Calvin set to music

It has been a busy month and I keep chiding myself for not posting much but I find that blog writing ebbs and flows for me.  I’ve also been thinking that I will try to make shorter posts rather than feel that I have to write an essay each time.  So, stay tuned.

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Middletown, NY to lead worship with the Hudson River Presbytery.  The featured speaker of the morning was Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, the President of Union Seminary here in NYC.  She’s an incredibly articulate and pastoral theologian (that is rare in my experience) and gave three stunning reflections on the theology of John Calvin, who turned 500 this year!  Three themes – messy/broken/glorious – were explored through scripture, the writings of Calvin and music.  I performed three improvisations on the hymn I Greet Thee Whom My Sure Redeemer Art (which is the only hymn attributed to Calvin) and we sang a setting of Psalm 98, New Songs of Celebration Render, which I arranged for flute, violin and organ in an attempt to bring lightness and energy to this beautiful, rhythmic tune.

I also composed a simple response based on Calvin’s “motto”: Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere (My heart I offer to you, O Lord, promptly and sincerely.  I have added it to the Music page and invite you to download it and try it out with your congregation.  It is like a Taizé chant, which is repeated until it has become a prayer of the heart.  It would work well in a contemplative prayer service or you could even consider using it as a Response to the Assurance of Pardon or a Doxology for Reformation Sunday at the end of October.  Either way, let me know if you use it.

and mary said, “take my hand”

I am sure I have said it before in this blog, but Advent is such a powerful season of the church year for me.  There is that constant blurring of darkness and light; the mingling of grief and loss with hope; visions of the world as it is now (broken and bruised) are contrasted with visions of the cosmos as it is to be when Christ comes again (whole and healed).  This season honors the messiness and complexity of my life and calls me deeper in the wonder and mystery of God.

For the past two weeks, sermons at Park Avenue Christian Church have been focused on Mary, especially her response to God’s call.  This week Pastor Jackson used her as a model for how we worship.  I’ll let you listen for yourself but, in short, I heard that worship is fundamentally about a response to God.  It is saying, “Amen – so be it” – agreeing that God is good; declaring that God is trustworthy and loving; allowing God to surprise and delight us; letting God reshape our priorities and values.  But worship is also a living, extravagant “Alleluia!” - not simply the verbal assent that we offer corporately each week but, as Mary shows us, a decision to embody what we believe through our lives and actions.  Worship is active and engaged, it is never passive.  It is a “yes” that has legs.

But worship and life are not always easy and I have especially been thinking about how Mary’s “yes” did not guarantee her a future of eternal happiness and bliss, as some Christian traditions seem to play up.  Contained in the yes was future pain and grief mingled with amazing joy.  She holds in her being the ecstatic outpouring of the Magnificat, “My soul magnifies the Lord…” but also the bitter tears shed at the foot of the cross.

Mary must have had some hunch, deep in her being, that God was trustworthy.  And I wonder if that understanding was formed through corporate worship.  She would have heard the history of God’s work in and through her people; she would have memorized and sung the Psalms that speak of God’s steadfast love.  Maybe she knew and loved the stunning words that emerge from the bleakest part of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”   I don’t think she said yes ignorantly or meekly but I want to believe that she knew that she was opening herself to the possibility of both great joy and pain, to the fullest expression of what it is to be human.  Or even if she didn’t know what the future held, she trusted that God would walk through it with her.

—

We had a guest singer join us in worship this week, an African-American woman with a powerful, soulful voice.  We have been working together over the past few weeks on Compagnia Colombari’s production of Strangers and Other Angels.  From the first moment I heard her sing, I knew that I needed to invite her to share her gifts at church.  Her voice is not polished as someone who is classically trained but there is a depth, a ferocity and power in her singing that I have rarely heard.  She happily accepted the invitation and we were planning to reprise a version of “This Little Light of Mine” that we had performed the afternoon prior.

About 15 minutes before worship, just as choir rehearsal was wrapping up, she asked if she could sing another piece during the service.  I am often leery of things that I haven’t had the chance to practice and I think many trained musicians always feel a certain tension between spontaneity and quality (in other words, you can’t have quality without preparation).  But I also grew up in the Pentecostal church and in congregations where music was not always tightly scripted.  There was room for Spirit, for something that might speak to God’s people in a spontaneous, fresh way.  She sang the piece she was thinking of (it sounded almost like the Spiritual, “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me”) and I was able to find a satisfying chord progression to support her.  We ran through it and I told her that we could use it during Communion, while the choir was being served.

It was a wonderful, uplifting service and when we got to Communion the elements were consecrated and broken, as they are every week.  The choir sang Dixit Maria, a beautiful motet by the Renaissance composer Hans Leo Hassler, as the bread and wine were distributed.

Dixit Maria ad angelum:
Mary said to the angel:
Ecce ancilla Domine
Behold the handmaid of the Lord;
mihi secundum verbum tuum.
Let it be done to me according to your word.

And then after a short silence, the soloist sang (in the same key but in the minor mode):

Walk with me Lord; walk with me
Walk with me Lord; walk with me
Ooh, while I’m on this tedious journey
I want Jesus to walk with me.

Oh, hold my hand Lord; please hold my hand
Oh, hold my hand Lord; hold, hold my hand
While I’m on this tedious journey
I want Jesus to walk with me.

- Vanessa Bell Armstrong from the album “Peace Be Still”

Though one piece was planned weeks ahead and the other an intuitive, last-minute choice, each gave us a powerful but complementary image of Mary’s response to God.  The Hassler offers an elegant statement of trust and obedience – unvarnished, pure and direct.  And in the plaintive moaning of “Walk With Me, Lord” I hear Mary humbly asking God to hold her hand and walk the journey with her, because she knows that she can’t do it on her own.

I don’t know about you, but there are days when I need a Mary who is full of simple faith and trust, completely open to God.  And there are other days when I need a Mary who has weathered the challenges and struggles of life but is so sure of God’s sustaining presence in the midst of them that she can still respond with a weary but equally heartfelt “yes!”  I am deeply grateful for worship that allowed me to hear and see both of those this week.

a new page to the blog

I initially imagined that this blog would be a place to share written reflections on music and faith. But over the past year I have realized that the music I compose is also a part of the conversation.  It is where some of the topics I blog about actually get worked out in real time – where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.  So, I have decided to create a page with sample pdfs of music that I have written and will update it with new material from time to time.

I’m especially focusing on liturgical music, as I believe that there is a need for new material that is approachable by congregations and choirs but is also well-crafted, diverse and honors the text.  I’ll let you be the judge of my success or failure, though I do hope that these responses and Psalm settings can be of service to others.  They are free for you to peruse; if you decide that you’d like to use one in your congregation, please contact me for information about a modest usage fee. (Believe me, I’m not in this for the money!)

An important note: All of the pieces have been used in the church that I currently serve (or in past churches) and were written with a specific community in mind.  Sometimes music doesn’t translate well to other places, and that’s ok; every congregation is different.  In which case, I encourage you to commission a musician in your faith community to write something that is sensitive to your congregation’s needs and character (or write it yourself, if you can).   As much as publishers of every ilk might try to convince us, there is no one-size-fits-all solution that will bring vitality to a church’s worship life.  But I believe that good worship happens when preachers, musicians and worship planners prayerfully ask, “What is God’s WORD for this congregation, in this particular time and place?”  and then search out or even create ways for us to hear that WORD anew.

So, click on over to the music page and let me know what you think.