Bach and Stability of Life

In a conversation with a priest about why Rite One (the traditional Anglican language of prayer) has virtually disappeared, she explained that the theology of the Episcopal Church has moved so far from the Rite One texts that it is no longer appropriate to use them.

Not the language, not the “thees” and “thous” and all the rest: the theology. I believe that she is right as to why Rite One is in disfavor with Episcopal clergy. It is more a matter of the Prayer of Humble Access (BCP p. 337):

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

Or the Post-Communion Prayer (BCP p. 339), one of the most magnificent paragraphs in the English language:

Almighty and everlasting God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom. And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

I expect that I shall never hear either of these passages again in public worship. Thoroughly Modern Episcopalians do not believe these things.

But I do.

It is a very different church from the one I entered by means of the laying on of hands in the Sacrament of Confirmation in the 1980’s. Back then, the liturgy, the theology (e.g., Richard Hooker), and especially the language of liturgy were compelling reasons to be Episcopal. No longer. If it were not for the music, I would see no reason to remain.

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Following a suggestion from Daniel Coyle’s “Talent Code,” I have a “wall” (in my case, a “door”) bearing photos and paintings of musicians whom I humbly seek to emulate (“we feebly struggle, they in glory shine”): Keith Jarrett. Anton Bruckner. Joseph Haydn (I added him this week, for reasons I may describe someday).

And at the top, J. S. Bach.

A non-musician visited my office recently. He commented “All the musicians revere Bach. I don’t understand it.” I tried to explain, failing miserably; the only way to communicate his importance is by playing or singing his music. I am reminded every time I play his music that I must be serious about my work, and do it more diligently. I must always commit all of it to the Lord Christ who helps us, and to the great glory of God. “S.D.G.” he would write on his scores: Soli Deo Gloria.

Because of his picture on my door, Bach had a surprise for me after my conversation with the priest about Rite One: a lesson in Stability of Life.

By the 1730’s and 40’s, the Lutheran Church was not the one into which he was baptized back there in Eisenach in 1685, just downhill from the Wartburg Castle where Luther had translated the Holy Scriptures. The clergy with whom Bach served in Leipzig were full of Enlightenment ideas, totally foreign to Bach’s solid Lutheran orthodoxy.

And he stayed at his post.

He wrote things like the St. Matthew Passion, when there was no one who either desired or expected such a thing. And motets, and cantatas. And the Third Part of the Clavierübung, framing his musical exposition of the Lutheran Catechism with the E flat prelude and fugue. And the Canonic Variations on Luther’s Christmas hymn “Vom Himmel hoch.”

Forgotten now, because the musical scores remain and the people have come and gone, but he taught several generations of choristers and surely influenced them. Just as surely, he must have been a light in the darkness for those in Leipzig who shared Bach’s dismay at the confusing new ideas, so bereft of spiritual substance. He remains a light in our darkness; how can one play or sing his music without believing? At least for a moment, at least as long as the music lasts.

It would be unimaginable for Old Bach to be anything other than a Lutheran. He is the very essence of Lutheranism.

Would that I were such a saint. From now on, when I look at his picture on my door, I will hear him say something I heard recently as a word of prophecy from another source:

“You still have work to do.”

Jesu, juva.