The poll at right this week asks our readers about the vestments worn in their parishes at the Divine Service. Within living memory, the vestments customarily seen in American Lutheran churches have undergone nothing short of a revolution. The inestimable Rev. Walter Otten, for example, can tell you the story of his various struts down the catwalk to get voter assembly approval for cassock and surplice and later alb and stole. When he retired not so many years ago, his successor brought in the chasuble without drawing any controversy. While your mileage may vary, it has been my experience that today's laity tend to appreciate the more elaborate, traditional vestments of our forefathers and accept them even where they have not been in use before.
A Lutheran Divine Service in 16th century Denmark. Both of the pictures were thankfully hijacked from Fr. Frahm's excellent discussion of Lutheran worship.
While vestments in the Christian tradition grew up gradually, and usually by baptizing secular dress, we should not commit the etymological error and assume that all they are is secular dress and that they can be changed without meaning or consequence. We must encounter the symbolical world of the Church as we find it, not attempt to explain it away. And in the symbolism of the Church, vestments serve a very useful function: they set apart the pastoral office and each vestment says something about the office as can be seen from the traditional prayers that attend each vestment (which make for a nice Bible class topic, by the bye). Furthermore, they add beauty to the services of God's house and incidentally aid the pastor in proper decorum as it is especially difficult to be sloppy with one's hands while wearing a chasuble!
For these reasons, the wearing of vestments was one of the traditions that the Lutherans were glad to retain at the time of the Reformation. Indeed, when Karlstadt imitated the Swiss by celebrating the Supper in street clothes, Luther famously roared back into Wittenberg with alb, stole, maniple, and chasuble.
Today, I would wager than the cassock cut alb (an invention of the Anglican-catering Almy Co.) and stole is how most LCMS pastors vest for most every service. A more traditional manner to vest would be cassock, surplice, and stole for the non-Eucharistic services where there is preaching (subtract the stole for prayer services without preaching) and alb, stole, and chasuble (and even a maniple and amice) for the Divine Service. This also serves to highlight the Divine Service and goes along well with an attempt to reclaim the celebration of the Lord's Supper on every Lord's Day.
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When my family joined St. Paul's in 1978, Pastor Otten still wore a suit and tie during the week.
ReplyDeleteAnd suits in the '70s were no laughing matter!
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By contrast, I have received repeated requests from the leadership of the congregation I currently serve (thus far resisted) to de-vest entirely for the Divine Service (well... not entirely... but to simply wear street clothes).
ReplyDeleteMatthew:
ReplyDeleteWhat do you currently wear at Mass? and do you have a read on why they find it disagreeable?
Fr. Matthew,
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely at least two streams in current Lutheranism: one toward a traditional reverence and the other toward an American Evangelical laid-back-ness.
So it becomes a question of pastoral leadership, or to use an older metaphor, pastoral fatherhood: how can I lead the flock to a better understanding of what the Divine Service is?
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My answer to your poll is "other," so let me clarify. If by "Divine Service" you mean the Mass, then I wear an alb, a stole, and a dalmatic. The reason I do not also wear the amice and the maniple is that I do not presently own any.
ReplyDeleteRev. Deacon,
ReplyDeleteRight! My question was aimed at the celebrant, of course.
Send me an email for a quote on an amice and maniple if you like.
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http://www.landschaftsmuseum.de/seiten/heimatpf/Konfessionsbild-1.htm
ReplyDeleteCheck out the images on the right side of this website.
I have only served parishes in urban areas (Chicago to be exact). In both of those parishes I have worn amice, alb, stole and chasuble (occasionally maniple, I have only green for that). No one has complained or asked me not to wear these vestments. They have complained against other things, but never this. I wonder if there is an urban/rural split on this? In the city, where papism dominates, people are used to seeing clergy who look like clergy.
ReplyDeleteFr. Anderson,
ReplyDeleteThe local culture is certainly a factor here, but I'm not convinced it breaks neatly down rural/urban lines. Here in very rural southern IL we see a lot of chasubles, a lot of chanting, a lot of genuflecting. Besides the hand full of suburban churches seeking to imitate the American Evangelicals, I can't think of one church where pastor vests in less than alb and stole.
All pastoring is local. In general, and in the absence of specific past controversies haunting a parish's relationship with pastors, I think the laity will respond well to a pastor who introduces traditional vestments and expresses to the people the joy they are meant to bring to our worship.
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What, no option for a plain black Geneva robe?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, that's pretty much the only vestments worn where I came from (the LCR). Ok, a few guys wore stoles also. Almost no one even used clerical collars.
I finally got tired of looking like a baptist. After I left the LCR, that gown was one of the first things to go, replaced by a cassock, surplice, and stoles.
Fr. Diers,
ReplyDeleteThat's "other" :)
I served my vicarage (LCMS) in WI in 2002-03 and that parish still had fresh memories of the previous pastor wearing the Geneva gown. Indeed, it still hung in the sacristy.
+HRC
There are more pertinent pictures of Lutheran pastors and priests wearing chasubles here, if anyone would like to "hijack" them as well.
ReplyDeleteFor the Divine Service I wear the cassock-alb, stole, and, if the paraments are white, a chasuble (I only own a chasuble).
ReplyDeleteSince we do not have communion on 2nd & 4th Sundays I typically will wear cassock and surplus and stole those Sundays.
My experience has been exactly as Pr. Curtis stated, regarding the entusiastic acceptance of traditional vestments in a parish where they had not previously been in use. I'm not sure my flock had ever seen a chasuble before, but I've had many favorable comments. It may help, of course, that Pr. Curtis' mother not only made them, but also happens to be a member of my congregation.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered about appropriate dress for a service of the Word (or "half-mass" if you prefer). The above comment indicates the traditional dress is cassock/surplice/stole, which I currently use for such occasions. Yet, everything I've read indicates this is an "Anglican innovation for which there is no Lutheran precedent." Is this perhaps because Lutherans traditionally celebrate the Lord's Supper on the Lord's Day and at other times when communicants are present?
I am a new pastor (less than two months in).
ReplyDeleteOn the night of the call service I was visiting with the senior pastor of the congregation to which I had been called. He asked if I was planning on wearing a chasuble. I replied, "Of course." He has only been at this particular congregation for two years as senior and hadn't worn his yet out of deference to the associate who was retiring. My installation was the first time they saw a chasuble used. We have used on every Sunday since then.
I also wore my chasuble at my installation. Again, a first for the congregation.
In both places I have gotten no negative response. Most of the ladies comment on how beautiful they are (my red and white vestments are from DK Brunner).
Here in the Florida Panhandle (aka Redneck Riviera & L.A. =Lower Alabama), where we are surrounded by Baptists and Pentecostals I have never administered the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist without wearing a chausuble. Three of my brothers in this here neck of the woods also follow the practice of being properly attired for the Altar Sacrament, one over cassock, the rest of us over alb. We get more resistance when attempting to place a crucifix in the chancel. In my mostly African-American congregation I have at least three crucifixes on the chancel wall, in the narthex and in the study
ReplyDelete