October 26, 2025

The Spendthrift Giver

Early in the year 1756, a musician in the Salzburg court orchestra wrote a note to a friend in his hometown of Augsburg: “I must inform you that on 27 January, at 8 p.m., my dear wife was happily delivered of a boy; but the placenta had to be removed. She was therefore astonishingly weak. Now, however (God be praised) both child and mother are well. She sends her regards to you both. The boy is called Joannes Chrisostomos, Wolfgang, Gotlieb.” That father’s name was Leopold Mozart. And the boy would be called by the name Wolfgang, but would himself shun the German name of “Gotlieb” which means “beloved of God” in favor of the Latin translation, “Amadeus.” Three months from now, we will mark the 270th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Three days before his 5th birthday, Wolfgang learned to play his first piece of music on the clavier; it was a scherzo by Georg Wagenseil. It took the four-year-old a half hour to learn to play it. In short order, Wolfgang and his sister, Anna, were performing for important audiences. When Wolfgang was six years old, he and his sister played in a public concert in Linz. Their reputation as child prodigies spread so fast that within days they were playing for royalty in Vienna. From there, the family went on tour, making considerable money off of twice daily concerts by these “miracle children.”

When he was eight years old, he wrote four sonatas and a symphony. By the time he reached his tenth birthday he had written fifteen pieces of music. He wrote his first four movement symphony at the age of eleven. He died a young man, only thirty five years old, but in his short life he wrote over six hundred compositions, many of which are today considered among the greatest masterpieces of all time and are the standard fare of the finest orchestras in the world.

He was a strangely compelling figure. His almost superhuman gift of music was combined with a spendthrift lifestyle of partying and lavishing food and drink and gifts on his friends – a lifestyle that left him frequently penniless. It’s little wonder that he has been the subject of legends, myths, and dramatic exaggerations (the wildly popular film, Amadeus, among them). But there can be little doubt that, in this quirky and rare human being, something special was going on.

Reactions to his life and to his gift are varied. Some would say it’s entirely unfair that such monumental talent would be conferred on someone who turned out to be such a roguish twit. Others simply celebrate that talent, and that a body of work like his ever came into being at all. Some of you might be asking this morning why we are bothering to take so much time to talk about a composer. What, you may ask, has Mozart’s life got to do with our worship?

Well, I hear you. Wolferl, as he was affectionately known by his family, was no saint. He was a Catholic Freemason who wrote a tremendous amount of religious music, and converted his own father to the faith before his death. But he was also an irreverent and rebellious soul. He wrote a canon for six voices on the words, “Leck mich im Arsch” (I apologize to any of you who speak German for having repeated that phrase in the pulpit). We might politely paraphrase it as “kiss my rear-end,” but, trust me, it’s far more graphic and base than that. He wrote another one – a party song for his friends – that takes the image even further (we won’t even go there). So, no, we’re not lifting up Mozart this morning as an exemplar of virtue or religious piety.

Here’s the thing that gets to me about Mozart. Have you ever been driving down the road, and come over a hill to where a valley full of wondrous sights stretches out before you so that you have to catch your breath? Have you ever been walking in the woods and come upon a massive, towering tree rising so high in the air you can’t see the sky, to which the only appropriate response is to stand and gape in reverential silence? Have you ever been outside at night and looked up to see the edge-on view of our galaxy in brilliant detail, set in a sea of vivid distant lights, and found yourself simply exhaling softly the words, “O, my God?” Or, perhaps another way of saying that is: “Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent . . .” Those are the words the psalmist used to convey that feeling. In fact, in this 104th Psalm, portions of which we heard this morning, the author goes on for 35 verses exuberantly listing one awe-inspiring image after another of the glorious things the Lord of Majesty does in pouring gifts upon the earth. So many of these gifts of the Lord are listed that I think those who came up with the lectionary just got tired, and decided to truncate the lectionary reading so it wouldn’t take up half a worship service just to read it all.

These gifts land on each of us, and we are often found living as though we are not so gifted. We might compare ourselves to someone else and think, “O, I wish I were more like him or her. One might shy away from something saying, “O, I’m no good at that.” We might waste our time and our lives focusing on the things that make us feel unfortunate, or unable. You might live with remorse thinking you are not gifted at all, but you are. Many of us have the gift of humor. I have sat with you and found myself laughing out loud at the funny things you come up with. Some of you, like our young pianist, Wyatt, and our occasional soloist, Pat, are showered with the gift of music. Some are gifted in the ability to write, Like our brilliant moderator, Nowell. Some are a wiz with finances and numbers. But every one of you, I know from experience has been blessed with the gift of compassion and love. The gifts just keep pouring forth and filling our little community of Christ’s followers with blessings abounding.

The gifts of the Almighty are showered on us like the October rains we had this week (finally). They land everywhere; they fill up the hollows; they puddle here, and run wild down the canyon there. We live in a world of gifts, from the brilliant, glowing colors of autumn to the lovely sound of birds chirping in the trees. We are surrounded by such gifts.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an outrageous spendthrift on whom fell an overabundance of gifts from the Great Spendthrift Giver. That’s what I love about Mozart. He wasn’t perfect. Like you and me he was flawed, and like any of us at times, even straying over the line. But that’s the thing about Divine grace; it’s there for every undeserving one of us. And listening to the brilliant music from that gifted mind of Mozart is like beholding the Milky Way; it can take your breath away, and it can, in that breathless moment, leave you with nothing to express but awe – awe at the majestic wonder of creativity, awe at the whole of creation itself, awe at the creator, the wildly extravagant Giver who lavishes gifts on us, the undeserving.

So, here’s to you, Wolferl. And in the words of the Lacrymosa “on that tearful day, when from the ashes shall rise again sinful man to be judged,” may you, the outrageous spendthrift party animal, be counted among the most treasured of gifts from the Spendthrift Giver.