“God of Grace and God of Glory”

Psalm 84

Joshua 24:1-2, 14-28

Rev. Dr. R. Tim Meadows, Associate Pastor

For many reasons best described over food and beer and not in sermon format Harry Emerson Fosdick is one of my theological hero’s. For many reasons which I will share with you Fosdick’s hymn “God of Grace and God of Glory is among my favorite of Christian hymns. The hymn speaks to me at a level that most other songs do not. Fosdick’s hymn is an important and classical Christian hymn for many reasons. Here are a few of those reasons:

The hymn is important because it recognizes the goodness and strength of God. Two ideas that generally appear together in Scripture but often get separated in our thoughts and actions and produce distorted images of God. If we err on the side of grace we produce an image of God that looks somewhat like Santa Claus, a genial giving person who fulfills our every request, but more often we tend to err on the side of glory and produce the image of an angry, controlling, smiting, God. Fosdick knew we needed a balanced view of God and thus wrote of both God’s goodness and strength. God of grace and God of glory help us to see and share balanced images of you.

The hymn is important because it asks of God wisdom and courage for our journey in life, two things that must be held together, for wisdom without courage leaves only theory with no action which does no good, and courage without wisdom results in hasty acts of disaster which are easier to create than to clean up! Fosdick knew we needed both wisdom and courage for the journey of life. God of grace and God of glory grant us wisdom and courage for the living of our days.

The hymn is important because it acknowledges the presence of evil in our world and how evil creates doubt and fear that can only be overcome by acts of faith and words of praise. The question for us is what acts of faith we need to take to deal with the evil in our world. The question for us is what words of praise we need to offer to overcome the evil in our world. Fosdick knew that we would face evil and thus writes to remind us to see and confront evil. God of grace and God of glory help us to offer acts of faith and to speak words of praise that will help confront the evil in our world.

The hymn is important because it acknowledges our need and responsibility to be strengthened by God in Christ and to serve each other without failure out of that strength. Fosdick recognized that God does not bless us for our own sake but for the purpose of the work we need to accomplish, and so he wrote to remind us of our need to use appropriately the strength we receive from God. God of grace and God of glory help us to use our strength to make our world better.

The hymn is important because of where it comes from. Once I finished my own reflections on this hymn I went in search of the story behind the hymn and when I found the story I discovered a goldmine especially for the times we find ourselves in here at T.V.C.C. I want to share the story with you largely as Fosdick wrote the story in his autobiography The Living Of These Days. Fosdick writes:

In 1929 we began using the lower levels of our new building for the church school and at last on October 5, 1930, we occupied the completed structure, dedicating it formally on February 8, 1931. This was a crowning day after a long wait. Looking forward to it, I had written a hymn which was sung at the dedicatory service:

God of grace and God of glory,

On Thy people pour thy power;

Crown Thine ancient church’s story,

Bring her bud to glorious flower.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

For the facing of this hour.

That was more than a hymn to me when we sang it that day ----- it was a very urgent personal prayer. For with all of my hopeful enthusiasm about the new venture there was inevitably much humble and sometimes fearful apprehension. One day an associate of mine, Dr. Carder, and I sat together on the foundation walls of the new edifice, which had just reached the street level, and said to ourselves with anxious foreboding: “What a tragedy if all this should turn out to be a flop!” Moreover, even if it were not a flop, the possibilities were dreadfully present that it might not be the kind of success the Master could approve. While we were still in our current structure, I preached a sermon in which I said:

You know it could be wicked for us to have that new church --- wicked! Whether it is going to be wicked or not depends on what we do with it. We must justify the possession of that magnificent equipment by the service that comes out of it. If we do not it will be wicked...

Very frequently in these days people come to me and say, the new church will be wonderful. My friends, it will not be settled yet whether the new church will be wonderful. That depends on what we do with it. If we should gather a selfish company there, though the walls bulged every Sunday with the congregations that would not be wonderful. If we formed there a religious club, greatly enjoying themselves, though we tripled our membership the first year; that would not be wonderful……..

If all over the world, at home and abroad, wherever the kingdom of God is, the support of this church should be felt and, like an incoming tide, many an estuary of human need should feel its contribution flowing in that would be wonderful. If young men and women coming to that church should have Isaiah’s experience, seeing the Lord high and lifted up, his train filling the temple, and if they should discover there their divine vocation and should answer it, that would be wonderful. If wherever soldiers of the common good are fighting for a more decent international life and a juster industry, they should feel behind them the support of this church which, though associated in public thought with prosperity and power, has kept its conviction clear that a major part of Christianity is the application of the principles of Jesus to the social life, and that no question is ever settled until it is settled Christianly, that would be wonderful. And if in this city, this glorious wretched city, where so many live in houses human beings ought not to live in, where children play in streets that ought not to be children’s playgrounds, where unemployment haunts families like the fear of hell, and two weeks in the country in the summertime is the only paradise a little child knows, if we could lift some of these burdens and lighten some of these dark spots and help solve some of the problems of these communities, that would be wonderful. If in that new temple we simply sit together in heavenly places, that will NOT be wonderful, but if we work together in unheavenly places, that will be wonderful!

Such was our ideal says Fosdick, when we dedicated the Riverside Church. God of grace and God of glory may that be our ideal at T.V.C.C. as well.

Choose you this day whom you will serve Joshua said. If that choice is God and if in our service we make the world better, that would be wonderful! May God give us the grace to make it so! AMEN.