Music Notes: 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A — August 30, 2026

The liturgical readings for this Sunday, August 30th, center on the cost of discipleship. In the first reading, from the Book of Jeremiah, shows an example of discipleship’s cost. The prophet Jeremiah tells of the desire to stop speaking out on the Word of the Lord, because it has made him a target of public mockery. But he finds he cannot, since the Word of God burns inside him like a fire, until it forces its way out, regardless of the personal cost to him. Psalm 63 My Soul Is Thirsting for You continues this theme, a meditation on the passion for God that leads to discipleship. The psalmist writes: “O God, you are my God, at dawn I seek you: for you my soul is thirsting, For you my flesh is pining, like a dry, weary land without water.” In the second reading, Romans 12:1-2, Paul gives another example of discipleship, encouraging believers to present their bodies as a living sacrifice. This sacrifice leads to transformation, as Paul states the importance of not following a worldly path: “do not conform yourselves to this age.” The Gospel Reading, Matthew 16:21-27, gives Jesus’ first prediction of his Passion, his rebuke of Peter, and his teaching that saving one’s life means losing it, while losing it for Jesus’ sake means finding it. Jesus says: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

Sunday’s Opening Hymn, Lift High the Cross (Worship Hymnal No. 885) was written by George Kitchin in 1887 while serving as the Dean of Winchester Cathedral. He wrote the text for a festival of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel held there. The hymn draws on the story of Constantine seeing a cross inscribed with the words “in this sign you will conquer,” and on Jesus’ teaching in John 12:32 that his being lifted up will draw all people to himself. In 1916, Anglican priest Michael Newbolt reworked Kitchin’s twelve couplets into the version now in common use, and it was set to a new tune, CRUCIFER, written specifically for it by Sydney Nicholson, an English choir director, who had served as organist at Westminster Abbey. Nicholson at the time was the music editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern. The tune’s name, meaning cross-bearer, refers to the person in the Liturgical Procession. As an opening hymn, Lift High the Cross sets the tone for Sunday’s Gospel reading, raising the themes of bearing the cross and the cost of discipleship. The upward interval of the opening motif provides a musical image of the cross being lifted.

Here is Lift High the Cross as sung by the choir and congregation at the First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C59j6p6iOZ4

The hymn at the Preparation of the Gifts is As a Fire Is Meant for Burning (No. 734). Ruth Duck wrote this text in 1982 after visiting a mission in Turkey, and the opening image of fire reflects that experience. The text, “As a fire is meant for burning With a bright and warming flame, So the Church is meant for mission, Giving glory to God’s name,” echoes Jeremiah’s feeling that the Word of God was like a fire burning in his heart. Published in her collection Dancing in the Universe, hymnwriter Ruth Duck has written more than 150 hymns and is known for closely and inclusively grounding her texts in scripture. The text is not built as praise directed at God but as a description of what the church is for: mission, witness, humility, and being a sign of unity among different peoples. The tune, BEACH SPRING, did not originate with this text. It is a shape-note melody from The Sacred Harp, a hymnbook first published in Philadelphia in 1844, and its folk origin gives the hymn a plain, unornamented character that suits Duck’s straightforward text. Paired with the second reading’s call to offer one’s body as a living sacrifice, the hymn underscores the idea that the Church’s mission, like fire, exists to be spread throughout the world.

Sunday’s Communion Hymn, Unless a Grain of Wheat (No. 759) was written and composed by Bernadette Farrell in 1983, basing the refrain text directly on John 12:24: a grain of wheat that must fall to the ground and die before it can bear fruit. Farrell is a British composer of Catholic liturgical music, raised in West Yorkshire and trained at King’s College London and the Guildhall School of Music. She is likely best known for her hymn: Christ, Be Our Light. The verses of Unless a Grain of Wheat draw further from John 14 and 15 and from 2 Timothy 2, moving from dying and rising with Christ to living in Christ’s presence and receiving his peace. Although the grain of wheat image comes from John rather than from this Sunday’s Gospel, the underlying idea is the same one Jesus gives in Matthew 16: that life is found by first losing it. Farrell’s melody stays in a modal, minor feeling key through the verses, while the refrain features a more major tonality. This musically mirrors the idea of new life.

Sunday’s Communion Meditation, I Surrender, was written by Matt Crocker for Hillsong’s 2012 album Cornerstone. By his own account, he wrote it while preparing for Hillsong’s annual youth conference, built around a theme of hunger and desperation for God, and the song was later adopted more broadly across Hillsong’s services as a song of personal dedication. The verses are built from short, memorable repeated phrases: “surrendering all,” “desperate for you,” “I want to know you more.” It mirrors the longing for God spoken of by Jeremiah and the psalmist’s image of a soul thirsting for God. It reflects Jesus’ call to discipleship and echoes the call to take up one’s cross.

Here is a version of I Surrender by Matt Crocker as sung at a Hillsong United Concert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNODPa17jD8

Sunday’s Final Hymn, Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service (No. 780) was written by Albert Bayly in 1961 in response to a call from the Hymn Society of America for new hymns on the theme of discipleship and mission, and it was chosen as the theme hymn for the Second National Conference on the Churches and Social Welfare, held in Cleveland that October. Bayly was a minister in England who wrote in a more direct, contemporary style, and he is often credited as a key figure in the revival of British hymn writing in the 1960s and 70s. The text opens by naming Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and then moves outward to the homeless, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the grieving, asking that worship be carried into service toward those still in need. The hymn tune IN BABILONE is a Dutch melody that appeared around 1710 in a collection of Dutch folk songs and country dances, and it was later brought into English hymnody by the celebrated English composer and editor Ralph Vaughan Williams. As a closing hymn it reflects the themes given in the lectionary readings: Jeremiah’s fire, Paul’s living sacrifice, and Jesus’ cross. These are no longer only interior feelings, but encouraging actions to be carried out through service in the world. Here is Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service as sung by choir and congregation at the University Newman Center in Dublin, Ireland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGpnonjdc1E

Sources:

Lift High the Cross — Hymnology Archive: https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/lift-high-the-cross

As a Fire Is Meant for Burning — Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/a/as-a-fire-is-meant-for-burning

Bernadette Farrell — Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Farrell

Unless a Grain of Wheat Shall Fall — GodSongs.net: https://www.godsongs.net/2021/03/unless-grain-of-wheat-shall-fall-farrell.html

Hillsong UNITED – I Surrender — GodTube: https://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=G7WZK7NX

Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service — Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/hymn/LUYH2013/928