The Bindings of the Law
“O that my ways were made so direct that I might keep your statutes!”
A detail from the Jerusalem-based artist David Yohanan’s painting, Tefillin. Yohanan here converts to a piece of conceptual wall-art the longstanding Jewish traditions around the tefillin (phylacteries), and mazuzot, wherein the core commands of the Law — reduced to micrography — are bound quite laterally to the fingers and forehead, and to the doorframes of houses. Were it only so easy that the Law should become inscribed upon the tablets of our hearts!
These words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
— The LORD, the God of Israel (Deuteronomy 6:6)
Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
Texts for This Week
Prayer
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, as we live among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Jesus, Thy Boundless Love for me!
The Kantorei of the LCMS seminary in Fort Wayne, IN offer this beautifully and tastefully arranged performance of Paul Gerhardt’s classic hymn (1653). One of the more prolific hymn writers of Lutheran tradition, Gerhardt writes in a pietistic mode: composing long and heartfelt hymns meant to be sung in groups of verses through the course of the service. Resonant with Wesleyan revivalism, this particular hymn comes into English by way of John Wesley in the 1750s, and thence is a part of the standard set of “classic” hymns shared among Methodists, Lutherans, and certain species of pietistic Baptists.
It is interesting to note that — despite the august lineage of the tune, and its widespread dissemination among Protestants — there has not yet (to my knowledge and superficial poking around) been a credible contemporary adaptation / interpretation of this hymn. It is as though there is something about the text that is bound to invoke an organ and the affectations of the King’s English. As with much of the early pietistic literature, it reflects a combination of deep, intense, personal religious affection on the one hand, and on the other, a sort of intellectual complexity and erudition that is uncommon in the popular piety of our time. Could a bridge be built between that context and our own, there is potentially a whole genre of rich and beautiful texts of this type awaiting rediscovery and reticulation.
