Music for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost: 09/27/2020

 

OPENING VOLUNTARY O Blessed Spring

setting, David Lasky

 

This voluntary is an arrangement of the Hymn of the Day. A light oboe stop carries the melody over a lush accompaniment by the organ’s strings and flutes.

 

GATHERING HYMN Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service (Beach Spring)

ELW 712

 

HYMN OF THE DAY O Blessed Spring (Berglund)

ELW 447

Sometimes art inspires art. Such is the case with this text according to its author, Susan Palo Cherwien. From the book “O Blessed Spring,” it is among this modern hymn writer’s first published texts.

The inspiration was a sculpture by Paul Granlund (1925-2003) in a church where she was a member.

 

In her words: Above the baptismal font at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Minneapolis, hangs a bronze sculpture by Paul Granlund titled LIFE-TREE. This hymn was shaped by the seasons of life portrayed in the sculpture and was written for the baptismal life of Good Shepherd parish. It is base on the scripture verse Granlund chose: I am the vine, you are the branches. (John 15:5)

 

And again the art of the poetry seems to have inspired the tune Berglund, written especially for the text by Robert Buckley Farlee. As we sing the melody, we can feel the vine moving, growing, and reaching. Paul Westermeyer calls it “a winding musical embrace that mirrors the embrace of Christ the Vine.”

 

SENDING HYMN What God Ordains Is Good Indeed (Was Gott tut)

ELW 776

This hymn, from the “Trust,Guidance” section of ELW offers assurance that God is with us in difficult times – including this one.

My faithful God, on every road, you know the way unfolding

and my hand you are holding.

 

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Prelude and Chorale on “Erhalt uns, Herr”

David Johns / J. Klug, Geistliche Lieder, 1543

sources:
Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, ed. Paul Westermeyer

Evangelical Lutheran Worship