Saturday, July 30, 2011

"I WANT TO BE ALONE!"

Pentecost 9, July 31, 2011
Genesis 45:1-15
Psalm 133 from BCP
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15:10-28
            “I vant to be alone!” was the dramatic cry of legendary actress Greta Garbo. Most of us will never experience or understand the intense pressures faced by celebrities, but at least their fame and financial means often give them the opportunity to get the solitude they want.
            I’ve been known to utter the same cry at times in my life. “I want to be alone,” might be the plea of our organist upon hearing the janitor entering with the vacuum cleaner.  “We want to be alone,” complain the singers in the Lofty Pews when they hear the Altar Guild arrive to set up for a service. Music coordinators or worship leaders are usually happy when they are left alone to decide on music for a service, yet often feel pressure from many directions to alter the selection of music and hymns.  Wanting to be left alone can be a cop-out at times.  But being alone can also be a time of retreat, reflection, and renewal.  I look forward to Saturdays when I am “left alone” to write the Lofty Pew Notes and polish the music for the next day.
            Jesus also desired alone time on earth.  Our Lord is presented to us in a very human fashion as this Sunday’s gospel reading opens.  He has just heard of the tragic beheading of John the Baptist.  Matthew records that Jesus withdrew into a boat to a deserted place by Himself.  He had much to contemplate.  John was his relative, His forerunner, His baptizer, His preacher!  How different John’s life would have been had he not gotten involved with Jesus!  What did this mean for all the others who proclaimed Him as the Savior?  Was he signing their death warrants, too?
            But Jesus’ retreat time, deserved as it was, was cut short; the crowds heard where He was headed and followed.  Seeing them, He had compassion and cured their sick.  And there is even more work to do, for the crowd stays through the evening.  The disciples are concerned for the people’s mealtime, for the high cost of providing enough food, and for the chaos that could ensue.  Shouldn’t they give a supper break so the people can go into the villages to buy food?  Jesus chooses another storyline, one that creates a sensation of its own and proclaims the kingdom of God in a most profound way.  More than five thousand are fed from five loaves and two fish, and the copious leftovers are a sermon in themselves!  There is nothing reposeful about this day!
            Sorrow and joy stand side by side on this day in Jesus’ life.  It is a day of weariness and great activity, of retreat and full charge ahead, of solitude and massive crowds, of bad news and exuberant Gospel.  Is it that Jesus cannot make up His mind?  No, His day is one of contrasts because He is responding to the diverse needs around Him.  As His messengers in this world, we want nothing other than this for ourselves. 
            We will sing O God of Bethel, By whose Hand as our processional hymn and present, in this hymn, our vows, our prayers before the throne of grace and ask God to spread His sheltering wings around us till all our wanderings cease and we unite with Him in peace at our “Father’s abode.” 
            The words of this hymn were written by Phillip Doddridge (b 1702).  Phillip was an English independent theologian, writer, and poet.  He became minister of Kibworth chapel in 1723, though was not ordained until a few years later.  He founded his own academy for the training of Independent ministers in 1729 and was known and respected by fellow independents such as Watts, Anglicans such as bishops William Warburton and Thomas Secker, and “Methodists” such as the Wesley brothers.
            The hymn has two versions printed in our hymnal.  The first one is a unison setting, the second is in harmony (SATB) with the melody in the tenor line.  This is the musical term fauxbourdon.  In hymn singing there is a treble descant superimposed upon the melody being sung by the congregation.  Listen for this from the singers in the loft.



God Has Spoken To His People, the sequence hymn, was well received when we had this hymn in our service recently.  It is a stirring hymn by the Rev. Dr. Willard F.. Jabusch, set to a very engaging Hasidic folk melody, TORAH SONG, challenging God’s people to action in response to the Creator’s word. The text was altered for use in Hymnal ’82 to make its imagery totally consistent with Hebrew scripture and thus an even more authentic partner of the Hasidic melody. The emphasis on joy, of which music is an essential component, is a characteristic feature of the Hasidic movement of Judaism, founded by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760).  We find this fun to sing, yet the words call us to open our ears to  hear God’s word being read to us -- the people -- as we bookend the reading of the Gospel with verses 1&2 before and 3&4 after.  HALLELUJAH!
            Now Let Us All Praise God and Sing will be the anthem sung from the Lofty Pews.  Here it is on Youtube at Festival of Pipes", an organ dedication concert of worship presenting the newly renovated 1875 George W. Ryder tracker organ. Organist: Peter Vantine. Choir: MCC Choir. Date: May 4, 2008. Location: Middleton Congregational Church.

           
            Psalm 17:1-7, 16 from BCP is the appointed Psalm for Sunday and will be sung in SATB Anglican Chant.  Please feel free to join in the antiphon when we sing it.  You have the words printed in your insert.  I think you will catch on to the melody when we sing it for you at the beginning. 
            Have you noticed that we have had some new faces in the Lofty Pews recently?  This week we will be joined by Abbe Adam’s  daughter visiting from California.  We are thrilled to have her as an alto with us while she is visiting Boise. 
            Also, we have enjoyed having Rick Capezza in the Lofty Pews the last few weeks.  Rick is taking the Chaplain’s course this summer at St Luke’s Medical Center and is a member of Christ the King Anglican Church in Spokane, one of our sister churches in the Western Diocese of ACNA.  He and his wife, Rachel have 3 adorable children.  The children were thoughtfully named, Kyrie Eleison (“Lord, have mercy!”), Antonio Giovanni (priceless grace of God”) and Epiphany Joy (“revelation of joy”).   It’s been a pleasure singing with you, Rick and having your tenor voice blend with our quartet. 
            Thank you also to Darrell Ludders and Bruce Moberly for joining us when they can and the faithful soprano, Sharon Helppie.  What a blessing!  Abbe Adams and Mary McGuire join us regularly to make music from the Lofty Pews with Pat O Neil on the organ. 
I Come with Joy to Meet My Lord is our recessional hymn. The words of this wonderful hymn were written by the contemporary English hymn writer, theologian, and activist for world development, the Rev. Brian Wren (b. 1930).  He wrote it for his congregation at Hockley, Essex, “to sum up a series of sermons on the meaning of communion.” The text begins with the individual worshiper, who comes “with joy to meet my Lord”; moves into the corporate dimension, “the new community of love”; and ends in the spirit of the dismissal in the Eucharist, “together met, together bound, we’ll go our different ways, and…in the world we’ll live and speak His praise.” 
            Yes, we want to be alone at times.  But, more importantly, we want to join with Jesus in His daily routine of meeting needs in the world around us.  As we sing this hymn, contemplating the meaning of the words, let us consider “going our different ways” to meet the needs of our friends and neighbors as we “live and speak” praise to our Lord and Savior by telling others about Him.  HALLELUJAH!

Sources:
Hymnal ’82 Companion
Faith Looking Forward
Facebook
Deacon Ron Jutzy
Tune My Heart to Sing


Saturday, July 23, 2011

Metaphors, parables, hymns and psalms

6 Pentecost
Proper 12
 July 24, 2011
This past week I had a friend send me one of those emails that wants you to come up with a description of the sender with the 3rd letter of your last name.  My friend happened to be an Episcopal Priest so I labeled her “trinitarian” since “t” is the letter I needed to use.  Another email this week asked me to fill in the blanks on what I was doing in the moment with one and ONLY ONE descriptive word. 
Sunday’s gospel reading may sound as if Jesus has just been asked to explain God’s kingdom in ten sentences or less, as Matthew has recorded for us a series of mini-parables.  We’ll hear about the mustard seed, some yeast, a treasure in the field, a pearl and a fishing net.  We’ll hear about sowers, birds, bread bakers, treasure hunters, pearl merchants and fish. 
Christians need not be ashamed of the many ways we think and speak of the triune God and the working of the kingdom.  May of our metaphors come right from scripture; others from disciples of distant times and cultures.  And many new ones are graciously offered to us for our consideration and inspiration.  We continue to discover that good metaphoric language does not disguise or distort the truth-- reveals it.
There is even one more mini-parable in this package from Matthew.  Jesus tells the crowd, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the Kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”  We, too, are truly rich when we treasure the best poetic images from the past as well as make room for new ones that express the wide diversity of God’s world and God’s people.  Hymnody continues to be both a classroom and a playground for new images to mingle with the old.  We will experience the old and the new in the music at Grace this Sunday.
Our processional hymn, God of Grace and God of Glory is one of the most popular hymns of the twentieth century. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a preacher of international acclaim, wrote the words at his summer home at Boothbay Harbor, Maine.  The hymn was sung the following fall at the opening of the Riverside Church in New York, October 5, 1930.   So, this is a fairly contemporary hymn, especially when we consider the sequence hymn next.
God Moves in a Mysterious Way – our sequence hymn -- was written by William Cowper in the year 1772.  Unfortunately, this was about a year before the onset of an intense period of depression that led to attempted suicide in October1773, and brought his major hymn writing to an end. 
The Lofty Pew Singers will chant Psalm 105 in SATB Anglican chant.  You are invited to join them in singing the printed antiphon available at the door.
What God Ordains is Good Indeed (Was Gott tut, das ist woblgetan), by JS Bach will be the Eucharist anthem.  While Bach, sung in German or Latin might be preferable from a stylistic and musical standpoint, it is perhaps not always the best choice.  For that reason we will sing this Bach piece in both German and English, in case you don’t understand or speak German.  Following is the text in English:
What God ordains is good indeed,
For all life well providing.
The will of God is best for me,
The ground of my confiding.
My faithful God,
On every road
You know the way unfolding;
Your strong hand I am holding.
What God ordains is good indeed.
My friend will never fail me
On danger’s path, in deepest need,
When death in grief shall veil me.
My God so dear,
O, draw me near;
In loving arms now hold me;
At last in light enfold me.
Here is a link to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Slidell,La, singing this piece, October 25, 2009 on YouTube:
 If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee will be our recessional hymn.  This hymn is a classic example of the hymns of “German Pietism,” but that is misleading, since it was written at least a generation before the Pietist movement was begun by Philipp Jacob Spener in the mid-1670s.  It is rather a classic example of the intense and personal hymnody that developed and grew during and following the devastation of the Thirty Years War. 
Both the text and melody of the hymn were written by Georg Neumark in the winter of 1640-41.  The original 7 stanzas appeared after the heading:  “A Song of Comfort.  That God, in His own time will care for and preserve His own.  After the verse:  ‘Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain thee’ [Ps. 55:22].”  Catherine Winkworth translated the hymn which has had extensive use, especially in American Lutheranism from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 
Will all the metaphors in Sunday’s lessons bring even more confusion to our task of understanding God’s kingdom?  Not if we realize that it is not an identity complex we have—what we have as Christians are richly complex identities. Serving God is a mystery. May god guide our paths as we serve him in submission and mystery and trust God to guide us as we process into the streets of Boise this week. 
Sources:
Youtube
Hymnal 1982 Companion
Tune My Heart to Sing
Deacon Ron Jutzy
Bach for All Seasons

Saturday, July 16, 2011


Pentecost 5
Proper 11
  July 17, 2011
Jesus often used the metaphor of seeds to teach important lessons about God’s kingdom.  This week the gospel contains yet another “seedy” story.  An enemy has sown weeds among the wheat, and the hungry sprouts threaten the success of the crop.  The workers are ready to pull out all the weeds, but the wise householder points to a different solution.  Eliminating the weeds will endanger the wheat, he fears.  Let them grow and ripen together; the harvest will be the time for separating the wheat and the weeds.
There is much wisdom in this teaching, but we may wish Jesus’ message had been more definitive.  We get that we need tolerance and patience, how do we go about separating the wheat from the weeds? What is the key to wise discernment?  It is hard to define and even harder to obtain and administer.
Just as the farm hands had to be guided by their master’s wisdom, the discernment we seek most is the will of Christ.  We are reminded in this story that the most important answers in life are seldom easy to do or even easy to understand.  Zeal and quickness are not always virtues.  And those that claim to speak for God must be cautious and ever open to change lest they stifle or deny the continuing creativity of the Holy Spirit.
Blessed Jesus, At Thy Word, the processional hymn will be familiar to our ears because, if you were here last week, it was our opening hymn.  We just thought we’d have another chance to learn this lovely hymn, and since it was paired with the Gospel, why not?  Last week I wrote about the author of the text.  This week, I’ll tell you about the author of the hymn tune, Johann Rudolph Ahle (1625-1673).
Johann Ahle was born in Muhlhausen in the Thuringian Forest of East Germany.  Ahle was an accomplished organist and composer who copied the Italian school of rhythm and ornate melody in an attempt to break away from the dull and stodgy German church music of the time.  His sacred arias, however, were subjected to much criticism and were considered as introducing too lively a secular influence into sacred singing.  I wonder if they were using the parable of the weeds and the wheat to determine what was good music and what was bad?  Seems they were having the same issues with music and musicians 400 years ago!




The Lofty Pew Choir will chant Psalm 139:1-11, 22-23 in Anglican Chant.  We will sing the anthem, Thou Knowest, Lord, by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) during Eucharist.  The music is paired with the Psalm.  Henry Purcell wrote this anthem for the funeral of Queen Mary in 1694. He died himself a year later.  Here is a link to a beautiful rendition of it:
                                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf_84OQgZSg&NR=1
                                                           

Our sequence hymn will be another “mission” hymn.  We have sung several in these weeks after Pentecost.  Christ is the World’s True Light first appeared in the Hymnal 1940 and was matched with the present tune written at a later time and now included in the Hymnal 1982.  The text is the work of George Wallace Briggs, a major British hymn writer of the second quarter of the twentieth century.  Erick Routley describes him as “one of the most sought-after of the writers of his time”.  This hymn is paired the Epistle reading of Romans 8:12-25.
 John Fawcett (b January 6, 1740) was converted by the evangelist George Whitefield at the age of 16.  He eventually became a Baptist minister, serving at Wainsgate, England.  In 1782 he published a collection of 166 of his own hymns.  In his preface to this book he wrote:  “When I have digested my thoughts on some portion of God’s Word, I have frequently attempted to sum up the leading ideas, in a few plain verses, to be sung after the sermon; that so they might be more impressed on my own heart and on the heart of my hearers”
After our sermon today, let us keep the Gospel scripture in mind along with our closing hymn, Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing, written by John Fawcett  in 1773.Here we have it paired with Matthew 13:24-30,36-43, in reference to the last line of the first stanza.  The original text has been changed to “wilderness” from “in this dry and barren place.”  These may have been more fitting words for the parable of the wheat and the tares. 
May we work, pray, and struggle for the skills, artistry, insights, patience, and humility to be faithful caretakers of the seeds growing in and about God’s kingdom.
Sources:
Deacon Ron Jutzy
Erick Routley
YouTube
SDA Hymnal Commentary
1982 Hymnal Commentary
Tune My Heart to Sing



Saturday, July 9, 2011

Pentecost 4 at Grace Anglican Church

Pentecost 4
Proper 10
    July 10, 2011
Do you think that everyone in our congregation keeps silent and reverent during the organ prelude?  Are our people always attentive when the choir sings from the Lofty Pews?  Do our clergy catch every nuance of the choir’s message in text and tune?  Do we in the Lofty Pews pay close attention every word and action of the liturgy?  Do we ever have to call out, “Can I have your attention!” or “Listen!”
Now that just about everybody has been accused and reprimanded, let’s return to reality.  Wayne Wold says it is human nature to be selective about our listening habits.  What a relief, because I was feeling rather nervous.  He says it is the nature of good music and full, rich, spiritual worship to contain more than we can ever appreciate and comprehend.  Even in the presence of Christ himself we need to be reminded to listen.  And so it has been with disciples of every age.
In this Sunday’s gospel Jesus announces His forthcoming parable by calling out, “Listen!”  He concludes the parable with the charge, “Let anyone with ears listen!”  In between these two exclamations is the story of seeds that fall on a variety of surfaces.  Though we do not hold the power in ourselves to control the kingdom of God, we are blessed as God plants and brings about growth in and through us.
In Germany in the seventeenth century it was customary for the congregation to sing a “sermon hymn,” part immediately before the sermon and part just after the sermon had ended.  This would be similar to how we do the Sequence Hymn in our services at Grace Anglican Church.  Tobias Clausnitzer published such a hymn, to be sung before the sermon.  The direct statements in the first two lines and throughout the hymn express the desire of the people to hear God’s Word, thus preparing their minds to receive the message of the sermon immediately to follow.  The translation into English by Catherine Winkworth is our opening hymn for this week as we will be gathered together in song by these words:
Blessed Jesus, at thy word
We are gathered all to hear thee;
…….
Open thou our ears and heart,
Help us by thy Spirit’s pleading.
Hear the cry thy Church upraises;
Hear, and bless our prayers and praises.
                                 Blessed Jesus At Thy Word

Our sequence hymn will be O Christ, the Word Incarnate, by William Walsham How (text) and tune credited to Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah.  It is among the best-known hymns for Holy Scripture, and is based on Psalm 119:105.  The singers in the Lofty Pews will be chanting this Psalm in Anglican chant form. 
                       
Let’s go back to our parable, open our ears and listen to another part.  What about that wasteful sower?  Shouldn’t he have been more careful with his seeds than to scatter them on bad soil?  As we answer the call to minister in our own unique ways, shouldn’t we be careful to not waste the precious gift of the kingdom?
Jesus’ parable is not about smart farming, it is about God’s work and the assisting role we are privileged to share.  God supplies the seed and under His management, the seed is so plentiful, the nurturing so effective, and the potential for growth so great that we can be excessive and even extravagant in our sowing.
We may never know where the seeds fall and what becomes of them.  But, even in those who are not paying attention to the hymns or musical offerings in the church, maybe a seed is being planted.  And just maybe, in those sermons, readings, and prayers whose full impact we may miss (a so-so sermon, a botched chanted Psalm, a glitch in a hymn) seeds have been planted in us and those who hear. 
This past week I have been privileged to attend the American Guild of Organist’s Region VIII  Convention held in Boise.  The opening and closing worship ceremonies were held in St Michael’s Episcopal Church and Cathedral of the Rockies, respectively.  The homilies presented for both were ‘music to my ears’ along with all the music that goes with liturgical worship. 
At one of the workshops presented by a composer of choral music, Daniel Gawthrop, someone asked what the most important part of composing music is.  His answer was “TEXT, TEXT, TEXT.”  He said that he spends “significant time choosing text for what he writes, and often it is text from scripture.  He further said that time then needs to be spent in the selection and presenting to the congregation our music in hymns and choral music in “searching, practice and performance.”
Because of the unique way that music carries the words of music into our hearts and minds he said that “sometimes the only sermon people will hear in church will be the sermon carried in the music – hymns and or choir.”  What a challenge it is to work towards perfecting the worship of the people in the liturgy of Grace Anglican Church as we speak, pray or sing the words to move forward together in perfect harmony.
Last week at Grace Anglican Church the congregation practiced the plainsong version in our Hymnal 1982 of The Lord’s Prayer.  We will be chanting it during our Deacon’s Morning Prayer service this week and likely chanting it in future services.  I have provided a youtube link to it here for you to listen to.  It is from an Anglican church in Scotland and you will need to wait for the chanting of the prayer to start. 
http://youtu.be/5bM4xbDUtpc
As we process out into the world this week singing the hymn Spread, O Spread, Thou Mighty Word, we recollect the sower iin the parable.  This wonderful missionary hymn is  calling us to be doers and hearers, not only in worship, but in every aspect of our lives to spread the MIGHTY WORD.

Sources:
Deacon Ronald Jutzy
Youtube
Companion to the SDA Hymnal
Hymnal 1982 Companion
Tune My Heart to Sing










Saturday, July 2, 2011

Lofty Pew Notes

3 Pentecost, Proper 9, July 3, 2011
      This Sunday, Grace Anglican Church will use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer for our Eucharist service.  We do this the first Sunday of every month.  So, you may bring your own BCP if you have one and turn its familiar pages or use our handy booklet that will be at the door.  We also welcome our resident organist, Pat O Neil, back from California where she laid her 94 year old father to rest.  May he rest in peace.  Welcome home, Pat.  We missed you.
      Our opening hymn will be Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, written by Charles Wesley in 1747.  At that time there was a popular tune to the “Song of Venus” in Dryden’s play King Arthur.  The opening words were:
Fairest isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasures ad of loves,
Venus here will choose her dwelling
And forsake her Cyrian groves.

      Wesley capitalized on the tune and wrote his hymn in the same meter, using also two of Dryden’s rhymes, but the hymn is virtually a composite of many verses of Scripture, showing Wesley’s familiarity with the Bible.
      The text of this hymn, which over the years has achieved both international acceptance and use, gained additional favor for Episcopalians when it was first matched with the Welsh tune HYFRYDOL in the 1940 Hymnal and continues in the Hymnal ’82 that we use at GAC.
      Come Away to the Skies will be our sequence hymn and is another hymn by the great hymn writer, Charles Wesley.  The text was written on the anniversary of the birth of his wife, October 12, 1755, and first published in his Hymns for the Use of Families (London, 1767), under the title “On the birth-day of a friend.”  Interesting that it written as a birthday hymn for Charles Wesley’s wife and we find it suggested as a hymn today to match with Genesis 24:34-38, 4249, 58-67.  This is the story of Rebekah and Isaac meeting, falling in love and marrying.
      The hymn tune name is MIDDLEBURY and first appeared in the second edition of the four-shape shape-note tunebook A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony in 1824, compiled by the Shenandoah Valley farmer, printer, and singing-school teacher Ananias Davisson.  This is a spirited and fun hymn to sing.
      The recessional hymn is Jesus Shall Reign -- one of Isaac Watts’ (1674-1748) most glorious poems.  It comes from his Psalms of David Imitated (1719), specifically from the second part of Psalm 72.  It was the earliest outstanding hymn written for overseas missions, and it is still the finest.  Because of its modern, liberal tone it was somewhat neglected by the eighteenth century that gave it birth on the other hand, some of the best verses, relevant in 1719, are obsolete, and are thus omitted.  The phrase “barbarous nations” has unfortunately ceased to apply to the countries outside the Christian pale.  I'm not so sure about that, however.
      The hymn tune for Jesus Shall Reign, DUKE STREET is the only hymn tune written by John Hatton.  Little is known of John, except that he lived on Duke Street in the district of St Helens in the township of Windle, Lancashire.  He is said to have been killed in a stagecoach accident and was buried from (sic) the Presbyterian Chapel of St. Helens.  This tune for which he is known is named after the street on which he resided.
      Next Sunday, Fr Baker and Jeanmarie will be away on vacation.  We will have a Morning Prayer service officiated by our two Deacons, Mason Clingan and Ronald Jutzy.  Come prepared to sing The Lord’s Prayer….well, we’ll work on it before the service starts, but I think many of you will find it familiar and welcome it back in plainsong form instead of speaking it.  We’ll give it a try.


Sources:
A Treasury of Hymns
101 Hymn Stories
Companion to the SDA Hymnal
Hymnal 1982 Companion
Then Sings My Soul, Morgan