Today many Protestant Christians observed Reformation Sunday, with Lutheran varieties of Protestants marking the day with much festivity and fanfare. Red, the color typically associated with the fiery movement of the Spirit, adorns worship spaces and the people in them. And for many, the day would not be complete without singing Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” It is a hymn that Paul Westermeyer notes “may have been written about, sung, and translated as much or more than any other hymn in the church’s history.” (Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 333). At the risk of saying still more, I’d like to propose that how it is sung can communicate as much as what is sung.
Many know this Lutheran chorale sung to the tune EIN FESTE BURG in its isometric version. This is the “straight” version with most syllables sung on a series of equal quarter notes. While it is helped by feeling a half note pulse, without careful leadership the tune can plod. It can be made festive with brass and the like, but even so, it ends up feeling a bit bombastic, even march-like. It’s this affect that often gives it the nickname “the Lutheran fight song.”
The congregation where my children and I worship, Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Roseville, Minnesota, sings this hymn on Reformation but they sing it in its rhythmic version. Martin Luther is credited with both isometric version and rhythmic versions on the bottom of the page in the hymnal, but the rhythmic version is more authentic if you will. These were the forms sung in Luther’s day that were lost and then rediscovered. Here we have syncopation. Shorter pick-up notes leading into longer notes makes it impossible to march to; instead, one feels the urge to dance.
Renaissance dances are rhythmic and inviting. Led today by organ, violin, clarinet, string bass, and timpani, one couldn’t help but dance a bit (at least on the inside!). After the worship leaders (crucifer, torchbearers, assisting and presiding minister) recessed out and stood at the entrance to the nave, they swayed in a dance-like fashion as the assembly sang the final stanza. (You can hear the congregation sing it via our live stream)
Tunes as well as texts make theological statements. It seems much more fitting on Reformation Sunday to sing with the give and take of a dance rather than a march. In the words of another hymn, “Come, Join the Dance of Trinity,” followers of Jesus are called into freedom, but a freedom that is a dance.
“Let voices rise and interweave, by love and hope set free,
to shape in song this joy, this life: the dance of Trinity.” (Hymn by Richard Leach)
To be reforming is not always straight-forward; it is a give and take, a mix of leading and following. The Reformation is also a mourning of division and can’t be celebration that doesn’t acknowledge fractured relationships between Protestants and their Roman Catholic siblings, not to mention between differing Protestant expressions of Christianity. We move forward and back, side-to-side, assured the Spirit is with us even when we trip and stumble.
“A Mighty Fortress” is one song among many hymns of the faith. Some treasure it deeply. To be honest, I’d be fine to let it go from annual singing. But in a world where tyrants still rage, when trembling is all around, Luther’s assurance of God’s Word abiding forever can still speak. Better yet, let it dance!
