Third Sunday after Epiphany

January 26, 2014

A charismatic gospel singer once said “all God’s songs for all God’s children.”  She was encouraging the use of music from many cultures and places as a way to expand our own awareness of who we are as Christians in this multi-faceted world. 

You should notice a distinctly jazz or gospel feel in worship today.  The soulful “Kyrie” comes from Dinah Reindorf, a music educator who worked for many years in Ghana.  To my ears, the plaintive melody richly imbues the call “Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy” with a keen sense of longing, or a cry coming from deep within the soul.  Historically, the Kyrie eleison does not connote begging before God, but is rather a gesture of submission or reverence before the One who merits awe.  How does the subtle rhythmic repetition in this setting establish a sense of plaintive reverence?

Mark Sedio subtitles his setting of “We Are Marching/Send me, Jesus” a “marriage of Africa and American Jazz.”  My question for you is:  In this Epiphany season of Christ made manifest (revealed), how does the sound of the jazz idiom cause you to hear and know Christ in a new way?  In other words, when you hear music that is perhaps not normal to our worship, do you find yourself contemplating the gospel from a different perspective?  

Second Sunday after Epiphany/Reconciling in Christ Sunday

Second Sunday after Epiphany/Reconciling in Christ Sunday

Sunday, January 19 2014

As part of our celebration of Reconciling in Christ Sunday at First Lutheran, our hymns today emphasize themes of welcome and justice.  The Gathering Hymn, We Are Called, invites us to "live in the light," an image appropriate for the season of Epiphany, and calls us to live in justice and unity as "brothers and sisters united in love."  Our Hymn of the Day, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, expands upon the theme of love, focusing upon Jesus as pure compassion and unbounded love.  This hymn text is by Charles Wesley, who together with his brother John, originated the Methodist movement.  Charles wrote over 1000 hymns including Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.  The language and music of the first hymn comes from David Hass, a contemporary hymn writer and liturgist who lives in Eagan, Minnesota.  Hass is one of the primary leaders of the post-Vatican II musical movement in the Roman Catholic Church.

Today we continue to learn a new setting of the Sanctus, or the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, in the Eucharist portion of the service.  The music is from Setting 6 in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, a setting rooted in the African American Gospel musical style.  One blessing of ELW is the invitation to embrace styles of music from other times and places; in the singing of this setting, we celebrate our unity with our brothers and sisters whose musical tradition (Gospel) is somewhat different than our Minnesota/Swedish tradition!

The Sanctus, a hymn of praise, is the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer and sings of the glory of God in the highest.  The two parts of the Sanctus reference two biblical texts.  The first part is from Isaiah 6:3 which describes a vision of God's throne surrounded by the seraphim, while the second part is from Matthew 21:9, which describes the Palm Sunday entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

Both of the offering music selections today relate to the Gospel lesson, in which John the Baptist declares Jesus the Lamb of God.  Both the Bach organ work O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig and the choral setting by F. Melius Christiansen use the tune (and text in the case of the Christiansen) of Nikolas Decius, a 16th century hymn writer who was a colleague of Martin Luther in Wittenberg.