Psalm 51
On Monday, August 20th, Scott sent out a preliminary list of songs for when we lead worship on Sept 16th. The opening hymn was “Create in Me” which we used to do every week when we lead the 5 PM service. Now granted this was about four years ago, but we got so sick of the song that we vowed we’d never do it again. I open up Scott’s list and there it is: “Create in Me,” with a parenthetical statement “Didn’t I just say we would never do that one again?” Why are we doing it? - Because the lectionary calls out Psalm 51 as the psalm of the day.
I open up psalm 51 just to refresh my memory. Here it is from the New Revised Standard just in case you need your memory refreshed as well:
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, 19 then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
My first thought is to pull out a version I had written during lent two or three years ago. But then I realize that this is a hymn that the entire congregation will need to sing. That kills idea number one. Then I think that maybe there is a hymn in the Lutheran Book of Worship that we could take and modernize ala Vince Gill and Amy Grant. After about 30 minutes of fruitless searching, I get the idea of taking a well known melody and setting the psalm to it. My first thought is to use Now Thank We all Our God. As I prepare for my lunchtime walk, I review the psalm a few more times with the plan of setting the psalm to the hymn during the walk. As I begin the walk, I try to recall the melody and the only thing that comes into my head is the Navy Hymn (MELITA by John B. Dykes). Most folks know it as Eternal Father, Strong to Save. Others might recognize the melody as My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less. I knew that it wasn’t the right melody, but the more I tried to find the right melody, the more pieces of psalm 51 would fit themselves into the melody. I gave up fighting, and after a few minutes I had:
Have mercy on me O my Lord
Wash me from my iniquity
For I have sinned against your will
Sinned against You and You alone
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart
I stopped and wrote that down and continued walking. The next two verses came a bit slower, mostly because I had forgotten the rest of the psalm. But I had the basic idea down. The melody is just six lines of eight beats played in straight 4/4 time and fits many of the ideas in the psalm quite well. I had some basic ideas, but I needed to be sure I had the psalm correct. Upon returning to my desk, the next two verses quickly fell into place.
With hyssop purge and cleanse my soul
Wash me, make me whiter than snow
Teach wisdom to my secret heart
Don’t cast me from your good grace
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart
O Lord forgive my sinful ways
I come with sad and contrite heart
Your sentence I accept with joy
My lips, my mouth declare your praise
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart
I liked the idea of repeating the last two lines like in Eternal Father.
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
That evening, I transcribed the melody into my music notation program and then gave it the acid test – actual singing. The first and third verses worked well, but that second verse just wasn’t sitting with me well. Especially that fourth line. It seemed very forced. So I tinkered with it a bit and eventually changed it to:
Don’t cast me from your presence, Lord
I really liked that, however, this produced a different issue. Singing it through, the last three lines become:
Don’t cast me from your presence, Lord
Oh Lord restore in me Your joy
Create in me a clean pure heart
That “Lord, Oh Lord” section was now bugging me. Once again it seemed forced without a nice flow from idea to idea. This one was a puzzler. After about 20 minutes of various arrangements of the words, I decided to start from scratch and went back to Scripture. After reading it through a few times, verse 10 seemed to be the crux of the psalm. A few minutes of fooling around with that verse produced:
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in me
One more acid test and I felt it worked nicely. I sent off the file to Scott and recorded the demo. Here is the final version:
Have mercy on me O my Lord
Wash me from my iniquity
For I have sinned against your will
Sinned against You and You alone
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in meWith hyssop purge and cleanse my soul
Wash me, make me whiter than snow
Teach wisdom to my secret heart
Don’t cast me from your presence, Lord
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in meO Lord forgive my sinful ways
I come with sad and contrite heart
Your sentence I accept with joy
My lips, my mouth declare your praise
A new, right spirit place in me
and a clean heart create in me
That Wednesday, we decided against playing it for the September service, mostly for style reasons. However, I did feel that the piece had merit. I have since sent it off for consideration for publication with one of the sacred music publishing houses. Here is a mp3 version of it. This is a simple four track recording with overdubbed guitar and voice.
Psalm 51
God bless,
Tom Whalen
Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen