Month: April 2024

This past Monday, I watched the evening news and the fact that April 22 was Earth Day came to the fore in the last thirty seconds of the broadcast, almost an afterthought. The Supreme Court was taking up a state law cracking down on the homeless, the trial of the former President began in Manhattan, there was some big basketball news as I remember it, and major university campuses were in an uproar of protests, the likes of which the nation hasn’t seen since the Viet Nam War. Earth Day? There wasn’t much room amid the national and international coverage for Earth Day 2024.

However, the news from our delegation to Peru this week has been quite startling. Rebecca Kirkpatrick sent this photo and wrote to those who are subscribed to her mission trip reports:

After worship, they took us close by to see the impacts of dumping and pollution on the Chillón River. It is hard to describe how polluted the river is. A local factory had been dumping its waste directly into the river, and it is not unusual for folks all over the community to dump their trash directly into the river as it passes through the community. The activists from the church who took us along the river told us stories of their childhood when the river was clean enough to drink from. Some even recalled being baptized in that very river. Along the coast, it leads directly to the Pacific. As we walked along the river and eventually to the beach, we were overwhelmed by the pollution. Jed shared when we got there that it is considered the most contaminated beach in all of Latin America. It is hard to convey how much trash is on the beach, and photos don’t really capture it.

While we may seem far removed from that riverside in Peru, evidence is growing that microplastics are invading human organs and our bloodstream. We’re not so removed after all.

In this season of Eastertide, which we are observing in worship each week, the images John’s gospel uses to describe the presence of resurrection are from nature. The fields of God’s sheepfold last Sunday and Jesus’ lovely image, “I am the Vine, you are the branches,” upcoming. Martin Luther, the great 16th-century reformer and theologian, said of Easter, “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” We cannot separate the most basic promises of our faith from the natural world, from the glory and intended goodness of God’s creation.

Look at this picture from our church’s mission partner in Peru and join me in imagining that every day is Earth Day. Let’s make even deeper commitments to reduce our use of plastics and disposable waste. Together, let’s admit our complicity in polluting the earth. Together, let’s remember we cannot separate our faith from our practice, our mission from our mission partners in places like Peru. Together, let’s live more fully into our vocation as caretakers of God’s good earth.

Twenty-four years ago, I was in the midst of post-recording production with the recording engineer who recorded the Sanctuary Choir’s Christmas CD, “Welcome Yule.” Producing a CD is an immense amount of work. Each piece is recorded 3-5 times. One CD can easily take four long evenings to record. The production process takes even longer. About halfway through the editing, our producer, George Blood, asked me, “Jeff, what do you think the five greatest choral works are?” I quickly responded with, “J.S. Bach’s “Mass in B-minor,” Mozart’s “Requiem,” Mendelssohn’s “Elijah,” Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis,” and Brahms’ “Requiem.” Over my long career, I have had the privilege of conducting all these works, in some cases, several times. Of all these works, Brahms’ “Requiem” holds the most special place in my heart. I am thrilled to be able to conduct this masterpiece on Sunday, April 28, at 4:00 p.m. with our sublime Sanctuary Choir.

For those of you who are familiar with the piece, you may know that it was originally conceived for a full orchestra and large chorus. However, what you might not know is that Brahms himself arranged the original orchestral accompaniment for a piano duet: four hands on one piano. This more intimate version, arranged in 1869, with the wonderful writing for two pianists supporting the voices, is deeply moving. Brahms was no stranger to writing for two pianists; his Liebeslieder Waltzes, composed for two pianists and choir, are among the finest works ever composed. For our performance on April 28, we will use two pianos, all the better to support our wonderful choir.

It appears to be generally agreed among scholars that by early 1865, Brahms had already formed a clear concept and structure of the Requiem, including the choice of texts and early drafts of the music. He wrote the finished form of the greater part of the work, five movements, during 1865 and the first half of 1866. After revisions and more work over the next 18 months, he conducted the first public performance in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday of 1868 in a version with six movements. During the following year, he wrote a seventh movement, no. 5, and the first public performances of the Requiem in its final form with seven movements were given in Cologne on 16 February 1869 and in Leipzig two days later. It was well received and gained early popularity, though more so in Protestant northern Germany, England, and the United States than in Catholic countries such as France and Italy.

Brahms was brought up in the Protestant tradition of the German theologian and church reformer Martin Luther, and in his title for the work, Ein deutsches Requiem, he is saying two things: this work is not a setting of the liturgical Requiem Mass of the Roman Catholic Church, and its text is not in the Latin of the Roman liturgy, but in the German of his native tongue. Brahms wrote to his publisher that his Requiem “cannot be sung in place of a Requiem Mass in church,” and it was thus primarily for the concert platform. Scholars believe that Brahms may have been agnostic in his religious beliefs.

Nevertheless, Brahms’ choice of texts, from the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha in Luther’s translation, are a meditation on the rest, peace, and comfort that can be found in the Christian scriptures when contemplating the inevitable circumstance of death. They make no mention, as in the Catholic Mass, of the day of wrath and of final judgment, and they have no prayer to Christ for the rescue of the faithful from the pains of hell. They speak rather of comfort for those who mourn and of the transitory nature of this life, expressing a firm belief in life after death and the blessed state of those who ‘die in the Lord,’ a belief that after the trials and troubles of this mortal life, there comes a life of peace and joy where ‘sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’

Except for the short fourth and seventh movements, Brahms chose verses for the text of each movement from different books of the Bible and, despite this variety of sources, combined them to complement each other in their message and to set out his own vision and understanding of his Requiem. However, the varied musical color and structure of both the work as a whole and as reflected in each movement deepen and enhance the meaning of the text. As Brahms understood so clearly, music adds its own deeper dimension and fullness to the meaning of words.

We are thrilled that baritone Nicholas Provenzale and soprano Kara Goodrich will be the soloists for this performance. Those of you who attended our Good Friday Bonhoeffer production know how magnificent a singer Nicholas is. Kara, who grew up in BMPC (her mother was a staff singer in the Sanctuary Choir), is now beginning a career as a professional singer. Her role as Mimi in “La Boheme” with Opera Philadelphia last spring brought rave reviews. Accompanying them will be pianists Susan Rogel Ricci and Laura Ward, who will be at the two concert grand pianos.

A free-will offering will be received to benefit the Homeless Advocacy Project, a non-profit organization that provides legal assistance to Philadelphia’s large homeless population. https://www.haplegal.org/

We look forward to bringing this spectacular work into your life on April 28 at 4:00 p.m.

In just a week, five of us from BMPC will travel to Lima, Peru, to spend a week with our long-term partner, Joining Hands Peru.

We have been connected to the work of Joining Hands Peru, especially through our support of Presbyterian World Mission and our Mission Co-Workers there, Jed and Jenny Koball, for over ten years. But this year represents the start of a deepening commitment on our part to the Joining Hands global network, which describes their work as standing in solidarity, working for justice and the restoration of the Earth, and advocating for the rights of people to claim the life abundant promised by God.

A main component of this deeper partnership means intentional visits and time spent together in Peru (and eventually Bryn Mawr). This is how Joining Hands Peru describes the context in which they live and work:

Due to its vast territory and gold and silver production, Peru was historically considered one of Spain’s most important colonies. Declaring its independence from Spain in 1821, Peru continued to exploit the resources of the land for its own economic growth and development.

Today, the Andes continue to have great mining potential, and the Amazon basin has rich oil deposits. Increased exploitation of such resources, known as extractive activity, has led to major economic growth in recent decades, yet the gap between rich and poor in Peru is one of the highest in the Americas. Among the most impoverished peoples are indigenous populations whose livelihoods and way of life are gravely impacted by contamination of air, land, and water. Furthermore, Peru is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change.

I have had a few people ask me what “work” we will be doing when we are in Peru. The truth is that the work we are called to do in a modern mission partnership is the work to build relationships with one another. Gone are the days of us traveling around the world to offer our manual labor to others. Instead, we are traveling there to offer them one of the most valuable resources we have as a church – our focus and attention.

Over a week, we will travel and visit five different communities surrounding Lima, where local leaders are leading the work to recover their natural resources, change the industrial and commercial practices impacting their homes, and attempt to reverse the devastating health impacts experienced by the people in their community, especially their children. We will hear their stories, encourage them in their work, and consider ways we can influence some of the international forces at play as a congregation.

But mostly, we will illustrate to them that there is a group of faithful people who live thousands of miles away, who are paying attention to their work, praying for their success and health, and personally investing in their future. That is a precious thing.

I hope that you will keep the five of us in your prayers in the days to come, but more importantly, you will keep the people of Joining Hands Peru in your prayers at this moment and beyond. If you want to learn more about their work, you can check it out here: https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/compassion-peace-justice/hunger/internationaldevelopment/joininghands/joining-hands-country-profiles/peru-jh/.

It was a joy to attend and participate in Easter services at Bryn Mawr this past Sunday. The outdoor early morning service had a totally different feel than the services in the sanctuary. Did you see the cross in the churchyard covered in flowers? Did the glorious ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and Easter hymns ring in your mind for a while? But now, Easter Day is over. However, I hope the ramifications of it are not!

We live in a world where many storytellers don’t include the concept of resurrection in how they define life and death. Some of their stories assert that death ends life in hopeless finality and futility. Some of these stories are even filled with cynicism and disparagement of a life of faith and service.

As I think about what it must have been like for Jesus’ disciples soon after his death, I imagine they were ready to believe just that kind of storyteller. After all, the natural order of things certainly indicated that when someone gets killed, that person stays dead. The non-Easter storyteller told them that violence and death were the strongest powers, and nothing could change that, so they might as well accept it. They must have also felt that their dreams, their hopes, and their future were all dead because Jesus was dead. That had to be an extremely painful loss, which would make it unlikely that they would be ready to embrace the vulnerability of new hope anytime soon.

But the events of Easter beckoned them and us to listen to a different storyteller. Death would no longer define life, but rather, life could now define death. We are not called to follow a dead hero but a living Lord. Yes, things currently may look like they did prior to this past Sunday, but Jesus is risen, and we can dare to see new possibilities for transformation. We reach what we think is the tragic end of a defining story, but Jesus is risen, which opens the way to amazing new beginnings. There may appear to be no way to move forward, but Jesus is risen, and we are empowered to believe that God can make a way out of no way. Yes, the ways of death and despair seem to be most powerful in our world, but Jesus has risen, which points us toward the idea that life, peace, and hope can blossom.

Let’s dare to listen to and allow ourselves to be shaped by the resurrection storytellers, and we’ll discover a Lord who brings everlasting life, love, joy, and meaning to our hearts and our world. We, as part of humanity, do so much to discount the amazing story of God’s life-giving power, but Jesus is risen! With a resurrection story that redefines us and our world, the impact of Easter is far from being over! Alleluia!