Tag Archives: Worship

A Story of Two Groups of “Wise Men”

Well, I’m going to go WAAAY out of character for me, and out on a church calendar limb. Tomorrow is Sunday, 5 January, 2014, the last Sunday in Christmas this year. So I am going to race ahead and post about Epiphany. “Sin Boldly”; to half-quote Martin Luther.

So why jump ahead two days as if I were impatient for them to be gone? Well, perhaps I am in mid-revelation, and revelation is sort of what the word “epiphany” means. Or perhaps I am receiving my Christmas gift, which also marks it as OK as a Christmas post (now I feel better!). I understand that in many places in the world, in many parts of the Church, Gifts are not exchanged on Christmas, in remembrance of the Gift of the Incarnation, but on Twelfth-Night, Epiphany (“…my true love gave to me, …”) in remembrance of the gifts of the Magi, given TO the incarnate Son of the most High. I sort of like that, in that it puts the focus a little more where I think it belongs, on me giving to God as I seek to serve Him in all people, in recognition of my baptismal vow.

Well, rambling over, on with the point. In Matthew’s account of the Gospel, Chapter 2, he says of the “wise men” (or Magi): Continue reading

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Singing in Harmony: an objection to Deitrich Bonhoeffer (or what I learned from the music ministry of Church of the Redeemer)

 “ ‘Sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord’ (Eph. 5:19). …

‘Because it is bound wholly to the Word, the singing of the congregation, especially of the family congregation, is essentially singing in unison. Here words and music combine in a unique way. The soaring tone of unison singing finds its sole and essential support in the words that are sung and therefore does not need the musical support of other voices. …

‘Unison singing, difficult as it is, is less of a musical than a spiritual matter. Only where everybody in the group is disposed to an attitude of worship and discipleship can unison singing, even though it may lack much musically, give us the joy which is peculiar to it alone.’ ”

from Life Together, The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is only with the greatest trepidation that I would dare to dissent from such a saint as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but this section of “Life Together” has bothered me since I first read it over thirty years ago. The ideas have nagged at me as I have seen changes in congregational singing between parishes, and even in the way congregational music is published. My renewed time and extended visitation among the folk of Houston’s Church of the Redeemer (Episcopal) has both confirmed and solidified my objections.  It is time I gave them voice. Continue reading

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