s published works in Hymns and other verses, supporting the hypothesis that the poem was intended for his ailing mother rather than public use (Daw, 2016, p. 470).
Some commentaries state that the text was first published in J.B. Packard’s Spiritual Minstrel: A Collection of Hymns and Music (1857), but this is erroneous, according to hymnologist Chris Fenner (See Fenner, 2020, n.p.). The hymn appeared as we know it anonymously in three stanzas of eight lines each in Social Hymns, Original and Selected (1865), compiled by Horace Lorenzo Hastings. New England composer and church musician Charles Converse (1832–1918) then included the text in his Silver Wings (1870) with his tune under his pen name Karl Reden, a Germanization of his name (“reden” meaning “to speak” or “converse”). He states that he obtained the text from the privately produced hymnal, “Genevan Presbyterian Church (of Brooklyn) Collection.” No copy of this hymnal appears to be extant. Converse’s tune paired with the text gained prominence with Ira Sankey and spread in his revivals with Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899). Published in Sankey’s Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (1875), later known as Gospel Hymns No. 1., Sankey mistakenly attributed the hymn to Scottish hymnwriter Horatius Bonar (1808–1889), an assertion disputed by Bonar.
The text has remained unusually stable with few editorial alterations over the years. Edward Samuel Caswell (1861–1938) published an early manuscript version signed by Scriven that was titled “Pray without Ceasing” (from 1 Thessalonians 5:17) in 1919. It appeared in four quatrains, the first three of which are familiar. The fourth reads as follows:
Are we cold and unbelieving, Cumbered with a load of care? Here the Lord is still our refuge: Take it to the Lord in prayer. (See the manuscript at Fenner, 2020, n.p.)
Of the hymn, Caswell stated that it was “beyond question the best-known piece of Canadian literature” (Macpherson, “Scriven,” n.d.).
Stanza 1 establishes that Jesus is a friend that can bear our sins and burdens. This theme appears in the eighteenth century with Charles Wesley’s “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” (1740) and John Newton’s “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” (1779). Nineteenth-century hymnwriters are especially known for expressing their personal friendship with Jesus. For example, see Louisa M.R. Stead’s “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” (1882), Elisha A. Hoffman’s “I Must Tell Jesus All of My Trials” (1894), and Fanny Crosby’s “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine” (1873). The author uses the first-person plural perspective—perhaps indicating that he and his mother (“we”) have a bond in prayer and need not suffer sin and grief alone.
The second stanza asks two rhetorical questions—rhetorical because, indeed, all humans suffer “trials and temptations” and witness “trouble.” The answer becomes a short refrain: “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” A third rhetorical question asks, “Can we find a friend so faithful . . .?” The intimate friendship with the one who “knows our every weakness” is the source of solace. The refrain returns: “Take it to the Lord in prayer.”
The third stanza reframes the premise of the song with different questions, while the theme remains the same:
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Do your friends despise, forsake you?
The answer to both questions is, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” The closing image of Jesus enfolding his friend in his arms is also a common trope in many hymns from this era. The two most known are Fanny Crosby’s “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” (1868) and Elisha Hoffman’s “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” (1887).
Hymnologist Fred Gealy found an additional stanza published in Hastings’ Songs of Pilgrimage: A Hymnal for the Churches of Christ (Boston, 1886; Second Ed. 1888) with the following fourth stanza:
Blessed Jesus, thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear, May we ever, Lord, be bringing All to thee in earnest prayer. Soon in glory, bright, unclouded, There will be no need for prayer; Rapture, praise, and endless worship Shall be our sweet portion there.
Since this seems to be the only hymnal to include this stanza, it may have been added by the editor who felt that an eschatological focus was more theologically suitable for a closing stanza.
Albert Bailey notes correctly that Scriven’s poetry is of relatively low quality with monotonous rhymes (Scriven uses five words to rhyme with “prayer”—some multiple times) and trite language. But even Bailey admits, “Our criticism is made harmless by the tremendous service the hymn has rendered. Any unlettered person can understand it; the humblest saint can take its admonitions to heart, practice prayer, find his load more bearable and [her] spiritual life deepened” (Bailey, 1950, p. 496).
Paul Westermeyer offers a critique from a Lutheran perspective, noting:
It has been a source of comfort for many who have sung it, though paradoxically it has also been a part of a Protestantism that denies its own heritage by turning prayer into work to control God’s grace. The repeated line “Take it to the Lord in prayer” relates to . . . comfort, and forfeiting peace or suffering pain “All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer” suggests our capacity to save ourselves by the work of our prayer (Westermeyer, 2010, p. 606).
Carl Daw offers a different analysis: “As a hymn of assurance, it has served as an effective reminder of the centrality of prayer in a well-rounded spirituality. Unfortunately, singing it has often been a substitute for the comprehensive prayer life it advocates, and its advice has been cherished, but not followed” (Daw, 2016, p. 471).
While other tunes appear with this text, CONVERSE by Charles Converse is the most popular. Carlton Young suggests that CONVERSE is reminiscent of Stephen Foster tunes of the era and provides a perfect musical vehicle for this prayerful text. He notes that this tune follows the same general melodic contour as Foster’s “Jeanie with the light brown hair” (Young, 1993, pp. 687–688). Converse, a Massachusetts native, was an associate of William Bradbury (1816–1868) and Ira Sankey in revivals and the Sunday school movement.
The range of recording artists who have sung this song is staggering from long-established white performers Pat Boone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcHbzSi7fho&feature=emb_title), Rosemary Clooney, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton to African American gospel artists Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, and Ike and Tina Turner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay1lUmnaZfA&feature=emb_title). More recently, Contemporary Christian artist Paul Baloche has recorded the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pJb0nUiZWc&feature=emb_title), indicating that it continues to have a witness to younger generations. Baloche’s improvisatory coda bridges the nineteenth century with the twenty-first. The hymn’s inclusion in the film Driving Miss Daisy (1969) as sung by Little Friendship Missionary Baptist Church Choir (Decatur, Georgia) confirms its iconic status in the genre.
The simple language becomes a virtue in translation, and the folk-like melody easily transcends cultures around the world. The musical treatment of CONVERSE varies in each cultural setting, but the message remains the same. There are few hymns that I have heard more regularly around the world. Scriven’s biographer, James Cleland, noted in 1895, “In the steerage of the steamer, a traveler returning from Europe, heard a mixed company, who spoke different languages, united in singing this hymn” (Cleland, 1895, pp. 5–6). One hundred years later, this author verifies hearing this song sung in various languages and renditions, including a humble congregation for people with leprosy near Ogbomosho, Nigeria; a Filipino Anglican congregation in Manila; a thriving Baptist congregation in Matanzas, Cuba; and an African American Methodist congregation in Atlanta. A modest poem, written in Canada as a private meditation for the author’s mother in Ireland, has found its way into many hearts worldwide and, undoubtedly, has been a source of comfort for millions of Christians for more than one hundred fifty years.
SOURCES
Albert E. Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950).
For Pender’s offertory on June 18, 2023Brian Stevenson, Director of Music Ministries, played Badinerie BWV 1067 from “Orchestral Suite No. 2 in b minor” by J.S. Bach (1685-1750) on his flute.He was accompanied by Heidi Jacobs on the piano.
The Badinerie (literally “jesting” in French – in other works Bach used the Italian word with the same meaning, scherzo) has become a showpiece for solo flautists because of its quick pace and difficulty.
“A Prayer for Healing” was the offertory anthem at Pender’s 9:00 am Traditional Service on October 1, 2023. It was sung by Pender’s Sanctuary choir, directed by Jane McKee and accompanied on piano by Heidi Jacobs. With words and music by Joseph M. Martin, this powerful music references John 2, Jeremiah 14:1-22, John 14:27, John 9:1-41
Written during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, this song of spiritual and physical wellness speaks to many moments of need. Opening with the first few chords of O God, Our Help in Ages Past, the anthem is framed as a petition for God’s healing mercy. The unison melody gently rises and falls before all join in on the prayerful refrain: “In the silence help us hear words of hope and promise clear. Teach us not to live in fear. Lord of all, we pray to you.” A true anthem of hope!
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