What's for Worship May 15th > Marble Collegiate Church

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Thursday, May 12, 2011

What's for Worship May 15th
By webmaster @ 12:34 PM :: 600 Views :: 1 Comments :: Kenneth Dake

Audio samples of selections from Sunday's service are included below – enjoy!

You're Going to Need a Bigger Map

When returning from a recent trip to Chicago I saw an airline advertisement billboard: You're going to need a bigger map. I was immediately struck by the idea that there were places God wanted to lead me that simply weren't on my current life map, and that in order to be so led I may have to surrender some of the very parameters by which I'd defined my life's territory. Perhaps I need to give up the paradigm of the past through which I attempt to create a map of the future.

This notion of needing a bigger map has proven to be fodder for inspiring discussion in our Festival of Voices devotionals. As we prepared our Holy Week music we formed the analogy that the disciples had no map for what was coming. It was as if Jesus kept pointing clearly to his destination and the exact route and precise time it would take, but it was so utterly foreign to them they simply could not grasp it. Several in the choir mentioned the idea of surrendering our maps to God, giving up the illusion of even trying to "map" our lives and instead inviting God to be our sole cartographer.

I recall a retreat I was on with Paula D'Arcy last summer in which she challenged us to live not only the length of our days but the breadth and depth and height. Anyone can grow old, she said; the challenge is to grow up. Perhaps life should be less about charting a course to our destination and more about becoming larger in the journey than when we began. In this paradigm, our "bigger map" becomes multi-dimensional, calling us spiritually to become more than we are, and for Christ to become more in us. I think of the old spiritual, "My God is so high you can't get over him and so low you can't get under him and so wide you can't get 'round him...." Perhaps that's the kind of map God wants for our life - one that is as high and low and wide as God himself.

Singing in a Strange Land
Few could better relate to these verses from Psalm 137 than enslaved African-Americans:

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song: and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? – Psalm 137:3-4

According to historical accounts, enslaved people were forced to sing both on ship and on land. Yet out of this darkest hour in our nation’s history came one of our greatest art forms and cultural treasures, a genre that is so uniquely American that Antonin Dvořák based a complete symphony on it, calling it music "From the New World": The Spiritual. Spirituals not only expressed the enslaved people's longing for freedom - echoing the Jews' cries for deliverance from Egypt's oppression – but they also conveyed a strong sense of personal and communal liberation even in the midst of captivity. One can hear an inner strength and defiance, for example, in this Sunday's introit text, "My God is so high, you can't get over Him..." Reading between the lines one might say, "You may think you are an owner of others, master of all things and servant of none, but I serve a God who is higher and wider and bigger than you will ever be, and it is to Him I truly belong."

Introit: My God Is So High, African-American Spiritual arr. Moses Hogan (1957-2003) [LISTEN] Moses Hogan first set out to become a concert pianist, graduating from Oberlin Conservatory and winning New York's prestigious Kosciuszko Foundation Competition. From there he made his foray into choral music, which led to his founding of the New Orleans-based Moses Hogan Chorale and publication of over 70 works, including many brilliant arrangements of traditional spirituals.

American Organ Music
Festival Fanfare by Robert Hebble (b.1934) This Sunday's organ music features works of three contemporary American composers: David Johnson, Emma Lou Diemer, and Robert Hebble. A graduate of Yale University and the Juilliard School, Robert Hebble studied with Vittorio Gianinni and Roger Sessions, and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. For over thirty years, Hebble's career was closely linked with the great organist Virgil Fox, who appointed him as his assistant at the age of sixteen at the Riverside Church. His many works include commissions for the Crystal Cathedral organ, (which Fox had a great hand in designing), as well as a major work, A Symphony of Light, commissioned in memory of Virgil Fox and performed by the composer in Paris at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Though retired, Robert Hebble is still quite active as a composer and makes frequent visits to Marble when he is in New York. He is also active in Church of the Palms in Delray Beach, FL, and recently donated the new Trompette en Chamade rank of pipes which he dedicated to Edward Krynicki, Director of Music. For the service of dedication of the new trumpet he composed Festival Fanfare, [LISTEN] which features the melody first on Festival Trumpet stop (as it is known on the Rodgers electronic organ temporarily installed in the Marble sanctuary during the construction). Later the same melody is heard in the pedals, always couched in Hebble's delicious, vibrant harmonies.

A Call to Discipleship

Jesus Calls Us by Joel Martinson (b. 1960) Marble is receiving 18 young confirmands this Sunday, so I have chosen music which focuses on the call to discipleship. Joel Martinson was born in Minneapolis, raised in Oregon, and earned degrees in organ performance with a concentration in composition from the University of North Texas. He has directed music at Saint Rita Catholic Community and The Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas. Martinson's compositions fuse different musical languages, employing classical elements of dissonance and counterpoint along with fresh harmonies that are more indicative of contemporary culture. The result is a rare synthesis of music that is both well crafted and easily enjoyed by a diverse range of listeners. Jesus Calls Us takes the familiar, traditional text by Cecil Alexander and pairs it with a beautiful original hymn-tune.

I Offer My Life by Claire Cloninger and Don Moen [LISTEN] This is a powerful Contemporary Christian Song that speaks to bringing all that we are – past and future, successes and regrets, fears and dreams – to God. On Sunday these 18 young men and women will begin the next chapter in their faith journey, and it is a great opportunity to renew our own dedication to following Christ. They may have an advantage over us in that they are brimming with limitless possibility; some of us older folks may feel weighed down by our past failures. The good news is this: We serve a God of endless second chances, a God who specializes in Resurrection, a God who simply invites us to bring our lives – just as we are, all that we are – as an offering of praise and gratitude. It is with this spirit I invite you to sing this beautiful hymn during worship this Sunday.

Comments

By SniffNY @ Saturday, May 14, 2011 7:01 AM

Looking forward to this!

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