Mary and Martha of Bethany, 29 July NT

Mary and Martha lived with their brother Lazarus at Bethany, a village not far from Jerusalem. They are mentioned in several episodes in the Gospels.

On one occasion, when Jesus and His disciples were their guests (Luke 10:38-42), Mary sat at Jesus' feet and listened to Him while her sister Martha busied herself with preparing food and waiting on the guests, and when Martha complained, Jesus said that Mary had chosen the better part.

When Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, had died, Jesus came to Bethany. Martha, upon being told that He was approaching, went out to meet Him, while Mary sat still in the house until He sent for her. It was to Martha that Jesus said: "I am the Resurrection and the Life." (John 11:1-44)

Again, about a week before the crucifixion, as Jesus reclined at table, Mary poured a flask of expensive perfume over Jesus' feet. Mary was criticized for wasting what might have been sold to raise money for the poor, and again Jesus spoke on her behalf. (John 12:1-8)

On the basis of these incidents, many Christian writers have seen Mary as representing Contemplation (prayer and devotion), and Martha as representing Action (good works, helping others); or love of God and love of neighbor respectively.

They see the same symbolism also in Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban (Genesis 29 and 35). Leah was dim of sight, but had many children. Rachel had few children, but one of them saved the whole family from destruction. Leah represents Action, which is near-sighted and cannot penetrate very far into the mysteries of God, but produces many worth-while results. Contemplation has fewer results, but one of those results is Faith, without which it is impossible to please God." (Hebrews 11:6) Yet, there is a sense in which Action comes first -- "If a man love not his brother, whom he hath seen, how shall he love God, whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20) So it is that Leah must be wed before Rachel.

On some calendars, Lazarus is commemorated together with his sisters, on others his resurrection is remembered separately on 17 December.

The biographies were written by James Kiefer

LinK: http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html 

J. S. Bach, George Frederick Handel, Heinrich Schuetz. Musicians

J. S. Bach, Musician 28 July 1750
George Frederick Handel, Musician 14 April 1759
Heinrich Schuetz, Musician 6 November 1672

Johann Sebastian Bach, widely regarded as the greatest of all composers of music for Christian worship, was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, into a family of distinguished musicians. In 1708, shortly after marrying his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, he became court organist to the Duke of Weimar, where he wrote his principal compositions for the organ. In 1717 he became music director (Kapellmeister) to Prince Leopold of Coethen. In 1720, his wife died, and in 1721 he married Anna Magdalena Wuelcken, for whom he composed a famous set of keyboard pieces. From 1723 until his death in 1750 he was at Leipzig, where he taught, conducted, sang, played, and composed. He had 20 children, of whom nine survived him, four of whom are also remembered as composers.

In addition to his secular music, Bach wrote a considerable amount of music for worship. He drew on the German tradition of hymn-tunes, and arranged many of them as cantatas, with elaborate choir settings for most stanzas, and a plain four-part setting for the final stanza, to be sung by the congregation with the choir. Normally each stanza is unique, using the melody traditional for that hymn, but with variations, particularly in the harmony, that reinforce the meaning of the words of that stanza. He wrote altogether about two hundred cantatas, including at least two for each Sunday and holy day in the Lutheran church year (matching the subject of the cantata with that of the Scripture readings prescribed for that day). Two of the better known are "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ lay in the bonds of death"), based on an Easter hymn by Martin Luther; and "Jesu, meine Freude" (Jesus, all my gladness).

It is an ancient custom that during Holy Week the Gospel readings shall be from the accounts of the Passion (=suffering and death) of Our Lord, and that, where possible, these accounts shall be read, not by a single reader, but with the speeches of different persons read by different readers (and the crowd by the choir or the the congregation).

This may be said, or chanted to a simple tune. Bach wrote, for the St. Matthew Passion, and again for the St. John Passion, an elaborate musical setting, with the Gospel narrative sung by a soloist, with the dialog by other singers, and commentary by the choir in the form of hymns and more elaborate pieces. He also wrote a setting for the traditional Latin Liturgy, his famous B Minor Mass. The Liturgy (or Order for the Celebration of the Lord's Supper and the Administration of Holy Communion, Commonly Called the Mass) is divided into the Ordinary (the parts that are the same every time) and the Propers (the parts that vary from day to day, such as the Bible readings). The choral parts of the Ordinary include the KYRIE ("Lord, have mercy" or "Hear us, O gracious Lord"), the GLORIA ("Glory to God in the highest," based on Luke 2:14), the CREDO ("I believe in one God, the Father Almighty..."), the SANCTUS-BENEDICTUS ("Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord", based on Isaiah 6:3 and Matthew 21:9), and the AGNUS DEI ("O Lamb of God," based on John 1:29). 

Bach wrote choir settings for these (in case anyone is wondering why a devout Lutheran would write choir settings for a Mass, I point out that the language of the Liturgy is ancient, and contains nothing not taught by Lutheran and Methodist and Presbyterian churches), and his work is not simply a matter of supplying pleasant-sounding melody and chords. For example, in the Creed, there occurs the line, "And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church." In Bach's setting of this line, there are two melodies sung by the choir simultaneously. One is a traditional plainchant melody, most frequently sung by Roman Catholics. The other is a Lutheran chorale melody. The two melodies are interwoven, and they harmonize perfectly. Bach was not just a musician. He was a Christian, and a preacher of the Gospel.

George Frederick Handel (Georg Friedrich Haendel) was born at Halle in Germany in 1685. He originally studied for the law and then began to write operas. He moved to Italy in 1706 and to England in 1710, where in 1726 he became a British subject. From operas, Handel turned to the writing of oratorios, works with a religious theme to be sung by soloists and a chorus. His greatest work, The Messiah, was first performed in Dublin in 1741. The words are Scriptural passages from both Testaments dealing with the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. G. B. Shaw referred to it as "the hymn that can make atheists cry." (My advisor, Herbert Feigl, an atheist of Jewish ancestry, loved it and went to church whenever it was to be sung.) In most large towns in the English-speaking world, it is performed every Christmas and Easter. Handel died 14 April 1759.

Heinrich Schuetz was born in Saxony in 1585, and twice (1608-12 and 1628-30) went to Venice to study music, first under Giovanni Gabrielli and then perhaps with Monteverdi. He was music director at Dresden for most of his life, but spent time in Copenhagen and elsewhere when Dresden was devasted by plague and the Thirty Years' War. His special achievements were (1) writing choral settings of Scriptural texts that emphasized the meaning of the words; and (2) introducing into his music the modalisms of Monteverdi and his Italian associates while retaining a distinctively German character and feeling. He died 6 November 1672.

The biographies were written by James Kiefer

LinK: http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html

William Reed Huntington, Priest. 27 July 1909.

[Of interest chiefly to Anglican (or Episcopalian) readers]

W. R. Huntington, although never a bishop, had more influence on the Episcopal Church than most bishops. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1838, the son of a physician, studied at Harvard, and was ordained a priest in 1862. In each of the thirteen General Conventions (held every three years, in years that have a remainder of 2 when divided by 3) of the Episcopal Church that met between 1870 and his death, he was a member, and indeed the most prominent member, of the House of Deputies. In 1871 he moved for the restoration of the ancient Order of Deaconesses, which was finally officially authorized in 1889. His parish became a center for the training of deaconesses. Huntington's was the chief voice calling for a revision of the Book of Common Prayer (completed in 1892), and his the greatest single influence on the process of revision. The prayers he wrote for it include the following, used during Holy Week and on Fridays.

Almighty God, whose dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

In his book The Church Idea (1870), Huntington undertook to discuss the basis of Christian unity, and he formulated the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, a statement adopted first by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in 1886 and then, with slight modifications, by the Bishops of the world-wide Anglican Communion assembled at Lambeth in 1888. The statement set forth four principles which Anglicans regard as essential, and offer as a basis for discussion of union with other Christian bodies.

I append the preface as adopted by the House of Bishops in Chicago in 1886, followed by the Four Points in the slightly different wording adopted by the Lambeth Conference of 1888.

We, Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in Council assembled as Bishops of the Church of God, do hereby solemnly declare to all whom it may concern, and especially to our fellow Christians of the different Communions in this land, who, in their several spheres, have contended for the religion of Christ:

(1) Our earnest desire that the Saviour's prayer: "That we all may be one," may, in its deepest and truest sense, be speedily fulfilled;

(2) That we believe that all who have been duly baptized with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are members of the Holy Catholic Church;

(3) That in all things of human ordering or human choice, relating to modes of worship and discipline, or to traditional customs, this Church is ready in the spirit of love and humility to forego all preferences of her own;

(4) That this Church does not seek to absorb other Communions, but rather, co-operating with them on the basis of a common Faith and Order, to discountenance schism, to heal the wounds of the Body of Christ, and to promote the charity which is the chief of Christian graces and the visible manifestation of Christ to the world;

But furthermore, we do hereby affirm that the Christian unity... can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men.

As inherent parts of this sacred deposit, and therefore essential to the restoration of unity among the divided branches of Christendom, we account the following, to wit:

[Here I switch to the Lambeth wording.]

(a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as "containing all things necessary to salvation," and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

(b) The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.

(c) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself -- Baptism and the Supper of the Lord -- ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.

(d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of the Church.

A personal observation: The reader will notice that the four points of the Lambeth Quadrilateral: Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments, and Ministry, correspond roughly to the points listed in Acts 2:41f, where Luke speaks of those who received the Gospel as it was preached on Pentecost.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.

These early Christians were in the apostles' doctrine. That is, they believed what the apostles taught about the Resurrection of Jesus, and about His victory on our behalf over the power of sin and death. That is to say, they believed the doctrine summarized in the Creeds.

[For background articles on the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, send the one-line messages:

  GET CREED APOSTLES

  GET CREED NICENE

  GET CREED FILIOQUE

  GET CREED CHURCH

to the address LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU or consult the web at http://www.ihi.aber.ac.uk/~spk/library/author/index.html. ]

They were in the apostles' fellowship. That is, they did not seek to serve God as unattached individuals, nor did they form groups of persons of like minds with their own in whose company they might worship. They joined themselves to the existing band of believers, whose nucleus was the apostles. That is, they were united by participation in the ministry of the apostles and those whom the apostles deputized to carry on their work.

They participated in the breaking of bread. That is, they were regular participants in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. (That they had received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism has already been specified.)

They participated in the prayers. As far back as our records go, Christian services of worship have consisted principally of two things: (1) the reading of the Holy Scriptures and preaching based on them, accompanied by prayer, and (2) the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The pattern was set by Our risen Lord at Emmaus (L 24:13-35), when He first opened the Scriptures to His companions, and then "was known to them in the breaking of bread." The former part, the prayers and readings and sermons, would often be referred to simply as "the prayers."

End of personal observation.

Despite his involvement in the national affairs of the Church, Huntington was foremost a parish priest, for 21 years (1862-1883) as All Saints' Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, and for 26 years (1883-1909) at Grace Church, New York City. He died 26 July 1909.

The biographies were written by James Kiefer

LinK: http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html