Today, December 1st is Pastor Kim Wells 20th year here at Lakewood United Church of Christ.
Many thanks to her for these 20 wonderful years!
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
“We three kings of Orient are . . .”begins the old Christmas carol that many of us have sung for years. But, as we all found out last Sun., this hymn is not contained in the UCC standard hymnbook. Why?, you may ask. The answer lies in the fact that the hymn contains the word “King”. When the UCC song censors have reviewed hymns and found this terrible word in the lyrics, they have changed it to something else. When it came to this hymn about the wisemen’s visit, the censors must have gotten so jerked out of shape that they eliminated the entire hymn!
Now, first of all, there might be some justification for “black-balling” the three-kings hymn because of the inaccuracy of its reference. The three guys who came on the camels from the east to visit Jesus and his parents were not really kings. I guess they can best be described as learned noblemen, but kings they were not. However, it is obvious that this inaccuracy was not what motivated our censors. They just don’t like the word “king” when it refers to Jesus. Put this word in a hymn and these people yank it out!
To give the devil his due (so to speak!) this king issue is not as ridiculous as it seems at first blush. Out leaders want all of us to understand that the UCC church does not believe that Jesus came to earth to establish a kingdom here on earth. Point well made! In John 18:36, Jesus explains this himself. At the same time , he makes it clear that he indeed has a kingdom. In First Timothy 6:15, he makes it clear that God is the King of Kings. In the so-called Lord’s Prayer, Jesus refers again to God’s kingdom. Apparently, there is a kingdom; it belongs to God and, therefore, is it really an unacceptable stretch to use the word “king” to refer to the being that may be in charge of the kingdom? I think not! Is it inaccurate to talk about Jesus’ kingdom when we mean God’s kingdom? I think not! Was Jesus God; was he God’s son; would he be God again when he got back to heaven? Do you want to play theological games with these words and concepts so as to condemn the usage of the word “king” when referring to Jesus, as long as it is understood that he was not doing king things while visiting us here on earth over 2000 years ago? I certainly don’t want to!
Eliminating the word”king” from the UCC hymnbook is a lot of silliness!! Banning “We three Kings” from the hymnbook is recklessness! Would our UCC censors have UCCers not listen to Handel’s Messiah because of those offending words, “King of Kings . . . ” Perhaps, they should require all members to sing out “Teacher of Teachers, Lord of Lords . . . .” when those naughty words are reached.
Let’s put an insert in our hymbooks containing the words of “We three Kings” so that Malcolm can have us all sing his favorite Christmas carol!!!
I believe I have been told that “We Three Kings” was not included in the New Century Hymnal nor in the United Church of Christ hymnal before it because of issues related to the copyright, and perhaps cost related to obtaining copyright privileges. At Lakewood, “We Three Kings” was in our auxiliary “Sing and Rejoice” hymnal that we created for use in our church. (We no longer use the “Sing and Rejoice” hymnal because we changed copyright license providers and some of the songs are not covered by the new license.)
As for the word “king,” the Greek word used in the New Testament was meant to show the contrast between Jesus and the ultimate ruler at the time, Caesar. The language was a direct challenge to the authority of Caesar. It was intended to show the difference between the authority and rule of Caesar (empire) and the authority and rule of God based on justice, non violence, and compassion. This contrast has been largely lost on today’s audience but that is changing thanks to the efforts of John Dominic Crossan and other scholars. In the church, we align ourselves with Jesus, not Caesar.
In addition, in today’s context, the word “king” is associated with fairy tales and figure heads. Not an apt association for God or Jesus in my opinion. And, yes, there is the masculine imagery that perpetuates patriarchy, which is at odds with the good news of the Gospel, and the commonwealth of God. Replacing “kingdom” with “commonwealth” implies the good of all, the common good, the earth as the wealth of all people. This is more consistent with Gospel values.
Some use “kindom” in place of “kingdom” implying that all are kin, family, rather than that we all are subjects of a male, autocratic, authority figure.
Times change. The ways the Gospel is communicated must meet the various circumstances and settings of human history and culture. And language changes. The Gospel is a living word, so change in the church shows that the Gospel is alive, not anachronistic, archaic, and irrelevant. The world needs the love, forgiveness, hope, healing, justice and anti violence that are the core characteristics of the community Jesus modeled for us. The church needs to convey the contrast between the values of Jesus and of our current consumerist empire. Our goal at Lakewood is to use language that keeps the vision and values of Jesus alive and central in the living of our days in these times.
Back to “We Three Kings,” if you would like to make a gift to the church of about $110, I believe we can secure the copyright privileges to print, copy, and sing all the verses of “We Three Kings” with gusto!!! May we guided by the “perfect light.”
Copyright issues aside, it is nonetheless true that the UCC hymn censors remove the words king and kingdom whenever they find them! I get the feeling that, if they could, they would remove them from the scripture passages as well, showing, of course, that maybe Jesus was a little off-base when he used such a word. Of course, the word has a male connotation! When speaking of Jesus’ “commonwealthdom”, why should it not have a male connotation; wasn’t Jesus a male? I do not view kings as some fairytale figures ,but rather as powerful individuals who lead millions. Today, we have kings “leading” the Dutch, the British, the Danes and others.
But, of course, the whole issue is the image that the word projects! There are some who refuse to believe that Jesus meant to use an image of power when referring to God. They believe, for some reason, that God cannot be compassionate, kind, forgiving and just while still being powerful. Personally, I believe that God can be all of these things and still retain power to judge and use his “heavenly arts” (isn’t that a great term) to teach and reward. I don’t find the image of a king to be an affront to the image of a compassionate diety. My reading of the scripture suggests to me that Jesus used the word kingdom deliberately to convey a particular image. What exactly that was may be open to some interpretation, but I don’t think that is a good reason to censor out the words king and kingdom whenever they appear in a hymn. Censoring out words suggests some real insecurity on the part of some of our leaders!
What a ride it has been! Congratulations Kim – we love you!
Thank you Kim! You’re a true blessing to Lakewood.