Music for the Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary) 28: October 15, 2023

OPENING VOLUNTARY Laudation Arnold Sherman

Today's gospel reading recounts events around a wedding. Is there any greater cause for celebration than a wedding? Today's "Laudation" is a celebratory piece that is rhythmically exciting with chords that double, then triple in size. The introspective middle section might even accompany a wedding procession.

GATHERING HYMN Now We Join in Celebration (Schmücke dich)

ELW 462

The celebratory theme continues. As the guests for the wedding in Matthew's gospel put on their wedding robes, so we come "dressed no more in spirit somber" but "clothed instead in joy and wonder."

The tune, with its alternation between long and short notes, feels like an elegant dance. Is there a better way to enter into worship than with singing and dancing?

HYMN OF THE DAY At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing (Sonne der Gerechtigkeit) ELW 362

Jan Hus preaching

The music for this hymn is deeply associated with reformers who predate Martin Luther! Jan Hus (1369-1415) was an important voice in the Bohemian Reformation. (The Moravians were spiritual descendants of the Bohemians.) This tune, fashioned from a 15th century folk song, comes from a Bohemian hymnal published in 1566. 

This is a hymn of praise to Christ. In the Prayer of the Day, we ask God to transform us into a people of righteousness and peace. We echo that prayer in the 7th stanza with the words "From sin's pow'r, Lord set us free, newborn souls in you to be."

MUSICAL OFFERING Jesus Calls Us K. Lee Scott

K. Lee Scott borrowed the text from a well-known hymn and paired it with a tune from from New Harp Columbia, a shape-note tune book that was published in Knoxville, TN in 1867. It's easy to hear the tune as a piece of Americana, but I could not determine if it was newly composed for this book or arranged from other sources.

COMMUNION HYMN Look Who Gathers at Christ's Table (Copeland) ACS 977

This hymn imagines the assembly gathered for worship, bringing their whole lives with them - their joy and their pain. The text was commissioned by the First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, Florida, to honor its pastor, Brant S. Copeland, and was first sung there in October, 2000. The tune was created specifically for this text. (From Sundays and Seasons)

SENDING HYMN Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart (Vineyard Haven) ELW 874

There are two uses of this hymn in ELW. The other one is on the facing page. Today we sing Vineyard Haven, a much more somber tone than Marion.
There is another difference between the two versions, one that changes the intention. Instead of a refrain of "Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice, give thanks and sing!" we find ourselves singing "Hosanna! Hosanna! Rejoice, give thanks and sing. "Hosanna!" is often translated as "Save us!" As we learn more of the unfolding drama in the Middle East, of atrocities and lives that have been lost, "Save us!" may be an important cry as we are sent into the world. 

CLOSING VOLUNTARY Partita on "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing" Kenneth T. Kosche

The postlude is two settings from Kosche's partita: Scherzo and Fanfare and Chorale

from a window at Christ Lutheran Church in Bexley, OH

Sources:
Wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hus_na_kazatelne.jpg#/media/File:Hus_na_kazatelne.jpg
Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship