Festival of Homiletics: The Lutherans welcome you to MinnesOta...

The Festival of Homiletics is this week, in Minneapolis. Since a) lots of my favorite preachers are on the schedule and b) Minneapolis is a three hour drive from Ames, I signed up back in January. If the rest of the week is anything like the first night, we're all in for a real treat.

What really struck me tonight, however, is how LUTHERAN the thing is thus far. The first 'official' event was a concert by the National Lutheran Choir in the sanctuary of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. The first thing I noticed upon arriving to register was Kristin's former colleague from the church in Alexandria. Then I met three other folks from our former conference. I noted that Mark Hanson, the ELCA Presiding Bishop is one of the worship preachers, as are two of my own homiletics professors, Mary Hinkle Shore and David Lose. Mark Sedio, the Cantor at Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis and quite possibly the best Lutheran organist in the country at present, is playing organ for most of the week. Pretty soon I realized that there were literally hundreds of my Lutheran mates in attendance, which likely would not have been the case had the festival been held in, say, Atlanta, as it will be next summer.

I know, I know - anyone coming to Minneapolis for an event like this had to expect it would have a distinctive Lutheran flair. But I didn't expect it to be so overwhelming, nor did I expect to be so pleased at the thought. It actually feels as though the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is welcoming our Protestant siblings to a conference we're hosting, even though the Festival has always been very ecumenical in nature. Well, anyway, to those of you visiting the land of the frozen chosen, welcome, and we Lutherans do hope you enjoy your stay. :-)

We were in the sanctuary of Central Lutheran Church tonight for the National Lutheran Choir concert, worship and then a lecture. The choir was incredible. Simply incredible. There just aren't words to describe how well they sang together, and how well they responded to the direction of Director David Cherwein - we're talking exquisitely managed tone, tempo and pitch, along with wonderfully artistic interpretations of some neat work. There were many highlights, but my favorite was a musical setting of ee cummings' poem i thank you God for most this amazing day:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

The composer who wrote the piece based upon this poem used tones and chords that just shimmered like the language for which cummings is so well known. I can't remember his name just now, but I'll post more info tomorrow on it.

Anyway, that wasn't the high point of the day for me. Here's a shot of Central Lutheran's sanctuary in 1928:
It hasn't changed much since this photograph was taken. Now, imagine the room filled with thousands of preachers singing "Give To Our God Immortal Praise" Oh. My. Stars. And Garters. That was powerful beyond imagining. I just wanted to soak in the singing. And then the preaching - Anna Florence Carter preached a wonderfully poignant sermon on Mary and Martha and basically illustrated what I saw happening at our Synod Assembly this past weekend (more on that later). And to top it off, Dr. Thomas Long gave an invigorating lecture on the gospel of Mark. The man stands behind his lectern as though he were being held back from attacking his listeners by a harness - and he teaches the same way. It was great.

A thoroughly wonderful evening, and I haven't even mentioned the wonderful afternoon with friends or the great long run I had with another friend this morning. But that'll have to wait - I need to get to bed.