We’re up to the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, and a young man from Omo Valley, Ethiopia looks out from the CD picture on the next disc of Bach’s cantatas. These cantatas feature the Czech mezzo Magdalena Kožená.
The text of “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut” (BWV 199, “My heart is bathed in blood”) is in the first person. Like some of Bach's other cantatas with a similar kind of text, the listener is thereby placed within the drama of salvation. The author of the CD notes writes: “The eight movements rehearse the stages of redemption: an acknowledgement of the abomination of sin, the discomfort of remorseful tears, a plea for mercy, a confession of guilt, the blessed relief of casting sins onto Christ, and the peace and joy of reconciliation with God.”
I, Thy afflicted child,
cast all my sins,
as many as there are in me
and which terrify me so,
into Thy deep wounds,
where I have always found salvation.
“Siehe zu, dass deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei” (BWV 179, “See to it that they fear of God be not hypocrisy”). We’ve heard other Bach cantatas in which the theme of hypocrisy before, and although Bach felt his calling to write cantatas to God’s glory was well fulfilled in Leipzig, he faced many difficulties in the city, including self-serving leaders and other difficult people. In the CD notes, we read, “One can imagine the Leipzig gentry, sitting in the best pews, becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the shockingly direct words hit their target: the strident tenor, above obbligato oboes and violin, ringing through the cathedral proportions of St. Thomas’s like a prophetic crow.”
He who is inwardly and outwardly the same
can be called a true Christian.
Such was the tax-collector in the temple,
who smote his breast in humility;
he did not look on himself as a saint.
Let him be, O man,
a glorious example
in your own penitence...
“Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut” (BWV 113, “Lord Jesus Christ, thou highest good”) is not as dramatic about hypocrisy as 179 but confronts the listener with the sorrow for our fallen nature---as well as the joy of Christ’s love and grace.
My piteous heart
beholds now, after many tears of pain,
the bright glow of Jesus’ eyes of mercy...
Gnawing conscience can no longer torment me,
now that God has pledged all His grace
to feed the faithful and the righteous
with heavenly manna,
if we but with contrite souls
come to our Jesus.
The story of the Pharisee and the Publican captures our imagination because the reversal: the good, blameless person (the kind of person most of us strive to be) actually has it all wrong, and the person who is blameworthy, lost, and distressed gets it right. (I dislike the way we use "Pharisee" as a pejorative term; the historical Pharisees helped save Jewish faith for the ages. But this particular Pharisee is Jesus' example of a certain approach to religious faith.) Sometimes I think I have the self-critical heart of the Publican but, nevertheless, I strive to live like the Pharisee, respected and accomplished. Do I really have my heart wholly directed to God?
The answer is no. Even my "good works done in secret" are, to some extent, motivated by my need to be liked and affirmed. But we can take our inconsistencies and offer them to God in the spirit of distressed repentance that permeates this week's cantatas. Like many psalms, the cantatas bring us back to the relief we experience in knowing God's love.
(As the CD notes indicate, all English translations are by Richard Stokes.)
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