{"id":2335,"date":"2019-09-29T11:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2335"},"modified":"2020-02-11T15:51:05","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T20:51:05","slug":"the-bach-experience-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2019\/09\/29\/the-bach-experience-25\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bach Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 16:19-31<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Exegesis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The beauty of the music this morning is itself a sort of baptism.\u00a0 We sometimes long to take a spiritual shower, to bathe ourselves in the living waters of grace, faith, hope, life, and love.\u00a0\u00a0 Especially, it might be stressed, on any college campus today, the need for spiritual cleansing in the midst of sub cultural murkiness, is continual.\u00a0 We need both judgment and mercy, both honesty and kindness, both prophetic upbraid and parabolic uplift.\u00a0 And we get them, thanks be to God, in Jeremiah and in Luke.\u00a0 But look!\u00a0 They come upside down.\u00a0 In a stunning reversal, kindness and gentle hope are the hallmarks of our passage from Jeremiah, while wrath and hellfire explode out of Luke.<\/p>\n

Listen again to the voice of the prophet, one of the great, strange voices in all of history and life, one of the great, strange voices, in all of Holy Writ.\u00a0 Jeremiah.\u00a0 All is lost, in Judah, as Jeremiah addresses Zedekiah the King.\u00a0 You will be a slave in Babylon, King Zedekiah.\u00a0 You will be given into the hand of your sworn, mortal enemy, and so too will be the fate of your city, your temple, your people, and your country, King Zedekiah. \u00a0BUT.\u00a0 NONETHELESS. AND YET.\u00a0 These are resurrection words.\u00a0 BUT. NONETHELESS. NEVERTHELESS.\u00a0 STILL.\u00a0 EVEN SO.\u00a0 And Jeremiah put his money where his mouth is.\u00a0 Or was.<\/p>\n

In this season of cultural demise and decay across our country, we benefit from the harsh challenge of Luke, and we benefit from the hopeful promise in Jeremiah.\u00a0 You see there is more Luke in Jeremiah than at first you think, and there is more Jeremiah in Luke than at first you think.<\/p>\n

Sin is not doing concrete deeds of generous kindness.\u00a0Sin is the not doing concrete deeds of generous kindness.\u00a0\u00a0 Of all the Gospels, St. Luke most emphasizes this:\u00a0 in the sermon on the plain; in the wording of the Lord\u2019s prayer; in the parables of Sower, Samaritan, Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son, Dishonest Steward, Guests to the Wedding Banquet, the 10 healed Lepers; in the communal interest extended to Samaritans (those of different ethnic and religious background), to women (those whom tradition has marginalized), to the poor (those left forgotten in transaction and acquisition, to the lepers (those ritually and culturally excluded).\u00a0 To read Luke is to be given eyes to see by contrast abroad in America today an emerging culture of denigration\u2013denigration of immigrants, Muslims, and Mexicans\u2013and to weep. \u00a0It is not enough, though it is true enough, to blame this almost exclusively on one particular candidate and one particular party. (repeat).\u00a0 No, the mirror is held up for us all, for all of us in some measure have contributed to a culture that is uncultured, a rhetoric that is rancorous, a politics that is impolitic, an increasingly uncivil civil society, a rejection of hard-won experience and preparation in favor of careless entertainment and tomfoolery, a preference for cruelty over beauty, and a robust willingness to throw away hundreds of years of painstakingly crafted institutional commitments and social norms.\u00a0You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but cannot fool all of the people all of the time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Will Lincoln\u2019s proverb hold in our time? You may well hope so, though you may well doubt so.\u00a0 I doubt it. \u00a0Finally, as Jeremiah looks upon Zedekiah, we confess, we get the leaders we deserve.<\/p>\n

More personally, in the Methodist tradition which built Boston University, other than worship and the study of Scripture, the most cherished practice of faith is tithing:\u00a0 annually giving away 10% of what you earn.\u00a0 The reason for the centrality of tithing\u2014today, sadly, honored largely in the breach, even in Methodism, now, to our shame\u2014is set for us in today\u2019s harsh parable of Lazarus and Dives, the harrowing horror of what it means to forget the needs of the poor.\u00a0 Such forgetfulness is a persistent threat in the heart of all human life, but is especially challenging for those who have much, and so are sheltered, routinely, from the anxiety of poverty, the hurt of exclusion, the pain of hunger, and the despair of lack and loss.\u00a0\u00a0 Sin is the unwillingness on a weekly basis to practice generous kindness, to tithe.\u00a0 Luke reminds us so.<\/p>\n

And Jeremiah?\u00a0 Now that his beloved country is in ruins (are we beginning across our own cultural landscape to catch a glimpse of his woe?), Jeremiah does something great.\u00a0 Remember:\u00a0 the city is burned, the temple is wrecked, the population is slaughtered or in chains, and the nation is destroyed, soon to spend two generations in Babylon, by the rivers of Babylon, where to sit down and weep, as tormentors mock, \u2018sing to us one of the songs of Zion\u2019.\u00a0 But Jeremiah buys a plot of land.\u00a0 One day, a long time from now, he muses and prays, there will be some manner of restoration: \u2018I cannot see it.\u00a0 I cannot hear it.\u00a0 I cannot prove it.\u00a0 Sometimes I cannot believe it.\u00a0 But, hoping against hope, I will buy some land, and someday, somebody, somehow will use it\u2019.\u00a0 This is faith:\u00a0 to plant trees under which you will not sleep, to build churches in which you will not worship, to create schools in which you will not study, to teach students whose futures you will not know\u2014and to buy land which you will not till.\u00a0 But someone will.\u00a0 Or at least, that is your hope.\u00a0 That is why, as darkness is falling across a confused, frightened, and benighted land, you have done some things this year.\u00a0 You offered a morning prayer.\u00a0 Good for you.\u00a0 You sent a check to support some leader or candidate.\u00a0 Good for you.\u00a0 You went and volunteered to make contacts and calls. Good for you.\u00a0 You spoke up and spoke out, regardless of the fan mail, family disdain, and other costs.\u00a0 You did something.\u00a0 Will it make a difference?\u00a0 It may not.\u00a0 But it does make a difference, for you, if for no one else.\u00a0 Go and buy your little plot of land.<\/p>\n

Explanation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more than a decade, Music at Marsh Chapel has cultivated our own little plot of land \u2013 the rich and fertile soil of the vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach. The endeavor around the recreation of this extraordinary repertoire by our players and singers is its own form activism, faith, tithe, and over time and shared commitment, Jeremiah might even behold restoration.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s cantata series explores four works Bach composed for New Year\u2019s Day. At the highest altitude, these are joyful and celebratory cantatas \u2014 at least in the outer movements. To be sure, the inner movements can be counted on to remind us of our sin at some point. Today\u2019s cantata \u2013 No. 41 \u2018Jesu, nun sei gepreiset\u2019 or Jesus, now be praised<\/em>, numbers among the great Chorale Cantatas from Bach\u2019s second annual cycle of cantatas in Leipzig. In these remarkable works, the great hymns of the faith \u2013 Chorales \u2013 are the Alpha and Omega. Today\u2019s cantata sets the outer verses of Johann Herman\u2019s 1593 text exactly in the opening and closing movements, while paraphrasing the inner verse of the chorale in the arias and recitatives within the cantata.<\/p>\n

The passing of the old year and the welcoming of the New Year takes on various dimensions for each of us, and for Bach and his congregation, they were reminded that as the Old Year is analogous to the Old Testament, the New Year reveals the hope of resurrection from the New Testament \u2014 Law and Grace. And perhaps a more obvious temporal analogy, our mortal life on earth is the old year that passes, and the New Year represents our hopes for the life eternal. For this reason, the central text offers a prayer for mercy and salvation upon the believer\u2019s death. Finally, the bass soloist reminds us that this mortal life is constantly thwarted and threatened by Satan\u2019s works, potentially jeopardizing our hope for life in eternity, the New Year of our soul.<\/p>\n

Musically, this cantata is extraordinarily rich in invention and detail from the first measure to the last. For the central aria, our principal cellist Guy Fishman plays a five-stringed cello called a Cello Piccolo with music that seems to depict our earthly toil in sincere and honest strains of remarkable difficulty. And the joyful soprano aria heard immediately following the opening choral movement features dance rhythms and a choir of merry oboes.<\/p>\n

However, nothing can sufficiently prepare the listener for the glorious opening movement. The chorale is faithfully rendered in long tones in the soprano part with truly astonishing invention all around. Here Bach gives us bold concertante writing in the latest style (think New Year) with the final two lines set in the old contrapuntal or fugal style, before recasting those lines to the new music. Truly a dialectic of old and new styles transformed by their relation to one another.<\/p>\n

As academic communities at schools and colleges throughout the country commence a new year this month, they too engage in this dialectic of the hope of new beginnings forged in the knowledge and wisdom of those who have gone before. And of those who have gone before, few surpass Bach\u2019s capacity to reveal new heights and hopes for our daily strivings and our future together.<\/p>\n

Application<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You may want and need to shift your perspective, to alter your angle of vision, to see things from even higher ground.\u00a0 Some measure of health or salvation, or mental sanitation may require it.<\/p>\n

The Matterhorn is the most beautiful mountain on our planet.\u00a0 Today, the beautiful, tomorrow, the true, the next day, the good.\u00a0 An excellent view of the majestic Alpine peak may be found in Zermatt.\u00a0 If and as memory serves, you can drive to Zermatt\u2014rent an old deux chaveaux\u2014a pristine Alpine village, snow laden in the summer, its shops and hostels wind swept and well kept.\u00a0 The view from Zermatt is fine.\u00a0 You can share it in physical comfort and communal fellowship. The Matterhorn!\u00a0 Just before you.<\/p>\n

There is, though, a better view, for which though you will need to shift your perspective, to alter your angel of vision, to change your location, in order to see things from even higher ground<\/em>.\u00a0 High up to the southeast, in the craggy mountain cliffs, there is, farther up, the small hamlet of Gornergrat.\u00a0 To get up there, if memory serves, you must take an open air, chair by chair, chain rail car, ascending at 45 degrees, up and up, and on up, nearer to the summit, and far closer to your ideal, aspirational vies of beauty.\u00a0 Or truth.\u00a0 Or goodness.\u00a0 Acrophobics need not apply.<\/p>\n

The ride is short but terrifying.\u00a0 At the top, mid-July, thick snow, hard ice, brisk wind and a coldness of cold await you.\u00a0 As does the mesmerizing thrall of the mountain.\u00a0 The Matterhorn.\u00a0 Step gingerly out of the old open rail car.\u00a0 Get your footing, your mountain sea legs.\u00a0 Raise your gaze.\u00a0 Raise your gaze.\u00a0 Raise your gaze.\u00a0 There.\u00a0 A new way of seeing, and so of thinking, and so, then of being.\u00a0 Health and sanity may impel or compel you to higher ground.<\/p>\n

My sixteenth book will be published this fall, a collection devoted in part to the New Testament, in part to preaching, and in part to ministry\u2014Bible, Church, World as we in the halcyon younger days of the World Council of Churches intoned.\u00a0 None of the sixteen is a best seller, none a game changer, none found in every home.\u00a0 All but two are still in print, and several in both print and cyber forms.\u00a0 They are the work of Zermatt.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 The view from Zermatt is fine.\u00a0 You can share it in physical comfort and communal fellowship.\u00a0 The Matterhorn!\u00a0 Just before you.\u00a0 But.\u00a0 But.\u00a0 But.<\/p>\n

As an acrophobe the rail car ride up is not appealing.\u00a0 But it is time for me to move on up, to take higher ground, to climb on to Gornergrat.\u00a0 Ice.\u00a0 Snow. Cold. Wind.\u00a0 That means the prospect of one more, a very different book, for a very different look.\u00a0 A different look takes a different book.\u00a0 It will be, here, for me, the work of the next decade, in pulpit and study.\u00a0 As you cannot get to Gornergrat but through Zermatt, this project depends in full on all that came before:\u00a0 books on the New Testament (John), on preaching (Interpretation), and on ministry (prayer and practice).\u00a0 The next climb is up on to craggy cliff village\u2014ice, snow, cold, wind\u2014of an overture to A Liberal Biblical Theology<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Here is a marriage of Rudolph Bultmann and N.T. Wright., a partnership of Paul Tillich and (the early) Karl Barth, an aspirational possibilist (that is Methodist) correlation of history and theology, Bible and Church, accessible to the average reader.\u00a0 Our climate, nation, and denomination, all in peril, hang in the balance.<\/p>\n

–Dr. Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15 Luke 16:19-31 Click here to hear just the sermon Exegesis The beauty of the music this morning is itself a sort of baptism.\u00a0 We sometimes long to take a spiritual shower, to bathe ourselves in the living waters of grace, faith, hope, life, and love.\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335"}],"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=2335"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2528,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions\/2528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}