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Great God, your love has called us here
as we, by love, for love were made.
Your living likeness still we bear,
though marred, dishonored, disobeyed.
We come, with all our heart and mind
your call to hear, your love to find.
Great God, in Christ you call our name
and then receive us as your own
not through some merit, right or claim
but by your gracious love alone.
We strain to glimpse your mercy seat
and find you kneeling at our feet.
Then take the towel, and break the bread,
and humble us, and call us friends.
Suffer and serve till all are fed
and show how grandly love intends
to work till all creation sings,
to fill all worlds, to crown all things.
Text: Brian Wren. Text © 1975, 1995. Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Contact Hope Publishing Co. (800/323-1049) for permission to reprint this text.
I grew up going to a Lutheran church each Sunday, singing wonderful hymns from the red book, then the green book. But it wasn't until the blue book that I sang a hymn that spoke to the deepest need of my soul, telling me I was both beloved by God and called to reflect that love to others.
"Great God, your love has called us here," I sang, feeling the words enfold me. "As we, by love, for love were made." Moving through the five simple verses of the unfamiliar hymn, my eyes grew wet, not with sudden grief, fear or a feeling that I was lower than a worm but with a joyful, grateful recognition: I am created and called by Love, for love — and so are you.
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