Hymn: 27th Sun. OT A

Hear now the song of fruitful vineyard

Planted with loving, tender care;

Hear how the tenants stole its profits

And killed the ownder's servants there.

Total rebellion seized their soul;

Breaking the covenant, their goal.



We are the vineyard, we the tenants

Pledged now in covenant with Christ.

In our rebellion, we have wandered

Far from His love beyond all price.

But mercy prompts God's faithful care

In which each sinner still can share.



Since love is God's response to sinners,

All anxious thoughts can be cast out;

Our needs, in pray're with grateful spirits,

Should then be voiced, beyond all doubts.

Lives that are honest, pure indeed,

Are by the God of peace thus freed.



98.98.88

tune: We nur den lieben Gott

If you don't know the tune: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/non/foreign.htm?de/wernurlg.htm



This hymn is recorded on the cd "Music for the Year of Matthew" by the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter's in the Loop; the cd is published by The Liturgical Press (www.litpress.org)



On that recording, you'll notice two forms of the melody. The first and older form is used for stanzas one and three, and is sung in unison. That is what's known as the "free-rhythm" form of the chorale, which is the form sung in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The second form, used in stanza two, is a J. S. Bach harmonization of the "simplified melody."