Cold Hearts of Steel: Bach's Cantatas for the 13th Sunday after Trinity

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“Sure enough, after the breezy pleasures of last week’s celebratory pieces – a brief reprieve – came the cold shower of our man’s resumption of the earnest process of musical exegesis.” Thus writes conductor John Eliot Gardiner (in the CD notes) of these cantatas for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday. (This is CD 39, with a cover picture of a woman from Tibet.) Gardiner goes on to write that Bach sought to “forge audible links” between the scriptures and “the spiritual attributes of the texts.” This week, the texts are the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s gospel, and also Galatians 3:15-22 which concerns faith and the law. But human beings are liable to evade both their responsibilities to the neighbor and to fail to keep God’s law.

During a 100-mile drive to Springfield, IL this week, I listened to these cantatas without first reading about them in the CD notes. I was moved by the wonderful opening to “Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben” (BWV 77 “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God”). Sure enough, Gardiner writes, “Here is one of those breathtaking, monumental opening choruses that defy rational explanation: how an over-worked, jobbing church musician, locked into numbing routines, could have come up with anything so prodigious and not, aswe have seen, in an isolated work, but as part of a coherent cycle of weekly works." He goes on to describe in considerable detail the wonderful structure and musical devices used by Bach in a cantata focused upon the two great commandments: Love the Lord with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself.

My God, I love Thee with all my heart,
all my life clings to Thee.

Let me but know Thy law

and be so kindled with love
that I can love Thee forever.

And give me too, my God,
a Samaritan’s heart,
that I may love my neighbour...
that I may not pass him by

and abandon him in his extremity...

“Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" (BWV 33, “In thee alone, Lord Jesus Christ”) is more penitential concerning our inability to be obedient to the Lord.

My God and Judge,

if Thou shouldst question me upon the law,
I would be unable,

because of my conscience,

to answer one in a thousand questions.

I am weak in spirit and devoid of love

and my sins are grave and vast...

But (in an solo that Gardiner calls one of Bach’s most beautiful ones for the alto), in Christ there is mercy and salvation.

...Jesus hears my supplication
and proclaims me to His Father.
The burden of sin weighed me down,

but Jesus helps me anew with words of comfort:
He has done enough for me.

“Ihr, die ihr euch von Christo rennet" (BWV 164, “Ye who bear the name of Christ”) begins similarly with an assertion of the hardness of the human heart toward God and other people. Gardiner notes that this “dualism” between the divine compassion and human failure permeates all three cantatas. But the divine compassion can break through and make us like the Samaritan.

Ah! melt through Thy radiant love
the cold heart of steel,

that I may daily practise,

my Saviour, true Christian love;
that my neighbour’s misery, whoever he may be,
friend or foe, heathen or Christian,

may affect my heart as much as my own suffering!

I admit that I dislike the story of the Good Samaritan, though it's a beautiful story with which I agree. But if I think, "Oh, I should pick up that hitchhiker; the Good Samaritan story compels me to," I'm putting myself at risk. Yet the story invites soul-searching. Whom can I help, in my everyday circumstances? How can I put my faith into practice, in a powerful if not foolhardy way?

Part of it may be simply slowing down our pace and stopping to take time with people. I hesitate to make myself an example of anything, but the other day someone approached me to talk as I was standing by the elevator. The elevator arrived and I missed it, because it was more important in that moment to talk to the person rather than hurry to my next engagement. Through the mercy extolled in these cantatas, the Lord can show us ways to "be available" to persons as we go about our daily lives.

I had just been studying Luke 10 for another writing project. The writer of the commentary that I was reading pointed out that the lawyer's question to Jesus (how he could gain eternal life) is coupled with the affirmation of the two great commandments, which in turn is coupled with both the Good Samaritan story and the subsequent story about Mary and Martha. The commentator noted that the Samaritan and Mary showed complementary sides of faith: being caring and merciful in an everyday circumstance, and being quiet and attentive to the Lord's teachings.

(As indicated in the CD notes, all English translations are by Richard Stokes.)