Hymns of the Faith: The Lord’s My Shepherd


by Bill Wymond, Derek Thomas, J. Ligon Duncan on August 17, 2008

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Hymns of the Faith


“The Lord’s My
Shepherd”

Psalm 23

A Presentation of
First Presbyterian Church

Jackson,
Mississippi

With

Dr. Ligon Duncan, Dr. Derek Thomas, and Dr. Bill
Wymond

Dr. Wymond: Good morning! This is “Hymns of the
Faith,” brought to you by Jackson’s First Presbyterian Church. The minister of
the First Presbyterian Church is Dr. Ligon Duncan. Stay tuned for “Hymns of the
Faith.”… Here with “Hymns of the Faith” is Dr. Ligon Duncan.

Dr. Duncan: Thank you, Bill Wymond. This is Ligon
Duncan. I’m here today with Derek Thomas and yourself for “Hymns of the Faith.”

Hymns of the Faith today is going to be about
a Psalm, but it’s about a Psalm that so many of you have sung for such a long
time you might not have realized that you were singing a Scottish metrical
Psalm. This Psalm that we’re going to be studying today comes out of The
Scottish Psalter of 1650
, so it’s been sung by Presbyterians and others for
over 350 years. There are lots of settings of this particular Psalm because it’s
one of the most famous of all the Psalms in our English Bibles, as well as one
of the most famous arrangements of a Scottish Metrical Psalm. I would guess in
our tradition, Bill Wymond, that this Psalm, along with All People That On
Earth Do Dwell
, which is a rendering in the Scottish Metrical Psalter
of Psalm 100, are probably the two best known Psalms that we still sing; and of
course I’m referring to the Twenty-third Psalm in the Scottish
Metrical Psalter,
which in our version is entitled The Lord’s My
Shepherd, I’ll Not Want
.

Now there will be many people in our listening
audience who will immediately have a tune in their mind. The most popular tune,
I think, probably in Scotland and in America today that this Psalm is sung to is
CRIMOND, and we of course have
CRIMOND in our hymnal along with a couple
of other hymns. But why don’t we play CRIMOND,
Bill, and then we’ll talk about the various tunes. [Dr. Wymond plays.]

It strikes me, listening to that tune, Bill (because
I’ve still got This Is My Father’s World on my mind)…we had just thought
about that hymn not long ago. This tune dates from the late nineteenth century,
and it’s sort of sweet and pretty, kind of like This Is My Father’s World.
Now, the bass line has a little oomph to it. You know I’m sort of used to
rumbling along with the bass line which has a little more of a…I don’t
know…martial is not quite the term for it. But the tune itself is kind of sweet
and pretty. Tell us a little about CRIMOND.

Dr. Wymond: Well, this tune
CRIMOND was written by a lady named Jessie
Seymore Irvine, and she was the daughter of a minister who served several small
parishes up in northeast Scotland. One of those little parishes was called
Crimond (and it’s a town that today has about a population of 800 or something
like that), so the tune got its name from that parish. But she was in an organ
class evidently, studying organ as a teenager, and wrote out an exercise for the
class. Somehow this tune was taken and set by a man named David Grant to this
particular set of words. So it doesn’t have a real auspicious beginning, but
nevertheless that’s how it started.

Dr. Duncan: And it’s not the only tune that we
have in our hymnal. In fact, we sing — or certainly have sung — one or two other
tunes to this. And Derek, we were talking off air ahead of time, there are
certainly a couple of different tunes that this would have been sung to in
Ireland when you were pastoring there. This tune
CRIMOND is well known in sort of a general Scottish culture. If you were
in a school, or if you were in some national event where a hymn was being sung,
this tune would probably be the tune that it was sung to, but it wasn’t in the
churches when I was there.

Dr. Thomas: No. And even in some of the great
funerals of late — Lady Diana, for example,
CRIMOND was the tune set to the Twenty-third Psalm. There was one more
recently which I can’t remember now, but again I think it was at the Westminster
Cathedral, and it was CRIMOND.

You know, in Northern Ireland, which of course has
all of its Scottish roots, at the graveside when traditionally only the men
gathered after the service at the church…the men would gather at the graveside,
and it was customary for a word to be given by the minister, and then it was
also custom to sing the Twenty-third Psalm. I’ve seen grown men who I doubt were
believers moved to tears at the very opening notes of
CRIMOND. It is associated with something
now that’s sad and…

Dr. Duncan: Well, the Twenty-third Psalm is so
often used. It’s in the old Scottish Book of Order; it’s certainly
in The Reformed Book of Order. You’ve been revising a new version
of The Reformed Book of Order, and presumably it will still be part of
the readings for funeral services. So the Twenty-third Psalm is regularly used
in sort of funerary sort of occasions.

Dr. Thomas: We sang the Twenty-third Psalm to
MARTYRDOM, or…

Dr. Duncan: And to the
MARTYRDOM, it goes [hums tune]…or to
another one. [Dr. Wymond plays tune]…Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?

Dr. Thomas: And of course we sang them a lot
slower than Americans sing anything, so there was a lot more…I don’t know how to
put it. You could say it was heavier, especially with the Twenty-third Psalm and
the Hundredth Psalm. You could not get the congregation to sing that quickly.
There was a…

Dr. Duncan: But when you hear a crowd at the
military tattoo, eleven o’clock at night and the sun’s beginning to go down in
Scotland in August, and they’re singing this slowly, it can take on a haunting
kind of sound to it, and the little — almost trill…the sort of Scottish
thing…and when you hear a crowd do that, it can have a haunting kind of sound to
it as well. So I hear what you’re saying about
MARTYRDOM. What else did you sing it to, Derek?

Dr. Thomas:
ROCKINGHAM OLD…or WILTSHIRE.

Dr. Wymond: Let me just do a little bit of that
one. [Dr. Wymond plays.] I like that tune.

Dr. Wymond: I like that tune also, but I’ll show
you the tune that I like best for this, since we’re talking about tunes. [Plays.]

Dr. Duncan:
BROTHER JAMES’ AIR? [Dr. Wymond continues playing…] I like this
part coming up. I like that kind of…it kind of puts the emphasis right there on
the final line.

Dr. Wymond: I think that has a charm about it. It’s
a very folksong-y tune.

Dr. Duncan: Where did that tune come from, Bill?

Dr. Wymond: It’s actually just from the nineteenth
century.

Dr. Duncan: It is? And we’ve got that in our
hymnal. We’ve got BROTHER JAMES’ AIR, and
what else do we have?

Dr. Wymond: We have
CRIMOND, which we’ve already talked about; and then we have another one
called EVAN, which I’ll just start… [plays]…sort
of like that. That’s familiar I’m sure, to some. So there are a lot of tunes out
there.

Dr. Duncan: The author of this particular version
of Psalm 23, the metrical version…it comes out of a Psalter put together by a
number of folks. William Mure is often mentioned as is…do you say…Francis Rous?

Dr. Thomas: Well, yes. Of course this is a
fascinating piece of British politics… English/Scottish politics, anyway, in the
1640’s. Now help me here. Of course you’ve got the use of the Psalms by Calvin
in Geneva, and Basel. And then you’ve got the Hopkins and Sternhold Psalter
which comes round about Calvin’s death, so 1564…and that lasts for about a
century. And then at the time of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640’s, you’ve
got the Ordinance of Parliament to actually produce a Psalter which is Francis
Rous’s work.

But the Scottish did not trust
it, and hence William Mure, who’s the Scotsman figure here, William Mure is part
of that 1650 Scottish Psalter. But my understanding is that they did not alter
the text of the Twenty-third Psalm. Now, I may be wrong about that. I thought…of
course in the original Twenty-third Psalm, in the third verse:

“Yea, though I walk in death’s
dark vale,

Yet will I fear none
ill….”

And that’s still in our Trinity Hymnal. These days
it’s no ill. I wish they wouldn’t mess with the Twenty-third Psalm! There
are some things that just have to stand, even though the English is gone. I just
hate that modernization.

Dr. Duncan: John Piper’s with you on that! Don’t
monkey around with the lyrics! [Laughs…]

Dr. Thomas: Well, I think it’s part of a received
tradition in worship, and I think it’s important that we have certain texts in
our head. And if people don’t understand them, then I think we should explain
what it means.

Dr. Duncan: By the way, I was just reading a
quote this morning from a mutual friend of ours, Chip Stam, who teaches at
Southern Seminary, and he was reminding us in his worship quote of the week —
and by the way, if you have never seen Chip’s material, you can actually just go
online and run a Google® search on
“worship quote of the week” and you’d eventually get to his website where he’s
got some of these tidbits — but he’s reminding us of a G.K. Chesterton quote
about how one of the things that needs to happen in our worship is that we need
to allow our ancestors to speak to us, who are the most under-represented
minority that we could possibly imagine. And there’s a lot of wisdom to that,
even textually letting our ancestors speak. It’s another reason why I think it’s
important to sing some old tunes as well, and by “old” I don’t just mean early
1900’s or late 1800’s. I mean really old tunes. Because I agree with what Peggy
Noonan says, that you have really lost something when you have lost the sound of
your ancestors’ souls singing. And when you simply take the old texts and you
put them to new tunes, you actually lose contact with the expressive experience
of your forebears in the way they would have sung what they were singing. And I
do think that music helps you get close to that.

So these folks put together a Psalter. Now why did
they put together a Psalter? Why are they all excited about singing Psalms?

Dr. Thomas: Because since
the time of David, that is what the church used to sing!

Dr. Duncan: So what you’re saying is that we’ve
been doing this for 3,000 years; don’t mess with it! [Laughter]

Dr. Wymond: But it is interesting in how the
early church fathers…and I’m thinking of the ones in the 200-300 era…had so many
discussions about what should be the song of the church. And they were worried
about texts that were coming out of various branches of the church, and so most
of them, to be safe, were just saying we really do think the main body of the
congregational singing should be the Psalms.

Dr. Duncan: And really in all Christian
traditions, all orthodox Christian traditions since that time, the Psalms have
formed an important part of the sung praise
. Now that’s not to say that
that’s the only thing that those Christians sang, but it was a very important
part of the diet of what the church was singing. And you can see the
significance of that rationale. For one thing… you’re a great student of John
Calvin. Calvin thought that the Psalms provided an anatomy of all parts of the
soul. Tell us a little bit about that, Derek.

Dr. Thomas: Well, was it in this program just a
few weeks ago? You cited Carl Truman’s statement: “What shall miserable
Christians sing?” And there are times in my experience when I am not h-a-p-p-y,
and I don’t want to put my arms in the air and say “I’m h-a-p-p-y”…

Dr. Wymond: All the day long! [Laughter]

Dr. Thomas: …And I think that part of the problem
that certain kinds of popular hymnody have created, and particularly the…you can
almost identify the “gospel genre” of the late nineteenth century, and I like
those tunes more, I think, than you do. We’ve had this discussion before, and
there’s as aspect of them that certainly appeals to me. But there’s an aspect of
them that is false, if they’re meant to be reflective of my entire Christian
life, because there are times when that’s not how I feel.

And I think that the Bible in the book of Psalms
presents for us a redress that speaks to us pastorally, that speaks to us
emotionally, that doesn’t browbeat us into …. A famous incident I remember as a
… I was on vacation attending a church where I was browbeaten because I wasn’t
entering into the joie de vivre of the song leader, who was exhorting us
to do certain hand motions, and I was refusing to do them.

Dr. Duncan: And you and your son refused to do
them together.

Dr. Thomas: And eventually walked out [laughter]
in just disgust that I was being browbeaten into something that I felt I had
liberty not to do! Besides which I just thought that pastorally it was utterly
insensitive, what he was doing. You know, Psalm 88 is not my favorite Psalm —
that ends with “darkness is my only friend.” But I’m glad it’s there. If ever I
feel like that — and I don’t think I’ve ever felt that…I may have come close to
it on occasions, but I don’t think I’ve ever been there. But I’m glad it’s
there. It’s like a parachute. And it’s there in my songbook, it’s there in the
Bible songbook that one of the authors of the 150 Psalms was in a very, very,
very dark place.

Dr. Duncan: The Psalms certainly have a maturing
effect on the content of a lot of the lyrics that Christians — evangelical
Christians — end up singing. I think our friends Keith and Kristen Geddy have a
project in hand where they’re trying to set the whole Psalter to some kind of
singable format in the sort of modern hymn tunes that they’re writing, along
with Stuart Townend and others.

But this Psalm is a good Psalm to commit to memory.
This isn’t the only good rendering; I like Isaac Watts’ rendering that you have
the choir sing from time to time. There’s a wonderful Mac Wilberg arrangement of
it that you sing that’s set to an early American folksong that I like a whole
lot.

But this is a good sturdy… you know, I have to say,
as much as I love The Scottish Psalter, not all of The Scottish
Psalter
is state of the art in terms of excellence in terms of lyrical
content, but this is a good rendering of Psalm 23.

Dr. Thomas: We are speaking of the original
Scottish Psalter
. There’s actually a very fine new one…

Dr. Duncan: …new one called Sing Psalms,
which does a good job of updating and modernizing. Derek and I both are familiar
with The Irish Psalter and The Scottish Psalter, which retains the
“thee’s and the thou’s” and an older form of English, and there are many, many
verses that are very precious to us out of that. But it can be hard for young
folks who have had no experience of King James Bible English, or Geneva Bible
English, and so there is a good new version called Sing Psalms which was
produced by the Free Church. But this is a pretty good text, don’t you think,
Bill?

Dr. Wymond: I think so. And I was just wondering…
Derek, you would have more knowledge than I…. Who today sings the Psalms? Where
are they sung?

Dr. Thomas: Well, in Jewish synagogues, for sure.
But they’re sung in Presbyterian churches. They’re exclusively sung of course by
our friends in the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Duncan: The Covenanter traditions, whether
they’re in Ireland, or Scotland or America, or Australia or elsewhere.

Dr. Thomas: They’re sung in the Free Church of
Scotland, the Church of Scotland, the National Church of Scotland….

Dr. Duncan: …Would still have a Psalter bound
into their hymnals and would sing them…

Dr. Thomas: But Anglicans, at least traditional
Anglican liturgy has the singing of Psalms, and certainly the old…what is the
old…?

Dr. Wymond: The Reformed Church, also, in the North
and Eastern…

Dr. Thomas: I’m trying to get the name of the old
Anglican hymnbook. Can you tell us a special name?

Dr. Wymond: Not Hymns Ancient and Modern?

Dr. Thomas: Ancient and Modern, yes! There
was a Psalter section in Hymns Ancient and Modern. And of course many of
our hymns, to be fair, are Psalms. They’re paraphrases of the Psalms, but then
metrification….

Dr. Duncan: Well, you were referring to late
nineteenth century hymnody which you like, and we sang one not long ago at First
Pres when we sang Under the Care of My God, the Almighty, which is a
Psalm 91 rendering. But most people probably wouldn’t know that. They would just
recognize it as a gospel hymn or a Bible song.

The Orthodox Church sings Psalms. Maybe not
exclusively, but close to it, maybe. The Roman Catholic mass would have a lot of
Psalmody in it.

Dr. Thomas: And a lot of our finest music has
emerged out of the Psalms. I have always loved this Psalm, and I like this
particular rendition of the Psalm, and I don’t want the “thee’s and thou’s” of
this to be taken out of it! I know it and I can sing it from memory. I don’t
have to have a copy of it with me. I think it’s something I could sing anywhere
— in a hospital, at a graveside, and at least there was a time certainly in
Northern Ireland and Scotland when you pitch this and everyone knows the words
and they’ll sing it with you. There needs to be a good repertoire.

You know there are manuals, liturgy manuals —
Reformed Book of Common Order
, for example, that in the back of which there
are half a dozen hymn-psalms that can be sung in extreme circumstances of need,
and certainly this would be one of them.

Dr. Duncan: When is that book due out?

Dr. Thomas: Shortly. The editor is somewhat…

Dr. Duncan: [Chuckles]…somewhat indisposed
at this point?

Dr. Thomas: I’m trying to think. Was it sung on
the Titanic? I have a notion that it was sung on the Titanic. It wouldn’t
surprise me. It was sung at Queen Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947. It was sung at
her Silver Anniversary.

Dr. Duncan: Now that would have been significant,
because the Queen was the daughter of a man who was never expected to be king,
but because of the abdication of Edward VII, George came to the throne, and
George was married to a Scottish noblewoman, Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, from the John
Knox line actually, on the female side. So that would have been a very
appropriate thing at her wedding, to have a Psalm sung.

Dr. Thomas: I can never ever now sing the fifth
stanza, “Goodness and mercy…” without thinking of a dear, dear friend, Douglas
MacMillan, ex-shepherd and rough hewn, and a…

Dr. Duncan: …a manly figure…

Dr. Thomas: I remember him in Belfast, and he had
this habit in later life of going very close up to the microphone and speaking
in a low sort of voice, but the voice echoing throughout the room in a very
dramatic way. And he told the story of two Border Collie sheepdogs called
Goodness and Mercy, and because Ligon and I are both dog lovers, I remember it
to this day. And every time I think of goodness and mercy now, I think of these
two obedient, loving, Border Collie sheepdogs just at your heels wherever you’re
going.

Dr. Duncan: …herding you along. We should pause
then, Bill, and listen to this great Psalm.

“The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll
not want;

He makes me down to lie

In pastures green;

He leadeth me the quiet waters
by.

“My soul He doth restore again;

And me to walk doth make

Within the paths of
righteousness,

E’en for His own name’s sake.

“Yea, though I walk in death’s
dark vale,

Yet will I fear none ill,

For thou art with me; and Thy
rod

And staff me comfort still.

“My table Thou hast furnished

In presence of my foes;

My head Thou dost with oil
anoint,

And my cup overflows.

“Goodness and mercy all my life

Shall surely follow me:

And in God’s house forevermore

My dwelling place shall be.”

Dr. Wymond: This has been “Hymns of the Faith,”
brought to you by Jackson’s First Presbyterian Church. Our soloist this morning
was Ben Roberson.

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