It has come to this. . .

A while back a publication of Lutheran church musicians drew attention to the Marty Haugen hymn, All Are Welcome [ELW 641].  I admit to having only a passing acquaintance with this text and, not being all that favorable to Haugen in general, I did not pay much heed to it.  Then I read it.

You can Google it or listen to a recording below.  I draw attention to the final stanza:

Let us build a house where all are named,their songs and visions heard
and loved and treasured, taught and claimed
as words within the Word.
Built of tears and cries and laughter,
prayers of faith and songs of grace,
let this house proclaim from floor to rafter.
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place. 

 

There are so many things wrong with this hymn, things symptomatic of what is wrong with the Church today.  It is built on heady hubris that we are building the house where love can dwell, where prophets speak, where hands reach out, where all are named.  It is built upon the arrogance of humanity that has learning nothing from Eden and still believes that we are the center of everything, where Christ is facilitator of our own progress and where God is but the divine blessing upon our whole enterprise.

Yes, all are welcome.  Not as volunteers to God's service or people who make themselves by decision or works members of His Body, the Church, but through the baptismal water where all identities are replaced with Christ's alone.  Yes, all are welcome to come as they are but, by God's power and design, they will not remain who they were.  His favor is not simple blessing upon who we think we are (whether the sum of feelings, experiences, or values) but the transformational power to erase what was and build it new until we can claim nothing for ourselves and of ourselves -- Christ only.

Welcome, diversity, equality, and inclusion have so permeated the vocabulary of the Church that these have replaced the Biblical language of call, gather, enlighten, sanctify, and, yes, elect and chosen.  The cross is not symbol but the place where death died, sin was paid, and entrance to God created.  Our freedom was not free and we are not free to ignore His bidding (third use of the Law) or to do as we please or to do nothing.  We were created anew for the good works in which He shows Himself in us and extends love's bidding to the world.  The major work of the Church is not service but witness and it is from witness that service flows -- not the other way around.

How sad it is that the once great chorales that distinguished Lutheran hymnody have been replaced with songs from a Roman Catholic writer (now in disgrace) who directs us away from the one story to our own stories of individualized truths, sentiment over fact, and cultural bywords over Biblical vocabulary.  It is no wonder we are a stranger to the voice of God, our pews are emptying, and our pulpits without anything to say except platitudes and opinion.  The Reformation was once sung into the hearts, minds, and lives of people.  I fear that today the same Reformation is being sung away as we replace the Gospel of God's making for the good news of our own accomplishments, desires, and preferences.