This Sunday’s Gospel story is a favorite of mine, and one that I see very differently as an adult and as a father-figure. The word prodigal means extravagant, reckless or wasteful use of one’s resources. In my youth I always heard of the Prodigal Son Parable and certainly saw my seeking – yeah, wandering – self in the wayward child. Forty years later, the Prodigal Parent Parable exemplifies the reckless, lavish love that a parent or guardian showers on their children. Since reclaiming my faith in my 20s, I started closing letters with “In Christ’s Reckless Love” and sometimes got raised eyebrows. This season of Lent and Passiontide reminds us that loving one another as Christ loved us is lavish, and at times reckless, wasteful and extravagant, and I have found such joy and meaning in that kind of self-sacrificing love!
The Chancel Choir’s anthems are ancient and modern takes on the Prodigal Parable, and both are lavishly beautiful! Our Choral Prelude “Call to Remembrance” was written by the English Renaissance composer Richard Farrant born 500 years ago in 1525. This pleading setting of Psalm 25: 5 & 6 is as powerful as when it was written, with its cascading fugal entrances from sopranos down to the basses as each part sings “Call to Remembrance – Call to….” The crisp initial consonants reiterate the urgency with which the Psalmist and Farrant prayed this text: “Call to remembrance, O Lord, thy tender mercy and thy loving kindness which hath been ever of old. “
In the center section of four intense measures, Farrant uses longer notes that grow in intensity as we implore the Holy One to forget the transgressions of our youth: “O remember not the sins and offences of my youth…”
Then Farrant repeats the last phrase twice, in a way that feels urgent to me – in much the same way that we repeat ourselves more loudly when we want to be sure someone heard us and is really listening to us! “…but according to thy mercy think thou on me, O Lord, for thy goodness.”
I hope you are moved by this brief choral gem as so many have been for centuries. The themes of forgiveness and youthful transgressions make it a must-sing for this 4th Sunday of Lent.
Our Anthem is a lush choral setting of a hymn we sang mere weeks ago “Mothering God, You Gave Me Birth”, with a familiar tune and a 1991 text by Jean Janzen. This recording is conducted by Tom Trenney who is a modern giant in Church Music and Theology. Trenney’s sensitivity to the text is exquisite, culminating in the third verse where he lovingly lingers on “nurturing one” and “hold me close” with achingly close harmony on the word “close”. Then in faith we root and grow, and Trenney expands/enlarges his chords before drawing them back to a breathtaking unison as he closes with: “until I flow’r, until I know”, then reprises the opening piano part to close this meditative on our Creator’s self-sacrificing, squanderous love for each of us.
As we sing on Sunday, I invite you to follow along with the text found at #2050 in The Faith We Sing hymnal.
