Sunday
January 30
The Bach Experience
By Marsh Chapel
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Consider us with Your love, enclose us within Your mercy!
So, in word and song, we bow before God this morning.
In word, this year, the word as given through the Gospel According to St. Luke.
What meets us in St. Luke this year?
Luke was written nearly a generation later than Mark, by most estimates, Mark in or near 70, Luke in or near 90 of the common era. Traditionally ascribed to Luke the physician, its author and that of its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, is finally unknown to us. We know him only through the writing itself.
What do we find? Or what shall we find in prayerful conversation with Luke across the next year, and beginning today amid Cantata and Liturgy?
Luke is made up of a mixture of ingredients. First, Luke uses most of Mark. An example is our passage today, the depiction of Jesus rejection by his own home town. Like Matthew, Luke knew and repeated most of the earlier gospel of Mark. But he made changes along the way, or construed the gospel according to his own desires and emphases. This is hopeful for us, in that it is an encouragement for us to take the gospel in hand, and interpret it according to our time, location, understanding, and need. Second, Luke uses a collection of teachings, called Q, as does Matthew. An example is our Lord’s Prayer. Luke’s version is slightly different from that in Matthew, as is his version of the beatitudes and other teachings, found in the ‘sermon on the plain’, rather than the ‘sermon on the mount’. Third, Luke makes ample use of material that is all his own, not found in Mark or elsewhere. The long chapters from Luke 8 or so through Luke 18 or so, are all his. Examples include some of your favorite parables, like the Good Samaritan, and like the lost sheep, and like the Prodigal Son, and like the Dishonest Steward. We have Luke to thank for the remembrance of these great stories. Luke brings us a unique mixture of materials, and makes his own particular use of them.
But regarding Word, what does Luke say, and how does he say it?
This will take us the year and more to unravel. We shall do so, one step at a time, one Sunday at a time, one parable, teaching, exhortation, miracle, or, as today, one narrative at a time. Still, there are some outstanding features of the Lukan horizon, which we may simply name as we set forth, a sort of map for the journey ahead. First, Luke displays a commitment to and interest in history, and orderly history at that. Both Luke and Acts are cast in a distinctive historical mode. In fact, Luke has his own schemata for sacred history, in three parts: Israel, Jesus, Church: the time of Israel, concluding with John the Baptist; the time of Jesus, concluding with the Ascension; the time of the church, concluding with the parousia, the coming of the Lord on the clouds of heaven, at the end of time. Second, Luke employs and deploys his own theology, or theological perspective, including this emphasis upon history and the divine purpose in history. Third, Luke highlights the humanity and compassion of Jesus in a remarkable way. The Christ of St. Luke is the Christ of magnificent compassion, embodied in the humility of a birth among shepherds. The Lukan Christ bring this word: a passion for compassion. The poor, women, the stranger, the injured, those in dire need all stand out in Luke, as the recipients and subjects of Jesus’ love, mercy, grace and compassion. Fourth, Luke carries an abiding interest in the church. Ephesians says that ‘through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principles and powers’. That catches the spirit of the author or the third gospel and of the Acts to follow.
Hold most closely the compassion in Luke. At every turn, there is a return to the least, the last, the lost; those at the dawn of life, those at the twilight of life, those in the shadows of life. Those who decry preaching that engages life, culture, politics, economy and the cry of need about us have not read Luke, not even a bit.
Notice, record, the way Luke puts it, beginning, middle and end: He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree, he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away…The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?…Sell your possessions and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old…When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind…You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just…Said Zacchaeus, ‘behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor’…They contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty…
Dr Jarrett, what grace, and sung beauty does our Cantata bring us today, alongside the compassion of St. Luke?
Dr. Jarrett’s response text is unavailable at this time.
Dean Hill:
What shall bring to application of Scripture and Cantata?
First, forbearance. “Let your forbearance be known by all men.” Forbearance is a patient power to bear with others and their needs. To help others get things right. To guide by presence and voice. Forbearance is a kind of prevenient forgiveness, a gift ahead of time. We look for and lean on people who bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, like mothers bear children and fathers bear with children. Institutions depend upon forbearance, and discern their leadership there. It is this grace to bear with that helps us in tight places, helps us through tense meetings, helps us manage tough interviews. It takes faith to show forbearance, and it takes something else, too. It takes a peace, like a river, down deep in the soul, a freedom from anxiety. “Have no anxiety about anything, but in all things through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving bring your entreaties to God”. It makes me anxious to read the sentence, because I can scarcely live it, in full, for a whole day. Yet as we grow in faith we find, over time, the peace to be forbearing, to be present but not anxious. We affirm forbearance in Cantata and in Scripture.
Second, joy. Our passage is best known, perhaps, for its triumphant affirmation of faithful joy. “Rejoice in the Lord, always, again I say, Rejoice!” It is startling for us to hear this sincere word, written in prison. It is one thing to be joyful in the summer, another in the winter. One thing in the meadow, another behind bars. Joy is more than happiness. Joy is bone happiness, or happiness put to music. Sometimes it is expressed in humor. One winter in our church there was a high moment, when our youth performed Godspell. It makes us older people very happy to see a stage full of handsome, talented 17 year olds. Since his grandson played Jesus, and very well, I said to the three generations: “Son and Father I understand in the Trinity, along with Spirit, so Daniel and Al, my theology can comprehend you two, but Albert I have no way to comprehend the role of the Grandfather of Jesus”. Joy also a playful musing (musing is a crucial spiritual term), and he carried the thought along. We affirm faithful joy in Scripture and Cantata.
Consider us with Your love, enclose us within Your mercy!
So, in word and song, we bow before God this morning.
-Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music
