Time&Eternity

12 chapter 1
begin a study of the theology of time with narrated time. From a consideration
of narrated time, questions should be formulated whose treatment can
deepen a theological concept of time in relation to the insights of modern
science.
Narratives often occur in stylized, poetic form, and they must also be
able to be repeated. This belongs to their essence, and, in this way, the particularity
of the Church—“being a community of memory and narrative”
7 —comes to complete fruition. The characteristic form and repeatability
of the narrative make the worship service in particular an appropriate
venue for theological narrative—and also for the narrative of time.
Narrations have always occurred in special ways in hymns. One can
even maintain that, at the very beginning, the Christian church began by
singing. 8 One only has to think of the echo of numerous “psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19) in the epistles of the New Testament.
The hymns recorded in Luke—Gloria in excelsis, Benedictus, Magnificat,
and Nunc dimittis—have accompanied the Christian community throughout
the centuries. Following this tradition, current hymnals represent a collection
of human, Christian, and theological experiences gathered over centuries.
Even when denominational differences on church music and liturgy
are taken into account, it is undeniable that the study of music, songs, and
hymns often facilitates a better understanding of the thoughts and feelings
of the Church than the study of the writings of its theologians. 9
To some extent, hymns live their own lives in a borderland between experience
and theological reflection. Precisely this aspect makes them so interesting
in this context. In the words of a twentieth-century songwriter, the
hymnal is the experienced Bible, and the hymns are works of art that have
arisen from the encounter between the biblical message and the experience
of life. 10 As poetry, the hymns are concentrated experience, and they therefore
also achieve a kind of universality. Furthermore, they attempt to express
experience in a forward-looking manner. 11 It would be astonishing if
this treasure house of experience did not have something essential to say
about experiencing and understanding time.
Surely, both more recent texts and those that have accompanied congregations
for decades and even centuries exert a formative and normative
influence upon life’s meaning for those who read or sing them. Even without
official canonization, the hymn collections of the churches tend, in
practice, to attain canonical status.
It would have been conceivable also to include liturgical prayer texts in
this study. In these texts, however, time is primarily spoken of in set phrases,
so that one can speak less of narrated time in relation to such texts. Additionally,
it is more likely the voice of the clergy that emerges from liturgical