Mark P. Bangert: Professor of Worship and Church Music

His full title is John H. Tietjen Professor of Pastoral Ministry: Worship and Church Music, and every word of that title is brimming with significance. I first met Mark Bangert fifty-four years ago and for the last forty years we have been faculty colleagues. In that time I have only begun to take the measure of the man. Time fails us to tell of all of his skills and identities: pastor, lover of the church’s common worship, skilled oboist, conductor of multiple choirs, including for the last fourteen years an annual Bach for the Sem concert in Chicago, specialist in the “Occasional Services,” explorer of ethnic music, and friend. I invited people to write for this Festschrift on the occasion of his retirement because they shared one or more of his passions, and because they have been colleagues and mentors on the way. These essays are preceded by a moving and lyrical tribute to Mark by Dean Kathleen D. Billman.

Robert Bergt gives his kudos to Mark Bangert by writing about Buxtehude’s oratorio “The Limbs of our Sacred Suffering Jesus.” It can rightly be called the first evangelical, that is, Lutheran oratorio. The seven cantatas that comprise the oratorio are meditations upon passages from the Holy Scriptures that reveal the depth of Buxartehude’s biblical knowledge. In addition to the biblical passages, the oratorio includes a medieval Latin poem, “Hail! Savior of the World!” composed in the thirteenth century by Arnulf von Löwen. This poem inspired Paul Gerhardt to write “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.” This essay provides a fresh translation of the libretto by the author and a commentary on its musical and theological highlights. Buxtehude was a principal mentor of Johann Sebastian Bach, just as Robert Bergt functioned in this role for Mark Bangert.

James L. Brauer outlines a theology of praise that draws on Melanchthon’s reference to “the sacrifice of praise” in the Apology (Article XXIV). Both testaments reveal a pattern of praise that that lifts up the words and deeds of God in thankfulness and song. Thankful praise is focused on the Lord’s doings, not on anything the worshipper may offer. A sacrifice of thanksgiving does not merit forgiveness, but is rendered by those who have already been reconciled. Examples of thankful praise are found in a hymn referred to in the Book of Concord (All Mankind Fell in Adam’s Fall; Lutheran Worship 363), hymns by Paul Gerhardt (Awake, my heart with Gladness, LBW 129; Evening and Morning, LBW 465), a post-communion prayer from Luther (LBW 74), and the text of a Bach cantata (The Heavens Declare the Glory of God). The liturgical song This is the Feast centers its praise on the Lamb of God whose blood sets us free. A sacrifice of thanksgiving draws creature praise, obedient praise, and fervent praise into thankful praise.

Lorraine Brugh draws on a Bangert theme when she writes of the intersection of music and theology, the intersection of clergy and musician, and the intersection of parish and seminary. Following Luther, Bangert insists that all music has within it the potential to glorify God. Musical imagination present in all peoples needs to be cared for as if one were caring for a good gift of creation, meant by the Creator for the welfare of people. Music’s ability to change its message from one context to the next further evidences the Other behind its creation. A trinitarian view locates the second person of the Godhead as the focus in the weekly assembly. Through the preaching of the Gospel the Holy Spirit leads us into the holy community, placing us in the church’s lap, where the Spirit preaches to us and brings us to Christ. The trinitarian journey is a journey of music and Spirit, gift and Creator, centered in Jesus Christ, whose presence is actualized through word and song.

Robert Buckley Farlee discusses the variety of songs in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the new hymnal in the ELCA. Most of these hymns fall into three types: metrical hymns from the 16th to the 20th century, global song, and contemporary song. The latter type is frequently criticized for its individualistic tone and for its insufficient differentiation from the “ordinary” song of the culture. The Lutheran World Federation’s Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture insists that Christian worship relates dynamically to culture in at least four ways. It is transcultural, contextual, counter-cultural, and cross-cultural. The impulse to raise our voices in song of praise to God or in moments of lament is virtually transcultural. The contextual factor goes back to Luther’s championing of congregational, vernacular hymnody. The Nairobi Statement reminds us that Christians are called to oppose those elements of culture that contradict the gospel. The songs from the past in ELW are largely free from the imperialistic attitudes that characterize some hymns written in the 19th or 20th centuries. Perhaps too much “king” language has been preserved, but there are more alternative images in ELW than in its predecessors. We are nudged toward being cross-cultural when we expose ourselves to songs of foreign cultures or also from domestic cultures not our own.

Gordon W. Lathrop suggests that culturally disciplined visual art can be clear of voice, communal, multi-layered, and theologically significant. As a case in point he discusses the 15th century icon of the holy Trinity by the Russian Andrei Roublev. This icon depicts the visit of the angels to Abraham and Sarah, whose loving gracious yielding to each other presents the flowing life of the triune God. The Eucharistic cup on the table in the icon holds out the promise of life, embraced by the flowing reality of God. We can understand the Eucharist better by paying attention to of the stories about meals in the Gospels and in the early church. Luther taught that one could not eat and drink of this amazing sacrament of love without being brought to fight, work, pray, and have heartfelt sympathy for all the wretched ones. On the Roublev icon the central figure, Jesus, raises his hand in blessing, but the figure on the right, the Spirit, also enables this meal. The figure on the left, the Father of the Son and the source of the Spirit, who utters the word we hear in church, is also the one who spoke the word by which the world was created. The Trinity is God as God is encountered in Jesus Christ and in his meal with the church. As the figures in Roublev’s image lean toward each other, so the table forms us to turn toward our neighbor.

Elaine J. Ramshaw offers very helpful guidelines for the use of congregational singing at funerals, including identifying dozens of possibilities from Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Music connects with our emotions, expresses and evokes them, and makes them humanly livable. Singing is usually the assembly’s most active involvement in the service and bonds the community together. Of course, there are cultural realities that militate against singing, and these are complicated by small crowd at some funerals. But the article offers a number of suggestions on how to overcome these obstacles. The remainder of the article offers suggestions for hymns at funerals directed to the four parts of this sentence: (1) This particular person (2) has died and (3) we grieve, (4) hoping in the promises of God. Many in America seek to avoid the reality of death, and hymns that speak directly of death can bring the fact of death home. Appropriate funeral music prays not to remove the process of grieving but to bless it. Hymns of hope may comfort us with the assurance that God is always with us or express confidence in and gratitude for God’s presence throughout our lives.

Frank C. Senn reports that Bach’s profound spiritual conviction is the soul of his sacred works; he was the perfect synthesis of music and theology. Bach’s Mass in B Minor was first performed in its entirety more than a century after Bach died. This article investigates the structure of this mass and notes that several movements were anthologized from earlier compositions. The most dramatic moment in the whole Mass is the contrast between “he was crucified” and “he was raised” in the Credo. Bach did not skim over the confession of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church,” but set it to a dance-like pastorale which suggests the shepherding nature of the church. The final chorus, “Give to us peace,” hints that in the eve of his own life Bach had achieved an almost mystical depth of inner peace. Bach used the catholic form of the mass, but simultaneously infused this catholic form with the evangelical rediscovery of the gospel. Against the rationalism of the emerging Enlightenment, Bach praised not some non-descript divine being or the great architect of the universe, but God the Father, Son, and Spirit. In this mass Bach created the ultimate expression of his faith.

You can’t retire from a vocation, of course, and Mark will continue to lead us in worship and music. And even these words in Currents are not the last word about Mark. Future issues of currents will contain essays by Kurt Hendel, Ralph W. Klein, and Craig Satterlee, written to honor our jubilarian, but which the covers of this issue could not contain. In these ever-changing times, Mark Bangert has provided both the cantus firmus and the grace notes to the church’s song and meal—and still provides them.

Ralph W. Klein
Editor

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