Sadao Watanabe – Art & Theology

Playlist: The Lord Is My Shepherd (Psalm 23, etc.)

April 20, 2024April 30, 2024 Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

Tomorrow’s readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, for the fourth Sunday of Easter, include what’s probably the most famous passage in the Bible, Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

In characterizing God as a shepherd, the psalmist expresses how God leads, protects, rescues, feeds, and cares for his own. The author of Psalm 95 uses the same metaphor when he writes, “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand” (v. 7)—as do Isaiah and Ezekiel. During his teaching ministry, Jesus described himself as “the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep,” and whose flock knows his voice and follows him (John 10:1–18).

There are hundreds of metrical paraphrases and musical settings of Psalm 23. I’ve compiled some three dozen of the best into a Spotify playlist, along with a handful of other songs that reference or adapt other biblical passages that speak of God as a shepherd. There are settings by Philippe Rogier, Franz Schubert, Antonin Dvořak, Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul and Mary), John Michael Talbot, Val Parker, David Gungor, Luke Morton, and others. Besides English, languages include Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, French, German, Czech, Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, Swahili, and Sotho.

Rae, Ronald_Shepherd — Ronald Rae (Scottish, 1946–), *Shepherd*, 1988. Granite, 4 × 5 × 4 ft. Private collection, Peak District, Scotland.

The Psalm 23 settings that are most widely reproduced in modern English-language hymnals are:

“The Lord’s My Shepherd,” written by Francis Rous but extensively revised by committee and published by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the Scottish Psalter (1650). This text is most commonly matched with the 1872 tune CRIMOND by Ms. Jessie Seymour Irvine of Scotland, but I really like it with the early American folk tune PISGAH, as recorded, for example, by the William Appling Singers. However, both melodies, I feel, are difficult to sing congregationally.
“My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” by Isaac Watts, from The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). This text is traditionally paired with the tune RESIGNATION, first published in the fifth edition of the shape-note hymnal The Beauties of Harmony (Pittsburgh, 1828), compiled by Freeman Lewis, but first appearing with the Watts text in The Valley Harmonist in 1836. My playlist features a performance by the female a cappella quartet Anonymous 4 (the music arranged by Johanna Maria Rose; see video embed below), as well as by folk singer Claire Holley, who recorded the hymn at the request of a friend who told her it was the song that helped her get sober for good. I also like the minor-key setting by Stephen Gordon.

“The Lord Is My Shepherd (No Want Shall I Know)” by James Montgomery (1822), with music by Thomas Koschat (1862). Here’s the Lower Lights:

“The King of Love My Shepherd Is” [previously] by Henry Williams Baker (1868). This hymn is most often sung to a traditional Irish tune known as ST. COLUMBA (my playlist features both a choral performance by the Choir of Kings School, Canterbury, and a folksy solo by Luke Spehar) and occasionally to MCKEE, also from Ireland, as recorded by Redeemer Knoxville.

At my church we use Wendell Kimbrough’s musical adaptation of the psalm, “His Love Is My Resting Place.” Do you sing Psalm 23 at your church, and if so, what version?

Probably my favorite choral setting is by Bobby McFerrin, “The 23rd Psalm,” performed below by his VOCAbuLarieS, featuring SLIXS & Friends, live in Gdansk, Poland, at the Solidarity of Arts Festival on August 17, 2013:

Some people are thrown off by McFerrin’s use of feminine pronouns for the Divine in this song. God has no literal sex because God does not possess a body, so our gendered binaries are inadequate—but scripture and church tradition refer to God using masculine pronouns. I’m not bothered by the “She” throughout, or even “Mother,” but the substitution of “Daughter” for “Son” in the Trinitarian doxology at the end is theologically confusing, since Jesus was a man. But I get what McFerrin is doing.

How does the change in gender impact your reception of the psalm text? We’re used to seeing religious imagery of a man with a sheep slung over his shoulders to embody the metaphor of God as shepherd—but what happens when you picture a shepherdess in the role? Note that it was not unusual in the ancient Near East for girls and women to tend their family herds (think of Rachel and Zipporah in the Old Testament, for example), and still today across the globe there are many female shepherds.

McFerrin dedicated his “23rd Psalm” to his mother.

(The above artworks, sourced from Instagram, are from the 2019 series The Shepherd by Laura Makabresku, a fine-art photographer from Poland whose work is influenced by her Catholic faith and by fairy tales.)

Here is a selection of other songs from the playlist:

>> “Adonai Ro’i” is a setting of the original Hebrew of Psalm 23 by Jamie Hilsden of Misqedem, a band from Tel Aviv, Israel, that is heavily influenced by Middle Eastern and North African music styles, often utilizing microtonal scales, irregular time signatures, and regional instruments. The song is sung by Shai Sol. (Available on Bandcamp.)

>> “The Lord Is My Shepherd” by Paul Zach of the United States:

>> “El Señor es mi Pastor” by Omar Salas of the Dominican Republic, a salsa song:

>> “Ke Na Le Modisa” by the Soweto Gospel Choir, sung live at the Nelson Mandela Theatre in Johannesburg in 2008. The song is in Sotho, an official language in South Africa and Lesotho.

>> “The Shadow Can’t Have Me” by Arthur Alligood:

>> “Done Found My Lost Sheep,” an African American spiritual sung by Lucy Simpson [previously] for Smithsonian Folkways, based on Jesus’s parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1–7):

Lost sheep found (British Library) — Illustration by the nun Sibylla von Bondorf (German, ca. 1440–1525), from a copy of the *Clarrissan Rule*, Freiburg, ca. 1480. Opaque pigments on parchment, 15 × 10 cm. London, British Library, Add. MS 15686, fol. 30v. The banderole reads, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost” (Luke 15:6). [HT]

Watanabe, Sadao_Good Shepherd — Sadao Watanabe (Japanese, 1913–1996), *Good Shepherd*, 1968. Katazome stencil print.

>> “Our Psalm 23” by Gabriella Velez, Kevin Dailey, Justin Gray, and JonCarlos Velez of Common Hymnal, featuring Sharon Irving:

Advent, Day 27 (Christmas Eve)

December 24, 2021January 4, 2022 Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

LOOK: Queueing for Christmas by Sadao Watanabe

Watanabe, Sadao_Queueing for Christmas — Sadao Watanabe (Japanese, 1913–1996), *Queueing for Christmas*, ca. 1960. Stencil print, 6 × 16 in. © Tatsuo Watanabe, used with permission.

To view a catalog of works by Sadao Watanabe, one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated Christian artists, visit sadaohanga.info. See also the Image journal article “Profound Faith, Profound Beauty: The Life and Art of Sadao Watanabe” by John A. Kohan.

LISTEN: “The Bells” by Lee Bozeman, on Jubilee (2019)

Ring the bells for Christmas Vigil
Ring the bells and light your candles now
The stars are out
All the angels with covered faces
Let all mortal flesh keep silence now
All devout
Keep silence now
All devout
Ring the bells in every tower
Ring the bells, let every hour tell
All will be well
All the faithful come together
Hear the name they love and know so well
Emmanuel
All is well
Emmanuel
Ring the bells for Christmas Vigil
Ring the bells and light your candles now
The stars are out
Keep silence now
All devout

Lee Bozeman’s Jubilee is a wonderful little acoustic EP with three originals and a traditional. The title track, which Bozeman refers to as “a sorrow,” begins, “The kids won’t be home for Christmas . . .” That’s followed by “The First Artificial Snow of the Year,” an instrumental piano piece with jingle bells. Then “Down in Yon Forest,” a Renaissance-era carol from England that Bozeman sings a cappella. And lastly, “Christmas Vigil,” my favorite of the four—slow and solemn like the others, with understated echo effects, and I don’t know what that sound is he’s producing for the last thirty seconds, but it suggests an arrival.

Christmas Vigil is a common practice across church traditions, though the particulars may vary. Many churches hold their vigil around midnight on December 24, the time when Christmas Eve gives way to Christmas Day, so that the congregation can welcome in the feast of Christ’s birth just as soon as the clock ticks over into the a.m. (We have accounts of Midnight Masses being celebrated on Christmas Eve as early as the fourth century in Jerusalem.)

Other churches hold their Christmas Eve service earlier in the evening. Candlelight and corporate carol singing are usually involved. Churches that have lit an Advent wreath for each of the previous four Sundays will complete the wreath by lighting the Christ candle in the center.

Some Christians worship at home instead on this day with just their own family unit, perhaps with an informal liturgy or with special family traditions.

No matter how you mark the day, I pray that you are filled with excitement for God’s arrival in human flesh—that divine gift of himself—and with the peaceful assurance that, as God promised, all will be well.

This is the final post in the 2021 Advent Series—thank you for journeying with me through the season! Daily posts will continue throughout the twelve days of Christmas to the feast of Epiphany on January 6.

If you appreciated this series and have the means, please consider making a donation to the site to support future projects like this so that I won’t have to put them behind a paywall.

Merry May We Be (Artful Devotion)

September 12, 2017May 3, 2018 Victoria Emily Jones5 Comments

Egyptians Drowning in the Red Sea by Sadao Watanabe — Sadao Watanabe (Japanese, 1913–1996), *Egyptians Drowning in the Red Sea*, 1977. Hand-dyed kappazuri stencil print on momigami paper, 21 1/8 × 17 3/4 in. From the Bowden Collections.

Exodus 14:19–31:

Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.

+++

The Crossing of the Red Sea is read by Christians as a picture of our passing safely through the waters of judgment led by Christ, the New Moses. The traditional English carol below, “Carol of the Exodus,” is arranged by Charles Wood.

Moses, sing unto Christ thy King, who hath won the victory
And hath laid low haughty Pharaoh underneath the deep Red Sea.

Yea, merry, merry, merry, merry, merry may we be,
As bird upon the berry of the may or cherry tree,
While as we stand with harp in hand
On the shore of the Red, Red Sea.

God perforce overthrew the horse, rider, car, and axletree.
They sank as lead, and their men lie dead, dead as stone, so mote* it be!

His right hand and his wonderwand did divide at his decree
The surging wave, and thereby did save us and ours from slavery.

Thou didst blow and entomb our foe in the bottom of the sea.
And if dry-shod we went o’er, O God, be ascribed the praise to thee!

* That is, must (obsolete).

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 19, cycle A, click here.

Pentecost art from Asia

May 15, 2016October 25, 2022 Victoria Emily Jones14 Comments

Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven (and fifty days after his resurrection), his Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, manifesting as “tongues of fire” (Acts 2:3). This miraculous gift enabled the apostles to speak in languages foreign to them but native to the many Jews from abroad who were gathered in Jerusalem for Shavuot (called “Pentecost” by Hellenized Jews), a festival of giving thanks for the harvest and for God’s provision of the Torah. For the first time the gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed to a global audience. Three thousand people came to faith that day, and the Christian church was born.

The Spirit is still at work in the dissemination of the good news today, breathing life into cultures all over the world and thereby building up an incredibly diverse body of Christ.

The arts are one expression of this diversity.

In the introduction to his groundbreaking book Each with His Own Brush: Contemporary Christian Art in Asia and Africa (New York: Friendship Press, 1938), Daniel Johnson Fleming writes,

As at Pentecost, Parthians, Medes and Elamites heard the message, “every man in his own tongue wherein he was born,” so we see Chinese and Japanese and Indians expressing Christianity’s universal language, each with his own brush. For when the spirit of God descends upon any people, new forms of beauty appear, new artistic gifts are revealed, adding another testimony to the universality of the Christian faith.

Since the publication of this book almost seventy years ago, Christianity has grown exponentially in Asia, as have indigenous artistic expressions of the faith. In 1975 Japanese theologian and arts advocate Masao Takenaka published the heavily illustrated book Christian Art in Asia, highlighting the robust variety being produced on the continent. Three years later the Asian Christian Art Association was founded to encourage the exchange of ideas between Asian artists and theologians. Their magazine, Image (not to be confused with the Seattle-based quarterly), has showcased local talents even further. Dozens more books have been published in English on individual Asian artists, countries, and the Asian Christian art movement in general. For the latter, see the beautifully designed The Christian Story: Five Asian Artists Today, plus The Bible Through Asian Eyes.

Below is a sampling of Asian art on the theme of Pentecost. Some works were made using traditional art forms or techniques—Chinese papercutting, Japanese flower arranging (ikebana) or stencil printing (kappazuri), Indian cloth dyeing (batik)—while other artists have chosen to work in oils and acrylics, collage, or glass. Some depict native people and settings—for example, Thai dancers wrapped in sabai, or a group sitting under a thatched roof in Indonesia—while others prefer ethnic and geographic ambiguity. There’s no single style that epitomizes the art of any country.