…o’er the tumult
“They all saw Jesus and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’”
Claude Monet’s 1874 canvas Impression, soleil levant (Impression Sunrise) is remarkable for, on the one hand, completely violating every classic rule for depicting natural and anthropic beauty in a landscape; on the other, through its sharp, striking lines and vivid color, capturing the essence of this lonely and liminal morning moment on the port of Le Harve. It is, no doubt, a calmer sea than the one that Jesus traversed to meet the Disciples in the Gospel reading for this week, but one no less lonely and cold: there’s something about it that communicates the same chaotic watery darkness, that nevertheless is not without hope, without the promise and presence of light …
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, Who turned the hard rock into a pool of water, and the flint stone into a springing well.
— Psalm 114:7-8
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Texts for This Week
Prayer
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Jesus calls us …
The Irish hymnographer C. F. Alexander wrote many beloved hymns of the 19th C: as wife of the Anglican Archbishop of Ireland, she had remarkable access to both forming youth and shaping church culture. She wrote this hymn for the Feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) in 1852, but the focus of the lyrics are Jesus’s call to us, imagining Andrew, rather than being especially focused on that Apostle. The featured video is archive footage of Guildford Cathedral performing the hymn on St. Andrew’s Day 1967 to EH Thorne’s eponymous tune.
In reimagining this hymn for contemporary performance, there is tremendous opportunity for “tone painting” depicting that “tumult” in which over which Jesus calls us; offering some aural representation of “the idols that keep us” and “this world’s golden store.” The lyrics are really quite evocative. Koine’s version pursues this concept, if the execution might be improved.
The editors of The Hymnal 1982 had the brilliant insight to set the text to the powerful Southern Harmony melody RESTORATION, which very appropriately causes it to echo the hymn more commonly associated with that tune “Come ye sinners / I will arise,” but it is surprisingly difficult to find the hymn performed to that tune. Here is a passable Virtual Choir recording from Church of the Advocate, Chapel Hill.
