Called to Discipleship – Called to Action

Today we all are called to be disciples of the Lord, to help to set the captives free, make plowshare out of sword, to feed the hungry, quench their thirst, make love and peace our fast, to serve the poor and homeless first, our ease and comfort last.”
~ Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples – hymn verse 1

Yesterday our morning worship concluded with the singing of hymn #757 in The Presbyterian Hymnal, Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples. As we arose from our pews, a voice was heard to say, “We should be singing that hymn every Sunday from now on throughout the year.” So, what was it about that hymn that elicited such a profound response? I believe the answer can be found in both the content of the hymn and the timing of its singing.

First the timing. It did not escape me that the hymn was being sung approximately 24 hours before the inauguration of DJ Trump and JD Vance as President and Vice President of the United States of America, an ominous event that for most worshipers, I suspect, did not bode well for the future of America and the world at large. At the same time, the singing of the hymn also preceded a national holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, ironically to be observed on the same day of the Inauguration extravaganza and the promised ‘shock and awe’ that would soon follow with the swift signing of draconian executive orders.

The polar difference in the meaning and outcomes of those two observances could not be more fundamentally opposed, as the content of the hymn reveals. “Today,” it begins, “we are all called to be disciples of the Lord,…” That word, “Today,” holds special meaning now as opposed to any other time the hymn might have been sung. Today accentuates that “fierce urgency of now” that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of in his I Have a Dream speech, delivered in 1963. The phrase was an urgent call to action to address inequality and call for a more just society. “This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action” he extolled. That call to action as disciples of the Lord, is more timely today than it was when the prophet of justice uttered it over 60 years ago.

It was also on February 6, 1968 in his speech in Washington, D.C., A Proper Sense of Priorities, that Dr. King concluded with this poignant observation: “On some positions Cowardice asks, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks, ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience asks, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

The urgent call to action as disciples of the Lord is spelled out in the hymn’s first verse. What is it that defines the action-oriented disciples of the Lord? To what are they called?
+ to help to set the captives free
+ to make plow-share out of sword
+ to feed the hungry and quench their thirst
+ to make love and peace our fast
+ to serve the poor and homeless first, our ease and comfort last.

Verse two spells out God’s creative handiwork in giving birth to this world we call home, in calling us to serve as environmental activists/stewards of the earth responding to God’s grace, in calling out our failures of pride and vanity to sow not peace but strife, not harmony but discord, a deadly cloud that threatens all of life.

Verse three recalls Amos 5:24 asking all to pray that justice may come rolling down as in a mighty stream with righteousness in field and town to cleanse us and redeem. It goes on to recount God’s longing to restore the earth, to quell conflict, to reestablish the harmony and peace for which the world was created.

The final verse calls upon all disciples to act out the living word (or as Luther put it, to be “little Christs unto one another”) and to walk the road the saints have trod (that “road less traveled” as Frost would say) till all have seen and heard. It ends with a call for us as stewards of the earth to give God thanks for calling us to be disciples of the Lord.

Today the storm clouds that many of us at home and around the world have seen brewing on the horizon for the past couple of months are now upon us. What is about to rain down upon us, that agenda of those who reign over us, bares no resemblance to the message of the hymn that should be sung every Sunday throughout this year (and for years to come). It is an authoritarian agenda that corrupts the Constitution, weaponizes the DOJ and military, knee-caps the EPA, elevates fidelity over competency and profit over people, emboldens prejudice and violence, violates human rights, attacks the free press, etc. etc.

Today at an improbable and nearly incomprehensible moment in American history, an insurrectionist and convicted felon has duly and non-violently been placed in the position of the most powerful man in the world and backed by the wealthiest men in the world.

Today in the midst of the storm that is now upon us with no let up in sight, the knee jerk reaction for all who feel under the weather is to button up, hunker down, pull the shades, lock the doors and try to ride out the storm as best we can, all while praying that we may be spared from the worst of it all.

That’s why in the midst of the dark and stormy skies we need to somehow rise above it all, to rise from our sanctuary pews as we did last Sunday (the Lord’s Day) with our opening hymn to Lift Every Voice and Sing (aka The Black National Anthem) as though Martin Luther King Jr himself was leading us:
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.

Today, January 20 in the year of our Lord 2025, is most assuredly a day to hear the call to be disciples of the Lord, and respond boldly and hopefully to the call to action, that “fierce urgency of now.”

“Today we all are called to be disciples of the Lord, to help to set the captives free, make plowshare out of sword, to feed the hungry, quench their thirst, make love and peace our fast, to serve the poor and homeless first, our ease and comfort last.”