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#724: All Who Love and Serve Your City
So there are a couple hymn tune names that are the name of a city, maybe where a song originated, or maybe it was written for an assembly there or something. This is one of them.
The first verse is an incomplete sentence leading into the second, it just generalizes the "all." So it seems like "your" might be referencing God? Everyone is serving God's city in some way. But no, second verse is a direction towards those people: "seek the Lord, who is your life."
Now, this section is about justice/peace, and a lot of them are about economic justice--God lifting up the lowly, working for peace among nations. So you might be worried it's getting a little hippie. But then we quote Jesus "You must work while it is day." No free riders here! Unless...maybe it's telling the rich elites to get working and make a difference? Hmm.
And then the last verse asks "shall yet the city be the city of despair?" Which is a little reminiscent of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem before his crucifixion. Anyway. The city this tune was named after? New Orleans. I feel like someone might be going "no, Jesus, that was a rhetorical question."
The first verse is an incomplete sentence leading into the second, it just generalizes the "all." So it seems like "your" might be referencing God? Everyone is serving God's city in some way. But no, second verse is a direction towards those people: "seek the Lord, who is your life."
Now, this section is about justice/peace, and a lot of them are about economic justice--God lifting up the lowly, working for peace among nations. So you might be worried it's getting a little hippie. But then we quote Jesus "You must work while it is day." No free riders here! Unless...maybe it's telling the rich elites to get working and make a difference? Hmm.
And then the last verse asks "shall yet the city be the city of despair?" Which is a little reminiscent of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem before his crucifixion. Anyway. The city this tune was named after? New Orleans. I feel like someone might be going "no, Jesus, that was a rhetorical question."