Music for November 13, 2022 + The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Like a Tree – Ruth Elaine Schram (b. 1956)
• He That Shall Endure to the End – Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847 )

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral – Ulrich Roever and Michael Korb, arr James Wetherald
• Elegy – John Carter (b. 1930)
• Traditional Bagpipe tunes – Stanley Fontenot, piper 

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

• Hymn R122 Canticle 9: Surely it is God who saves me (THE FIRST SONG OF ISAIAH)
• Hymn From North and South (LASST UNS ERFREUEN)
• Hymn R168 If you believe and I believe (IF YOU BELIEVE)
• Hymn 671 Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)

Like a Tree

Today marks the first time our children's choir has sung in church in over two years. I am delighted that the Coventry Choir will be singing this anthem inspired by Psalm 1 

Ruth Elaine Schram

1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take

    or sit in the company of mockers,

2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and who meditates on his law day and night.

3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

    which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither - 

This song is by Ruth Elaine Schram, an American composer who specializes in choral music for church and school choirs. She wrote her first song at the age of twelve, and her first song was published twenty years later, in 1988. In 1992, she became a full‑time composer and arranger and now has over 2,000 published works. Over thirteen million copies of Schram's songs have been purchased in their various venues, and she has been a recipient of the ASCAP Special Award each year since 1990. In addition to Schram's choral music, her songs appear on thirty albums (four of which have been Dove Award finalists) and numerous children's videos. Schram's songs have also appeared on such diverse television shows as The 700 Club and HBO's acclaimed series The Sopranos.

Schram began piano and theory lessons at the age of five. She studied music at Lancaster Bible College and Millersville State College and taught Elementary Music in Pennsylvania for several years. Schram now lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Scott, and they have two grown daughters, Crystie and Celsie.

He That Shall Endure to the End

Felix Mendelssohn
painting by Eduard Magnus, ca 1845

This work from Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah, comes in the second half of the oratorio, which tells the life of the prophet Elijah which epitomized the evolution of Jewish faith from worship of the Babylonian pantheon of idols and myths to worshipping one monotheistic God. 

In the second half, we hear that God comforts those who follow his commandments. In ridding the land of Baal worship, Elijah has challenged King Ahab, ruler of Israel. His wife, Queen Jezebel, incites the crowd against Elijah. Disheartened, Elijah sings “It is enough.” 

Elijah awaits God on Mount Horeb, longing for death. Angels once again arrive to restore his spirit with the words, “Lift thine eyes to the mountains.” Elijah’s hope resurfaces, and the chorus sings this chorale, with words from Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew.

We are singing this today in response to the Gospel reading which ends, "By your endurance you will gain your souls."

Elegy

John Carter

Elegy was composed for piano solo in memory and in grief for the students and teachers of the Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas. It features a quiet, somber rhythm pattern with twenty-one bell-like tones, one for each person who perished on that awful day. It is quiet, somber, and dramatic.

Carter is Director of Music at University Baptist Church, Columbus, OH. He was born in Nashville, TN and received his B.M. from Trinity University in San Antonio and an M.M. from Peabody College in Nashville. John is a prolific composer with several hundred choral compositions to his credit as well as several musicals, an opera, and a dozen collections for keyboard and organ. He and his wife, Mary Kay Beall, often collaborate in composition.

Music for November 10, 2019 + Kirkin o' the Tartans

Vocal Music

• Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs – Paul Ritchie
• I Know that My Redeemer Liveth – G. F. Handel, Amy Bogan, soprano

Instrumental Music

• Highland Cathedral - James D. Wetherald, arr., Richard Kean, pip
  er 
• Traditional Piping Tunes – Richard Keen, piper

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

• Hymn R 5 - God is here, and we his people (ABBOTT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn 295 - Sing praise to our Creator (CHRISTUS, DER IS MEIN LEBEN)
• Hymn - I know that my Redeemer lives (DUKE STREET)
• Hymn R 90 - Spirit of the Living God (LIVING GOD)
• Hymn R 36 - I love you, Lord (I LOVE YOU, LORD)
• Hymn 671 - Amazing grace! how sweet the sound (NEW BRITAIN)
• Hymn 625 - Ye holy angels bright (DARWALL’S 148TH)
• Psalm 17:1-9 - Tone Vc, Refrain by Jane Marshall

This is a favorite Sunday for many parishioners at Good Shepherd when we “Kirk (or bless) the Tartans.” Though we have been doing this for over 20 years, it is still a relatively new thing, beginning in the early 1940s, when Peter Marshall (the Presbyterian minister who was chaplain of the Senate - not the game show host) held prayer services at New York Avenue Presbyterian in D.C to raise funds for War Relief. At one of the services, he preached a sermon called “Kirking of the Tartans,” and thus a legend was born. You can read a more detailed history here at the Scottish Tartans Museum website. (Side note: the Scottish Tartan Museum is in Franklin, North Carolina, NOT Scotland)

Samuel Seabury

The reason we "kirk the tartans" is to remember our Anglican history,  specifically Samuel Seabury, the first American Anglican bishop who was consecrated by the Scottish Bishops of the Anglican church during the Revolutionary War. (England was a bit upset with the Americans, so they would have no part of that!) Thus we commemorate his consecration on the Sunday nearest his feast daym which is the anniversary of his consecration as a bishop, November 14, 1784. We wear our tartans, hang them in the church, and hear the bagpipe play. For twelve years now we have begun the service with the piper playing Highland Cathedral and end with him playing traditional piping tunes.

Amy Bogan, our soprano section leader, is singing one of the favorite arias from Handel's Messiah, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.  It's the opening movement of the third part of the oratorio, which is considered to be the Easter section, but the text is not New Testament, but is mainly from the Old Testament book of Job. As our first lesson this Sunday is that passage from Job, it is only fitting that Amy sing it during communion.