Walking Together

A few days ago, I attended a conference at Redeemer in Fort Wayne. For those of you who don't know of it, Redeemer has the reputation of being one of the most "high liturgical" churches in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Some aspects of the level of ceremony would throw your average liturgical Lutheran into a tailspin. I love it, but know that this is Redeemer. It would somehow not fit in my congregation and probably not yours, either. But Redeemer is there, letting all of us know that yes, this is beautifully Lutheranism as well.

At some point in the service, sitting in the chapel, I looked around. Most of the people there were pastors from various congregations. It was so crowded (close to 50) that we were fitting four of us on a corner pew that was probably meant to seat 2 comfortably (and I am more woman than many) and we were sitting 4, including my daughter on my lap. Because of this, Chris and I didn't even bother opening our hymnal for the liturgy and I was wonderfully surprised that my six year old didn't seem to have much problem either. I love reciting the liturgy from memory...I flub a word here or there occasionally, but it allows me to concentrate on what I am saying. When I am reading off of a page, it can go through my eyes and to my lips without my really ever thinking about what I am saying.

Anyway, staring at the hymnal, I began thinking. I am in a room with people representing at least twelve Lutheran congregations. We don't all use the same hymnal, and as much as I believe the new hymnal is wonderful, the fact that we aren't all looking at a burgundy cover every Sunday isn't THAT important. For the most part, the liturgy is the same, with the exception of some thees and thous. The reality of how unified we are in practice became very powerful, despite the fact that some were genuflecting or other observations you wouldn't find in every Lutheran congregation. I could be in that service and know completely what is going on and fully respond because we were all saying the same words that I say in my own congregation, in every congregation I have ever been a member of. There was no feeling completely out of my element while I figured out what I was supposed to do.

Going back a year to when my husband and I attended an installation of a friend down south, where they use blended worship, it was COMPLETELY different. There was no way I could've sat there and appreciated all of this because I was too busy scrutinizing the changeable music and the confession of faith that applied to THIS week in order to even deduce that we were of a common faith, even though there was the LCMS symbol on the sign outside.

Thinking about that grieved me in realizing how many people aren't aware of how precious a gift our liturgy is. It feeds us with God's Word, it focuses us on Word and Sacrament, and it unites us all in common practice not only in location, but in time since the liturgy is historic and has come to us from the Early Church. No wonder Satan works so hard to convince us to be bored with it or to disdain it.

The Divine Service, and Lazy Blogging

Since Christopher was so nice as to fed my ego give me a very sweet compliment, I stopped by his blog, St. Cynic. This team blog has some very good discussion over there, though the title does warn of some of the tone that you can find there. They definitely possess some sarcastic wit.

They had a discussion on worship, and I ended up spending a little too much time typing my response than I should've (what else is new?), but I would've written about the subject over here, so I decided to do just that....

I started with presenting a hymn that did a good job sharing the Lutheran view of worship -- known as the Divine Service...(this is hymn 683 in LSB)

Jesus, Thy Boundless Love to Me
by Paul Gerhardt

Jesus, Thy boundless love to me
No thought can reach,no tongue declare;
Unite my thankful heart to Thee
and reign without a rival there!
Thine wholly, thine alone I am;
Be Thou alone my constant flame.

O grant that nothing in my soul
May dwell, but thy pure love alone;
Oh, may Thy love possess me whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my crown!
All coldness from my heat remove;
My ev'ry act, word, thought be love.

This love unwearied I pursue
and dauntlessly to Thee aspire.
Oh may Thy love my hope renew
Burn in my soul like heav'nly fire!
And day and night, be all my care
To guard this sacred treasure there.

In suff'ring be Thy love my peace,
In weakness by Thy love my pow'r;
And when the storms of life shall cease,
O Jesus, in that final hour,
Be Thou my rod and staff and guide,
And draw me safely to Thy side!

-----
I think this hymn reflects the doctrine of what we confessional Lutherans (and Calvinists are re-embracing it too, Calvin wrote and knew about this) call "The Divine Service." The Divine Service is a view of worship that rather than touting that worship is us doing work for God, is stating that God comes to us in the worship service and nurtures and feeds us. He invites us in His presence, and we are worthy by nature of being baptized into His death and resurrection. He forgives our sins, He hears our pleas for mercy, and thusly, we can praise him. Then He feeds us with His Word and with His very body and blood, in all of these Means of Grace, strengthening us for the duty of serving our neighbor through the vocations that he has given us in this week ahead.

In the hymn above, my faith, my strengthening, my comfort, my desire to serve all come from God. He gives these to me. He leads me. He sanctifies me for Him.It takes away any doubt of whether I am serving well enough, whether I am determined or devoted enough, or whether I really mean it. Christ already forgave me those inadequacies and is just there to feed me. Only when I am free of these doubts can I truly praise Him.

It took YEARS for me to not only understand this, but to believe it and take comfort in it, but it truly is a comfort and a joy. My faith was given to me by God, and He sustains it. Sure, I have to attend church and read my Scripture, but the Holy Spirit even gives me the desire to do that and teaches me as I do that. He is teaching me, loving me, and forgiving me through these Means of Grace. He is regenerating me into the child He wants me to be. It is not by my will, or I would surely fail.

This is the real point where the liturgy is far superior to contemporary worship. Every word I hear, say, and sing are Scripture or firmly based upon it. It is replete with God's promises. It tells me not only that God is good, but WHY he is good, what He has done for me. And it even makes it so that I am not relying on my own words to praise Him, but even utter words He has given me in Holy Scripture.

Feeling Foreign

I know there are people who are not Lutheran who read this blog, so I'm giving you a warning. I am going to show my confessional Lutheran roots here (they are brunette with streaks of gray...oh wait, wrong roots).


Fifteen years ago, if you'd told me I would be liturgical, I would've laughed in your face. I was raised with the liturgy, and found it drab compared to the contemporary services I'd attended. Even several years after I understood and agreed with why the liturgy should be used, I still struggled with the reality of it. But once I had kids and had it memorized so that I could concentrate on the words and what they were saying (believe it or not, like with meditation, memorization actually helps you dig into the meat of the service, it doesn't make it more rote), I really began to appreciate the beauty of it, and (gasp) sometimes it even provokes an emotional reaction, it is so beautiful or applies so readily to where I need God to speak to me.


I'd been in the contemporary worship scene. I'd loved it. But I had also been in situations where the law that is so often involved with it obscured the gospel and left me feeling condemned because I didn't feel anything, or I was aching for the gospel and it wasn't there - because it was so fixated on what I was doing for Christ. The liturgy gives me both, and it unites me with Christians who have been worshiping that way for almost 2000 years, and Jews had done so before that. Christ was liturgical. It takes everything away from me and instead, it becomes about Christ feeding me with His holy Word, line after beautiful line.


Last Sunday I was in an LCMS church that uses blended worship -- not really our choice, we were requested to be there by a friend. Blended worship is often utilized by Lutheran churches to give the service a liturgical "format" so that it feels vaguely familiar to Lutherans, but is supposedly relevant to strangers coming into the church. Anything that might be offensive was removed. The wording to the confession was mellowed, and the absolution, rather than being the pastor pronouncing absolution because he forgives us our sins, he merely assures of that we have been forgiven. There was no creed. Thankfully, there was no communion either at that service.


Since there is such a focus on what a stranger to the Lutheran church experiences when they come into that congregation, I thought I'd share what a person who embraces liturgical worship feels like in such situations. Because I too was a stranger there.


While the words were up on the wall because of the Power Point projector, I felt like an alien. The words which were committed in my heart were different. The musical responses were not the same. Rather than something that openly and richly in few words proclaimed the glory of Christ, instead, simple repeated chants like "Oh Christ you are glorious" were repeatedly sung. He is glorious, I'll grant that. The liturgy instead though, in as short a time explains WHO is glorious, WHAT He did that is glorious, WHY He is glorious, and even sometimes HOW He did something glorious and WHERE He is now...and that we will be with Him there, too (WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW....traits that my 7th grade English teacher taught me were necessary for judging whether a non-fiction piece was really doing its job in conveying important information).


During this service, I struggled with my sinful flesh more than I usually do in church. I didn't want to be snobby. I didn't want to just say "oh, this modern stuff is crud." I could believe that the liturgy is a superior vessel for proclaiming the gospel but still could try to focus on the Word of God that was there. But it was SO hard. Like I said, the substance of what was conveyed was so much less. But it was there. The Powerpoint presentation told us where we were in the service, but it seemed like it could just as easily stated "Kyrie - Lord Have Mercy" as it could've said "anthem" and then the strangers and members alike are educated. The gospel lines in the liturgy were replaced by lines that were about what I am doing for God. The sermon, while I do believe I was blessed and edified by it, again contained about 5 lines of gospel, and it was the token "Jesus does this in our hearts." I was exhausted by the end of the service, because I wanted so desperately to honor God in the service and not miss His Word because I resented how dumbed down the service was. Even the benediction was law. I went out knowing that I had struggled with myself, that I was partially fed, and while I do think these observations are accurate and good, I could not unmingle my sinful self from it, and the pastor's efforts to do His job were so confused that he did not make that task easier for me, instead he bound my conscience.


I am not writing this to offend anyone who uses contemporary worship or blended worship. I hope that it is clear that while I have no intention to embrace these types of worship, that I really tried to receive God's Word in the venue that was there before me that day. But there is a different purpose in contemporary/blended worship than there is in liturgical worship.

Contemporary is about individual experience. When I was in a Christian Contemporary church , you close your eyes, sway to the rhythm, raise your hands, and are open to where the music and the message take you (btw, the way you could tell this was Lutheran is that no one was raising their hands). It is also about what I am doing for God. Liturgy is a "we" experience. While you are still an individual, everything is God feeding His people, and His people's joint response to being fed. This is the same response through the ages right up to this time, and along with the saints in Heaven. I am there being fed by God along with the rest of the body of Christ, in heaven and on earth. The spiritual reality of that is a much greater sense of awe than I ever felt when I went to a really good contemporary service where my soul did not feel weighted down by my sin.

I honestly don't know why I am writing this. Maybe just to let those of you Lutherans who embrace blended worship that in your appeal to be more "relevant" or to "reach out to the community," your rejection of a common manner of worship actually does cause pain to some who come in and sit in the pews. When we walk out at the end and never come back, it isn't because we are snooty. It is because your rejection of something so precious to me and to the history of our church breaks my heart (the liturgy does not alienate those who are young in the faith, by the way. often, it gives them a clearly different culture than the one that they are leaving, and it is a blessing). When I see that LCMS cross on your sign, I should be able to go in and feel at home. I should receive proof that every Sunday we are raising our voices together, even in different locales. The expression of your congregational personality should be in your handshake and your smile, maybe in the flourishes of your church musician, in the manner of your pastor, and how you show love the love of Christ.

The best way that I know how to explain it is this:

I had a good friend in school who for various reasons decided that she was going to change her first and last name to try to give herself a fresh start in life. Whatever the reason why she wanted to do this, and she chose to look at it optimistically, a fresh start and all that -- her family was really hurt. Her father considered his name to be a gift to her...and she was rejecting the name they gave her at her birth. The new name made her seem like a stranger. She didn't understand why her family would struggle with this or see this as a rejection of them. No matter how much they tried to understand, they still felt rejected, and she saw this rejection as a lack of support for her. This wasn't a situation where she was walking away from cruel, domineering parents. I couldn't help but look at what she was doing and because of the price, see it as extreme...she was attempting to throw away her whole identity -- including a lot of things that were good, in favor of something that was nebulous and undefined. Yet she didn't see that she could be a great person (and in fact was a great person) and still hold on to the things that tied her to her roots. She was (and she would admit this) too scared to dig deep to find the person she really was within that context.

That is how I see contemporary and blended worship in the LCMS. Throwing away the liturgy is throwing away precious gifts that unite us all together. With that, often comes a simpler - but a shallower form of worship...and also along with that, other things are lost, too. Soon, the Lutheran understanding of communion fellowship, the office of the ministry, and sometimes even Scripture itself is lost, and while the name Lutheran might be there, all the parts that make the name Lutheran mean something are gone.

Rather than throwing out our all the traditions and rituals of our "family," it would be wiser to find the definition of who we are back in our family tree. It gives a context.

I just know, sitting in that pew last Sunday, I became painfully aware not of the shallowness of the service...but of what has been lost to this congregation...and so many others.