Twenty-twenty hindsight

Pentecost 22, October 2, 2011
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Psalm 19 from BCP
Phillipians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

MORNING PRAYER SERVICE
Deacon Mason Clingan officiating
Deacon Ronald Jutzy presenting the sermon
NOTE: Our usual 1928 Book of Common Prayer service has been postponed to October 16.

Twenty-TWENTY HINDSIGHT is the term often used to describe our ability to look back on a past event and know now what we should have done. In 1972, on a trip up Highway 1 on the California coast, Ron and I saw a parcel of land in Mendocino for sale for $5000. Ron frequently says, “We should have bought that place in Mendocino!” Our lists could be endless, but since clairvoyance is not within the grasp of most us, we are destined to win a few and lose a few, to make some wrong choices and even some right ones, all based on our best judgments at the time. But are these choices made with Christ or the Kingdom as our goal?

Our family has just returned from Bordeaux, France, in ancient vineyards, so this Sunday’s gospel took on new meaning for Ron and me. Jesus’ parable is about people who made self-centered choices. We will hear the story of tenants, tending a vineyard, owned by a man who planted the vineyard, fenced it, dug a wine press in it and built a watchtower to guard it. Yet, when the vineyard owner sends messengers to collect his produce, they are treated shamefully. The tenants seized the messengers and beat one, killed another and stoned another. The ultimate blow comes when the owner’s son is sent as a special emissary. The tenants said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Will the tenants now get to keep what they fought for? Certainly not! Because of their rebellion even what they had worked for will be taken away. Had they known the consequences they surely would have done things differently, don’t you think?

We who live on this side of the resurrection have the benefit of this 20-20 hindsight. We need not doubt His words, actions, commands, and promises which are proclaimed through the church in word, sacrament and song. Still, in the light of our tendency to not choose Jesus, the Kingdom or others above self, at times, we cannot help but wonder and pray with the hymnic words of W. Russel Bowie:
New advent of the love of Christ,
Will we again refuse you,
Till in the night of hate and war
We perish as we lost you?
“Lord Christ, When First You Came to Earth”

The Morning Prayer Service opens tomorrow, a little differently, with a Processional Introit of The Heavens Resound, by Beethoven, sung by the singers in the Lofty Pews. This anthem is a based on Psalm 19, our appointed Psalm for the day to be later sung in SATB Anglican Chant from the loft.

Here is a link to a choir singing the Phos Hilaron and Psalm 19 in Anglican Chant SATB by S.S. Wesley. We will sing Psalm 19 from A Hymn Tune Psalter, 2007, by Carl P. Daw, Jr. and Kevin R. Hackett.
http://youtu.be/YnwNNa2uYj4


The Choir will also sing, in Anglican Chant the Venite, the First Song of Isaiah and A Song to the Lamb at appointed places in our worship folder.
The Venite, Psalms 95 and 100 serve as a summons or invitation to worship. They contain no particular reference to the morning, and the BCP 1979 permits their use at Evening Prayer as well as at Morning Prayer. If you attend our Evening Prayer Services at Grace Anglican Church, these words would be familiar to you, as we read them instead of singing them every Thursday evening at 6:30 PM. Psalm 95 was used as the invitatory Psalm for the morning vigil in The Rule of Benedict and in the somewhat earlier Rule of the Master. This use of the psalm is unique to traditions that derive from these two documents. The Orthodox use Ps. 95 as the entrance antiphon at the Eucharist. When Cranmer created Morning Prayer out of the three older morning services (“Matins,” “lauds,” and “prime”), he used this Psalm as the invitatory psalm for the office. In the first American BCP verses 8-11 of Ps 95 were dropped and verses 9 and 13 of Ps 96 were substituted, creating the present form of this invitatory.
Chant composition held a certain attraction for “gentlemen amateurs” in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There are a number of chants written by such “gentlemen amateurs” as Major Lemon and Sir Christopher Teesdale that entered the general repertory. The latter appears in the subscriber list of Bennett and Marshall’s Cathedral Chants (London, 1829) as Christopher Teesdale, Esquire, of Binderton House, Sussex. We will be singing the Venite to his chant harmony.
The First Song of Isaiah (Ecce Deus) will also be chanted by the singers in the loft. This canticle, from Isaiah 12:2-6 is an expression of confident trust in God and probably dates from the exile. The canticle was used at lauds on Mondays in the Roman and Benedictine traditions; this is its first appearance in the Book of Common Prayer. The table in the BCP suggests the use of this canticle after the first lesson of Morning Prayer on Mondays, as in the Roman tradition, which is where we will sing it tomorrow.
A Song to the Lamb (Dignus es), with texts from the Book of Revelation (4:11; 5:9-10, 13) form a hymn of praise to the One seated upon the throne and to the Lamb. The 1926 Irish Prayer Book first brought this cento into the Anglican BCP. We will be chanting it in Anglican chant after the second lesson.
Our recessional hymn, Christ is Made the Sure Foundation, has been a favorite hymn since it first entered the Hymnal in 1871. If you were not familiar with this hymn before now, it is not because you have not heard it sung at Grace Anglican Church in Boise. We have used this hymn numerous times this past year alone. It is one of the oldest Latin hymn texts, and found in manuscript collections of hymns from the ninth century, but perhaps dates back as early as the sixth century. In doing preparation for Sunday’s service, I made a change to this hymn for our recessional hymn, as it fits so perfectly with the Gospel lesson and sermon topic.
We have one more, even greater, gift from now on—the gift of 20-20 foresight. Jesus has shown us that He is this one who was once rejected but now is the cornerstone of our lives in the present and in the future. We live our lives, do our deeds, sing our songs, proclaim the promises and trust the future to this one who is the sure foundation. We must make all our decisions with Jesus as our cornerstone—our solid foundation.

THANKS BE TO GOD! ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!!

Sources:
Hymnal ’82 Companion
Deacon Ron Jutzy
Tune My Heart to Sing
Youtube.com
A HymnTune Psalter, RCL Edition