Reflections on Missa Gaia: First Church in Mission
In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
Isaiah 30: 15
Introduction
In three weeks - Sunday, November 22, 2015 @ 3 pm -
we will present the Berkshire premiere of Paul Winter's "Missa Gaia/Earth
Mass in Honor of Mother Nature" at First Church of Christ on Park Square. This contemporary
composition was commissioned in 1981 by the Dean of the Cathedral of St. John
the Divine in New York City, The Reverend James Parks Morton, after the Paul
Winter Consort had become artists-in-residence. The goal was to create a 20th
century setting for the Mass that honored the “whole Earth as a sacred place.”
(Paul Winter, Missa Gaia liner notes)
The
title, Missa Gaia, fuses Latin (Missa
– Mass) with Greek (Gaia – Mother Earth) to evoke a holistic song of the
spirit. Incorporating ancient liturgical texts with the melodies and dynamic
rhythms of Africa, Brazil and American gospel music, Missa Gaia also treats the
songs of the tundra wolf and humpback whale as equal in beauty and integrity to
traditional sacred choral song. It is an authentic environmental liturgy that
bends genres with creativity and compassion.
The opening of the Missa unites a prayer attributed to St. Francis –
“Brother Sun, Sister Moon” – with a text from the Hebrew Bible’s book of Job as
well as Plainsong from the 13th century. The “Kyrie” – one of the
oldest Greek prayers in Christianity meaning, “Lord, have mercy” – uses the
natural chant of an Alaskan Tundra wolf to form the foundation of a choral cry
for forgiveness. The “Beatitudes” infuses the Sermon on the Mount with
syncopation and improvisation. The Latin “Sanctus and Benedictus” – the
Eucharistic songs of thanksgiving and gratitude – take their cue from the music
of the humpback whale; while the “Agnus Dei” – Lamb of God – evokes the prayers
of nature alongside our own ancient liturgical prayers. The composition
concludes with “The Blue Green Hills of Earth” – a vision of Mother Earth as
seen from a space craft – and “Let Us Depart in Peace” – a reprise of the
opening call to praise as our invitation to go forward and treat all of
creation with sacred reverence. It is simultaneously a work of art, a call to
action and an act of prayer.
The Missa Gaia is an original, compelling, challenging and unique
musical offering that includes soloists and choir, jazz instrumentalists as
well as organ, piano and percussion. Our Berkshire premier will also include
dancers, guest performers as well as a reception following the
performance. We are hosting the Missa in
support of BEAT (Berkshire Environmental Action Team) and will take a free will
offering to strengthen their work in our community.
Reflections
In addition to the sheer beauty of this composition, however, there are
other reasons why we are putting in the time, resources and talent to present
Missa Gaia.
·
First, we believe in the work of BEAT. Eight years ago, our faith
community made a decision to focus our often diverse interests into four broad
areas: eco-justice, peace-making, food security and local justice
organizing work. This shift allowed us to invest time and resources, talent and
treasure, into partnerships with local mission activists already doing good
work in our community rather than trying to re-invent the wheel.
Cooperation and servanthood is always at the heart of the
Cross where our horizontal human connections embrace our vertical
yearnings for the holy so that "heaven and earth embrace, compassion and
justice kiss." (Psalm 85)
Over time a deeper truth was revealed beyond our initial inspiration for
greater efficiency: we began to see the eternal pattern of Christ made flesh
among us through working in solidarity with our mission partners. Wendell Berry
put it like this, "I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John
that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by
love that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is
redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love,
incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward
wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement [at-one-ment] with
God." There is a love deeper than our imagination at work in the world
that binds us together in unity. It includes not only human beings, but
animals, the elements and the entire cosmos. Fr. Richard Rohr recently observed
that since the beginning of time, God has been calling us to live as one:
The Greek word used
for Word in John's prologue is Logos. Philosophy has often defined Logos as
the rational principle that governs and develops the universe. Christian
theology would say it is the Divine reason, logic, or plan that was revealed
in the life course of Jesus. The early sermons in Acts tried to
"demonstrate that Jesus was the [Eternal] Christ" (2:36, 9:22)
and therefore the deepest pattern for everything that preceded and followed
him… I like to use the
word blueprint to make the point here. Every time you read "the
Word" in John's prologue, just substitute the word "blueprint,"
and it all makes much more sense to the contemporary mind… Christ is the
Archetype and we are the Type… As the Book of Revelation puts it, the
Christ is "the Alpha and the Omega" of all history and of all
creation (1:8, 21:6,22:13). With this perspective, Christianity need not
compete with other religions; rather, authentic Christians can see and respect
the Christ Mystery wherever and however it is trying to reveal itself – which
is all the time and everywhere, and not just in my group. This is far beyond
tribal religion; in fact, it makes all tribalism impossible.
In collaboration, we have
come to celebrate that we are in this world together. The greater our alliances with those
beyond the ghetto that has become the
Church, the
stronger our social order becomes and the common good is fortified.
·
Second, we made a commitment to the wider community to share the work of
our common sabbatical - the congregation's and the minister’s - during this
first year A.S. (after sabbatical.) In our grant
application, we were clear that not only did we want a season of sabbatical rest
for ourselves - clergy and congregation - but we wanted to share the wealth of
God's blessings with our wider community, too. Consequently, we built into our
funding request resources for some benefit concerts that would integrate jazz
and reunite the arts with social transformation and prayer.
In a deep way we have come
to realize that it would be antithetical to the heart of Christ to want to keep
everything to ourselves. As we sometimes
proclaim in our opening Eucharistic Prayer: "We bless you, O God,
for the beauty and bounty of the earth and for the vision of the day when sharing by all will mean
scarcity for none." Indeed, we have a long history of using our gifts to
enrich the well-being of our wider community. During our 250th anniversary, it
was pointed out that in addition to our first pastor's involvement in the
Revolutionary War (at the battle of Bennington), our congregation also
advocated and helped create the region's first hospital - and hospice – as well
as our region’s first counseling center, too. We were founding members of
Habitat for Humanity and on the ground floor of organizing both the CROP Walk
to Fight Hunger as well as BIO (Berkshire Interfaith Organizing.)
This concert (and others
to follow) is part of our sabbatical commitment. It gives shape and form to the
counter-cultural notion that "beauty can save the world" as we use
our unique gifts and talents to care for one another. And it utilizes the
experiences and insights discerned over the summer by both clergy and congregation.
Specifically, the Missa Gaia concert integrates our Sunday morning choir with a
variety of musicians from the wider region under the leadership of Carlton
Maaia II. Carlton played a pivotal role
in shepherding the congregational events during the sabbatical. The Missa
honors and celebrates his skill, spiritual wisdom and commitment to the nurture
of both First Church and wider Pittsfield.
Like the music of Paul Winter’s composition, this event blends some of
the old with some of the new to create something unique in support of our
ministries.
·
Third, this is a kairos moment when more and more of the
Western world is realizing a powerful shift in both our understanding and locus
of the Sacred. In Christian
theology there are at least two notions of time - chronos and kairos - and both have their place. Chronos time is, as you might guess,
chronological time. It is linear, rational, sequential and the way most of us
think about time most of the time. Kairos time, however, is sacred time - time
that awakens us to our deepest loving potential - where the very purpose of
creation is revealed and realized – it is an opportune time for tenderness,
compassion and justice to become flesh.
Pope Francis spoke of this moment in Laudato
Si – the Papal encyclical on environmental justice that means “Praise be to
you, O Lord” – which calls for a new way of living based on new truths. Church historian Diana Butler Bass addresses
this shift in her best-selling book, Grounded:
Finding God in the World. “People still believe,” she observes, “but they
believe differently than they once did. The theological ground is moving: a
spiritual revolution is afoot. And there is a gap between that revolution and
the institutions of religious faith.” (Bass,
Grounded) Richard Rohr explained this gap with penetrating clarity:
We're living in a truly amazing time. The ever broader shape of the cosmos
is becoming an ever broader shape for theology itself. Our sun is nothing more
than a minor star in one small part of a single galaxy. We used to believe our
universe was static, but it is still expanding outward. When I was growing up,
the common perception was that science and religion were definitely at odds.
Now that we are coming to understand the magnificent nature of the cosmos,
we're finding that many of the intuitions of the mystics of all religions are
being paralleled by scientific theories and explanations. If truth is one
(which it has to somehow be, if it is truth), then all disciplines are just
approaching that truth from different angles and levels and questions...
In fact, our whole plan of salvation was largely about getting away from
this earth! Today, we know that the universe is old, large, dynamic, and
interconnected. It is about 13.8 billion years old, and some scientists think
it could still exist for 100 trillion years. The universe has been expanding
since its birth. Our home planet, Earth, far from being the center of the
universe, revolves around the Sun, a medium sized star in a medium sized
galaxy, the Milky Way, which contains about 200 billion stars. The Milky Way is
about 100,000 light years in diameter. Furthermore, it is one of 100 billion
galaxies in the universe. We do not appear to be the center of anything. And
yet our faith tells us that we still
are. This cosmic shock is still trying to sink into our psyches.
In
2015 more and more of us know that we are one people - one earth - one love.
Our hearts have become more inclusive. And
the more we fortify these compassion connections, the more faithfully we live
into this unique and sacred moment in history.
Conclusion
We are
offering Missa Gaia, therefore, as an act of praise, as partial payment in
beauty to our community for our shared sabbatical blessings, as an act of
solidarity with our friends and allies in the eco-justice movement and as a
time for collective rest and renewal. If we learned nothing else during our
sabbatical it was this: nothing of value
can be accomplished if we are exhausted.
Composer
and artist Paul Winter offers a closing insight that rings true among us, too:
There is a Gaia
hypothesis articulated by scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis who
propose that the entire range of living matter on Earth, from a whales to
viruses, from oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living
entity, capable of manipulating the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall
needs and endowed with faculties and power far beyond its constituent parts. If
this hypothesis is about synergy, then the creation of Missa Gaia – and its
performance – is truly a manifestation of Gaia. For what developed is an
interweaving of creative ideas… where no one of us knew all the threads which
we would weave into the Earth Mass, but together we found that we did know.
The
ancient wisdom of the prophet Isaiah spoke poetically to our current condition 500
years before Christ was born: In
returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. This is why we gratefully offer the Missa
Gaia/Earth Mass.
James Lumsden
All Souls Day 2015
