The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
Presider
Ellie Nickeson and Susy Warren
Members of The Chautauqua Bird, Tree, and Garden Club as Readers
The Chautauqua Choir
Sonya Subbayya Sutton
Interim Director & Organist
Owen Reyda
Organist
We invite you to quietly prepare your hearts for worship during the Prelude.
* Denotes that the congregation is invited to rise in body or spirit.It is our custom to sing the first and last verses of hymns in unison, the interior verses may be sung in parts.
Prelude
Chautauqua Soliloquy
Dan Locklair, 2005
Reva Youngstein, Flutist
Commissioned by David Levy for his wife, Kathy, and incorporating the hymn tune “Chautauqua”
Hymn
“Day is dying in the west”
Chautauqua, William Fisk Sherwin, 1877
Mary Lathbury, 1877
Day is dying in the west;
Heav’n is touching earth with rest;
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
through all the sky.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Heav’n and earth are full of Thee;
Heav’en and earth are praising Thee,
O Lord most high!
Welcome
Opening Prayers
Creator God, you planted in Eden a Garden and placed us within the garden to serve and preserve it. Forgive us where we have turned the beautiful variety of creation into infertile deserts. Sow within us once again the seeds of our calling to be good stewards of this created world. May we know our dependence upon you and upon your creation, and through our work and worship may all the trees of field and forest be set free to sing your praise once more. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever.
Amen.
Canticle
A Song of Creation
Benedicite, omnia opera Domini
Let the earth glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O mountains and hills,
and all that grows upon the earth, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O springs of water, seas, and streams, *
O whales and all that move in the waters.
All birds of the air, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O beasts of the wild, *
and all you flocks and herds.
O men and women everywhere, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Birds
Anthem
Rise, my love, my fair one
Music: Healey Willan, 1929
Text: Song of Songs 2:10-12
Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear upon the earth.
The time of the singing of birds is come.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Reading
Matthew 6:25-29
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
Anthem
The Blue Bird
Music: Charles Villiers Stanford, 1910
Text: Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, 1897
The Rev. Rachel Erin Stuart, Soloist
The lake lay blue below the hill.
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.
The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue.
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image, as he flew.
Reading
The Little Flowers of St. Francis
A Legend: St. Francis Preaches to the Birds
As Francis and some companions were traveling through the Spoleto Valley in Italy, Francis noticed that a huge flock of birds had gathered in some trees beside a field. Francis walked over to a spot beside the trees and began an impromptu sermon, reported the monks who were traveling with Francis and wrote down what he said:
My sweet little sisters, birds of the sky, you are bound to heaven, to God, your Creator. In every beat of your wings and every note of your songs, praise him. He has given you the greatest of gifts, the freedom of the air. You neither sow, nor reap, yet God provides for you the most delicious food, rivers, and lakes to quench your thirst, mountains, and valleys for your home, tall trees to build your nests, and the most beautiful clothing: a change of feathers with every season. You and your kind were preserved in Noah's Ark. Clearly, our Creator loves you dearly, since he gives you gifts so abundantly. So please beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude, and always sing praise to God.
The birds remained attentively gathered around Francis, the story goes, until he blessed them and they flew away—some heading north, some south, some east, and some west—going out in all directions as if on their way to pass along the good news of God's love that they had just heard to other creatures.
Hymn
“On Eagle's Wings"
Michael Joncas, 1976
CHOIR:
You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord
Who abide in His shadow for life
Say to the Lord, "My refuge, my rock in whom I trust!"
REFRAIN
ALL: And He will raise you up on eagles' wings
Bear you on the breath of dawn
Make you to shine like the sun
And hold you in the palm of His hand
CHOIR:
The snare of the fowler will never capture you
And famine will bring you no fear
Under His wings your refuge, His faithfulness your shield
ALL: REFRAIN
Trees
Reading
"The Sound of Trees"
Robert Frost, 1912
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
Reading
"From Generation to Generation"
Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 23a
This is a story traditionally told on Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year of Trees.
Honi the Wise One was also known as Honi the Circle Maker. By drawing a circle and stepping inside of it, he would recite special prayers for rain, sometimes even argue with God during a drought, and the rains would come. He was, indeed, a miracle maker. As wise as he was, Honi sometimes saw something that puzzled him. Then he would ask questions so he could unravel the mystery.
One day, Honi the Circle Maker was walking on the road and saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked the man, “How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?”
The man replied, “Seventy years.”
Honi then asked the man, “And do you think you will live another seventy years and eat the fruit of this tree?”
The man answered, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to eat the fruit of these trees.”
Hymn
“The Tree of Life"
Music: K. Lee Scott, 1987
Text: Pécselyi Király Imre, ca. 1590-1641
Paraphrased by Erik Routley, 1976
Gardens
Reading
The Gardener, 85
Rabindranath Tagore, 1900
Translated from the original Bengali by the author
Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.
Anthem
Christ Hath a Garden
Music: Gerald Near, 1973
Text: Robert Bridges, 1929
Christ hath a garden walled around,
A Paradise of fruitful ground,
Chosen by love and fenced by grace
From out the world's wide wilderness.
Like trees of spice his servants stand,
There planted by his mighty hand;
By Eden's gracious streams, that flow
To feed their beauty where they grow.
Awake, O wind of heav'n, and bear
Their sweetest perfume through the air:
Stir up, O south, the boughs that bloom,
Till the beloved Master come:
That he may come, and linger yet
Among the trees that he hath set;
That he may evermore be seen
To walk amid the springing green.
Reading
Watered by Baptism
Susan Palo Cherwien, 2003
We planted moonflowers in the garden this spring.
The seeds are like hard little rocks
Reading
Watered by Baptism
Susan Palo Cherwien, 2003
We planted moonflowers in the garden this spring.
The seeds are like hard little rocks
inside and outside
nothing like a moonflower at all.
But there is life in that seed
there is potential
there is a moonflower in that seed
that we cannot yet see -
until water finds the seed
When water finds the seed
something changes
something we could not see begins to grow,
when water finds the seed
what seemed dead comes alive
what seemed dry, sprouts green -
life appears,
a life we had not seen
A moonflower begins to grow
a moonflower that had been in the seed all along -
when water finds the seed.
Closing Prayers
Prayers for the Domestic Church, Ed Hays
"Blessing Prayer for a Garden"
Lord of Creation,
who planted Your own garden called Eden,
come and bless this soil
which is to be our garden.
All that dies becomes earth,
and so it lives again.
May the garden soil
be both womb and tomb,
a home for death and life,
so that seeds of living things—
of plants, of food and flowers—
may die and resurrect
in our gardens.
Ancient earth,
our mystical mother,
teach us, your children,
that all things die
to nourish life.
Gentle earth,
be blessed with our love
as we work in you.
Amen.
May the word of God take root in your heart, grow strongly in your life, and bear much fruit for God’s Kingdom; And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Be with you and with all God’s creation, Now and evermore. Amen.
Hymn
"Now the day is over"
Merrial, Joseph Barnaby, 1868
Sabine Barind-Gould, 1865
Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh,shadows of the evening steal across the sky.
Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet reposewith thy tend’rest blessing may our eyelids close.
When the morning wakens, then may I arisepure, and fresh, and sinless in thy holy eyes. Amen.
Postlude
Largo
George Frederick Handel, 1738
from the opera Xerxes
This music has closed the Sunday evening service since the dedication of the Massey Memorial Organ on August 6, 1907. It is a Chautauqua tradition to remain seated until the music is finished and to then leave the Amphitheater silently, without applause.
Chautauqua Institution
Department of Religion
Robert Wilson-Black
Director of Religion
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
Senior Pastor
Sonya Subbayya Sutton
Interim Director of Sacred Music
Carolyn Snider
Administrative Assistant
Alicen Roberts
Religion Graduate Fellow
Owen Reyda
Organ Scholar