CHRIST CHURCH CHRISTMAS & EPIPHANY 2018/19
Rochester, NY The SONG vol. 4 issue 2
141 East Avenue Rochester, New York
http://www.christchurchrochester.org
https://www.facebook.com/ChristChurchRochester/
Holy Eucharist in the Episcopal Tradition
Sunday- 8:00 am (spoken)
Sunday- 11:00 am Choral (with Music) under the direction of Stephen Kennedy
Thursday- 12:00 noon (spoken) Sunday evening
9:00pm Sung Compline (October-May)
Editors note:
Shepherds and straw; traveling seers from far away places to the east, and camels; valuable gifts, and portents in the sky; signs, and murder; angels proclaiming miracles, and loving parents (one ecstatic and one conscripted, both fully committed); these same parents becoming refugees fleeing so that their destiny would be fulfilled; this, this is the start to the season we are in.
The thing about REAL LIFE, its events and the consequences of them, is that it is not what we thought would happen. Come on, think about it. Almost everything in your past, all of our pasts, those things that have actually happened to us are things that, if someone had said that this was what would happen, this is where we would find ourselves, we wouldn’t have dreamed it. We wouldn’t have believed it. This goes for the beautiful and the horror filled. It is almost the defining feature of the really real.
The real parents, Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, said yes to God and had no idea how that was going to play out. Just like us. They believed that God would take care of them and then had to travel for a census ordered by a tyrant. They ended up having, arguably the most cosmic birth of all time, in a barn. They were visited by both the least admired humans, shepherds, and the most exalted of the heavenly beings, angels, possibly concurrently. Then the rich strangers with valuable presents came, presumably after the new little family had left the barn. And everything, absolutely every super weird thing, was nothing like what they had thought might happen.
The unending refrain as they escaped to Egypt was God telling them that they belonged to Him because He belonged to them in a way they could never guess. They could never have believed it would happen this way. It was Real.
We have Epiphany because God sings the same song to us. It is the song that proclaims that we belong to God and He belongs to us and this has nothing to do with how we imagined it, not as individuals nor cultural or ethnic groups. I personally think that the identifying qualities we cling to, that we think make us special, our privileges, cultures and histories, are ridiculous cheats compared to the glorious inheritance which we are being called into, although admittedly, the whole thing looks kind of incredible. We weren’t supposed to be chosen. God had already picked a people and had branded a culture. We weren’t it.
It turned out more real and less expected. It turned out to be more like God. Bring anyone in. Give everything to anyone who will receive it. Fill every corner with light. No previous experience is required to belong.
We find ourselves in a world we can’t control, in a history we never expected, and a lot of it is alarming. We are saying yes to God which means we have abandoned whatever we thought might happen, to travel wherever we find ourselves, in Him, with each other. We are embracing the Real together and we are using our faith to do it. Happy Epiphany.
New Years Day
Feast of the Holy Name
Eucharist 10:00 am
A letter from Ruth our rector
Dear Ones!
My writing (and your receiving) a rector's report from my medical leave is new terrain for us, isn't it? Of course I would prefer to look out and see your faces, and have us all sing something like the doxology, because not only do we sing it well and in such lovely harmony when we sing it a cappella, but also because there is NEVER a time NOT to be singing our praise and gratitude - even with the world in the state it's in, even on an arctic cold Sunday morning when pews may be a little emptier than we'd like, even when the rector is on medical leave, even when the healing we or our loved ones so need does not seem imminent or obvious, we sing gratitude for God's blessings. The children of God have sung this way for millennia and the darkness has never overcome it. We belong to God, we belong to each other, and we are not alone in this endeavor we call "Church." We are all of us being led deeper and deeper into the glory of God and nothing can ever take that away.
As I write, I've completed a week of a new IV antibiotic that is targeting one of the co-infections that came with the Lyme infection. The ticks in upstate New York are rather generous with the pathogens they pass on, so I will, in this 2019 rector's report, ask that you learn as much as you can about tick borne disease. "Lyme disease" denotes only one of the bacteria a tick might transmit, but there are other infections that are commonly transmitted along with Lyme, and compound the healing process. I am lucky to have a specialist who knows about these co-infections and which antibiotics to use for them. Here are two good websites for learning about tick borne disease.
I'd never thought any part of my calling on earth would have to do with raising awareness of ANYTHING to do with ticks and pathogens, but there you have it. This disease will have marked me forever, as it has so many others, even and especially as I heal. I want my congregation to know the dangers of tick borne illness,especially as upstate New York is a Lyme endemic area. I want you to be aware and safe.
Last week I went the the Canandaigua Firehouse to meet with the Lyme Support Group there and with Senator Helming, the republican senator who is on a tick borne disease working group. She heard our stories and gathered information. We were a diverse group in terms of age, social economic class, and politics. I have to tell you, I cannot think of when I've last, if EVER, experienced such deep bonds between democrats and republicans. And in such close physical proximity! I am co-leading an effort with a Republican to write both republicans and democrats to raise research money for researching, testing, and diagnosing tick borne disease. On the phone last week, we agreed we didn't have to think of the other as a member of a different political party. When I return to Christ Church, I want us all to take up the work of not seeing our own humanity or that of others according to political parties. I hadn't fully known how detrimental and dehumanizing it can be when we wear our political affiliations with a mark of pride or let them in any way define us and others. The kingdom of God just doesn't look like that.
I look forward to being with you soon! We're still on target for a full return in May, but, given my good progress, I may begin a slow and part time return as early as March. The Bishop, my good doctor, and I will be in communication about when and how as I continue to regain my strength. In the mean time, I give YOU my gratitude for being church to one another, the neighborhood, and the world. I cannot WAIT to rejoin you in that enterprise.
Yours in Christ,
Ruth+
From Peter our Priest in Residence
And the Word became flesh….
Many scholars believe that John’s Gospel was written near the ancient city of Ephesus, one of the most important Roman cities in Asia. It was famous for its Temple of Diana. The shrine was an important economic engine for the city. You may recall that St. Paul incurred the anger of ‘investors’ when people turned from this religion to the Christianity. (See Acts 19) Diana was a goddess associated with the fertility of the earth. Religious rites included a wide variety of rituals, including sacred prostitution, in order to encourage good seasons for the farming communities of the surrounding countryside. It was a religion that focused on the vitality of nature and its cyclical generation and would have made great sense to a people dependent upon agriculture. It is a bit like our own age’s dependence upon commerce at Christmas. Imagine our reaction if a new religion came to town that led people to turn away from the consumer frenzy of this season!
But not all the people of the ancient world were comfortable with such extravagant and sensuous form of religion. Some sought a more reflective way of engaging the meaning of life. They were known as Stoics. Stoicism, was mainly a Greek religious point of view, but adopted by many of the Roman elite. It focused on the rational order of creation, and the capacity of the human mind to embrace and understand the order of existence. Central to this philosophy/religion was the notion of the λογοσ—the rational source of existence. For Stoics, the rational capacity of humankind was a unique quality that prepared them for union with God. The ultimate state of human achievement was pure thought. It was a religious view that sought to escape the messy fleshy side of human existence and transport itself to the realm of ideas.
Imagine then the scandal of a teaching that identified the Word (λογοσ) as flesh! New Testament scholar Raymond Brown comments, “…instead of supplying the liberation from the material world that the Greek mind yearned for, the Word of God was now inextricably bound to human history.” Here in this brilliant prologue, the author of the fourth Gospel joins a Greek concept with a radically Hebrew notion. For the Hebrew mind God’s Word was always active in creation and in history. God’s Word energized and directed creation. There was also in Hebrew thought the idea that God’s Word could take on human form, and so in the Wisdom literature (e.g. Proverbs) God’s Word takes on the form of σωφια, Wisdom and is personified as a woman.
In short John is setting the stage for the idea that the God who is known in, but beyond all of creation, and the God who acted in history, yet always beyond history, and the God whose very essence is λογοσ is to be known in the person of Jesus. In this profound prologue to his Gospel, John brings together the full mystery of the idea that God is the aspiration of our highest rational possibility, and that God is present in the fullness of human flesh. The religion that springs from this encounter neither seeks to escape from the world, nor is it ready to simply accommodate with the world. God in the flesh is a transformational encounter–God who dwells among us is one who engages and changes us. This God is not the end of a chain of speculation, but a person with whom we engage in dialogue.
And what does John say of this Word made flesh? It is full of grace and truth. In other words, Jesus is the embodiment of God’s grace and a visible expression of God’s truth. Here are some examples found in John’s Gospel:
Grace - Woman of Samaria
Peter, after the betrayal
Truth - Not an intellectual idea, but a radical encounter: You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. (8:32)
I am the way, the truth and the life. (14:6)
What is truth? (18:38)
Truth involves commitment - the decision to respond to the revelation of God, as it is known in Jesus. There is a warning in this Gospel - v10 not all will receive this truth - Pilate, the authorities....
In the end, the Word made flesh is a mystery, and for John there was also the mystery of faith that saw the truth of this claim.
John is offering a creative coming together of both Greek and Hebrew terms in the doctrine of the incarnation. (NB this doctrine is about the becoming of flesh - not becoming a man.) John is arguing that God’s eternal Wisdom has taken on physical form and shape in the person of Jesus. God who is embodied in Jesus has made all aspects of being human a gateway to the sacred.
Christmas, the season of the Incarnation, is about our grasping the transcendent mystery of God in the particular life Jesus. It is a discovery of heaven joined to earth, and earth joined to heaven. It takes us beyond our fleshly existence, while not denying it. It profoundly deepens our fleshly reality, while moving us beyond it. In short, the Word–the very essence of God, becomes flesh–the concrete and visible possibility of a new creation.
Writing about this theological theme Evelyn Underhill says: The Incarnation means that the Eternal God enters our common human life with all the energy of His creative love, to transform it, to exhibit to us its richness, its unguessed significance; speaking our language, and showing His secret beauty on our own scale. I really like the phrase, that God wants us to know all of the “unguessed significance” of our lives and of the lives of those we encounter. We are in touch with a holy dimension when we see others and ourselves full of unguessed significance. In short, we can never write ourselves or anyone else off as hopeless.
What this means for us is that no aspect of human life is beyond God’s embrace. We are reminded of this in our Baptismal covenant when we say that we will seek and serve Christ in all persons and that we will respect the dignity of all people.
Today we as a people need to remember that God’s embrace includes all people—this means:
The prisoner and those re-entering society from prison.
The addict and those in recovery.
The homeless for whatever reason.
The mentally ill and those healing from mental illness.
The youth on our streets, gang members, and those who long to belong somewhere.
Those who face a New Year without hope or direction.
The homebound who feel cut off from community.
As well as all of us who feel blessed to be a part of this community where we welcome all to this table.
I have been reading Michelle Obama’s book Becoming. At one point, after describing the struggle of being the wife of a presidential candidate, she determined to focus on making personal connections with people around her and then says, “I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.” This is what it means for the Word to become flesh.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us… May all of us in the coming new year find new ways of discovering God’s fleshly dwelling in ourselves and in all whom we meet so that we too may learn to say, we have seen grace and truth at work. Amen.
Peter +
This is a setting of the "Our Father" by Scott Perkins our former Assistant Director. Thatcher Lyman is heard here as the solo voice. Thatcher is our present Assistant Director. Scott's work may be purchased via this link: http://www.scott-perkins.com/store/th... Audio/Video by Mobile Audio Productions by Michael Sherman “The Christ Church Schola Cantorum… sings beautifully.” Fanfare, Jan/Feb 2010. Founded in 1997 by Stephen Kennedy, the Schola performs the Office of Compline at Christ Church Rochester NY, Sunday evenings, October through April. First-Sunday Candlelight Concerts and Compline was named “The coolest, most unusual music experience in the city…” in Rochester Magazine’s “Our Top Picks of 2014.” This acclaimed ensemble is also an early music laboratory through engagement of historic rehearsal and performance practices. The Schola specializes in Gregorian chant, Renaissance and Baroque choral music, and choral improvisation. It has collaborated with Manfred Cordes and Weser-Renaissance Bremen, Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Players, and organists Edoardo Bellotti, Hans Davidsson, David Higgs, Olivier Latry, William Porter, Joris Verdin, and Harald Vogel. The Schola has been a favorite of festivals and concert series, notably at the annual international Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative. APM's Pipe Dreams, Minnesota Public Radio, and WXXI’s With Heart and Voice regularly broadcast tracks, via NPR, from the Schola's CDs. With organists Edoardo Bellotti and Stephen Kennedy, the Schola and dual organs performed a “guided improvisation” accompaniment to Carl Dryer’s 1928 silent classic La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc for Eastman's 2014 EROI Festival and the University of Rochester's interdisciplinary UCIS Cluster on Music and Film. The Schola’s latest CD is of 19th century French choral music with Belgian keyboardist Joris Verdin on Eastman's vintage Mustel harmonium. The Schola is comprised of Rochester-area musicians, Eastman School of Music faculty and students, and RIT faculty. Participation in the Schola is offered for course credit at the Eastman School of Music.
Notes from Stephen Kennedy
Christ Church Music Program Report for Annual Meeting 2019
Presented to the parish by Lydia Worboys
Christ Church Music Program Report for Annual Meeting 2019
Report by Stephen Kennedy Music Director
Christ Church Rochester
Christ Church’s music program is rich and varied. Our music is for both active and passive participation. It embraces the traditions of our heritage as well as music of our present time. Our liturgical music education programs gives distinction to our parish and fosters mutual enrichment and transformation to the community. This program involves our entire parish and it is well worth celebrating. Whether chanting or singing a hymn, listening to a voluntary, or honing a motet in a rehearsal, we are all participating in something important together as a family. We are grateful for the support of Ruth Ferguson (Rector), The Rev. Peter W. Peters, Deborah Vanderbilt, Norm Geil, and Kyle Liddell (Executive Committee), our Vestry, Pat Knapp (Parish Secretary), and Moses Roland (Sexton). We also want to thank David Higgs and William Porter (Associate organists) for contributing so generously of their time and talent to our community. They also help with mentoring and teaching our parish musicians and VanDelinder Fellows. Additional thanks to Sarah Johnson (Assistant organist and VanDelinder Prize Winner for 2018-19), Luke Brennan, and Henry Webb, for great music making and leadership. Gwyneth Paker (Eastman-Christ Church Choral Scholar), Gabriella Higgins (Choral Scholar), and Thatcher Lyman (Music Scholar and Assistant Director of the Schola Cantorum) also contribute greatly to our parish. We thank Lydia Worboys, John Kirkpatrick, and Peter Schoellkopff (cantors), Christopher Huebner (Schola librarian and coordinator), Carlos Mercado (CC Choir Librarian), as well as our dedicated teem of Compline Ushers who keep the church friendly and safe for the weekly Compline congregation of between 250-375 each Sunday night. Continued thanks and appreciation to the dedicated members of our parish ensembles as listed at the end of this document:
Opportunities for you to participate more in our Music program
1. Become a Compline ushers and Candle-lighters
2. Become a Greeter at Tuesday Pipes. Alan Jones is our regular greeter, and others are welcome 3. Volunteer to help send publicity to media via e-mail
4. Help with Compline set up each Sunday following the 11:00 a.m. Eucharist
5. Help assist us is searching for grants as well as writing them.
6. Donate to Christ Church “Friends of Music” Fund
7. Purchase Christ Church CD recordings as gifts for your friends
9 Goals and objectives:
Attract more people to Christ Church through our music program - Goal on target
Created the 3rd Sunday Lecture Series prior to Compline.
Compline attendance continues to grow each year.
CC ensembles have more members than ever.
Raise the level of musicianship in CC ensembles - Goal on target
• This ongoing goal is being realized in both the Christ Church
Choir as well as the Schola Cantorum.
Raise community awareness of our high quality and diverse music program - Goal on target
Video/audio recordings of the Schola Cantorum in 2017 allowed
us to begin a Youtube presence with thousands of people around
the world viewing these posts.
Music Director sends Email marketing ads to “Friends of Music” donors
4 times a month to advertise Candlelight Concerts & Compline,
As well as the 3rd Sunday Lecture Series.
Music Director creates Facebook postings on the parish page as well as
the Schola Cantorum page each week.
Music Director publicizes weekly Compline, Candlelight Concerts, and the
3rd Sunday Lectures in the D&C and the City Newspaper.
Foster the education and training of musicians in liturgical music skills - Goal on target
• This ongoing goal is being realized through our VanDelinder Fellows Program and our positions of ESM Choral Scholar, Christ Church Choral Scholar, and Music Scholar. Student composers also work with Music Director to hone compositions for CC ensembles for performance in our liturgies. Members in both ensembles are becoming skilled in chanting Lessons, readings and prayers in liturgies.
5. Engage people from the larger community (non-parishioners) to help fund our parish music program - Goal on target
• Non-parish donors from the Rochester Community as well as from around the country help fund our music program “wish list” items such as purchasing two choirs of Renaissance Sackbuts for performing motets in the historic colla parte Tradition. Christ Church Rochester, may be the only ensemble in the world where this practice is fostered weekly.
6. Install professional recording equipment in the church to record CC Choir, and the Schola in CC liturgies, and concerts -Goal attained
• Christ Church worked with ESM to pay for the installment of microphones
In the Sanctuary for recording CC ensembles. These recordings are used
For educational purposes and are posted on Facebook and soon on youtube.
7. Program Fundraising - Goal on target
Our parish operating budget funds only a small fraction of our music
program budget, so we need to fundraise and write grants for program income. Please consider assisting the Music Director in this area.SCHOLA and Organ CD recording sales have raised over $13,000 since 2004.
8. Strengthen existing community collaborations and partnerships in music - Goal on target
• We have been working with the Wardens to create an online calendar so that scheduling conflicts do not occur with partners such as the ESM Organ Department.
ESM advertises Compline in “Eastman Notes” magazine and events calendar.
Community leaders are invited to present 3rd Sunday Lectures.
Tuesday Pipes (collaborative series) brings about 60 people into CC each Tuesday
9. Enriching and transforming community -Goal on target
Music ensembles are a microcosm of the parish. They enrich and transform all who participate in them as well as the congregation that experiences the music that they make. This is especially evident at CC because
of our tradition of mutual reciprocity of music and liturgy.The wider community is especially attracted to Compline which is one of the Highest attended services in Rochester.
Members of the Christ Church Choir
Soprano
Kristy Liddell
Carol Manuel
Gwyneth Paker (ESM Choral Scholar)
Lisa Pigut
Liza Sommers
Hanna Sommers
Mary Anne Wickett
Alto
Shana Clark
Cynthia Qiyue He
Gabriella Higgins (Choral Scholar)
Sarah Johnson (Assistant Organist)
Sonja Shelton
Lydia Worboys (Cantor)
Joan Hunt
Alix Zanibbi
Eleanor Peet
Tenor
Luke Brennan (Fellow)
Thatcher Lyman
Bruce Manuel
Carlos Mercado (Librarian)
Mary Schultz
Bass
Benjamin Doane
Jonathan Falk
John Kirkpatrick (Cantor)
Kyle Liddell
Steven Metcalfe
Henry Webb (Fellow)
Zane Xiao
Yan Yue
Richard Zanibbi
Report by Stephen Kennedy Music Director
Members of the Schola Cantorum
Soprano
Glenna Curren Katie Harmer Aika ito (historic violin)
Käthe Wright Kaufman Sarah McConnell Amanda Mole
Mary Mowers Melissa Palfey Liza Sommers (historic violin)
Amy Steinberg Jared Wallis (cornetto)
Alto/Countertenor
Ben David Aronson (sackbut) Sarah Johnson James Kealey
Professor Honey Meconi Tim Tianyi Ren Lydia Worboys
Tenor
Luke Brennan Benjamin Henderson Isaac hutton
Thatcher Lyman (Assistant director) David Marshall Malcolm Mathews (organist)
Jacob Montgomery Jordan Moore (sackbut) Dale Nickell
Chris Petit Trevor Scott Okawa Tai Chuan Tan
Russell West Alden Wright Stephen Zugelder (Tenor sackbut)
Bass
Mark Ballard Oliver Brett (organ) Dillon Downey(Bass sackbut)
Isaac Drewes Joshua Ehlebracht Jonathan Falk
Noah Fields (historic Viola) John Kirkpatrick Professor Michael E Ruhling
Peter Schoellkopff Henry Webb Haotian Yu
Yan Yue Christopher Huebner (Librarian and coordinator)
Compline team of Ushers & Candlelighters:
Lucy Alanzo Robert Crumrine Kathryn Jospe Pru Kirkpatrick Kristy Liddell
Kyle Liddell Sonja Shelton Hannah Sommers Marti StGeorge
Stephen Kennedy
Music Director
stephenk@rochester.rr.com
Attention: The Annual Meeting
took place directly after the 11:00am Eucharist
You can listen to the recording below. The following parishioners were elected to the positions indicated.
Write here…