Celebration Sunday

Dedicating our stewardship commitments and commemorating the musical ministry of Charles Wesley on the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Prelude: "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"

Our service this morning will both celebrate the culmination of our stewardship and capital campaign, and will celebrate the birth of Charles Wesley (Dec. 17, 1707). The service will follow the movement of the Church Year, starting at Advent and moving through to Pentecost. We will sing and hear hymns from Charles Wesley for each of these seasons, change the paraments for the appropriate time, and share information about the life of Charles Wesley. Let us begin with that well-known hymn, "O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing"

Introit: O For a Thousand Tongues: Bells
Opening Hymn: O For a Thousand Tongues:
v. 1 kids choirs
v. 2 Youth
v. 3 Bells and Youth and Kids
v. 4 Choir
v. 5 congregation
v. 6 congregation
v. 7 congregation

It has often been said that the theology of the United Methodist Church is in its hymns. John Wesley may have begun the movement in England in 1729, writing theological treatises and preaching, but Charles Wesley put that theology down in the form of verse.

In his lifetime, Charles Wesley was referred to as the Methodist poet because sometimes he didn’t even write a particular tune to go with his words. Look at #387 in your hymnals, and you’ll see what I mean. He wrote with a particular rhythm in mind, and sometimes added a tune, but he also often borrowed from popular tunes from his day [rumor has it, some of those tunes were good drinking songs!], or he let others write or fit a tune to the words. Turn back to #386, and you’ll find 4 verses of that hymn of #387 set to a traditional Scottish melody.

Charles wrote thousands of hymns, so many that there is argument about exactly how many. Somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 hymns. And these aren’t short little things, either. Charles would write verse after verse until he had told the story or made his theological point.

And, his hymns were most often based on words out of the Bible or stories from the Bible. Looking at #387 again, he based this hymn on the story of the angel of God wrestling with Jacob found in Genesis 32. Often times, you can find many different Biblical references within the same hymn.
So, let us begin with Advent, the first season of the Christian year, as we prepare ourselves for the experience of Charles Wesley’s life.

Advent -- purple

Lay Reader: Although it is not scripture quoted in the hymn “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” this passage from Isaiah calls us to the same kind of Advent preparation that Charles Wesley’s hymn does.
Isaiah 65:17-25

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus -- Children’s choirs

Invitation to bring pledges forward.

Wesleyan Covenant Prayer (adapted)
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

Love Divine All Loves Excelling #384 vv. 1-4

Christmas -- white

Children’s Message
Becky: Charles Wesley one of 19 children!
Taught at home by mother, Susanna, who taught them Latin, Greek, and French
Connection with his big brother, John
Dan: Why are we talking about Charles? Bring up a hymnal
Wrote about birth of Jesus, who was there? Wrote about angels with Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Dismissal

Hark the Herald Angels Sing – youth choir

Epiphany -- green

Epiphany is a season of light and witness. Charles followed John to Oxford College. Because of their work-study positions there, they overlapped in their time spent there, and so Charles was part of the conversation with John about starting a “Holiness Club.”
The idea was to create a small group of students who would meet together regularly [make that daily!] for prayer, conversation, and to hold one another accountable to the things they had agreed to do.
Those things varied from waking up early enough to study the Bible before classes to visiting those in prison.

Many people in England in that day were put in “Debtor’s Prison.” If you couldn’t pay your debts, you served some time in jail. Their own father, an Anglican priest, had spent some time in debtor’s prison, so they took Jesus’ admonition to visit those in prison seriously.
They were transformed by this experience, taking the growth of their spiritual lives seriously, but also realizing that as Christians, they were asked to do something positive in the society around them. For example, as they visited people in prison, they discovered a high rate of illiteracy, so they began holding literacy classes in the prisons.

This epiphany in their lives gave the Methodist movement some very long roots around social issues and mission.
Eventually, both John and Charles were also ordained as Anglican priests.
Let’s sing “Christ from Whom All Blessings Flow #550, a hymn that reflects the formative experience of being part of a spiritual community and a theology that says all the people of the world are connected to each other.

Christ From Whom All Blessings Flow #550 (vv. 2,3)

Lay Reader: "O the Depth of Love Divine" is based, in part, on this passage from the Gospel of John.
John 6:35-58

O The Depth of Love Divine – Homeward Bound

Lent -- purple

Early on in their lives, both John and Charles were captivated by the desire to go to America as missionaries. Their experiences there were different, but neither were positive.
After six months, Charles Wesley left Georgia and headed back home across the ocean, ill, depressed, and having lost the favor of the people he was supposed to assist. He began to doubt his faith and the depth of his spiritual life.

Jesus Lover of My Soul – chancel choir

He experienced the suffering of Lent in a whole new way, and began to seek the kind of assurance in his heart that he was writing about on paper.
“I labored, waited, and prayed,” he wrote in his journal, “to feel ‘who loved me, and gave himself for me.’”

Depth of Mercy #355 vv. 1, 4

Under the tutelage of the Moravians, and Peter Bohler in particular, Charles Wesley came to understand that a proper faith would result in a clear sense of the assurance of salvation. Given his recently experiences in America and in the terrifying, stormy voyage across the ocean by ship, Wesley felt a keen lack of this assurance.
He studied his Bible and prayed for this assurance. He also met regularly with the Moravians, seeking to deepen his spiritual life, and to find a deep love, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

In May of 1738, he finally wrote in his journal, “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoice in hope of loving Christ.” He considered himself a Christian anew, and celebrated that as his time of conversion. “O For a Thousand Tongues,” the first hymn we sang, was written one year later in celebration of his new-found assurance and freedom from the tyranny of sin. Let us now close this time of Lent by singing #282 . . .

Tis Finished, the Messiah Dies #282 vv. 1,3

Easter -- white

Back in England, assured of their salvation, John and Charles Wesley picked back up the work they had begun with their Holiness Club at Oxford. Charles wrote hymns, both participated in small groups like the one they’d had at Oxford, and both preached outside of church buildings throughout Great Britain. Their “enthusiasm” and willingness to preach on the street made them fairly unpopular with the Anglican Church, but on one such preaching trip, Charles Wesley, now age 40, met 20-year old Sally Gwynne. He was smitten, and they married. They remained happily married until Charles’ death some 41 years later, and they had 8 children.

The assurance of salvation did not prevent tragedies in their lives, however. Sally nearly died of smallpox, and was scarred for the rest of her life from the disease. And 5 of their 8 children died under the age of 2. Charles had depth of faith, though, and even those kinds of tragedies could not stop him from writing wonderful and enthusiastic praises to God.

Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise #312 vv. 1-2 into Christ the Lord is Risen Today #302 vv. 1, 4

Offertory: "Rejoice, the Lord is King"

Act of Dedication
V. 12 of #387
The Sun of Righteousness on me
hath risen with healing in his wings:
withered my nature’s strength; from thee
my soul its life and succor brings;
my help is all laid up above;
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

Pentecost -- red

Neither John nor Charles Wesley intended to start a new denomination, and they often argued about the effects of their work. Their intent, instead, was to reform the Anglican church. They wanted the church to include more than just the upper class of society, and they wanted church-goers to understand that worship of God came not just from their heads, but also from their hearts.

But their movement did start a new denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church. As inheritors of that denomination, we have the hymnody of Charles Wesley. Hymns that can teach us about God, and hymns that can stir up our hearts as well as our heads. We sing the hymns together to remind ourselves of the ways we are connected to each other, even in the midst of disagreements.

Come Let Us with Our Lord Arise #2084 vv. 1-2

Charles Wesley died in London in 1788 at the age of 81. But his music still lives, infusing the United Methodist Church, and feeding our souls.

Benediction from CW Memorial plaque

Hymn/Benediction O Come and Dwell in Me #388 vv. 1-2

Postlude: O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing