New Men and Old (midweek message)

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

New Men and Old

September 26, 2018

Last Sunday, we sang one of my favorite hymns, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.”  

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
  the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
  health and salvation!
    All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Sing now in glad adoration!

Praise to the Lord, who o’er all
  things so wondrously reigneth,
Who, as on wings of an eagle,
  uplifteth, sustaineth.
    Hast thou not seen
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who hath fearfully,
  wondrously, made thee!
Health hath vouchsafed and, when
  heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
    What need or grief
Ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper
  thy work and defend thee,
Who from the heavens the streams of
  His mercy doth send thee.
    Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with His love doth befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
  is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come
  now with praises before Him!
    Let the Amen
Sound from His people again;
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

This was my favorite hymn when I was a boy.  It kind of stuck out in the Mormon Hymnal:  among many sentimental nineteenth century gospel hymns with accidentals and dramatic modulations in the alto and tenor parts, this hymn had a solemn stateliness and balanced harmonies.  It, along with St. Francis’  “All creatures of our God and King” (sung to Lasst un erfreuen, like “Ye Watchers and ye holy ones”) was my all around favorite, and that is probably the first inkling in my life that I was not cut out for Mormonism, but for Anglican/Episcopalianism. 

The German original for “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” was written by a German Reformed lay preacher and catechist named Joachim Neander (1650-1680).   His family name had originally been Neumann (“New man”); his grandfather had changed it to the Greek form (neos ander—new man) to mark himself as a teacher of Greek and Latin at a time when such name changes were fashionable.  Neander preached and taught in a valley of the river Dussel, where he spent a lot of time camping and hiking:  he loved the valley’s vistas and its deep caves.  Many of his poems and hymns are reflections on the beauty of God’s creation.  He later went to Bremmen as an associate pastor in a small church, but his heart remained in this valley (German: thal) until his early death at the age of thirty by tuberculosis. 

One of the caves he explored and wrote about was named after him: Neanderhoelle “Neander’s cave.”   Later, when the industrial revolution started remaking the face of that part of Germany, the valley was named after its most famous cave, and became “Neander’s Valley”  or Neanderthal.  It was here in 1856 that strange fossils were discovered that looked like slightly deformed human beings.  When like discoveries elsewhere confirmed that this was a early species closely related to modern human beings, they were named after the place of their first discovery, “Neanderthal Man.” 

We now know that this species is not an ancestor race to modern human beings, but a closely related cousin race that became extinct, probably because of unsuccessful competition with the ancestors of modern human beings.  We have isolated their DNA, and know that there was some interbreeding: some 10% of the modern human population has some Neanderthal DNA. 

I take a great deal of pleasure knowing that this nature-loving churchman gave his name for one of the earliest strong examples of what Darwin called “the origin of species” through natural selection and evolution.   The irony of these very ancient hominids being called “New Man Valley” people brings a smile to my face.  I on occasion wonder if there will be Neanderthals in heaven.  

There is tension, to be sure, between the apparent randomness of natural selection and our faith in a creator God who is provident.  But there is no inherent contradiction  between faith and science:  the later asks how things are the way they are and the former, the ultimate question of why. 

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+