March 22, 2020
WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S ON THE TERRACE
Write your welcome here
OPENING Words: Shirley Murray “A Place at the Table”
© 2011 adapt. Hope Publishing Company
The Spirit calls us, one and all
to share the gifts of life and light,
to know God’s grace within this place,
to hear the Gospel’s words aright.
We gather to pray, to listen well.
We gather to give all we can give.
We gather to learn and to discern
the secrets of God’s way to live.
HYMN ‘Where Mountains Rise to Open Skies’
Words: © 1971, 2000 Shirley Erena Murray. Music by Vernon Griffiths
Music: © 1971 Faber Music Ltd – Alleluia Aotearoa 155
Where mountains rise to open skies
your name, O God, is echoed far,
from island beach to kauri's reach,
in water's light, in lake and star.
Your people's heart, your people's part
be in our caring for this land,
for faith to flower, for aroha
to let each other's mana stand.
From broken word, from conflict stirred,
from lack of vision, set us free
to see the line of your design,
to feel creation's energy.
Your love be known, compassion shown,
that every child have equal scope:
in justice done, in trust begun
shall be our heritage and hope.
Where mountains rise to open skies
your way of peace distil the air,
your spirit bind all humankind,
one covenant of life to share!
WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S Prepared by Patricia Booth
Kia ora tatou.
I am privileged to be helping to lead this service to honour the legacy of Shirley Murray, wordsmith. Shirley was a member of this church from 1975 to 1993 when her husband John was the Minister here, and members of this community were often the first to sing her early hymns. As Professor Colin Gibson said at Shirley’s funeral on 31 January, it was here that Shirley took up her ministry of hymn-writing as the way to express her inner life.
In my research for this service I have been astounded at the breadth of years when she was writing, and subsequently publishing. Today’s Order of Service contains as many dates as we could find, so as we continue, I urge you to note the dates: from 1971 to 2015. Her last hymnbook “Life into Life”, published at the end of last year, which by the way contains what she called her All-time Favourites, has hymns dated 2017 (Child of Spirit, Child of Light) and 2018 (For Freedom, Christ has set us free).
There are consistent themes in her writing: Christmas of course, but with an increasing link with the plight of refugees, in particular refugee children; other major themes were racism, the environment, inclusiveness, justice, and peace-making.
She was way ahead of her time with some of her insights: in 1992 she published “Sing Green” which referred to acid rain, and driftnet death, and plastic plague – in 1992…
I am very grateful to Professor Colin Gibson for giving me the text of the tribute he gave at Shirley’s funeral. It has helped shape today’s service.
PRAYER
Come, teach us, Spirit of our God,
the language of your way,
the lessons that we need to live,
the faith for every day.
Excite our minds to follow you,
to trace new truths in store,
new flight paths for our spirit space
new marvels to explore.
© 1992 Shirley Murray “In every corner sing” 15
JESUS PRAYER Words: © 2015 Shirley Murray “Life into Life” 16 Hope Publishing Company
(You might like to pray this prayer at home)
Give us this day our daily bread,
the right to work that all be fed,
to live in thankfulness for what we have,
give us this day our daily bread.
Give us this day your daily word,
the heart to act on what we’ve heard,
to live in mindfulness from all we learn,
give us this day your daily word.
Give us this day your daily light,
the eyes to trace the true and right,
to see each other as you see us , God.
give us this day your daily light.
PASSING THE PEACE Words: © 2014 Shirley Murray “Life into Life” 23
Let there be blessing shared out among us,
let our eyes open to goodness and grace,
giving, receiving care and compassion,
suffering, rising to a new day.
THE WORD IN TEXTS
NEW TESTAMENT 1 Corinthians 13
Words: © 1996 Shirley Murray, Faith Forever Singing 73, Admin Hope Publishing Company
–
When I was a child,
I thought as a child,
I spoke as a child, with a child’s own reason,
but now I am grown,
the child’s way is gone,
is weathered by thought of a different season.
Yet all that we know,
and all that we sense,
and all we discern at the mind’s direction
is partially seen
as though it had been
a mirror made dark by a cloud’s reflection.
And each is a soul
that looks for the whole,
for God in our life, with its joy and grieving,
to trust as a child,
to love as a child,
to know and be known beyond disbelieving.
When prophets are dead
and languages shed,
with knowledge all vanished, and mind’s endeavour,
there still will be faith,
There still will be hope,
and love, always love, that will last forever.
GOSPEL Luke 15: 8-10
The Parable of the Lost Coin
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
HYMN ‘From Mother’s Arms, We See the World’
based on the parable of the Lost Coin
Words: © 2015 Shirley Murray “Life into Life” 15 Hope Publishing Co.
Music: O Waly Waly English melody, harmony John Weaver © 1990 Hope Publishing Co.
Reprinted with permission under One License A-623996. All rights reserved
From mother’s arms, we see the world,
in mother’s arms we look for food,
she gives us life, she holds us close,
and so may God be understood.
This God is home and warming hearth,
does not forget us when we leave,
is quick to welcome and embrace,
absorbs our pain when we must grieve.
God is the seeker of that coin,
the child she lost but longs to find,
the seamstress God who stitches peace
from all the tatters we’ve designed.
More than our minds can comprehend
more than our bodies can attest,
God is the love that mothers give
that every child be held and blessed.
Contemporary reading Shirley Murray: from the Forward of “Faith makes the Song” (2003)
In answer to the question as to what motivated her to become a hymn writer, and what continues to inspire her creativity, Shirley Murray answered …
“Much of what fills our hymn books is stale bread, once nutritional perhaps, but now furred with mould. I long for the fresh bread of relevant theological thought – crunchy, soul-satisfying stuff - the real food of faith.
I write out of controlled desperation with the Church and its inability to deal seriously with new theological insight. I write with an awareness of what we are not saying to one another.
Being married to a lively theologian who is also a Presbyterian Minister, I became engaged with the difficulties of constructing a liturgy in which the Word preached had no hymns to support or reflect it. To be theologically adventurous was to be bereft of anything relevant to sing. The hymnbook often dragged us back to the past, rather than providing energy for faith ventures into the future.
There was almost nothing to sing about justice that reflected our contemporary world, at least until Fred Kaan and Brian Wren began writing. So I began writing for my own clarification. For me, it is writing myself into faith. If I connect with others and we can share the song, then something real has been created.”
RESPONSE
For the Word in scripture,
for the Word among us,
for the Word within us,
we give thanks.
REFLECTION 1 Shirley’s introduction to her hymnbook
“A Place at the Table” 2013
© 2013 Hope Publishing Company
prepared by Patricia Booth
A hymnwriter’s task takes temerity,
dexterity shot with sincerity,
but do lots of pruning
and endless retuning
before you are sung by posterity…
While not much concerned about posterity, I offer this collection for the here and now, as a kind of spiritual autobiography of the years since writing “Touch the Earth Lightly” (Hope, 2009). The themes will tell you that I have not ceased to centre on peace, partnered with justice, as these relate to our own faith journey.
But now that I find my life further away from the church and closer to what Jesus is actually pointing to, new elements come into play. Here is one:
I have used the words of the hymn “A Place at the Table” as title for this book, because there are still Christian people not welcome, either at the communion table or at the common table of society. To this end, I have added a verse to the text found in “Faith Makes the Song” (Hope, 2002):
For gay and for straight, a place at the table,
a covenant shared, a welcoming space,
a rainbow of race and gender and colour,
for gay and for straight, the chalice of grace,
and God will delight
when we are creators of justice and joy,
compassion and peace…
Creating justice and joy means walking into the territory of basic human rights, as Jesus did. It means being aware of our own fragility as well as our planet’s, and using technology wisely. I have struggled to express this latter in hymn/song language without losing either the “poetry” or the “piety” which John Wesley advocated:
“Let me accept revelation in science,
all that enhances the life of the earth,
let me reject all that threatens her nature,
testing technology’s status and worth.
Let me be part of a new evolution
honouring others who honour the good,
artists in living out love without labels,
standing in places where Jesus has stood.”
(“Go-between God”)
Because I live in a highly secular society in Aotearoa/New Zealand, I am conscious of how the stereotypes of Christianity can be cynically dismissed. I long to say that there is so much to understand and embrace in the wisdom, spiritual treasury and survival skills that Jesus has given the world.
It is also an interfaith and interactive world I live in, so some of these texts reflect my hope for the “care and connection making us kin” that seems imperative for our human survival:
“God give us wisdom, luminous thinking,
prizing this rainbow, sensing its scope,
finding the gold in icons of others,
working to paint the colours of hope”
(“Just as a rainbow”)
These hymns – be they attempting the pastoral, the prophetic or the impossible – are my present way to express this for myself, and hopefully, for you.
HYMN ‘Sing a song for peace and justice’
Words: ©1992 Shirley Murray, Hope Publishing Co. USA
Music: John Hughes Tune: CWM Rhondda In Every Corner Sing 59
Sing a song for peace and justice,
speak for those who cannot speak!
claim the world for peace and justice:
let the strong support the weak.
Refrain: Light a candle in the darkness,
hope and freedom must not die!
hope and freedom must not die!
You who live in happy places,
who can laugh and speak and sing,
listen for the other voices
mute with fear and suffering.
Refrain
Thousands cry in nameless prisons --
plead with powers that hold the key:
plead that human rights be honored,
that the innocent go free.
Refrain
REFLECTION 2 Rosemary Lawrence
In my reflection I shall draw on the words of Emeritus Professor Colin Gibson who spoke at Shirley’s funeral with so much love, understanding and appreciation of her hymn writing skills and personal qualities.
Colin, as some of you may know, is organist and choir master at Mornington Methodist Choir Dunedin and has been writing hymn texts and hymn settings for over 20 years. He collaborated with Shirley, providing the music to many of her hymns, which are represented in several Hope publications, as well as having his own published collections of hymns.
I am aware that many of St Andrew’s current community may have sung Shirley Murray hymns but not know much about the woman who Colin described as New Zealand’s greatest hymn writer. She was a modest soul who rarely spoke about her many achievements and honours, so I shall do so.
Shirley graduated from Otago University with MA (Honours) in Classics and French. In 2009 from the same University she received an Honorary Doctorate of Literature, in recognition of her hymn writing. She was a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Honorary Fellow of Royal School of Church Music London, Fellow of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada and Erik Routley Fellow of the Presbyterian Church of America. Her hymns have been translated into numerous languages and are represented in more than 140 hymn collections.
Colin honoured her deliberate commitment to the perfection of her craft, creating a body of hymns and songs of such integrity, beauty, truth and originality which won her a world-wide reputation. At the time of her death messages of admiration and sadness were received from Australia, Sweden, Canada, America and Scotland (in particular the Iona Community).
He also thanked her for, “sharing her keen sighted faith: a faith that faced the world as it really is, singing her song of love into the darkness.”
In hymn writer and friend Marnie Barrell’s words, “Shirley has left a legacy of hymns for the Church that is to be.”
Kua hinga te Totara I te wao nui a Tane. A great Totara has fallen in the forest of Tane.
Chaucer, Drama, Hymnology
Colin Gibson was born in Dunedin, the south island of New Zealand. He has been writing hymn texts and hymn settings for over 20 years. His works have been published and performed in Africa, the United States, Asia and Australasia, Great Britain and Europe. He is organist and director of the Mornington Methodist Choir, Dunedin, New Zealand and a lay preacher. He retired in 1999 as Head of the Department and Donald Collie Professor of English at the University of Otago where he currently heads the Department of Theatre Studies and continues to lecture in English Literature as Emeritus Professor. He has conducted numerous hymn workshops in New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain, and has been co-editor of a number of hymn collections. His frequent collaboration with Shirley Erena Murray is represented in several Hope publications, and he has his own published collections of hymns. The next hymn is one such collaboration.
OFFERING HYMN ‘Take my Gifts’
Words © 1992 Shirley Murray. Music ©1992 Colin Gibson. Hope Publishing Company
Alleluia Aotearoa 127
1. Take my gifts and let me love you,
God who first of all loved me,
gave me light and food and shelter,
gave me life and set me free.
Now, because your love has touched me,
I have love to give away;
now the bread of love is rising,
loaves of love to multiply!
2. Take the fruit that I have gathered
from the tree your Spirit sowed,
harvest of your own compassion,
juice that makes the wine of God;
Spiced with humour, laced with laughter
flavour of the Jesus life,
tang of risk and new adventure,
taste and zest beyond belief.
3. Take whatever I can offer-
gifts that I have yet to find,
skills that I am slow to sharpen,
talents of the hand and mind,
things made beautiful for others
in the place where I must be:
take my gifts and let me love you,
God who first of all loved me
We recognise and thank you for the gifts which you make in the service of the ministry and mission of St Andrew’s on The Terrace.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE Prepared by Ken Irwin
Lord of hopefulness and calm, our community, our country and our world is caught up with the tension and wonderment of this Coronavirus Pandemic. We make special prayer for
victims already impacted & for their families
vulnerable people deeply anxious they will succumb
at risk individuals living alone and isolated
families separated by oceans
our prayer is that they may know companionship yes even electronic company, that they may experience your blessing of hopefulness & calm
Lord hear us
This is our Prayer
We make special prayer for
health professionals
caregivers
chemists
researchers
our prayer is they will be resilient, and will be assured of community support. May there be ready and available resources to sustain their service.
Lord hear us
This is our Prayer
We make special prayer for politicians and decision-makers. Grant them clarity of purpose & communication and continuing collaboration
Lord hear us
This is our Prayer
Today as we bless you for Shirley Erena Murray, we offer prayer for contemporary hymn-writers and musicians who add value to our worship. We make special prayer for new artists making fresh offerings of form and style. Equip them with confidence – may they be assured of our empathy and support.
Lord hear us
This is our Prayer
Now we pray for those people and situations in our Circle of Prayer.
CIRCLE OF PRAYER
We think today of the people of Venezuela and the Roman Catholic people throughout the world. We remember the detainees of Manus and Nauru Islands, yearning that their cases be resolved. In New Zealand, we remember those in Parliament, and today we name Melissa Lee and Paulo Garcia list MPs. Here in the Central Presbytery, we pray for the leaders and people of Solway College and St Oran's College.
And we pray this special Prayer for St Andrew’s
A PRAYER FOR ST ANDREW’S ‘Sing to celebrate the City’
Words and Music © 1992 Shirley Murray, Hope Publishing Company
Alleluia Aotearoa 122
Sing to celebrate the city!
Sing the lives of people there,
sing the work of skill and beauty,
all who serve and all who care.
In the dictates of the dollar,
in the systems where we live,
find the currency of kindness,
eyes to smile and hearts to give.
We who are the city's traffic,
Driving, driven, keeping pace,
name the God who makes us neighbours,
give our faith a human face;
in the workplace of God's people,
in the highrise and the home
our agenda is for justice -
changing lives for good to come.
HYMN ‘Song of faith that sings forever’
Words: © 1999 Shirley Erena Murray
Music: © 1999 Colin Gibson, Hope Publishing Company, Faith Forever Singing 57
Song of faith that sings forever through God's people, ages long,
Word that holds the world together when our hearts take up the song,
always, always, somewhere sounding, though the source we do not see,
counterpoint to all despairing, it is hope that sets the key.
Song of faith in exaltation, rising through the vaults of prayer,
tune of simple celebration offered up in open air,
song in chapel and cathedral, descant to our daily tone,
song from sickbed or in prison, faith must often sing alone.
And when life would overwhelm us, when there seems no song to sing,
hear the constant voice of courage out of fear and suffering:
all who've loved and trusted Jesus, all who lift us to be strong,
endless, endless are the voices of the faith that makes the song.
BLESSING Go Gently, go Lightly
Words: © 2009 Shirley Murray “Hope is our Song”
Go gently, go lightly,
go safe in the Spirit,
live simply, don't carry
much more than you need:
go trusting God's goodness,
go spreading God's kindness,
stay centred on Jesus
and where he will lead
Go singing, go bringing
the gifts of the Spirit,
go hopefully searching
for things that are true:
in living, in loving
whatever befalls you,
God keep you, God bless you
in all that you do.
THANK YOU
Write the Thank You here