I'm sure you have heard the word peal and associated it with bells (or out of context and thought it was a banana), but a peal is a very specific thing very tied to the history of handbells.

Handbells descended from the big tower bells in cathedrals where several people would stand there in the cold in the tower pulling the rope that would ring their particular bells out of all the bells in the tower. One of the techniques used to create melodic patterns is what is called change ringing. In change ringing, you would start out with a simple pattern. For instance, if you had 8 bells you would ring them in this order: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Then someone would call out a change that would switch the order of the bells, so the next time through the sequence would be possibly: 1 3 2 4 5 7 6 8. A sequence of these changes would ensue until the ringers got back to the original sequence constitution and entire peal. The more bells involved in the change ringing, the longer the peal might be, sometimes lasting several hours. When bell teams (accurate terminology because change ringing is much more like a marriage of math and sports) would practice, the townsfolk would get upset about all the noise. So eventually the handbell was developed to allow teams to practice at the pub without disturbing the whole town. Over time bell foundries began to tune handbells so that the overtones were more compatible with other Western instruments and people began to ring melodies rather than changes. Some more information into change ringing can be found here: https://www.bells.org/change-ringing

So when the Plymouth Ringers ring Michael Helman's "A Jubilant Peal" as the prelude this Sunday, there is this tie in the melodic line throughout the piece to the changes that would be seen in change ringing and hence the history of handbells. At the same time, this piece uses many more recently developed techniques such as martellatos, echos, thumb damping, and more. Helman has directed handbell ensembles for several decades in Delaware and Florida and certainly has cemented a place in the history of handbell ringing with his compositions and advocacy for pushing the art of handbell ringing in new directions. Some may find joy in just the timbre of the handbells. Others might find joy in the intellectual challenge of tracing the changes through the sequence of bells that form the melodies in each section of the piece. But most of all, I hope we take a moment to thank God for the gift that Michael has been to handbell ringing over the last several decades, and for the gift that all LGBTQ+ people like him have been to the church as a whole and to our understanding of the multiplicity of ways in which God is at work in this world. 

Marshall

Here in this place new light is streaming, 
Now is the darkness, vanished away, 
See in this space, our fears and our dreamings, 
Brought here to you in the light of this day. 
- Marty Haugen

The prelude this week is James Biery’s Galliard on “Gather Us In.” The first question that will pop into most people’s head is “What the heck is a Galliard?” A Galliard is a dance from the renaissance period for two people that was known to be in a fast triple meter and have some very complicated steps. Biery’s setting of this tune captures that dance character very well in the opening section. Maybe some of you will dance your way down the aisle as you gather for worship?!?! 

The next section takes the melody and still retains its dance character but begins to layer fragments of the melody in increasingly complex and dissonant layers with the quiet intensity of a tango building to what amounts to a bursting scream of tension. There is a pause, and then it returns to the original dance, but now with new chordal structures formed from the some of the layers that created the dissonance in the middle. The ending winds down to a final fragment that layers both an idea from the dissonant section and the first section, but never fully resolves in as concrete an ending as one might expect. 

I see Biery alluding to the complicated dance between people in larger contexts with this setting. Maybe it’s the Galliard of the Church. If so, at what point are we (Plymouth) called to be in this dance? The first section? Somewhere in the second? Letting out the scream of all that layered dissonance? Beginning the return to the dance with new harmonic structures formed from the dissonance? The ending with its unresolved fragments? 

(Interesting side note: a lot of what creates the dissonance in the second section is formed out of the whole tone scale. Let that marinate in your mind for a moment.)

Marshall 

I once was asked if planning music for worship was like a composition for me. The answer is a resounding yes! The title above might be the title for the composition of worship this Sunday, Nov. 2nd.

While there will be some old favorites among the hymns we will sing, there is also that glimpse into the future. During the Time for All Ages, I will be working on a song that is based on our scripture reading that comes from a wonderful children’s music curriculum called Growing in Grace. One of the best things about it is that there are options to include some bells and other instruments, but also that they are songs that are much more geared to where children are now and are approached in a way that is more about faith formation and less about performing. Truly, that is the way we should approach all music in worship--talking about how God spoke through what we sang or played because that is what creates community and helps us grow. How did that song shed a new light on this familiar reading? How did God show me something new about my neighbors? About myself?

We will begin our song of the month that we will slowly learn over the month of November. It is a bilingual song that will have us singing a repeated phrase in Spanish with a section in English in the middle. Again, that focus on connecting to the whole church--around the world and throughout time.

I will also be playing a handbell solo, and while for many that may be a very new thing to imagine, for me it also brings up memories of those that I’ve served in a previous church where I helped a 15-year-old ringer ring that same solo both as a challenge for themselves and a gift to their dad.

As we remember those who have departed, we will have multiple ringers of various ages and backgrounds building up a chord as more names are read symbolizing how both those whose name was read and those ringing a bell all are part of the chord of the church throughout time.

Lord, may we not look at our past only through a lens of nostalgia, but rather as children discovering it, sifting through it, and deciding what needs to become something new.
 
Marshall

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make this love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify its strictness
With a zeal God will not own.
- Frederick W. Faber

I think this verse of the hymn “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” speaks volumes every time I read it, hear it, sing it, etc. In 2007, I arranged 2 of the 14 different tunes often associated with this text in various hymnals. This is the only verse of text I left out. On purpose. Not because we don’t need to hear it, read it, and sing it, but because to try to contain this text to a melody or harmonization developed within my mind created some cognitive dissonance for me.

So while we might find it paired with the tune WELLESLEY in the United Methodist Hymnal or with IN BABILONE in our hymnal, each tune does capture some of this text, but not all. The tunes it is paired with in my arrangement are the New York City organist Calvin Hampton’s tune written in the late 1970’s, ST. HELENA, and the 19th century North American tune LORD, REVIVE US. Where ST. HELENA is very introspective, LORD, REVIVE US is somewhat loud and brash. I hope that as the choir sings this arrangement, you will hear in the two tunes the wideness of God’s mercy, and in the harmonization of those tunes the following line from the hymn:

Marshall

The church of Christ in every age,
Beset by change, but Spirit led,
Must claim and test its heritage
And keep on rising from the dead.
- Fred Pratt Green

In our consumer society, a lot of attention is paid to branding—to make sure a product, its advertising, etc. has a certain look so that people associate that look with the quality and name of the product. Because we are surrounded by this consumer mindset in our society, we tend to try to brand our version of what constitutes “church” by how the church looked in a certain age. Even some of most well-known and loved hymns have not always been the same. The language has changed, a new tune was written for a centuries-old text that had largely been forgotten, a new text has been paired with a tune that was once associated with another text. And often, that process spans not only centuries but the globe as well. For instance, the text above by Fred Pratt Green, an English chaplain and hymn writer, is paired with the tune WAREHAM (an 18th century tune) in most of the hymnals that have come out since around 1990, including our hymnal. However, the text was not written for that tune, but rather the English folk tune HERONGATE amongst those collected by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in the early 20th .

(A recording of that text set to HERONGATE can be found here. A recording of that text set to WAREHAM can be found here.)

What is it about WAREHAM that might speak more to this age of the church more than HERONGATE, and hence be the one most often used in recent hymnals? How does it fit the needs of congregations today? How might accompanying it with different instruments shed a light on this text needed in this age that accompanying it with a different instrument would not? While these questions might be specific to a hymn, they are the kinds of questions we need to wrestle with it comes to any tradition, event, etc that might be part of our branding of “church”. For instance, I have heard the phrase “It just isn’t Easter without brass.” But was there brass on that first Easter morning? Was God still at work even when there was no brass? Was it still Easter even if it didn’t come in the package of brass fanfare and spectacle that your branding of “Easter” has brought you to expect? Sometimes we can be too quick to only recognize our branding of “church” rather than see how God is at work in a different packaging of the church. Let’s be more ready to shed our branding of “church” in order that God’s church can continue to rise in the new packaging God is calling us into.  

This is why I would encourage our middle and high school students to sing in the choir or ring handbells alongside adults. You have as much to teach us adults about how you see the world and what kind of packing might be more needed in this age as the adults have to teach you about what that heritage we have as a church is and what we can learn from the ways in which that heritage has been packaged before. Please contact me if you are interested in choir or in ringing handbells.

On November 2nd at 11:30, we will be having an orientation to what we can envision with children’s music for children where I will demonstrate what I see as a way for our youngest members to grow in their faith, musical gifts, and understanding of how we continue to grow as we offer these gifts. I hope to see our families there and ready to see what God might have in store.
 
Marshall

When compassion gives the suff’ring consolation;
When expecting brings to birth hope that was lost;
When we choose love, not the hatred all around us:
We see God, here, by our side, walking our way.
- Jose Antonio Olivar, tr. Martin A. Seltz

Some of my favorite devotions are the ones where an expectation we have is flipped. For instance, in his choir devotional book Rehearsing the Soul, Terry York writes about rhetorical questions such as “If God can be for us, who can be against us?” and the answer we expect is: “no one.” But he takes that and gives us another possible answer that is equally true: “Me. I can.”

We can talk about expectation in that same way: we can talk about it bringing birth to hope as in the text above from one of our hymns on Sunday. But we can also talk about another side to expectation such as I presented in a devotion written for an Advent devotional last year:

"…[T]o open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness." (Isaiah 42:7, NRSV)
 
Keys can be used to open or lock doors. Doors that keep us from seeing what might be on the other side of them. Another word often associated with Advent comes to mind, expectation. Sometimes our own expectations can operate like a key. We can be so focused on what it is that we expect that we can lock that door when something doesn’t match that expectation and miss what God has in store on the other side.
 
A composition of mine from 2010, Faith Pill, for alto saxophone and electronic media illustrates this well. Take a moment and listen to this work at https://soundcloud.com/marshall-d-jones/faith-pill-11-19-13
 
Probably not what you expected. How did your expectation cause you to respond? Did you listen despite it being different from your expectation? Or did you turn it off as soon as it didn’t meet your expectations?
 
The work is centered around a recording of a London street preacher. How likely is it that the message God was speaking through him was missed because his appearance, smell, demeanor, etc were not the way someone expected to hear God? The chaos of the electronic parts is in stark contrast to the peace represented in the saxophone part. But how often does the saxophone’s tone not match what our expectation of the sound of peace might be? Think about the times you have experienced peace. Has it always come at the times and in the way you expected? Listen again, reflecting on the words of the preacher and how the tone of the saxophone changes over time.
 
How often this week have you missed that glimpse of God’s kingdom because it didn’t come the way you expected? Fear not, you are in good company. We see examples throughout the Gospels of those who did not recognize Jesus because he didn’t come in the way that they expected. They expected a king to lead them to victory over their earthly enemies, but instead Jesus came to go to the cross. The key to seeing our heavenly home may just be learning to look beyond our own expectations.
 
"Unexpected and mysterious is the gentle word of grace
Ever-loving and sustaining is the peace of God’s embrace."
—Jeanette Lindholm

Lord, help us to see beyond the doors we close with the keys of our expectations. Help us to hear your gentle word of grace even when it comes forth as thunder. Help us to recognize you in the places, people, songs, and art we may not necessarily like or expect to find you.

Marshall

This text is often used in worship on Maundy Thursday in conjunction with the 1 Corinthians 11 text often associated with that day in the church year. However, there is still a strong connection to John 17 this week. While Ola Gjeilo only set the first verse of the text in the original chant in the choral anthem that we will sing this week, I think if we look at further verses there is much more to be said about what Jesus prayed for in John 17 would look like in our actions toward and interactions with each other. A translation of those verses can be found as hymn #396.

I hope we all meditate on those words as we listen to the way Carson Cooman sets this text for organ in the prelude, as the choir sings Ola Gjeilo’s setting for choir, and as we listen to the way Sally Drennan Mossing sets it for piano in the postlude this week.
 
Marshall

What is the world like when God’s will is done?
Mustard seeds grow more than we can conceive:
Roots thread the soil; branches reach for the sun.
This is how God moves us each to believe.
- Adam M.L. Tice

One of the things I love about Adam Tice’s hymn texts is that they are so carefully crafted as to seem very simple at first but have much deeper meaning at multiple levels. I love the way he phrases this line: Mustard seeds grow more than we can conceive. How often is it the limitations of what we can conceive that impedes the growth that God intends? Trusting God with things beyond what we can conceive is tough. It often involves moving us out of our comfort zone because discomfort is a part of growth. That mustard seed of a new idea (or even an old idea presented in a new way) may not be comfortable, but it may be essential to our collective growth. Our consumer culture advertises to our conception of comfort. It is concerned with whether we like or don’t like a product. God calls us to look beyond the limitations of our conceptions. Instead of being concerned with whether we like something or don’t like it, the question becomes -- how do we grow from this? How does it keep us rooted in good soil but continuing to reach for the sun -- stretching beyond our limited conception of what is possible?

This week, the choir will be singing a simple arrangement I concocted of this hymn “What Is the World Like” as a way of introducing it for the congregation as we may sing it when we encounter one of the other parables Mr. Tice references. This week we will also use a different doxology that happens to be one of the musical responses from the setting of the Lutheran liturgy I composed in 2008. The melody is very stepwise in order to be a little easier for a congregation to follow, but the surprising harmonic twists and turns of the accompaniment remind us to dream bigger than limitations of our own conception and trust that God will “fill to the brim our cup of blessing” while still reminding us of that growth that has to happen to get there -- “gather the harvest from seeds that were sown.” Beyond the connection to the growth of seeds with the parable of the mustard seed that we will hear this week, these words for this musical response connect with several other readings we will have over the next several weeks while still giving thanks to God for the blessings we have been given as well as the ones we don’t yet see.

Marshall

Faith begins by letting go,
Giving up what had seemed sure,
Taking risks and pressing on,
Though the way feels less secure:
Pilgrimage both right and odd,
Trusting all our life to God.
- Carl P. Daw, Jr.

So often in many of the various cooking shows that make good background noise for me, you hear someone talk about making a certain protein 3 ways. They use that protein in three very different ways in the same dish, but each part of the dish still contains that protein. It usually is something that a chef is trying to grow in their culinary skills and in a sense helps them to understand that ingredient and the ways it can be used better.

It is good for us to look at a hymn text the same way. Even our favorite hymns have evolved over time---words have been altered, the text has been paired with a different tune, and so there is no “right” tune or “right” wording. The wording might be changed to better reflect the needs of our time or place in the world. Each different tune highlights a different aspect of the words. And thus, in looking at it through the lens of our time, now, not a rose-colored look at the past through the lens of nostalgia, as well as hearing it in the new wineskin of a different tune, we come to understand that text more than if we simply sang it the way grew up singing it.

The text “Take My Life and Let It Be” was written by the English hymnwriter Frances H. Havergal just five years before her death at the age of 42. She was one in a family full of writers and musicians in the late 1800s. This Sunday we will be singing and hearing this text three ways in worship. The choir will sing this text with harmonies that could be pulled straight out of light rock of the 1970s and 1980s in Craig Courtney’s choral setting. Around the sermon, we will sing an altered version of this text paired with the stately classical hymn tune VIENNA. And during communion, we will sing the version where the text most closely resembles the original but is paired with the tune TOMA MI VOLUNTAD written by William Dexheimer Pharris during his work as a pastor in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1990s. Chew on this text and think about the different flavors that are revealed in the different forms in which this text is served.
 
Marshall

But still, women struggle for lives free and fair
And children are hungry and loved ones despair.
Still, those long-oppressed or in prisons of fear
Are longing to call this their jubilee year.
- Carolyn Winfrey Gilette

These words were written in 1998, but yet we still see all of this in our world. It draws me back to Isaiah 58. I particularly like the way it is translated in the New Century Version:

6 “I will tell you the kind of fast I want:
Free the people you have put in prison unfairly
    and undo their chains.
Free those to whom you are unfair
    and stop their hard labor.
7 Share your food with the hungry
    and bring poor, homeless people into your own homes.
When you see someone who has no clothes, give him yours,
    and don’t refuse to help your own relatives.
8 Then your light will shine like the dawn,
    and your wounds will quickly heal.
Your God will walk before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
9 Then you will call out, and the Lord will answer.
    You will cry out, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

The way this passage is stated here is much more of a call to action, and indicts us at the same time for the ways we have contributed to the plights of those for whom God gives hope through Isaiah. May God give hope to others through what we proclaim in our singing.  

Marshall

Classrooms and labs! Loud boiling test tubes!
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Athlete and band! Loud cheering people!
Sing to the Lord a new song!
God has done marvelous things!
I too sing praises with a new song!
- Herbert F. Brokering

How often have you thought about boiling test tubes and athletes as vehicles through which God is still creating our world?

God calls us often to sing a new song and doesn’t call us in Scripture to sing our old favorites. But is essential as God continues to create us (think about Romans 12:2 and Philippians 1:6) and through us both individually and in community -- through scientists, musicians, construction workers, athletes, etc. as Herb Brokering points out in this hymn, “Earth and All Stars.”

Because this is not always easy, I often will look for a hymn that we can learn over a month’s time so that we can grow into it. Early in the month it will be in a less prominent place within the service, so that people can generally listen first and then join in the song as they grow into it. "Earth and All Stars" is a hymn that does connect the scriptures we have over the next few weeks emphasizing God’s creation and the community that we are called to be. If you are ready, I hope you will join in as we sing this during communion. If you still need to grow into it, that’s great too. Listen to the words and reflect on how community and our roles in community reflect God’s creation.

We also have a chance to create together in community in worship this Sunday through improvisation. When I improvise, I generally think in terms of musical gestures. So what you hear may not fit the common practice period (Baroque through Romantic) concept of music you might have in mind. Pay attention to how the musical gestures at the piano reflect what the artist is doing and how you can add in even the simplest way as we continue to build this creation together in community. Let’s see what new thing God creates through us.

I think David Bjorlin sums it up well in his hymn “Ask the Complicated Questions”:

Gracious Spirit, help us summon
Other guests to share that feast
Where triumphant Love will welcome
Those who had been last and least….
- Carl P. Daw, Jr.

This is the beginning of the final verse of one of our hymns this week that speaks to the heart of this week’s Gospel lesson and who it is we are to invite to the feast. In our hymnal this text is paired with the Appalachian tune BEACH SPRING while other hymnals sometimes pair it with the tune IN BABILONE. Again, think about what words mark those high points in the melody. The prelude, offering, and postlude will be the three parts of a triptych on this tune by Benjamin Culli. The first part is a very stately setting, the second is a lively dance, and the third is a toccata. Toccatas usually have fast passages for the fingers while the melody is in the pedal. Think about the variety we have musically in this triptych and think about the variety of people from all times and all places that will be at that table.

Speaking of people from all times and places, we will end with the spiritual Welcome Table and we also will be singing a simple song from South Africa as well as a simple folk song that asks the profound question “Won’t you let me be your servant?”

Thanks again to Kimberly and Lucas for their leadership last week.

Those interested in choir and/or ringing handbells, if you have not done so, please continue to get back to me about the information I asked for last week. I hope to start choir at least on the 10th.
 
Marshall

Great God in Christ, you set us free
Your life to live, your love to share.
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

This is the final verse of one of my favorite hymn texts. I think it is a practice we don’t emphasize often enough -- the reading of the texts of our hymns. When we hear that text in a different context, we hear things that we might not hear when singing it. In much the same way, we hear different inflections when we hear Scripture in the voice of another person rather than in our own when we read it.

This week we hear in Luke 13 about Jesus healing a crippled woman has not been able to stand up straight for many years. When she is healed, she immediately praises God. In that act of healing, he sets her free to do all the things she has not been able to do because of her condition. Meanwhile, the Pharisees are upset not that she was healed, but that she was healed on the Sabbath.

This week, we will sing the hymn "O Christ, the Healer, We Have Come." In the New Century Hymnal, it is paired with the tune KENTRIDGE. Having worked in Lutheran churches for so much of my music ministry, the Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal pairs it with a different tune, the Appalachian tune, DISTRESS. The two tunes give a slightly different emphasis on certain words. For instance, in the first verse, the DISTRESS tune reaches its climactic point on the words “how can we fail” while the KENTRIDGE tune reaches its climactic point at “when reached by love.” What a striking difference in emphasis! Yet both have something to teach us.

The offering “Who But the Lord?” was originally a choral anthem based on Isaiah 58 which has a lot of connection to what we hear in Luke 13. Craig Courtney sets this text beautifully. Pay attention to what words are given a place of importance in the melody.

The postlude is an organ arrangement by Barbara Harbach of the tune AZMON. This tune is most often associated with the text, O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing. One verse of that hymn is “Jesus! The name that calms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease, is music in the sinner’s ears, is life, and health, and peace.” Take time to reflect on those words as you listen to this arrangement.
 
A few things as I begin my time here:

• I hope to start ensembles after labor day.
• Choir members and those that are interested in choir, please let me know the following: Name, part, does the past rehearsal time (7 p.m. on Wednesdays) work for you? What are some other possible times that will work?
• Handbell ringers and those interested in learning to ring---please let me know the following: Name, are there limitations on what bells you would be able to ring? Does the past rehearsal time (6 p.m. on Wednesdays) work? What are some other possible times that will?
• Instrumentalists? Name, instrument. Would you be interested in adding descants or instrumental parts to hymns? Preludes or postludes? Adding to the choir or bells?

I hope that we can expand and do more with children’s music down the road --choir, bells, instruments. If you are interested in that, please let me know.
 
Marshall Jones

Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

- Psalm 150 (NIV)

This Sunday we celebrate the value of music as worship with the words of Psalm 150 to guide us. 

The title of this piece refers to the book of the same name by father/daughter collaborators Don and Amy Saliers. In it they explore the spiritual essence of "Saturday night and Sunday morning" music from their respective areas of interest and expertise: Don as an organist and choral conductor in Christian worship in the traditional sense and Amy as one half of the successful folk-rock duo Indigo Girls. I relate to their shared revelation that sacred music can not be narrowly defined and is in fact a broad experience shared by the community of humanity each in their own way. The authors' reflections have greatly informed my own music ministry and I will always be grateful.  

The service begins with a “Soliloquy” from the organ composed by Cleveland native David Conte. A plaintive melody on the flute stop introduces the work’s reflective character which develops into a chorus of bold harmony before returning to the singular opening voice.

Three musical responses follow the personal testimonies from three members of Plymouth’s music ministry. The first is a jazz re-imagining of the traditional Hebrew melody “Leoni” I wrote to specifically accompany the Carolyn Winfrey Gillette text of Christian unity “No Longer.” The second is the traditional spiritual “Hold Out Your Light” arranged by Rollo Dilworth offered by the Summer “Pickup” Choir. Feel free to join us! Rehearsal at 9:15 a.m. Lastly, staff singer Lucas Jackson presents the 19th century American folk hymn “How Can I Keep from Singing?” in an intimate setting referencing the divine nature of music.

The service concludes with a selection from 20th century French composer Jean Langlais’s collection of Nine Pieces for Organ entitled “Chant de joie” (Song of Joy.)  This contemporary expression of ecstatic joy and assurance unambiguously places a “musical exclamation point” at the end of our worship hour as we go forth into the world to serve — joyfully.