Background Notes:

Intended as a sending hymn, the text of this piece was written directly from Jesus’ feast parables (Luke 14: 7-14) where we hear directives of humility and hospitality as that for which we should strive in all of our day-to-day interactions.  The use of the word “paradigm” at the end of each verse was deliberately selected precisely because it is a curious word for a hymn text, a device which Cooper tried to emphasize with a similarly surprising chord change.  All of this is meant to draw attention to God’s values of radical inclusivity, ego deflation, and surrender which run so counter to human tendency and are in their own ways highly unusual.  We hope to prompt the singer to consider these directives in a new light, freeing one from any earlier connotations that might have been used in the past to describe Christ’s vision of an abundant feast (such as “kingdom”). This is one of the few hymns that Cooper scored specifically with the pipe-organ and choral singing in mind.