Music for the Fourth Sunday in Lent - March 31, 2019

Prelude: Rhosymedre arr. Ron Mallory (St. Mark’s Ringers)

In the Lutheran Book of Worship, this tune was used for the Lenten text “My Song is Love Unknown.” (ELW 343) The composer, an Anglican priest named John David Edwards (1805-1885) named the tune after a village in Wales. Ralph Vaughan Williams composed a famous hymn prelude for organ on this tune.

Gathering Hymn: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing  (Nettleton) ELW 807

Hymn of the Day: Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound (New Britain) ELW 779

This is easily one of the most popular hymns in the USA. We only sing it about once a year. If it’s your favorite, this is a Sunday you want to be at St. Mark’s!

Musical Offering: Our Father, We Have Wandered Ralph M. Johnson

This is a setting of the text from ELW 606. It’s a perfect match with today’s gospel reading about the prodigal son. In ELW the text is sung to Herzlich tut mich verlangen, a tune that will show up in the postlude.

Communion Hymns:

All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly (Grace Eternal)

Sylvia Dunstan’s text is given a new tune, Grace Eternal, by Jacksonville composer Bob Moore. We’ve been singing this regularly at St. Mark’s for several years and it has become a favorite of several singers in the festival choir. If you want a head start on Sunday’s communion hymns, check out this beautiful recording by the Notre Dame Folk Choir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw-0jXmNwCo&fbclid=IwAR3XFnYTZ1Bg0M1BFwCZXdn_VznzoiSDNTxYtnDlM-4EEsqgPF-sOXesrrg

Learn more about Bob Moore (and hear some of his music) on his website: www.bobmooremusic.com.

You Satisfy the Hungry Heart (Bicentennial) ELW 484

Sending Hymn: We Sing to You, O God (Love Unknown) ELW 791

John Ireland (1879-1962) was an English church musician. He wrote this tune specifically for the text “My Song Is Love Unknown” – which is where we started with the prelude.

Postlude: Herzlich tut mich verlangen  setting, Robert LauAlso known as the Passion Chorale, this is a “bigger” setting of the tune that we usually associate with “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” (ELW 351). It is also the tune used by ELW for the text of the choir’s musical offering.

An Experience with Today’s Gospel Reading

A couple of years ago I was on vacation in San Diego and found my self at the Timken Museum of Art where I came face to face with a painting that moved me deeply.  I wrote about in Facebook at the time, so I’ll use those words to tell you about it.

Yesterday's activities included a visit to the Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park. I was drawn in by an exhibit of "devotional art." As I rounded a corner, I came face to face with this work by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666) who is better known as Guercino.

I stopped "dead in my tracks," as they say, struck by an overwhelming flood of emotion. I truly had to struggle to hold back the tears because I knew if even one escaped I would sob uncontrollably. One doesn't do that in public places!

The subject is the return of the prodigal son, a story Guercino depicted more than once.

Anyway, after I got myself under control, I went on to view other works, but I could barely see them for Guercino's painting seemed to overlay them all. On one occasion I went back and noticed how the father embraced the son not just with his arm, but with his whole cloak, totally drawing him in and totally covering and absorbing the son - not WITH his love, but IN it. I realized the prodigal's tears are not tears of remorse for his sins, but tears of joy for being truly home and the healing that can bring.

A visit to the gift shop resulted in a little book about the artist including a print of this painting. I turned to leave, but decided instead to go back one more time.

Again, I stood there fighting back the tears and sobbing just below the surface. I've always enjoyed art, but somehow Guercino reached across more than 400 years and moved me in a way that all art, save choral music, has rarely done.

I now understand why so many have stopped referring to this parable of Jesus as "The Prodigal Son" and have titled it instead " The Loving Father."

Sources:
Hymnary.org
Wikipedia
Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship