Difference between revisions of "Sermon for September 29th, 2024"

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Psalm 130

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. 2 Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! 3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. 5 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6 my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. 8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

Colossians 3:14-17

14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

Soli Deo Gloria: The Music & Message of Johann Sebastian Bach - Part II

• Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

What you just heard is far and away the most famous and recognizable organ piece in the world, played on El Paso’s largest pipe organ. I doubt there’s a single person in this room who hasn’t heard that piece before, in a movie, in a concert, or maybe even in a haunted house around Halloween time! There’s something in this piece that instantly stirs up strong emotions—whether it’s fear, sorrow, awe, or reverence. It’s famous because it connects with us on a deep level, and so I want to take a few moments to consider why that may be.

The piece is called Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, by Johann Sebastian Bach. The letter D refers to the key it’s written in, and “minor” refers to its mode—minor keys often sound sinister or sad, although if you listen to the entire piece it certainly transcends those stereotypes. Toccata is a type of musical composition—the name comes from an Italian word similar to the Spanish word “tocare” or in English “to touch.” A toccata usually includes fast, melodic runs on the keyboard. The opening notes in this piece are the toccata.

Fugue comes from a Greek and Latin word that means to flee or to be chased. A fugue begins with a melody that is then followed (or chased) by another melody, sometimes similar and sometimes contrasting. But I like to think of a fugue as a conversation—a musical question that is answered by other voices, then asked in a different way, and answered with other variations until all of the questions and answers swell into one giant, complex, melodious conversation.

I think that Toccata and Fugue in D Minor represents a conversation between God and humanity. It begins with a fall. This is the toccata at the beginning: A couple of notes wavering…. [trill] then falling [first run]. This pattern is repeated three times, each time in a lower octave [second run]. This is a reminder that sometimes when we encounter God, when God “touches” us, it can be painful, catastrophic, even [third run]. At the very bottom of this pit—almost the lowest note on the organ, a cry of despair and anguish swells up powerfully.

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” But at the end of that painful wail, the discordant notes finally resolve into a comforting major chord: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.” [chord build and resolve]

After this, the running toccata notes reverse direction—moving up the scale, like piercing, demanding and questioning prayers ascending to heaven. They fall again, unanswered, and the discordant wail rises again. But after this, comes the fugue, the conversation. Where the toccata was free form, and full of raw emotion, the fugue is punctuated with pulsing rhythm, like time itself: “I wait for the Lord; my soul waits, and in his word I hope.”

There is back and forth between the melodies as the dialogue intensifies and other voices join in: “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.” And just like the conversation between God, Job and his friends in the Book of Job, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor never quite answers the question in the way we might want. There are moments of upbeat joy and quiet beauty woven into the conversation, but still the sorrow and angst remain constant as well. The piece ends with a giant, foreboding minor chord—not this time the wailing cry of the Psalmist, but rather the awesome, magnificent power of God, the creator of the universe.

But now let’s move on to another Bach piece, another connection, and another story…

• English Suite Prelude in A Minor

That piece was the Prelude to Suite No. 2 in A Minor, part of a larger collection known as the English Suites, which Bach composed early in his career, while he was still in his twenties. Vanessa has been playing the movements of this particular suite since she was nine years old. And with her permission, this is her story (or at least part of it):

When Vanessa was 22 years old, returning from a trip to Asia she became ill with unexplainable symptoms. After trips to three different Emergency rooms in California and Arizona, she finally made it home to El Paso for emergency surgery at Sierra Medical Center. Her surgeon removed a pea-sized cyst from her brain that had almost killed her.

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.”

During the craniotomy, her corpus callosum, which connects the two halves of the brain, had been severed, and she had to relearn how to do basic tasks, like walking.

“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?”

Vanessa spent a week at the hospital in a large room looking out at the flagpole on Scenic Drive (roughly the same view that she has from her church office today). During her time in the ICU, she was in a lot of pain and was concerned she might have forgotten things. So she took a pillow and played through all seven movements of Bach’s English Suite No. 2 in A Minor, hearing it in her mind and realizing that her fingers could still make those movements, that she could still remember the notes, which was a great comfort to her. She would keep on doing this in her mind during the five years of MRIs that followed, when she was confined in a closed machine and had to remain perfectly still for over 45 minutes.

“I wait for the Lord; my soul waits, and in his word I hope.”

Following her brain surgery, it would be another nine years before Vanessa began to play the piano again on a regular basis. A few years after that, she began studying the organ, and God (who is indeed good) brought her to us. These days, she begins her daily piano practice with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach—by far the most soothing music to her. And yes, if you know Vanessa’s youngest son, Sebastian, you’ve probably already figured out where his name comes from.

“For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.”

Our final piece comes from Bach’s collection “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” A Clavier is an early precursor to the piano, and “well-tempered” is another way of saying “well-tuned.” Bach wrote a prelude and a fugue in every major and minor key, as a way of making sure that the tuning of the instrument was acceptable. But in Bach’s own words, he also composed the collection “for the benefit and use of musical youth desiring to learn, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.” This collection would go on to inspire Mozart, Shostakovich, Chopin, and a young Beethoven, who had memorized all 24 pieces in the collection by the time he was eleven. It has been called the “Old Testament” of classical music.

Vanessa is going to play the fugue in B-flat Major, and as she plays, I want you to remember what I said earlier about fugues—they are musical conversations; one melody chasing after another. But this piece also showcases a musical technique called counterpoint. In counterpoint, each melodic voice is independent—it has its own distinct character and rhythm—but at the same time it is also harmonically interdependent: when woven together, the voices enhance each other at key points and become greater than the sum of the individual parts.

You know… kind of like the people God created in his own image—every one different, diverse, beautiful and beloved. But we are at our very best when we are working together in Christian community, like a well-tuned instrument: Clothed in love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

• The Well Tempered Clavier Fugue in B-Flat Major