"Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus going on before."  Most of us sang it as children and continued to sing it as young adults.  Then, sometime in the past twenty or thirty years, it disappeared.  The words are alive in our collective memory but seldom spring forth from our mouths in worship.  Why is that the case?  It is one of the great, old hymns, isn't it?  Well, yes and no.  The words were written 150 years ago in England for the Horbury Bridge Mission's Pentecost children's parade.  The festival is called Whit-Monday and the children sang it as "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners" when they marched from Horbury Bridge to the next village.  Poet and rector, Sabine Baring-Gould, wrote thirty years later, "It was written in great haste, and I am afraid some of the rhymes are faulty.  Certainly nothing has surprised me more than its popularity."  Arthur Sullivan penned the now traditional tune seven years after that first parade.  Hearing it, you might be reminded of the music of HMS Pinafore or Mikado since this creator of fifty-six hymn tunes was even more famous for his role in the team of Gilbert and Sullivan.

 So, Onward, Christian Soldiers, as the hymn was later titled, was written as a marching song for children.  Maybe that is why it is so singable.  Like a fight song for our favorite team at a football game, when we hear it we are easily inspired to move our feet, wave our arms, and sing in full voice.  However, it was not included in our current Presbyterian Hymnal planned in the late Eighties and published in 1990.  Editor, Linda Jo McKim, said that the selection committee didn't omit it because of the military language but only because there are many new good hymns that the committee wanted to include, such as Arise, Your Light Is Come! by Ruth Duck which we sing later this morning.  I wonder though.  Even when Christian Soldiers was in our prior hymnal, The Worshipbook, we west coast Presbyterians sang it less frequently in the last few decades than we did during the Fifties.  With the controversies of the Viet Nam War and the civil rights battles within our nation, phrases such as "Like a mighty army" and "Forward into battle" began to lose favor.  We were too easily reminded of daily body counts and National Guard movements as well as earlier religious wars and attempts at justification of Nazi atrocities.  Some of us were embarrassed to sing the words of this hymn for fear of sounding militant, self-righteous or disrespectful to those of other nations or faiths.

 And yet, isn't there more in this hymn than merely words of war?  The first verse has the sense of a Palm Sunday procession.  Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus going on before.  If we, as followers of Jesus, are led by the symbol of the cross, then we are living our lives aware of those causes for which we are willing to die.  How many of us would die for a cause or for the life of another human being?  We like to think we would but when it comes right down to it, the choice to give up our own life is very difficult.  The similar language from the passage in Second Timothy when the author says, "Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus," might easily have inspired the line from the hymn.  The story of Bishop Juan Gerardi and his work in 1998 to make public the truth about the murders of 200,000 people during Guatemala's civil war will be told this Tuesday night at First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael.  Gerardi followed the cross and shared in the suffering.  He was fully aware that his life was at risk for his efforts in this human rights project, Guatemala, Never Again.  Many others since then have been threatened or endangered as they pursued Gerardi's murderers, those who silenced him for following the cross, for seeking to set the oppressed free from fear.  But you and I are not Juan Gerardi.  We are just plain folks living in the Bay Area.  Does the line in the hymn mean anything to us personally?  "OnwardÉmarchÉ with the cross of Jesus going on before."  In what ways might our lives, "share in the suffering of Christ Jesus?"  The truth is that most of us do share that life, in some way, though not all the time and not to the depth that we might feel called to do.  We do it in our work lives or our after work hours or both.  It happens when we truly give up some part of our own lives to care for another, to be there for a friend or a stranger giving of our knowledge, our material substance, or our time and attention.  It also happens when we work to make changes on issues which don't directly affect us: writing letters to elected officials about homelessness, environmental issues, hunger, or safety; offering ourselves in public leadership, researching ways to fight a disease, taking time away from a relaxing evening at home to tutor a refugee or take a meal to a grieving family.  We are called to do those things and others as soldiers in the war against apathy and injustice.

In the first verse, this time the third line, the hymn reads, Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe.  The author of Second Timothy follows similarly with, "No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier's aim is to please the enlisting officer."  The gospels are full of stories of Jesus leading his disciples in the fight against the foes of apathy and injustice by his personal contact speaking to outcasts face to face, by feeding, healing, releasing people from their own individual prisons, and finally by giving up his life so that death might not have the final word for those in his time or for you and me.  Forward into battle see His banners go!

When I sing the second verse, I can't help but envision the church parking lot on the morning of June 17.  Like a mighty army moves the church of God; Brothers (and sisters), we are treading where the saints have trod.  We are not divided, all one body we, One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.  With a jazzy beat, that verse could easily have been the traveling song, the fight song of Westminster's High School Mexico Mission Trip.  At first they didn't look so mighty as they gradually arrived at 7:00am stood yawning and chatting among sleeping bags, tents, tools, and carefully packed rations.  Then, they slowly became that army as the plans they had been making for five months began to fall into place.  Tools in the trailer, sleeping bags on top of vans, food in the back of the SUVs, and forty-three high school bodies with eleven generous committed adult leaders ready to fill up each vehicle.  Finally, they all gathered for a group photo and a prayer of thanksgiving, then piled into the cars for a 10-vehicle convoy from Tiburon to Tijuana.  Their goal was to live out their hope-filled faith as they built homes and new relationships of understanding - one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.  Next Sunday, we will hear more as team members offer sermon stories to us during worship and share their video and photographs at 11:15.

This mighty army with support from you in prayers, fundraising, and encouragement, was treading where the saints have trod.  They gave up not only a week of their lives but also months of planning and organizing and exploring the issues of faith in relationship to their work.  It has been an invitation to a risk-filled life battling foes of apathy and injustice.  Saints who went before have done the same in different ways: Martin Luther King, Jr. in his leadership for civil rights and justice; Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his stand against Nazi Germany; Mother Teresa and the statement her life made against poverty; and Barbara Ford, Maryknoll Sister, who fought for the rights of indigenous people in Guatemala for twenty years and was murdered this Spring because of her work.

Onward, Christian Soldiers is a hymn that for most of us holds a very special place in our faith memory.  Is it the words?  Is it the tune or the wonderful combination of the two?  We can imagine those children parading from one village to the next for Pentecost and we want to join with them.  And yet, in today's world we might feel that some of the lines are too simple, almost unrealistic.  In verse three, we hear, Gates of hell can never 'gainst that church prevail;  We have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail.  We know that we continue to fight apathy and injustice even in our own churches, even in our own denomination.  The suggestion of unquestioning loyalty is distasteful and we continue to remind ourselves that denominations are not The Church but are human attempts to live into the authentic church of Jesus Christ, to open our lives together to His Spirit and to be His body.

Our second reading, Psalm 46, was the inspiration for the Martin Luther hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God.  The psalmist used militant words but in a way that offers God's peace in the final words, "God makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 'Be still, and know that I am God!  I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.'  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."

In that sense of peace, as a peaceful army living for God and each other, fighting the foes of apathy and injustice, let us close by slowly, prayerfully singing the first verse of Onward, Christian Soldiers, as printed on the front of your bulletin.