<html><body>Here's the first part of the draft for Sunday.<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size: 15px;"><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY a</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">ISAIAH 58:1-12 5<sup>th</sup> FEBRUARY, 2017</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">1 CORINTHIANS 2:1-16 PSALM 112</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">MATTHEW 5:13-20</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> What do you and I expect from a sermon? What do you and I <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">WANT</span></b> from a sermon?</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> A couple of less flamboyant headlines caught my eye this past week. One was about a recording of a couple of pieces of classical music written relatively recently. <span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37);">Alfred Schnittke</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37);"> was a Soviet and German </span><a target="_blank" title="Composer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composer"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">composer</span></a> who died in 1998. <sup>1 </sup>He wrote a wide range of music, from formal symphonies and concerti to party pieces and scores for twenty films. Although his later style was described as somewhat bleak, it seems to be quite approachable and intelligible to non-musically trained people. “<span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37);">He once wrote, ‘The goal of my life is to unify serious music and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so.’” That latter comment, I think, shows how his sense of humour played out in the most unexpected places. Which brings me to the magazine reference I saw. It was about a recording of his Concerto Grosso No. Five for Violin, an Invisible Piano and Orchestra. Yes, you heard that correctly – he wrote a part for an invisible piano! <sup>2</sup></span></span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> The point Schnittke was trying to make was that the piano part was absolutely necessary to the meaning and the significance of the whole work, but he wanted the pianist to be working behind the scenes, out of the public eye.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Sometimes those on a concert stage can be quite distracting. Those who sit or stand there have a specific purpose. They play their instruments at the designated time, then they sort of withdraw from people’s attention. They don’t leave the stage. They remain there, ready for the next passage, the next moment when they have a contribution to make. But they don’t jump up and down, they don’t wave their hands or do anything to take attention away from where it’s supposed to be focussed.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> So Schnittke wanted to be sure that neither the pianist nor the way that that person actually played the piano and produced the required sounds would come between the audience and the music. Hence an invisible piano – off-stage, ready, prepared, but purely at the service of the music without any distractions. It’s interesting that Isaiah should choose to call people into the role of trumpet players, rather than pianists. Trumpets aren’t the shyest of instruments and yet I can think of several works in which the player is instructed to be off-stage – sometimes at a great distance from everyone else. Nonetheless, no matter how distant, the trumpeter and the player need to be effective. They need to be heard, no matter how faintly or softly, because, without them, the composition simply wouldn’t be complete.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Now where have we heard something like that? Well, the first words Deacon Peggy read from the Gospel. “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?” And Jesus went on to talk about the use of having a lamp, and some means to ensure that it would light, if it were not going to be placed prominently in such a place where the light would do some good.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> There’s a contrast between salt and a lamp, obviously. Lamps have to be near the action and prominent. Salt is to <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">IN</span></b> the action, though seldom identifiable as a separate ingredient. If neither are there, however, they might as well not exist.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">THAT’S</span></b> Jesus’ point. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you are. It doesn’t matter where you are – well, maybe not that last one, completely, at any rate. There’s so much that isn’t important, but each ingredient in the great dance of life has a role to play. Without one of us, things simply will not and cannot be the same. Whether you and I are crawling on the floor, looking for some hint about how to walk; or whether you and I are looking to do what it takes to have money coming in; or whether you and I are working with a community of some sort; <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">OR</span></b> whether you and I are dependent on others doing many things for us; it doesn’t matter who we are, we have a role to play in creation. That’s why God has issued us the invitation – at birth – at baptism – from the altar – in so many different places and times.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Jesus and the early church writers can be pretty severe at times, and this is one of them. “unless your righteousness exceeds (those in authority) you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> That’s incredibly fierce! That ought to make some blood run cold.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> But what is righteousness? It’s “justice, uprightness, … conformity to the requirements of the divine or moral law.” <sup>3</sup> Righteousness, said Jesus, is nothing new. It’s what everyone with half an ear has been hearing about since the first prophets spoke out on God’s behalf. It could have been discussed under any number of leaders, the leaders themselves weren’t important. Administrations come and go. Righteousness is what is sure, what should be certain, what, according to all that is Holy, <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">MUST</span></b> remain as the standard against which everything is measured. And not righteousness based on human standards. They change as often as the wind blows in different directions. We – you and I – are called, as Suzanne Guthrie puts it, are “to see the whole (all of society, all of our communities, all of our being – we are to see the whole) in its layers and depth and meaning and context; to love the spirit of the law over and beyond the letter of the law.” <sup>4</sup></span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> And, just the invisible pianist whom Schnittke expects to be there and to play according to the script offered, so we are called to love righteousness till we feel we’re on the point of bursting; to love righteousness whether anyone sees us or not. All that’s required is to ensure that God’s composition is revealed to the world, that, however faintly, the word of the Gospel is to be heard in such a way that no one will be able to say, “God is no longer here. God no longer cares. God no longer matters.” God’s composition, and our role in presenting it, must continually sound out.</span></p><p style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p></div></div></body></html>