October 28, 2007

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time     Reformation Sunday

Preparation for Worship

Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God.

Ephesians 2:8   

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice,

but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

Elie Wiesel

That only a few, under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of long- established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real only proves their apathy and deeper degradation.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, there lived a great people-a black people-

who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.

Martin Luther King

 The Protestant Reformation has shaped our identity as Christians and as Presbyterians.  When Martin Luther (1483-1546), John Calvin (1509-1564), and others examined the scriptures, they found lost truths that shaped and influenced their faith.  Today, Westminster joins with Protestant denominations around the world in observing Reformation Sunday.  Yet, as modern worshippers within the Presbyterian Church, we embrace and embody the statement "once reformed, always reforming" to reflect the ever-evolving nature of our relationship to Christ and his church.

     In worship today, we examine scripture to understand that God calls us to see with new eyes that which is required of us:  do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.  We are called to be a "people of protest," ready to examine our assumptions, and evaluate our path against these criteria as we seek to live out God's will for our lives through his abundant grace.

     The music through which we offer our worship to God this morning is selected to sample the roots of our reformed musical heritage and hymnody.  The opening hymn is a text attributed to Presbyterian founder and reformer John Calvin. It is set to a tune from the Genevan Psalter which were the first elements of congregational singing endorsed by Calvin and his followers. We connect to our early Calvin heritage each week by singing the Doxology, which is also a Genevan Psalter tune.  We will also sing the hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" which was written by the reformer Martin Luther in 1529. 

     The prelude is a work for harpsichord written near the time of the Reformation, while the offertory is a setting of the hymn "Built on the Rock, the Church Does Stand." The text of the hymn describes Christ as the cornerstone of our faith and the bedrock on which the church grows and thrives. The service concludes with one of the most misunderstood pieces in the organ literature of J.S. Bach. Bach was the greatest contributor to church music in the early reformed tradition. He was a Christian whose commitment to his faith was unquestionable.  Music scholars believe that this work was likely composed for violin and organ between 1703 and 1707 while Bach was serving as a church musician in Arnstadt and Muhlhausen. At some later point, Bach reconstituted the work as an organ solo. The dramatic energy and vitality of the piece has been adopted in popular culture for secular purposes and is often used to evoke images of fear or fright. It is, however, a misconception to label the work so restrictively. It is a piece that Bach would have used in his church and, therefore, seems only appropriate to use the music of this great reformer as a vehicle through which we who seek to be a "people of protest" may offer our praise to God.