‘Christ, Your Words of Love Confound Us’ (new hymn text)

This new hymn text on Jesus’ teaching is by Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Please share it with others to ponder in these troubling times.

Christ, Your Words of Love Confound Us
BEACH SPRING 8.7.8.7 D (“God Whose Giving Knows No Ending”)

Christ, your words of love confound us, even as we give you praise,
for the lessons that you teach us seem so far from this world’s ways.
How can we love those who hate us? How can we love enemies?
What of people who abuse us? How can we love even these?

Make us mindful: love is action, not a feeling that uplifts.
In each daily situation, love’s the greatest of all gifts.
It’s the wiser, stronger person who will break the chain of hate.
Love can usher in redemption; love can make a people great.

Faced with those who seek to hurt us, make us confident and free:
you don’t call us to be helpless but to stand with dignity.
Lord, when others are demanding, may we know they matter more
than our money or possessions. May we share, not keeping score.

If we love just those who love us, where’s the giving? Where’s the grace?
Even sinners try to do this; they have friends that they embrace.
May we do, Lord, unto others as we’d have them also do.
You have shown us: Love is action. May we love, and make things new.

Biblical Reference: Luke 6:27-38; Matthew 5:38-48; I Corinthians 13
Tune: The Sacred Harp, 1844; attributed to Benjamin Franklin White
Text: Copyright © 2019 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved.
Email: carolynshymns [at] gmail [dot]com
New Hymns: www.carolynshymns.com

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This hymn includes insights from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Loving Your Enemies” sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, November 17, 1957. The sermon is available online at The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University:
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

Email me at carolynshymns@gmail.com for a copy of a hymn in a MS Word file formatted for a worship bulletin and/or PDF of the hymn text with music.

You may buy my two books, "Songs of Grace: New Hymns for God and Neighbor” by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (Upper Room Books) and “Gifts of Love: New Hymns for Today’s Worship” by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (Geneva Press).

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