Home Worship for September 6, 2020

Dear members of God’s family at Resurrection Church,

This Sunday, we continue to read Matthew’s instructions for the church. Today we hear about the importance of reconciliation, mutual forgiveness and love. Even more, we hear the promise of the risen Christ to be with us. If you are able, join the congregation by your own prayer at home at 10am on Sunday..

Worship Service

A pre-recorded worship service, complete with readings, Pastor Linman's sermon, prayers, and music will broadcast at 10am on Sunday, September 6, on our YouTube channel and will be available below:

Worship material for September 6, 2020

The following have been posted to YouTube; here is the YouTube Playlist for September 6, 2020:

Music Notes

Hymn of the Day: “Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether,” #470
Text: Percy Dearmer (1867–1936)
Tune: Union Seminary, Harold Friedell (1905-1958)

Harold Friedell (1905-1958) was an American organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer. At an early age, he served as organist at First Methodist Episcopal Church (Jamaica, Queens) and studied organ with Clement Gale and David McK. Williams. He later served as organist at Calvary Church (New York), organist and choirmaster at Saint John’s Church (Jersey City, N.J.), organist and choirmaster at Calvary Church (New York), and finally organist and master of the choir at Saint Bartholomew’s Church (New York). Friedell also taught on the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music (New York).

Percy Dearmer (1867–1936) was an English priest and liturgist best known as the author of The Parson's Handbook, a liturgical manual for Anglican clergy, and as editor of The English Hymnal. Dearmer, with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, is credited with the revival and spread of traditional and medieval English musical forms. His ideas on patterns of worship have been linked to the Arts and Crafts Movement, while Dearmer and Vaughan Williams' English Hymnal reflects the influence both of artistic and folkloric scholarship and Christian Socialism. Dearmer ended his life as Canon of Westminster Abbey, from where he ran a canteen for the unemployed.

Named for the School of Sacred Music at Union Seminary in New York City, UNION SEMINARY is a gently robust congregational tune illustrating Romantic tendencies that managed to continue in the twentieth century. It began in an anthem by Harold Friedell, who wrote it in 1957 for Percy Dearmer’s text. It was extracted as a hymn tune and published like that in 1970.

Dearmer’s text is a celebration of Christ’s presence among those who are tethered by the Spirit at the Lord’s table and who pray that as disciples they may make their meals and living “as sacraments” by caring, helping, and giving.”

Musical Reflection: “Union Seminary,” James Biery (1956)

James Biery is an American organist, composer and conductor who is Minister of Music at Grosse Pointe Memorial Church (Presbyterian) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, where he directs the choirs, plays the 66-rank Klais organ and oversees the music program of the church. Prior to this appointment Biery was music director for Cathedrals in St. Paul, Minnesota and Hartford, Connecticut.

Biery’s setting of UNION SEMINARY is in 3 parts, or ABA. The A sections are based on a melody that he constructed from the hymn tune. He has changed the rhythm sligfhtly, and has built the melody on the inverted form of the original tune.

The middle section, combining the tune in its original key and rhythm with the tune a fifth below and a half-note apart, creates a delightfully off-center canon. Enjoy!

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