{"id":2061,"date":"2018-09-30T11:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T16:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2020-02-11T16:00:49","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T21:00:49","slug":"the-bach-experience-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2018\/09\/30\/the-bach-experience-21\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bach Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here\u00a0to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

James 5:13-20<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark 9:38-50<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the sermon\u00a0only<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those who have paused, here, or now, to worship with us at Marsh Chapel in the last decade, are aware that we lift the Gospel, come Cantata Sundays, in word and music, together, juntos,<\/em> in harmony.<\/p>\n

Bach brings us the reach of beauty around the globe, a global sphere of orientation.\u00a0 Bach brings us a stretch toward the universal, the reach up and out to what fully lasts, truly matters, and really counts.\u00a0 Bach brings us an artistic angle of vision, rooted in Scripture and in an earlier Lutheran garden, nonetheless known by heart and in the heart, far and near, with those, today you and me, who will pause for the offering of the gift of faith.\u00a0 Bach brings us beauty, a paean for sure to the true and the good, but no avoidance of the beautiful.\u00a0 In our time, this hour, especially this week, we can truly appreciate, benefit from such a global orientation, a high universal reach, a feeling in faith, and the bathing of such beauty.<\/p>\n

Given the maelstrom of this moment in our current culture, the wind blasts of charge and counter charge, the examples of courage and also the instances of failures in courage, near and far, we, come Sunday, maybe especially this Sunday, look for the God who is a rock in a weary land.\u00a0 Said Dr. Emilie Townes, last Tuesday, \u2018we want to cultivate a vibrant community of hope\u2026 we hope to beget an ever more piercing faithfulness\u2019.\u00a0 An ever more piercing faithfulness.<\/p>\n

Today we receive the gift in memory of the faith of the church, and we give ear to the beauty of our first Bach Cantata of the year.\u00a0 We are truly \u2018blessed\u2019 as our Gospel affirms.\u00a0 All the senses\u2014sight, sound, scent, touch, taste\u2014are enlivened today.<\/p>\n

This is truly good news, especially for those who may be in mortal need of a living reminder, as the Scritpure says, that we are \u2018children of God\u2019.\u00a0 For we can sometimes acutely need such a reminder of belonging, meaning and empowerment.\u00a0 We are acquainted with the night.\u00a0 You are acquainted with the night.\u00a0 As our New England poet memorably put it:<\/p>\n

I have been one acquainted with the night.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have outwalked the furthest city light.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I have looked down the saddest city lane.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have passed by the watchman on his beat<\/em><\/p>\n

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet<\/em><\/p>\n

When far away an interrupted cry<\/em><\/p>\n

Came over houses from another street,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

But not to call me back or say good-bye;<\/em><\/p>\n

And further still at an unearthly height,<\/em><\/p>\n

O luminary clock against the sky<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have been one acquainted with the night.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

To such acquaintance does our worship this morning minister, and our affirmations of faith, and the beauty of Bach.\u00a0 Tell us, if you will Dr. Jarrett, how best we can listen for the gospel today, in and within this marvelous cantata.<\/p>\n

Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s cantata represents a high water mark in the Baroque expression of the anxious tortured soul. Bach surpasses himself in each movement of this musical essay, a sermon-in-song. From the outset, the scope of the opening chorus presents a people in supplication \u2013 a people yearning for mercy in the countenance of God\u2019s promised judgment. Presented in two contrasting sections, the opening chorus depicts the many facets of our anxiety. After a pleading alto recitative, the soprano aria gives pitch and rhythm to our angst in the form of trembling sixteenth notes in the upper strings. The foundational voice of the continuo silenced for this movement, \u00a0the soprano and oboe are left to wander alone. The voice of wisdom and New Covenant in Christ\u2019s Cup consoles and comforts in the baritone recitative which follows. The sixteenth notes here take on a caring and supporting motive. Drawing on the security of promised Redemption heard in the baritone recitative, the voice of the tenor with obligato horn professes a confident assurance. The cantata concludes with the expected chorale setting. The trembling sixteenth notes of the soprano aria reappear, but as the chorale proceeds, phrase by phrase the trembling anxiety is calmed \u2013 sixteenths become triplets, triplets yield to duples, until their final concluding quarter notes \u2013 Indeed Bach\u2019s musical signature of promised redemption and divine grace.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

This moment:\u00a0 in word and worship, in memory and hope, in voice and instrument.\u00a0 We are blessed.\u00a0 We are recalled as children of God: who enter the kingdom of heaven and receive comfort in mourning, and gentle the earth, and crave goodness, and trade in mercy, and see divine grace, and pave with justice the path of peace, and see out to the far side of hardship.\u00a0 Said Howard Thurman, \u2018Come Sunday the church says to one and all, the church says to you:\u00a0 you are a child of the living God, you are a child of the living God, you are a child of the living God.<\/p>\n

We gather our bits of hard won wisdom:\u00a0 \u2018The only way of achieving any degree of self-understanding is by systematically retracing our steps\u2019. \u2018One can know fully only what one has oneself made.\u2019 \u2018I was once a philosopher, but joy kept breaking in.\u2019 \u2018What we borrow, we also bend.\u2019 \u2018To surrender the actual experienced good for a possible ideal good is the struggle.\u2019<\/p>\n

Somewhere, sometime, it may be, you will find yourself in receipt of the gift of faith.\u00a0 It may be a faith recounted in the Niceaen creed.\u00a0 But it also may be faith as simple, and pure, and true, as the courage to be, the real courage to be.\u00a0 To be and speak.\u00a0 To speak and bear witness.\u00a0 To bear witness, for all the dangers about, and to tell the truth.\u00a0 To tell the truth, and to get up again the next day.\u00a0\u00a0 Your restoration in faith may be as Lutheran and Scriptural as the substitutionary atonement of tradition, \u2018the sacrificial death that wipes out guilt\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Or it may be faith shorn of religious clothing, clean and clear: \u2018a courage welling up from a deep and hidden place\u2019 (Senator Blumenthal quoting Senator Graham, from Graham\u2019s book about work with brave witnesses as a lawyer with sex crimes (9\/27\/18).\u00a0\u00a0 Either way, you have, say today, a restoration in faith.\u00a0 Faith you can remember, return to be, rely on, when faith, being faith, is, finally all you have left.\u00a0 Receive the gift of faith in music and word this Lord\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

Then go and live!<\/p>\n

As one said: \u2018I have only just a minute, \u2028Only sixty seconds in it.\u2028Forced upon me, can’t refuse it.\u2028Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.\u2028But it’s up to me to use it,\u2028I must suffer if I lose it,\u2028Give account if I abuse it.\u2028Just a tiny little minute\u2019.\u2028But eternity is in it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Our music sings it so:<\/p>\n

Now, I know, You shall quiet in me<\/em><\/p>\n

my conscience which gnaws at me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Your faithful love will fulfill<\/em><\/p>\n

what You Yourself have said:<\/em><\/p>\n

that upon this wide earth<\/em><\/p>\n

no one shall be lost,<\/em><\/p>\n

rather shall live forever,<\/em><\/p>\n

if only he is filled with faith.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean. & Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here\u00a0to listen to the full service James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50 Click here to listen to the sermon\u00a0only The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill Those who have paused, here, or now, to worship with us at Marsh Chapel in the last decade, are aware that we lift the Gospel, come Cantata Sundays, in word and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,36,22],"tags":[11,6,10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2204,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions\/2204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}