Prelude — Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28 No. 15
Frédéric Chopin (1839) · piano
Chopin’s fifteenth prelude is built around a single repeated note — an A♭ that never stops sounding, beat after beat, surrounded by everything else. A quiet, insistent pulse that will not abandon the music even when the harmony darkens and a fierce storm blows through.
Listen for the note that never leaves. It is the Helper that stays with you all of the time.
Introit — If Ye Love Me
Thomas Tallis (c. 1565) · choir & organ
This is the root of today’s sermon, set to four voices by Tallis almost five centuries ago:
If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may ‘bide with you forever, e’en the spirit of truth.
The Paraclete — Helper, Comforter, Advocate, Spirit of Truth — is on the way.
Hymn of Praise — Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart
Frederick C. Atkinson, tune: MORECAMBE · HPP #228, vv. 1, 4, & 5
Frederick C. Atkinson composed the tune MORECAMBE in 1870, naming it for the coastal bay near Lancaster in England. The melody rises and settles like breath — like a Dove descending in slow circles before it lands.
Tallis named the promise. This hymn asks it to come true.
Anthem — If It Be Your Will
Leonard Cohen (1984) · piano, guitar · Alison Wilder, solo
Cohen called this song more of a prayer than a song. Scholars have heard it as a psalm in the deepest sense — trust spoken from inside trouble, faith offered without the certainty of being heard.
To keep the commandments is not finally a matter of obedience but of orientation.
Interlude for Reflection — Sent Forth by God’s Blessing
organ
A moment to sit with what has been spoken.
Offertory — The Gift of Love (O WALY WALY)
arr. Hal H. Hopson · choir & organ
Hopson set Paul’s hymn to love with a traditional English melody known as O WALY WALY — the same tune we know as The Water Is Wide. As you present your offering, consider that the commandment we are asked to keep is a posture.
The Paraclete is the Spirit of that posture, kept alive in us when we cannot manage it on our own.
Closing Hymn — Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
Isaac Watts (1719), tune: ST. ANNE (William Croft, 1708) · vv. 1, 4, & 6
This hymn became — in England especially — a kind of second national anthem, sung at moments of war, mourning, and remembrance, when no other words quite did the job.
To stay the course is to trust the longer arc. The Helper has been our shelter in every generation, and the verses we sing today take their place in that long unbroken line.
Postlude — Slip Slidin’ Away
Paul Simon (1977) · piano, guitar · Alison Wilder, solo
You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away.
This is a brutally honest song about staying the course, because it admits how often we don’t. And it tells the truth about why we need the promise in the first place.
“I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter…”
The Helper is coming precisely because the road is long, and we slip.