These are the words that end Psalm 88, the darkest psalm and one of only a few that never have some sort of turn toward praise. On Maundy Thursday, we will use a particular setting by Zebulon Highben of this psalm during the stripping of the altar at the end as we move into the darkness of Good Friday that has been very effective in previous churches I have served. Also included in Maundy Thursday will be an excerpt of the piano work "Black Earth" by Turkish composer, Fazil Say. The connection has to do with the text of the song "Kara Tropak" on which Say bases this work. The last line of each verse of that song roughly translates to "my only friend is the black earth". Here is the entire work recorded during the pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaXJQOR0I40.

As we navigate the emotional roller coaster that is Holy Week, don't forget to spend time in the darkness there amidst the confusion of the disciples, the betrayal Jesus experiences, in the sense of abandonment on the cross, and the grief of Mary.

It is important growth that happens in those dark places. Growth that doesn't happen when we avoid discomfort. Death comes before resurrection. Resurrection only happens because death came first. 

Marshall

​Many people have a favorite hymn and I am no different. But worship is bigger than what music we like or don't like, what might make us feel good in the moment. So while knowing my favorite hymn may be a nice thing to help you know who I am and what is important to me, it being my favorite is not a good reason to sing it every Sunday or even necessarily all that often. This week is a Sunday where the hymn that happens to be my favorite ties into the other parts of worship. Part of the middle verses even talks about footwashing, which we come to often with Maundy Thursday and the example Jesus sets in John 13. But that isn't the reason it is my favorite. 

This text by Brian Wren is my favorite because it gives us such a picture in such a deep and poetic manner of what God calls us to do in worship . The first and second verses speak to the baggage we bring -- broken trust, chosen wrong, etc. -- and how despite that baggage we are still people who are made in God's likeness and that we come to hear God's call (though that call will nearly always take us out of our comfort zone) and that we come seeking hope for all people. The third and fourth verses speak to our misplaced expectations -- looking for God in the pomp and circumstance of a heavenly throne, but instead finding God is kneeling in front of us, washing our feet. The rest of the fourth and fifth verses speak to the transformation God intends in us and the purpose with which God sends us out into the world. 

God calls us, transforms us, then sends us into the world having been changed by God's call and God's love. It isn't simply about comforting us by leaving us the way we came in. It is about growing together in community through what we learn about God, ourselves, each other, our neighbors (God's definition of neighbor), and what God calls us to do in relation to each of those entities. This growth comes through the sermons we hear, the songs we sing, and the ways we serve in worship and our willingness to let them take us out of our comfort zone and into a place of transformation. 

As you come into worship this and every week, I encourage you to acknowledge the baggage you bring, recognize God's likeness in the community, expect to be transformed rather than entertained, and go into the world ready to serve. Read the text of this hymn in your insert as a reminder and let it transform your perspective. 

Give us your Spirit's liberty
to turn from guilt and dull despair, 
and offer all that faith can do 
while love is making all things new. 
- Brian A. Wren

Marshall

You, who walk each day beside us, sit in power at God's side, 
You, who preach a way that's narrow, have a love that reaches wide. 
You, the everlasting instant; you, who are our pilgrim guide. 
- Sylvia G. Dunstan, ​"You, Lord, Are Both Lamb and Shepherd"
​

I love the phrase that repeats in every verse of Sylvia Dunstan's hymn quoted above: "You, the everlasting instant." If there's anyone who might be able to speak of an everlasting instant, it is Dunstan, considering how many deep and profound hymn texts she wrote which have reached far beyond the short instant of her 38 years on this Earth. 

God exists outside the confines of time, while we experience life teleologically (in an order of events). This idea of experiencing things without the confines of that teleological order has long been a spark for art, music, literature, and drama. In fact my dissertation piece, "Four Movements in Search of a Composer," took its inspiration from the play Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. In that play, Pirandello explores some ideas that were far ahead of his time. In it, the six Characters don't experience their story in a teleological order and so find it difficult to try to convey that story to the Director. At the same time, Pirandello insinuates that once their story is told the Characters become real, implying that teleological order is necessary to life. Hence when trying to put this idea into music, I took a musical idea and used every part of that idea in different orders, sometimes starting in the middle of the idea and working backwards. 

And yet, Sylvia Dunstan puts this idea of God existing outside of time in a phrase that is simple (yet vast in what it encompasses), that is repeated in each verse: "You, the everlasting instant." May we continue to look beyond our own experience and reflect on these seemingly opposite aspects of God that are both true in the same everlasting instant. 

Marshall

So often with music in the church we think of the title of the text of a hymn, but there is also another name, the name of the tune. Hymn tunes are designed to be interchangeable with different texts.

For example, take the tune ST. LOUIS (which we tend to associate with the text "O Little Town of Bethlehem") and sing the lyrics of "House of the Rising Sun" to it instead -- or sing the text of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" to the tune HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN. And while sometimes a tune was written specifically for a certain text (i.e. "Here I Am, Lord"), there are times when the tune that was originally paired with a text is not the same one that has become traditionally associated with the text. There are also various regional differences. While we here in the United States will usually think of the tune MUELLER for the text "Away in the Manger," people in Great Britain are more likely to assume the tune CRADLE SONG. Interestingly enough, both of those tunes were written by composers in the U.S.

Sometimes the tune name given refers to a place. Last year, I arranged the hymn tune COPELAND for handbells, choir, and organ. (Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/live/3PA1YbMCkT0?si=k8nhnm8AIRWibQti&t=2642). The hymn tune was written by Michael Corzine, who was the organ professor at Florida State for several decades and his office would have overlooked Copeland St. Hence, the tune name -- it was probably written in that office.

Sometimes it may refer to a person -- ST. LOUIS refers to Lewis Redner, the organist who wrote the tune for "O Little Town of Bethlehem," but he did not want the recognition, hence the change in spelling of Lewis to Louis.

One of our hymns this week is sung to the tune RATHBUN. Ithamar Conkey wrote the tune while an organist at a church in Connecticut. One Sunday it was particularly rainy and none of the choir showed, except one lone soprano. He was so discouraged he left and went home. That afternoon he wrote this tune for the text "In the Cross of Christ I Glory." The lone soprano who showed up that morning was Beriah Rathbun, and so he named the tune after her.

Marshall

​Soul, adorn yourself with gladness, 
Leave the gloomy haunts of sadness, 
come into the daylight's splendor, 
there with joy your praises render. 

This hymn text by Johann Franck has always stuck with me. It is not found in our hymnal but the tune it is paired with, SCHMUCKE DICH has been a staple in the Lutheran church and is paired with several other texts including a text by Joel Lundeen (a relative of our very own Steve Lundeen). Brahms sets this tune with this joyful inner line of sixteenth notes weaving through and around the tune. I think the world we live in can certainly be represented much of the time as the gloomy haunts of sadness. 

Similarly, the sending music is based on another tune much more well known in the Lutheran church, Thine the Amen. The hymn as a whole points to the great wedding banquet in Revelation and how it all is God's and there is much imagery of the joy of this feast throughout. However, it is genuinely a difficult one to spit out all the words in terms of congregational singing. 

So while we are not necessarily singing these wonderful hymns, I hope that knowing their context helps you to think about the images of joy that are woven into the fabric of these tunes and the texts associated with them as you hear them this Sunday. 

Marshall