"We Are One" in Our Music

For the next two Sundays, the lectionary for the Epistle is taken from the first letter to the Corinthians in which Paul talks to us about variety and diversity and its unity and how both diversity and unity are found in Christ. Whether or not one founds their beliefs and principles on Christ’s teachings (through Paul and the other apostles), this basic ideal of diversity being a uniting force can be found universally. The text, or paraphrasing of the text from Paul’s letter is found not only in music that we use in our worship, but in secular music as well.

Several times a year, because it is sectioned under the category of Holy Eucharist, we will sing hymn 305 “Come risen Lord, and deign to be our guest.” The music is called Rosedale and was composed by Leo Sowerby.  The words are attributed to George Wallace Briggs.  But while it is ostensibly a hymn for Holy Eucharist, it is also one very much appropriate for these next couple of weeks of Epiphany as it paraphrases the lectionary: “one body we, one Body who partake, one Church united in communion blest;” and “one with each other, Lord, for one in thee.” Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) was an American composer in the early part of the of 20^th century who became known as “the Dean of American church music.” He gained recognition for his composing at 18 when his violin concerto was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  He received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1944 for his cantata Canticle of the Sun.  Along with hymns, Leo Sowerby’s contributions to service music also appear in our hymnal.

Dana Scallon

One of the more widely recognized songs in Christian music that refer to this week’s lectionary is a song written by Irish singer Dana Scallon called, “We Are One Body.” This song was chosen as the theme for World Youth Day in 1993 and was performed before an audience of nearly 230,000 people which included the Pope.  Since then, the song has become a uniting song for youth groups and youth programs all over the US and Europe. During the ‘60s and ‘70s when Dana first became popular in the Christian music scene, one of the more popular tunes sung by youth groups and kid’s choirs was a song (still popular today) called “They Will Know We Are Christians” which refers to being united by the Spiritual gifts as mention in the first part of 1 Corinthians 12. The above hyperlink will take you to a recording by Jars of Clay, a contemporary Christian rock band.

Interpretation of the ideals presented in Paul’s letter (and the theme appears in the letter to the Romans and the letter to the Galatians and in the Gospels) are not unique, and therefore easily accessed by the secular world. Disney movies, for instance, are a great source of moral stories.  The song “We Are One” is a message of unified diversity taught in the film The Lion King.  While the lyrics are not even a paraphrasing of Paul, they do speak of the principle.

If you were to do a Google search of the phrase ‘we are one’, you would find an eclectic variety of websites from a recording artists network to a farmer’s market to a free-trade jewelry sales site to an AFL-CIO job protection site to a promotional site for a book about world tribal life. In fact, the concept is so deeply ingrained in societal behavior that it appears mathematically provable. One mathematician, Ron Eglash, demonstrated how self-organizing social structures which are based on unification of diversity follow rules of fractal development. You can hear a fascinating talk about this on TED Talks: Fractals at the Heart of African Design. It all goes to show that regardless of whether or not one is familiar with Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, his message is a universal one.