We’re halfway through September, with October and November to come in this post-Pentecost season. I miss the season of Kingdomtide, which was still observed in United Methodist churches when my family and I joined our local congregation in the mid 1970s. It added extra themes to the long period of ordinary time, and the name itself was pretty!
This Sunday is the 14th after Trinity Sunday. The cover photo of this CD, number 40 in the set, is from Tahoua, Niger. I had looked forward to listening to BWV 78, “Jesu, der du meine Seele” (“Jesus, who hast wrested my soul”), because my daughter’s choir in Ohio used to sing the aria “Wir eilen mit schwachen.”
We hasten with weak but diligent steps,
O Jesus, O master, to Thee.
Thou seekst to help the ailing and erring.
Ah, hearken, as we
raise our voices,
to beg Thee for help!
May Thy gracious countenance smile upon us!
Wonderful memories of the choir’s performances in Ohio and also central Europe! The choir director noted that the melody is springy, to connote eagerness, but the continuo plods, connoting feeble steps that require divine help. The soprano-alto aria conrasts with the more serious themes and numbers of the cantata which, appropriate to the Lutheran theology of this season, emphasizes the dire human condition.
In the notes, conductor John Eliot Gardiner comments that, although Bach’s Trinity Season cantatas are full of Lutheran doctrine about sin and the fall and redemption, there is also a humanism in Bach’s consideration of the human condition. For instance, in “Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe” (BWV 25, “There is no soundness in my flesh”) the text is a little depressing in its depictions of sin and estrangement as a horrid sickness.
The entire world is but a hospital
where countless human beings
and even children in the cradle
lie gravely ill.
The one is tortured in the breast
by raging fever’s wicked desires;
another lies ill
with his own honour’s odious stench;
lust for gold devours a third
and hurls him into an early grave.
Christ alone can heal us of the leprosy of sin, but Gardiner goes into detail about how Bach's music (including some extra instruments like recorders) depicts the healing process, giving listers an audible connection to the help they gain for their human struggles.
The third cantata of this Sunday, “Wer Dank opfert, der preiset mich” (BWV 17, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me”) has more of an emphasis upon the Lord’s goodness, although always in contrast to the human distress that urges us to seek and praise God’s surprising mercy. Gardiner particularly praises Bach’s music of the final chorale.
As a father has mercy
on his little children,
so the Lord does unto us wretches,
if we fear Him with pure childlike awe.
He knows this feeble race,
he knows we are but dust.
Just as grass from the rake,
a flower and falling leaves,
the wind only has to pass over it
and it is no longer there:
so man too passes,
his end is always near.
Autumn, when grass and leaves will indeed be gathered and discarded, is a time of meditating upon the transitory quality of life. The words of this chorale echo (perhaps intentionally) Isaiah 40, where we are assured that although "all flesh is grass," the Word of God never dies.
This week, that image of "hospital" stays in my mind: the world as a hospital, and all of us "sick" in some way thanks to the human condition. To extend the metaphor, Christ is both physician and patient: one who has experienced the infirmity and sickness of human being, and the only one who can heal us as we need.
But I also love that image of "weak but diligent steps". A couple years ago, I wrote on this blog about a CD of Arvo Pärt's music, "In Principio," on the ECM Records label. The liner notes describe the piece called "Mein Weg" ("my path"): "The title was inspired by a short poem from 'Livre des Questions', the magnum opus of the poet Edmond Jabès ... My path has long hours,/jolts and pains./My path has peaks and sea-troughs,/sand and sky./Mine or thine... The image of life's portentous sea-troughs seems to have found an echo in the work's compositional fabric with its constant, dynamically differentiated upward and downward motion."
The paths of life--including the spiritual path--filled with ups and downs, steps forward and back. Given the human condition, how could it be otherwise? So we look to the Lord, who never stops being compassionate toward us in our journeys.
(As the CD notes indicate, all English translations are by Richard Stokes.)
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