HYMN FOR PENTECOST 16 All Praise to Thee, My God this Night

Text: Thomas Ken (1637-1711) Tune: Thomas Tallis (ca. 1508-1585) Thomas Ken 1. All praise to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light; Keep me, O keep me, King of kings, Beneath thine own almighty wings. 2. Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son, The ills that I this day have done; That with the world, myself, and thee, I, ere I sleep, at peace may be. 3. O may my soul on thee repose, And with sweet sleep mine eyelids close; Sleep that may me more vig'rous make To serve my God when I awake. 4. When in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with heav'nly thoughts supply; Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No pow'rs of darkness me molest. 5. O when shall I in endless day Forever chase dark sleep away, And hymns with the supernal choir Incessant sing, and never tire! 6. Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise him, all creatures here below; Praise him above, ye heav'nly host: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. REFLECTION Unjust Steward “Forgive us our trespasses/As we forgive those who trespass against us.” This petition from our Lord’s prayer is what Jesus is illustrating in this parable. Forgiveness is at the heart of the faith—Jesus came proclaiming the forgiveness of sins, he died to reconcile us sinners with a holy God, and commands us to forgive, even as we are forgiven. The parable is a vivid lesson in the two way nature of the gift—because we have been forgiven by God, forgiveness should flow out of us to the neighbor. God’s holiness cannot abide sin in us, but his command to live the Christian life is not simply a pact between God and me. Many people seem to think that the commands of God were made just between him and humanity to make their lives difficult. But living a life of forgiveness is for the good of the whole as Jesus is teaching in these past Sunday texts. A friend of mine whom I had sinned against died before I could ask forgiveness from her. While I am confident God forgives me for the sin, the healing that could have come if I had gone and asked her for forgiveness did not and it plagues me to this day. Life would have been so much better for both of us. There are those antinomians who flout the law and regard their faith as enough to save them no matter what, but Jesus in this account is not very reassuring about that. The unjust servant is taken away and imprisoned, even tortured Jesus says. In a way, antinomianism is really nihilism—there is no God, there are no consequences, and the healing that could come from reconciliation scorned. Nothing we do, then, really matters, not to ourselves, our society, or God, even. Chaos is the result. Unforgiven sin festers and infects our whole spirit. Let not the sun go down on your wrath, says Scripture. Therefore at morning and evening we are to pray the Lord’s Prayer to ask for forgiveness and remind ourselves to seek forgiveness from our neighbor. The prayers and hymns appointed for evening and morning by the church always include, especially at night, prayers for forgiveness, as Thomas Ken did in this famous evening prayer. “Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,/The ills that I this day have done.” Like many older people I am finding that “when at night I sleepless lie” my sins loom larger as the end draws nearer. I know God forgives me. How much better I might feel if I had dealt with some of those sins with the ones I had hurt? God, forgive me! HYMN INFO Bishop Thomas Ken lived in a time of religious turmoil that could mean death, or imprisonment, if one were found on the wrong side. His parents died when he was young, so he ended up living with his stepsister and her husband, Izaak Walton, the writer of The Compleat Angler, a kind and decent man who raised Ken well. Ken studied at New College in Oxford where he earned his B.A. and M. A. He served several parishes of the Anglican church; in 1672 he came to Winchester College. There in 1674 he wrote a collection of prayers for morning, noon and night, with three hymns to attend them. In doing this, he was, like Luther, making use of the tradition of the daily hours from the monastery, reducing them to three for home devotions. Thomas Tallis' Canon is one of the greatest tunes to come out of England. A musician in even more turbulent times than Ken, Tallis served under King Henry VIII. He remained an unreformed Catholic, people thought, but he skillfully managed to satisfy both Henry VIII, and his establishing of the Anglican church to serving Mary, who worked to bring Catholicism back to England, and then Elizabeth who restored her father’s Anglicanism. Tallis could write complicated pieces of polyphony when the Catholics were in charge; and tunes for the Protestants that did not obscure the words, an important feature of hymn texts set for congregational song. Tallis’ Canon, as it is called, can be sung as a round which gives people singing it an easy way to sing in harmony, while yet singing the same melody. NB: Some scholars think the first line started Glory to thee, my God, this night. LINKS Kings College Choir/wonderful pictures of the people I wrote about above https://youtu.be/thMQEuKYTLE Music at Liebfrauen/Cappuccinis/The first line is Glory to thee... https://youtu.be/olZC043rdTc New Cambridge Singers/Choir Audience and Orchestra https://youtu.be/bYJ8SneHfT4 St. Philips Boys Choir https://youtu.be/2RX9AjL8RK8