A theme of the liturgy for this Sunday, the 17th after Pentecost, is how we in the Church must do our work even while others may reap rewards. "Don't lose heart," we read in Habakkuk. At a discouraging time, Paul lays hands on Timothy to rekindle his heart. Jesus asks rhetorically if servants deserve any special reward for doing just what they're supposed to do.
The hymns we'll sing amplify those themes. Hymn 3 describes serving God from sunrise to bedtime. Hymn 541 expands the meaning of its title, Ora Labora, that work is prayer, "a high calling [even] angels cannot share." In Hymn 704, Samuel Sebastian Wesley writes music for his uncle Charles Wesley's words that ask God to light a candle "with celestial fire" in our hearts.
A favorite of many priests is Hymn 312, composed for the 1940 Hymnal by David McKinley Williams. In words from ancient Syrian liturgy, the poet prays that God will "Strengthen for service...the hands that holy things have taken" in the Eucharist, and will keep the tongues that sang "holy" in church from speaking any deceit. There are verses for ears, eyes, and feet, too -- the whole body of Christ!
The anthem "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" is a setting of the familiar tune, Hymn 390. We're told to remember, when discouraged, that God "reigneth," and "thy heart's wishes hath been granted by what He ordaineth."
In this anthem, German composer Hugo Distler (1908-1942) has written an a cappella version of the hymn that sounds light as a Renaissance motet, but it's crafted with 20th century techniques such as changing meters and tricky syncopations. Distler's intricacies are playful: on the words "music" and "joyful," voices rhapsodize with flourishes of notes squeezed in to the phrases without adding a single beat to the familiar song. On the word "resound," the low voices make an echo. They toll the last word like ponderous tower bells, while the high voices chirp like birds.
"A masterpiece doesn't have to be a big dramatic number," said music director Bryan Black. "A masterpiece can be like a precision-engineered pocket watch."
Living out the motto ora labora, Hugo Distler expressed intense religious faith in his work, for which the Nazi regime labeled his music "degenerate." Suddenly lost without a career, threatened to be drafted into Hitler's army, he ended his short life in despair. Thankfully, he left behind the gift of his joyful music.
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