Music for September 7, 2014 + The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Draw Us In the Spirit’s Tether – Harold Friedell (1905-1958)

Instrumental Music

• Air – Gerre Hancock (1934-2012)
• Ubi Caritas – Charles Callahan (b. 1951)
• Trumpet Dialogue Processional – Alice Jordan (1916-2011)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.

• Hymn 400 – All creatures of our God and King (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn 674 – “Forgive our sins as we forgive” (DETROIT)
• Hymn 576 – God is love, and where true love is (MANDATUM)
• Hymn 602 – Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love (CHEREPONI)
• Hymn 527 – Singing songs of expectation (TON-Y-BOTEL)

Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

These two sentences are the last two verses of today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 13. And every time I hear this passage, I recall the opening verse of today’s anthem.

Draw us in the Spirit’s tether, for when humbly in thy name, two or three are met together, thou art in the midst of them. Alleluia! Alleluia! Touch we now thy garment’s hem

Harold W. Friedell

This anthem was written by Harold Friedell, one of America’s leading church musicians in the first half of the 20^th century who ended his career at St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church in New York City. He based the anthem on a hymn tune he wrote in 1945 using a text by Percy Dearmer, a British priest, hymn writer, educator, and editor. I won’t go into the history of that text right now, but the interested can read about it here.

The text links the singer with the disciples who gathered with Christ at the table (Matthew 18:20). We are joined by a “tether”—an archaic word that the internet defines as a cord, rope, or chain that anchors something movable to a reference point which may be fixed or moving. It is an appropriate image of the work of the Holy Spirit that links Christians of every time and place at the table. Michael Hawn, professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, sums up the whole text this way:

In the final stanza, Dearmer makes a beautiful and powerful statement that “All our meals and all our living make as sacraments of thee.” Through “caring, helping, giving, we may true disciples be.”

Thus, the hymn begins in the upper room with the disciples and comes full circle as we join them around the table and are nourished to serve others in the world.

This call to love and serve others is also felt in the Epistle reading today.

 ⁸Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments…  are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

With that in mind, we will sing hymns of love and service before the Gospel, at communion and at the end of the service. The organ voluntary at communion is another setting of the Gregorian Chant that was played on the piano two weeks ago and is found at hymn 606. This setting of the chant is by American organist and composer, Charles Callahan. He is among the most published organ composers today, and, though he is a devout Roman Catholic, he bases his organ works on hymns and chants from all traditions within the church universal.

Gerre Hancock

The opening voluntary is by Gerre Hancock, who many would consider the leading musician in the Episcopal Church from the 70's until his retirement from St. Thomas Church, New York City, in 2004. At one time, he had been the assistant at St. Bartholomew's mentioned earlier in the post, but after the time of Harold Friedell. A native of Lubbock, he returned to Texas after his retirement to teach organ at the University of Texas. He wrote this lovely Air in honor of his wife, Judith, in 1963. 

The closing voluntary is a brief processional by one of the small number of women who have been successful writing for the organ and getting it published. Alice Jordan was a native of Iowa, having graduated Drake University and continuing her studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, as did Gerre Hancock. This is the same school where Harold Friedell was on the faculty in the late 40s and early 50s. UTS had one of the great schools of sacred music until it disbanded it in the early 70s.