We give thanks to Lois Habib who is coming back to the piano bench this morning to play a duet, “Ashokan Farewell.” This tune was composed by Jay Ungar in 1982 to be used as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the fiddle camps run by the Ungars in upstate New York. The tune was used as the title theme in 1990 PBS miniseries, “The Civil War”. The piece is a waltz in D major, composed in the style of a Scottish lament. Ungar describes the song as coming out of “a sense of loss and longing” after the annual music camps ended.
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Kevin Moroney will sing a solo at communion, “Turn My Heart to You”, with words and music by Rev. Nancy Raabe, pastor at Grace Lutheran Church in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, previously serving congregations in Wisconsin and Ohio. Rev. Raabe is an energetic and creative leader of Christian worship. She specializes in incorporating music and the liturgical arts into worship services. In addition to several volumes of hymn interpretations for organ and piano, she has written many hymns, songs and anthems, often on original texts, and a variety of liturgical compositions. She also has three volumes of “One-Minute Devotions for the Church Musician” in print, and a critical biography of composer Carl Schalk. Rev. Raabe currently serves as the President of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.
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Today’s second communion hymn, “As the Grains of Wheat” comes from an ancient text. The Didache was a cut-and-paste catechetical manual from the late first or early second century, perhaps from Alexandria. Chapter 9 gives instructions about the Eucharist. In the thanksgiving connected to the bread it uses the imagery of grain scattered on the mountains that is harvested, ground, and baked into one loaf. The prayer is that the church likewise may be gathered together from the corners of the world into God’s kingdom. Marty Haugen picks up this imagery with an almost literal quote from the Didache and shapes it into the refrain. He says he thinks “the Didache had beautiful texts worth being presented again [and that] the oldest words are often the best.” Two stanzas, one about the cup and one about the feast to come, separate repetitions of the refrain.
