An Example of Reverent Worship and Why It Matters

By Larry Beane



Sometimes there is a tendency for people to miss the point about Gottesdienst.  Some people attack a strawman that Gottesdienst is only about "high" worship practices and that we somehow look down upon those who do not practice "high enough" worship.  This false stereotype was recognized by the Rev. Paul Beisel in his comment in a previous post:

I have never, in all my years as a follower of Gottesdiest, ever heard or read any criticism of a pastor or congregation that does not make full use of the broad array of ceremonial that is at our disposal from historic Lutheranism. I have read a lot of critique of pastors who (1) put forth no effort to model reverence in their conduct of the liturgy and (2) make no effort to learn the whats and the whys of Lutheran ceremonial. I am frankly quite irritated with the caricature that is being put forth of these guys as being obsessed with rubrics for the sake of rubrics, or that they are looking down on their brothers that do not have the same amount of ceremonial as they use.

In fact, Gottesdienst is not about "high church."  Rather it is about "reverence."

One can worship casually, and even disrespectfully, with a full measure of incense and bells and vestments and artwork.  And conversely one can worship reverently in a mud hut or prison cell.  Ceremonies, when done properly and in a dignified manner, are of great help to proclaiming the Gospel that we confess as well as establishing a tone of reverence.  And if a congregation can afford nice things, such as well-made altar linens, beautiful chasubles, a pipe organ, refined acoustics, inspiring artwork, dignified bells, aromatic incense, elegant candlesticks, aesthetically-pleasing altars and fonts and pulpits, etc., these things may well help to foster reverence and a sense of the "otherworldliness" that is the Divine Service of the Church.  The Lord Himself expressed His preference for beauty and dignity in worship (e.g. in the Book of Leviticus).

But even lacking these material things, a pastor can still conduct worship in a reverent manner.  He can still "take pains" to show fear, love, and trust in the Lord by conducting himself liturgically with unapologetic and humble respect for that which is holy.  He can still bow and chant and make the sign of the cross and carry himself with dignity.  The congregation likewise can recognize the miraculous and the supernatural, the real presence of Jesus, in their midst.  And this reverence can even be expressed in a beauty parlor without an organ, with the bare minimum of vestments, and a simple covered table to act as an altar.

The above footage includes parts of the Divine Service as celebrated by Father Vladislav Ivanov and Deacon Victor Shtraube of Holy Spirit congregation (SELC) in Chelyabinsk, Russia.  Holy Spirit rents a hall for services, and on this date, July 18, 2011, they only had access to a beauty parlor.  This was recorded on a pocket video camera by me (my apologies for the quality of the footage).

In order to point the congregation to Christ, the pastor and deacon reverently put a crucifix on the wall, hid the towels that were hung out to dry, carefully set the table with linens, candles, and a cross, placed the sacramental elements on the altar, and the congregation sang the Mass (including the hymns) a cappella. 

The clergy are not eschewing chasuble and dalmatic because they are "too catholic" or to accommodate "the youth" or out of fear of being labeled "high church."  They simply cannot afford them.  They have no objection to "smells and bells" (which are used in other Russian churches) - they simply don't have these things.  But what they do have is faith, and the celebrant and his assistant communicate that faith in their heartfelt reverence, in the way they carry themselves, in their attention to ceremony.

Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in Chelyabinsk is a sister congregation to my own.  It was a great joy and privilege to take the holy body and blood of our Lord from the hands of Fr. Vlad and Dcn. Victor, and to participate with Fr. Sergei Glushkov (parish priest of Sts. Peter and Paul in Yekaterinburg, who is the equivalent of our "circuit counselor") and the laity of the congregation in this reverent Divine Service.  Though it was foreign to me linguistically, it was also familiar liturgically.  For Christ was present in Word and Sacrament, and the fact that we were in a beauty salon without icons, without stained glass, and without an organ - did not detract from the reverence of the service.  And there is no requirement that every rubric must be the same the world over.  Though I may conduct certain ceremonies a little differently, the liturgy was clearly Lutheran and clearly focused on Christ.

Reverence is not necessarily "high church."  But by the same token, what does it say about our culture in the LCMS when we have the money and the means to create beautiful sanctuaries but often deliberately choose to worship in spartan surroundings that do not make use of art and beauty to point us to the incarnate Christ?  The saints of Holy Spirit in Chelyabinsk "take pains" to show reverence.  Many of our pastors often do not seem to care about conducting worship reverently.  Or perhaps they honestly don't know how to behave reverently in the chancel.

This, to me, is something that Gottesdienst can help with here in our own country, where we are not impoverished by material want so much as by a kind of self-imposed poverty of not recognizing the treasure we have within our own Lutheran tradition.  Those who take the time to read Gottesdienst and/or Gottesdienst Online will learn that the all-too common descriptions on the internet about us are nothing more than what Pastor Beisel said they are: one-dimensional "caricatures."


The liturgy should be conducted in as rich and full and dignified manner as circumstances allow - at least if we truly believe what we say we believe.  Wherever Christians worship, we should strive to make our liturgy as fitting and as dignified as we can, as means and circumstances permit.  Whenever Christians worship, we should strive to be as reverent as we  can.  For we are talking about the presence of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life - whether in a finely-proportioned cathedral or in a cramped beauty parlor.  I'm grateful that for twenty years, Gottesdienst has been stressing to pastors and laymen the importance of dignity and reverence in our traditional liturgical ceremonies for the sake of our confession of Christ.

This is a great mystery but I am talking about Christ and His Church

It hit me the other day that what St. Paul speaks about in Ephesians 5 with regard to the relationship between husbands and wives and that of Christ and the Church is apt also for the relationship between pastor and the people he serves. Bear with me here.

Husbands are to love their wives. Wives are to respect their husbands. Without love, wives react without respect. And without respect, husbands react without love. But the husband is to give his life, lay it down, regardless of whether he receives respect.

Now lets change the terms. Pastors are to love their congregations. Congregations are to respect their pastors. Without love, congregations react without respect. And without respect, pastors react without love. But the pastor is to give his life, lay it down, regardless of whether he receives respect.

Now before you think that I'm just repeated the sermon given at the last eleventy million call services. Wait. This is in fact what happened in the garden with Adam and Eve. Eve speaks when she shouldn’t and Adam doesn’t speak when he should. Eve wasn’t there, she wasn’t yet created when the Lord gave the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That command was given only to Adam. It was his duty in love for Eve, his wife, to tell and teach her that holy command. And so when Adam fails to speak, the consequences are monumental. He is responsible.

In terms of Ephesians 5, Eve does not respect her husband, Adam does not love his wife. For there they stood together, side-by-side, in the Garden in conversation with the serpent. Did God really say? it asks. He attacks the weaker vessel, the most vulnerable. Because she's a woman? No, she's weaker, she's more vulnerable because she was not there for the command. Only Adam was. Eve should have pointed to him for the certain answer. But she didn’t. She didn’t respect him and the authority he had been given by God.

And Adam isn't any better. For he is there with her while the serpent speaks. And he says nothing. He fails to act He fails to use his God-given authority to support and protect his wife from harm. He fails to love her, to give his life for hers. To put his neck on the line, instead of letting her dangle in the wind when he knew better.

When we, pastors, fail to use the authority God gave us to teach what God has spoken, the way a husband would teach and help his own wife, we fail to love our congregations. When we fail to love our people, they react without respect for the authority God has given. And without respect, we continue to act without love. But the pastor is to lead here. And we lead by loving them regardless of what they do, as we would our own wives, teaching them as we would our own wives, rebuking them as we would our own wives. Subordinating our need for respect to their need for love.

Perhaps this is why St. Paul says he's speaking about Christ and the Church. For the only missing element in the Ephesians version of the Table of Duties is the section on what pastors owe their hearers and what hearers owe their pastors. Perhaps they're combined with that of the husband and wife, Christ and his Church, pastor and his congregation. And maybe all those call service sermons were on to something and we dismissed them too quickly.