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Showing posts with label worship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worship. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Augustana L.C. Festival of Worship
Augustana Lutheran Church in Hickory, NC hosted a great one day conference Saturday, November 12, 2016 in the beautiful nave of the church.
Augustana's pastor Father Gavin Mize is a great friend of Gottesdienst, having been published in both the print journal and online. The narthex of Augustana has a stack of Gottesdienst for parishioners to pick up.
Pastor Mize opened the conference with an introduction: 'Parameters of Presentations and Liturgy According to Catechetical Aesthetics":
The next presentation, "Revolution Versus Revolution": Christ at the Center was given by Gottesdienst editor the Rev. Larry Beane:
The keynote address of the conference, "The Sacred Manger: Reverence for the Incarnate Word", was given by Gottesdienst editor the Rev. Dr. Richard Stuckwisch in two parts:
The Festival concluded with a Divine Service, a commemorative Mass of St. Jonah the Prophet, which Pastor Mize streamed live via Facebook:
The sermon was preached by Pastor Beane:
As a bonus, the following morning, Dr. Stuckwisch preached at the Sunday parochial Mass at Augustana for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost:
Thank you to the delightful and faithful people Augustana Lutheran Church, who provided Southern hospitality and cooking along with making this conference happen free of charge. Thank you to Pastor Mize for leading this wonderful event that taught, in word and by example, the concept of catechetical aesthetics in the context of the Lutheran liturgy!
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Monday, October 27, 2014
The Authentic Alternative
By Larry Beane
This post is intended as a follow-up to an earlier recent post about worship style and the latest battles within the LCMS over worship.
The church growth movement (the term may no longer be popular, but let us call a thing what it is) and its defenders accept the premise that style is divorced from substance, that doctrine is unrelated to practice. This is a longstanding debate that has continued to foster disagreements in the LCMS since the emergence of the church growth movement (and this latest discussion is just yet another incarnation of that philosophy).
The Lutheran confessions themselves routinely link doctrine and practice. The ancient connection between "lex credendi" and "lex orandi" is made explicit in the Book of Concord. So, it does matter whether the pastor wears vestments or casual wear. It is a confession of what is happening at the altar and an expression of a pastor's commitment to the church's confession of Catholic continuity. If it is a case of need, want, poverty, or extenuating circumstances, that's obviously a different story.
But the church growth movement is a deliberate theological thrust away from the Book of Concord and a rejection of the Catholic tradition, just as was the state of general American Lutheranism when our forbears founded the LCMS. This different thrust is what led the early LCMS into clearly articulating an explicit "quia" position on confessional subscription as well as a more unpopular stance against Lutheran unity, and likewise against incorporation of popular, but non-Lutheran, elements in worship. This current debate actually gets to the very roots of the LCMS, and is in part why we've tended not to join in fellowship with other Lutherans, and have been parodied as grumpy sticks in the mud.
The current discussion is similar to when people link Lutheranism to the "Lutheran" church down the street with the "nice lady pastor." One could argue that she is teaching the same doctrine, and is maybe even a better law/gospel preacher than many LCMS men. She is truly officiating over valid sacraments (an argument that I don't accept) and saving people from hell (I don't believe this either), and so we should not be critical. Whether or not to ordain women is merely a style issue, based on individual tastes and preferences, not a matter of doctrine (so the argument goes), and therefore we should be "nice" about it all and offer no criticism. But to the contrary, this is a doctrinal issue, it does scandalize the faithful, and it destroys faith. It's wrong, and we should say so.
Many also accept the premise that none of this church growthism is spiritually harmful. It is. People are scandalized by this. I nearly left Lutheranism when I moved to a different part of the country as a layman and found all sorts of LCMS congregations and pastors that wanted to be entertainers. My own parishioners are scandalized when they go on vacation and find this kind of thing. It's not simply that these churches have blue doors and our door is red, this is a deviation from (among others) Article 24 (an article that one church growth pastor actually told me is no longer binding on Lutherans!). There is also an obsession with numbers among church-growthers that is at odds with our confession of the Holy Spirit, predestination, election, and our condemnation of Arminianism. This touches upon the article of justification itself, and is no mere window-dressing - all the protestations that "we're all just like you" notwithstanding.
We traditionalists/conservatives are routinely told to shut up and go with the flow. Don't like gay marriage? Then don't marry someone of your own sex. Don't like abortion? Don't have one. Don't want a woman pastor? Don't call one. Above all, don't criticize others who are different, but coexist, just like the bumper sticker tells us to do. Our churches all have LCMS on the sign out front, and even if they don't, they're secretly part of the LCMS - as evidenced by the church worker benefit plans, and possibly even financial support and subsidization from their districts.
I believe the church growth movement is a deviation away from our confessional heritage, that it seeks to drive a wedge between doctrine and practice, necessarily leads to splitting the Lutheran confessions into articles that are bonding vs. articles that are not binding, and harms people spiritually.
I have no doubt that church growth pastors and lay leaders are sincere and mean well. But a lot of people are sincere and mean well. That isn't the hallmark of what is orthodox, godly, or within the rubric of what is authentically Lutheran. When we traditionalists are compared to the Taliban, mocked as being "Romanizers" or "chancel prancers," when our sacred liturgy is cast as a losing proposition that chases people away, when our Book of Concord is marginalized and actually laughed at (and yes, I have heard this repeatedly my entire ministry by church growth advocates), when we are told to shut up about the nice lady "pastor" or the congregation with the big screens and charismatic worship style - that's all okay. When we write critiques - be they systematic arguments against such practices, or tongue in cheek parodies and satire, and we're told we're being divisive or engaging in polemics. Luther was likewise criticized when he would not link arms with Zwingli over what many perceived to be a minor issue that did not actually divide us.
It did, and it does.
The good news is that in the long run, the fads always burn themselves out. Traditional worship was here when we were all born, it will be here after we are all dead. It was here when our Lord manifested Himself in the Tabernacle, and it will abide even until Christ returns. First-world fad worship - be it cowboy church, biker church, dancing girls and rock music, secular narcissism, entertainment worship, and everything of that ilk - will ultimately end up like 8-track players and leisure suits. The problem is that in the mean time, people are confused about Christianity, worship of the one true God, and the Lutheran confession of the faith by being told diametrically opposite things by groups all claiming to be teaching the same things. The church growth movement cheapens the faith by recasting the profound as shallow, by shifting the focus from eternal transcendence to the life-cycle of a 140 character tweet, from the theological to the anthropological, from atonement to enjoyment.
"In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc." If a pastor and congregation can't say that - and it is by intention and design (rather than an inherited anomaly to be changed pastorally) - then such pastors and congregations are simply not part of the "our churches" - unless the Book of Concord is no longer relevant, binding, normal (in the sense of being the norma normata of "our churches"), and that which defines what it means to be authentically Lutheran.
One of the tenets of the church-growth movement - to which its advocates pay lip-service - one that I actually agree with, is the need for authenticity. People will inevitably sniff out the inauthentic. Authenticity for us Lutherans is spelled out in our confessions. Anything contrary to what Dr. Kenneth Korby called "our Catholic Book of Concord" invalidates claims to such a pastor or congregation being truly Lutheran, and is a big red flag that says "counterfeit." I think people are tired of counterfeit religiosity and are increasingly wary of being manipulated. I think the church growth movement is not just wrong, contrary to the Lutheran confession of the catholic faith, and spiritually toxic, but will ultimately prove ineffective of even its own goals, because it is, by definition, inauthentic. It is rationally self-defeating and logically self-contradictory. Its necessary postmodernist gymnastics are incongruous with the exclusive truth claims of the Christian faith itself.
Love, both for the sinners for whom Christ died as well as for the truth itself, demands that we expose the church growth movement for what it is, articulate this reality in different ways, and present people with an authentic alternative.
This post is intended as a follow-up to an earlier recent post about worship style and the latest battles within the LCMS over worship.
The church growth movement (the term may no longer be popular, but let us call a thing what it is) and its defenders accept the premise that style is divorced from substance, that doctrine is unrelated to practice. This is a longstanding debate that has continued to foster disagreements in the LCMS since the emergence of the church growth movement (and this latest discussion is just yet another incarnation of that philosophy).
The Lutheran confessions themselves routinely link doctrine and practice. The ancient connection between "lex credendi" and "lex orandi" is made explicit in the Book of Concord. So, it does matter whether the pastor wears vestments or casual wear. It is a confession of what is happening at the altar and an expression of a pastor's commitment to the church's confession of Catholic continuity. If it is a case of need, want, poverty, or extenuating circumstances, that's obviously a different story.
But the church growth movement is a deliberate theological thrust away from the Book of Concord and a rejection of the Catholic tradition, just as was the state of general American Lutheranism when our forbears founded the LCMS. This different thrust is what led the early LCMS into clearly articulating an explicit "quia" position on confessional subscription as well as a more unpopular stance against Lutheran unity, and likewise against incorporation of popular, but non-Lutheran, elements in worship. This current debate actually gets to the very roots of the LCMS, and is in part why we've tended not to join in fellowship with other Lutherans, and have been parodied as grumpy sticks in the mud.
The current discussion is similar to when people link Lutheranism to the "Lutheran" church down the street with the "nice lady pastor." One could argue that she is teaching the same doctrine, and is maybe even a better law/gospel preacher than many LCMS men. She is truly officiating over valid sacraments (an argument that I don't accept) and saving people from hell (I don't believe this either), and so we should not be critical. Whether or not to ordain women is merely a style issue, based on individual tastes and preferences, not a matter of doctrine (so the argument goes), and therefore we should be "nice" about it all and offer no criticism. But to the contrary, this is a doctrinal issue, it does scandalize the faithful, and it destroys faith. It's wrong, and we should say so.
Many also accept the premise that none of this church growthism is spiritually harmful. It is. People are scandalized by this. I nearly left Lutheranism when I moved to a different part of the country as a layman and found all sorts of LCMS congregations and pastors that wanted to be entertainers. My own parishioners are scandalized when they go on vacation and find this kind of thing. It's not simply that these churches have blue doors and our door is red, this is a deviation from (among others) Article 24 (an article that one church growth pastor actually told me is no longer binding on Lutherans!). There is also an obsession with numbers among church-growthers that is at odds with our confession of the Holy Spirit, predestination, election, and our condemnation of Arminianism. This touches upon the article of justification itself, and is no mere window-dressing - all the protestations that "we're all just like you" notwithstanding.
We traditionalists/conservatives are routinely told to shut up and go with the flow. Don't like gay marriage? Then don't marry someone of your own sex. Don't like abortion? Don't have one. Don't want a woman pastor? Don't call one. Above all, don't criticize others who are different, but coexist, just like the bumper sticker tells us to do. Our churches all have LCMS on the sign out front, and even if they don't, they're secretly part of the LCMS - as evidenced by the church worker benefit plans, and possibly even financial support and subsidization from their districts.
I believe the church growth movement is a deviation away from our confessional heritage, that it seeks to drive a wedge between doctrine and practice, necessarily leads to splitting the Lutheran confessions into articles that are bonding vs. articles that are not binding, and harms people spiritually.
I have no doubt that church growth pastors and lay leaders are sincere and mean well. But a lot of people are sincere and mean well. That isn't the hallmark of what is orthodox, godly, or within the rubric of what is authentically Lutheran. When we traditionalists are compared to the Taliban, mocked as being "Romanizers" or "chancel prancers," when our sacred liturgy is cast as a losing proposition that chases people away, when our Book of Concord is marginalized and actually laughed at (and yes, I have heard this repeatedly my entire ministry by church growth advocates), when we are told to shut up about the nice lady "pastor" or the congregation with the big screens and charismatic worship style - that's all okay. When we write critiques - be they systematic arguments against such practices, or tongue in cheek parodies and satire, and we're told we're being divisive or engaging in polemics. Luther was likewise criticized when he would not link arms with Zwingli over what many perceived to be a minor issue that did not actually divide us.
It did, and it does.
The good news is that in the long run, the fads always burn themselves out. Traditional worship was here when we were all born, it will be here after we are all dead. It was here when our Lord manifested Himself in the Tabernacle, and it will abide even until Christ returns. First-world fad worship - be it cowboy church, biker church, dancing girls and rock music, secular narcissism, entertainment worship, and everything of that ilk - will ultimately end up like 8-track players and leisure suits. The problem is that in the mean time, people are confused about Christianity, worship of the one true God, and the Lutheran confession of the faith by being told diametrically opposite things by groups all claiming to be teaching the same things. The church growth movement cheapens the faith by recasting the profound as shallow, by shifting the focus from eternal transcendence to the life-cycle of a 140 character tweet, from the theological to the anthropological, from atonement to enjoyment.
"In our churches Mass is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals when the sacrament is offered to those who wish for it after they have been examined and absolved. We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc." If a pastor and congregation can't say that - and it is by intention and design (rather than an inherited anomaly to be changed pastorally) - then such pastors and congregations are simply not part of the "our churches" - unless the Book of Concord is no longer relevant, binding, normal (in the sense of being the norma normata of "our churches"), and that which defines what it means to be authentically Lutheran.
One of the tenets of the church-growth movement - to which its advocates pay lip-service - one that I actually agree with, is the need for authenticity. People will inevitably sniff out the inauthentic. Authenticity for us Lutherans is spelled out in our confessions. Anything contrary to what Dr. Kenneth Korby called "our Catholic Book of Concord" invalidates claims to such a pastor or congregation being truly Lutheran, and is a big red flag that says "counterfeit." I think people are tired of counterfeit religiosity and are increasingly wary of being manipulated. I think the church growth movement is not just wrong, contrary to the Lutheran confession of the catholic faith, and spiritually toxic, but will ultimately prove ineffective of even its own goals, because it is, by definition, inauthentic. It is rationally self-defeating and logically self-contradictory. Its necessary postmodernist gymnastics are incongruous with the exclusive truth claims of the Christian faith itself.
Love, both for the sinners for whom Christ died as well as for the truth itself, demands that we expose the church growth movement for what it is, articulate this reality in different ways, and present people with an authentic alternative.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Is Worship Trash or Treasure?
By Larry Beane
Here is a timely piece about a Lutheran church that is promising a 30-minute service by cutting out the ceremonies.
According to the article, this service "appeals to people who don’t want to sit in church all day on Sunday."
“The whole idea is to get people who are outside of the institutional church, who want something more relational, the opportunity to have that,” [Pastor] Boshoven said. “That it’s half an hour makes it less of a burden in terms of time commitment. The half-hour is fulfilling. It’s something meaningful that brings some joy.”
At the 30-minute service, there is one song and an opening prayer. Then instead of a sermon, the pastor reads a story from the Bible and the group talks about it. They end with a prayer, careful not to go over the time limit.
“In my pocket, I keep my cell phone which vibrates and warns me it’s time to wrap it up,” Boshoven said.This kind of thing is a capitulation to our facebook-twitter immediate-gratification drive-thru-window entertain-me-and-quick-or-I-will-be-bored culture. Worship is seen as, at best, a duty, something to be endured. It's funny how other things in modern life are seen in a radically different light, and if they go longer than usual, it is considered a blessing and a joy, a thing to be treasured: such as when the football game goes into overtime, the baseball game goes into extra innings, the band comes out for an additional encore, or the vacation gets extended by a few days.
But when it comes to the once-a-week Divine Service - in which your Lord comes to you in Word and Sacrament, forgiving your sins, sharing with you the good news, and giving to you everlasting life as a free and full gift - it is something to be dreaded and gotten over with as quickly as possible, like a root canal or a colonoscopy. And if it goes on longer than usual, it is abominable, execrable, if not downright unthinkable: the source of grumbling and shifting in the pews and huffing-and-puffing - in the same category as extended rush hour traffic due to construction or waiting in an interminable line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
And so pastors and congregations are now apparently willing to accommodate the culture by cutting and slashing worship so as to deliver their members, the very people for whom Christ died, from the "burden in terms of time commitment" (Oh horror!) and instead delivering unto them additional Sunday minutes to spend elsewhere, unsullied by signs-of-the-cross, bowing and praying and standing and kneeling, and singing canticles from the Bible and hymns from the service book. Hooray!
One of the great blessings of a recent retreat that I attended was precisely the opposite of the above. The contrast was stark and palpable.
Worship was not hurried, not rushed, not concerned about keeping everything as abbreviated and chip-chop as possible so that nobody would (God forbid!) miss a kickoff. It was reverent and yet relaxed, focused on Christ and the Gospel, unconcerned with the TV schedule or getting little Johnny to his soccer match. We lingered in our Blessed Lord's presence. We drank in His Holy Word without hustle or bustle, able to contemplate the One Thing Needful that truly matters in this mortal life. The body and blood were not administered in such a way as to "get-em-in-and-get-em-out." And in addition to our daily Masses, we gathered for extra time in worship through some of the traditional prayer hours (Matins, Sext, and Vespers).
That is how our Sundays in the parish ought to be. Each Lord's Day should be a mini-retreat, a time of contemplation and of receiving the Lord's gifts with the eyes of faith and not with one eye on the wristwatch. Dear people of God, don't exchange your priceless birthright for a bowl of here-today-gone-tomorrow pottage!
I pray that our congregations regain their countercultural commitment to share with their members the authentic delights and joys of casting aside the pleasures of this world - at least for an hour or two on the Lord's Day - and receive the gift of the Divine Service for what it is: treasure to be savored and not simply trash to be endured.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Dignity Matters!
By Larry Beane
Well, you've probably seen the video of the "dancing bishops." In case you haven't, it's embedded above. And yes, it is real. It is part of a welcome to the bishop of Rome's visit to Rio.
Here is a well-written response from the point of view of an Eastern Orthodox cleric.
Much of his perspective will likely resonate with Lutherans, we likewise being historical, Catholic Christians who reject the lofty claims of the Roman see. And setting aside the issue of our doctrinal differences with the Roman Catholic Church for the time being (see especially Articles 21-28 in the Augsburg Confession, Article 4 of the Apology, the Smalcald Articles and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope to review these issues of doctrine and practice which for the most part remain divisive to this day), I think it is interesting to see how the Roman Catholic Church is perceived when she resorts to such frivolity and gimmickry.
And my purpose here is not to throw stones, for we in the LCMS live in our own glass houses, do we not?
As the author points out, what attracts a lot of people to Roman Catholicism is its antiquity, its gravitas, its, well, "Catholicism." The Roman Church stands like the Rock of St. Peter over and against the rise and fall of nations and empires, of changing paradigms, of the modern storefront Protestant "churches" where women "bishops" govern over their "pastor" husbands, where thousands of organizations lay claim to being "the true church" when they have only recently been founded and incorporated, where a plethora of doctrines and personality cults compete in a cacophany of voices and confessions.
Over and against the noise stands the Church of Rome. Any serious student of western history encounters her. Like the ocean, like the sunrise, she is always there - sometimes acting nobly in her saints and martyrs, teachers and servants of mankind, and sometimes acting diabolically in her bureaucrats and popes, her money scams and torture chambers. And in spite of the Borgias and the Inquisition, there is something compelling in her antiquity, in her chain of ordinations stretching back to the apostles. Notwithstanding human sin and organizational depravity, there is dignity.
Or there was.
One might argue that the episcopal flashmob was not a worship service; this was just a bit of fun. And that is true as far as it goes. But these men are bishops, representatives of our Lord and the apostles, men consecrated into the Office of the Holy Ministry, clad in the uniform of their office, men whose ministry is to oversee dioceses of churches and dozens or even hundreds of pastors. Their presence for this youth event is intended to remind the young people of the treasure that is the Christian faith, the one true faith, the only thing of lasting importance in this fallen world. And while some may be amused and appreciative of this lighthearted display, there is also an outpouring of shock, revulsion, sadness, and anger among Roman Catholics.
This did indeed cause much offense.
I think we Lutherans should learn from this episode. Peruse the responses from the blog readers. And then think on our own narrative as 21st century Catholic Christians within the Lutheran tradition and confession, rooted deeply in history, whose own chain of ordinations extends likewise back through the ages to the apostles as well. Think about the seriousness of the Reformation, when souls were imperiled by false doctrine, then the Word of God was re-emerging from darkness, when men and women gave their lives resisting religious tyranny, when hymnody, preaching, participation in the liturgy, daily prayer, and study of the Holy Scriptures - all in the common languages - were restored to the faithful! What a treasure!
In my own case, I was drawn to Lutheranism because of this historical gravitas that did not throw out the baby of the gospel with the bathwater of medieval power politics and corruption. In Lutheranism, I found liturgical, sacramental, Catholic Christians and Catholic congregations that were not beholden to papal decrees and human traditions over and against God's Word. I found salvation and life, intelligent study of the Word, and dignified (yes, dignified!) traditional worship that connected me to the church of every age. I could get rock music anywhere - even from the speakers mounted in the windshield of my motorcycle, even in my eccentric 11th grade teacher's classroom. But there was something else in the Lutheran Church - something transcendent, something apostolic, something that communicated the only thing in this life that matters.
And the dignity of liturgical worship among us is a confession of that apostolicity, that gravitas, that serious centrality and constancy of the Church's proclamation and mission.
So what message do we send a world and a culture that is lost at sea in rapid change, in sarcasm, in 24/7 entertainment, in frivolity, in licentiousness, in boredom, and in skepticism, when we try to imitate the shallow cultural waters in which they swim? Do visitors to our churches see us as yet another storefront fly-by-night denomination, or to they see us bound by doctrine and practice and history to the apostles - in our worship, in our confession, and in our dignity? For dignity itself is a confession that we take our faith seriously. In other words, we really believe this stuff! The catch-phrase of today is "authenticity." And ecclesiologically, authenticity is embedded in our creeds in the word "apostolic."
Ironically, those who push for drum kits in the chancel, drama teams, rock and roll, dancing girls, a lounge atmosphere, big screens, cup holders, lattes, and other elements of entertainment, are likely pushing the younger generation they claim to be seeking away from the church. While young people tend to like dressing and acting casually in their day to day lives, has anyone considered that maybe they actually might be drawn to something transcendent, dignified, apostolic when it comes to their quest to find the True God?
I was 17 years old when I found a home in the Lutheran Church. During the week, I rode my motorcycle and listened to heavy metal. I was always clad in jeans and tee shirts. I played basketball with my friends, attended concerts and parties and midnight movies, and lived well within the parameters of youth culture. On Sundays, I appreciated the dignity, the gravitas, and the apostolicity of my rather low-church humble Lutheran congregation. Even in its simplicity, the ancient liturgy proclaimed the church's authenticity. When they introduced the "contemporary" service, I avoided it. I think that puzzled some of the older, well-meaning folks.
Of course, that was a long time ago, and times have changed. Maybe young people today see the world differently than I did when I was drawn to the Church of the Augsburg Confession. But whether one is young or old, whether one is a pastor or a layman, if we believe the Nicene Creed that we (hopefully) recite publicly at every Sunday Mass, we owe it to everyone - to visitors to our church, to the faithful members of the body of Christ, to our fellow Christians around the world, and to those who came before us, including the apostles and our Lord Himself - to be reverent, to avoid frivolity, to steer clear of offense, to be dignified, authentic, and apostolic in our worship and in how we hold ourselves out to the world; to be Catholic in all that entails according to our Evangelical confession.
Dignity matters.
These Roman bishops, likely with all good intentions, surrendered the dignity of their Catholicism for the dark pottage of the ephemeral youth culture. Let us ever be mindful of our confession of the Lamb and His Gospel, the Holy Scriptures, our blessed confessional symbols, our rich heritage and tradition, and how we are perceived by souls in need of salvation when we act as undignified as these men who likewise lay claim, with our common ancestors in the faith, to the confession of that "one holy catholic and apostolic church."
Dignus est Agnus.
Monday, June 17, 2013
All Those Ceremonies!
All those ceremonies!
All those extravagant, impractical, and unnecessary ceremonies.
All the bending and kneeling and adoring of Jesus.
All the weeping at His beautiful feet.
All the wetting and the washing of His feet.
All the drying of His feet with her hair.
All the kissing of His feet.
And, then, all that perfume, poured out upon His feet.
Pretentious? Presumptuous? Hypocritical? Legalistic?
No, but for this reason I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; for she loves much, and her love testifies to her faith in the Lord's forgiveness of her sins. She knows where to find and worship the Lord her God, because this Man, Christ Jesus, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Kingdom of God is at hand in Him. There is forgiveness and salvation found in no one else. Therefore, both faith and love lay hold of the one true God in the Body of the incarnate Son.
The Pharisee says, "How dare she!?" But Jesus says, "She loves Me!."
The crowd complains, "Who is this guy!?" But the woman says, "He is my Savior!" Except, she says it, she confesses her faith in Christ and expresses her love for Him, not with words in this case, but with her lavish actions of adoration and grateful devotion. With her ceremonies.
Our Confessions rightly point to this woman as an example of the true worship of God by faith: For it is in this way that God wants to be worshiped, that is, not by attempts to give Him anything, but by the faith that seeks forgiveness and salvation in Christ Jesus. Amen. But the Confessions also note, as the Lord Jesus expressly reveals, that the woman's faith and true worship are demonstrated and manifest in her love for Him. She is not saved by her ceremonies, but her ceremonies belong to her salvation by faith in Christ Jesus.
What she did was not practical, pragmatic, or productive. It wasn't necessary. She did not "have" to do it. But it did profess Christ Jesus, and, in professing Him, it was pedagogical in catechizing us. The Lord Himself receives her ceremonies of love, and commends them as evidence of her faith and life and salvation in Him; for they are but the overflowing of His great love for her, and the evidence of His faithfulness toward her.
Another woman, Mary of Bethany, closely follows the example of this woman and her ceremonies. If it had been somewhat spontaneous the first time, had it actually become some kind of ritual thereafter? There is no need or point to conjecture. We are not bound to do any of these things, nor could we do them, exactly, in the way those faithful women were able to do then. We may, and should, wash our Lord's feet in the feet of His disciples, that is, by works of love and gifts of charity for our neighbors. The same Lord is also present for us, to love us and serve us, to forgive us and save us, in His means of grace, in His Word and Sacrament, in His Body and His Blood. We love Him, because He first loves us. And so we worship and adore Him in the House and at the Table where His Body is found and given for us.
When that second woman had the audacity to anoint the beautiful feet of Jesus with costly perfume, and she was accused of extravagance and waste, the Lord praised her worship as befitting His Cross and Passion, and, He said, wherever in the world His Gospel is preached, what she did for Him would be remembered.
All those ceremonies.
All those extravagant, impractical, and unnecessary ceremonies.
All the bending and kneeling and adoring of Jesus.
All the weeping at His beautiful feet.
All the wetting and the washing of His feet.
All the drying of His feet with her hair.
All the kissing of His feet.
And, then, all that perfume, poured out upon His feet.
Pretentious? Presumptuous? Hypocritical? Legalistic?
No, but for this reason I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; for she loves much, and her love testifies to her faith in the Lord's forgiveness of her sins. She knows where to find and worship the Lord her God, because this Man, Christ Jesus, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Kingdom of God is at hand in Him. There is forgiveness and salvation found in no one else. Therefore, both faith and love lay hold of the one true God in the Body of the incarnate Son.
The Pharisee says, "How dare she!?" But Jesus says, "She loves Me!."
The crowd complains, "Who is this guy!?" But the woman says, "He is my Savior!" Except, she says it, she confesses her faith in Christ and expresses her love for Him, not with words in this case, but with her lavish actions of adoration and grateful devotion. With her ceremonies.
Our Confessions rightly point to this woman as an example of the true worship of God by faith: For it is in this way that God wants to be worshiped, that is, not by attempts to give Him anything, but by the faith that seeks forgiveness and salvation in Christ Jesus. Amen. But the Confessions also note, as the Lord Jesus expressly reveals, that the woman's faith and true worship are demonstrated and manifest in her love for Him. She is not saved by her ceremonies, but her ceremonies belong to her salvation by faith in Christ Jesus.
What she did was not practical, pragmatic, or productive. It wasn't necessary. She did not "have" to do it. But it did profess Christ Jesus, and, in professing Him, it was pedagogical in catechizing us. The Lord Himself receives her ceremonies of love, and commends them as evidence of her faith and life and salvation in Him; for they are but the overflowing of His great love for her, and the evidence of His faithfulness toward her.
Another woman, Mary of Bethany, closely follows the example of this woman and her ceremonies. If it had been somewhat spontaneous the first time, had it actually become some kind of ritual thereafter? There is no need or point to conjecture. We are not bound to do any of these things, nor could we do them, exactly, in the way those faithful women were able to do then. We may, and should, wash our Lord's feet in the feet of His disciples, that is, by works of love and gifts of charity for our neighbors. The same Lord is also present for us, to love us and serve us, to forgive us and save us, in His means of grace, in His Word and Sacrament, in His Body and His Blood. We love Him, because He first loves us. And so we worship and adore Him in the House and at the Table where His Body is found and given for us.
When that second woman had the audacity to anoint the beautiful feet of Jesus with costly perfume, and she was accused of extravagance and waste, the Lord praised her worship as befitting His Cross and Passion, and, He said, wherever in the world His Gospel is preached, what she did for Him would be remembered.
All those ceremonies.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
What Does This "High Church" Mean?
Owning the "High Church" label, for a little while, without quibbling over its semantic baggage:
A high view of the Church, as I have said before, goes hand-in-hand with a high view of Christ. A "High Church" attitude and approach to the Liturgy and worship derives from a particular view of life before God, which finds its central focus and clarity in the Reconciliation of Christ Jesus, the Atonement of His Cross, and the Justification of His Resurrection from the dead. It is with profound gratitude to God for this Gospel, for this grace in which we stand, that we draw near — through the flesh and blood of Jesus, by His Word and Holy Spirit — and, in reverent awe, that we approach the receiving and the handing over of His good gifts.
"High Church" is typically characterized by, and is usually identified with, a certain quantity and quality of formal ceremonial (admittedly ambiguous in its contours, but everyone evidently knows it when they see it). Despite that common stereotype, however, outward ceremonies are not the chief or definitive concern; they are not the heart of the matter, nor are they decisive; leastwise not for a "High Church" Lutheran.
A high view of the Church, deriving from a high view of Christ, our Savior, approaches the Divine Liturgy and Christian worship with confidence and conviction concerning the following eight axioms (I'm calling them axioms, because I'm not sure what else to call them, but "axiom" has the right sort of orthodox ambiance):
1. The sufficiency, power, and authority of the Word of God, the Law and the Gospel, for repentance and faith, forgiveness, and life everlasting in Christ.
2. The centrality of the Holy Sacraments for the faith and life of the Church: Holy Baptism as foundational; Holy Absolution as a continuing exercise of the significance of Holy Baptism; and the Holy Communion as the heart and center of the Body.
3. The goodness of Creation, and of the body, especially in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the first creation and the Firstfruits of the New Creation.
4. The catechetical character and liturgical purpose of Preaching, which is always proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' Name, in order to bring disciples to and from the Font, to and from the Altar, in the worthiness of repentant faith.
5. The evangelical definition of the Office of the Holy Ministry, which in all things (including the exercise of Church discipline) aims at the forgiveness of sinners with the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
6. The "meet, right, and salutary" appropriateness of thanksgiving and praise, of worship and adoration, with "hearts and hands and voices," with body and soul together, and with lips that are opened by the Word and Spirit of Christ to confess and call upon His Holy Name, to the Glory of His God and Father.
7. The gracious Word and work of Christ Jesus, our merciful and great High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for us at the right hand of the Father, and who also serves His Church on earth with His Divine Liturgy of the Gospel.
8. The unity, holiness, and catholicity of the Church in Christ Jesus, who is with her in each time and place, not only with His Spirit and Divinity, but also with His Body and true Manhood, wherever He calls and gathers His disciples together "in His Name," in the preaching and administration of His Holy Gospel.
A high view of the Church, as I have said before, goes hand-in-hand with a high view of Christ. A "High Church" attitude and approach to the Liturgy and worship derives from a particular view of life before God, which finds its central focus and clarity in the Reconciliation of Christ Jesus, the Atonement of His Cross, and the Justification of His Resurrection from the dead. It is with profound gratitude to God for this Gospel, for this grace in which we stand, that we draw near — through the flesh and blood of Jesus, by His Word and Holy Spirit — and, in reverent awe, that we approach the receiving and the handing over of His good gifts.
"High Church" is typically characterized by, and is usually identified with, a certain quantity and quality of formal ceremonial (admittedly ambiguous in its contours, but everyone evidently knows it when they see it). Despite that common stereotype, however, outward ceremonies are not the chief or definitive concern; they are not the heart of the matter, nor are they decisive; leastwise not for a "High Church" Lutheran.
A high view of the Church, deriving from a high view of Christ, our Savior, approaches the Divine Liturgy and Christian worship with confidence and conviction concerning the following eight axioms (I'm calling them axioms, because I'm not sure what else to call them, but "axiom" has the right sort of orthodox ambiance):
1. The sufficiency, power, and authority of the Word of God, the Law and the Gospel, for repentance and faith, forgiveness, and life everlasting in Christ.
2. The centrality of the Holy Sacraments for the faith and life of the Church: Holy Baptism as foundational; Holy Absolution as a continuing exercise of the significance of Holy Baptism; and the Holy Communion as the heart and center of the Body.
3. The goodness of Creation, and of the body, especially in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the first creation and the Firstfruits of the New Creation.
4. The catechetical character and liturgical purpose of Preaching, which is always proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' Name, in order to bring disciples to and from the Font, to and from the Altar, in the worthiness of repentant faith.
5. The evangelical definition of the Office of the Holy Ministry, which in all things (including the exercise of Church discipline) aims at the forgiveness of sinners with the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
6. The "meet, right, and salutary" appropriateness of thanksgiving and praise, of worship and adoration, with "hearts and hands and voices," with body and soul together, and with lips that are opened by the Word and Spirit of Christ to confess and call upon His Holy Name, to the Glory of His God and Father.
7. The gracious Word and work of Christ Jesus, our merciful and great High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for us at the right hand of the Father, and who also serves His Church on earth with His Divine Liturgy of the Gospel.
8. The unity, holiness, and catholicity of the Church in Christ Jesus, who is with her in each time and place, not only with His Spirit and Divinity, but also with His Body and true Manhood, wherever He calls and gathers His disciples together "in His Name," in the preaching and administration of His Holy Gospel.
Friday, April 19, 2013
The Divine Liturgist and the First Worshiper of God
Here is Part I of my ACELC free conference paper (16 April 2013).
The entire paper will be made available on the ACELC website.
At the center is the Lamb upon His throne; Who was slain, and yet, behold, He lives.
He is the King of Glory, the one true God in the Flesh. He is the almighty and eternal Son, begotten of the Father from eternity, but now also true Man, conceived and born of the Woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified for our transgressions. But His Father also raised Him from the dead for our justification, and seated Him at His right hand. He lives and reigns to all eternity in His own glorious Body of flesh and blood. In Him, the fullness of God is embodied: His two natures, divine and human, are perfectly and permanently united in His one indivisible Person.
God and Man are perfectly reconciled and permanently united in Him, the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah in One: He is the Seed of Abraham and the Son of David. In this one Lord Jesus Christ, in His Person and His work, the Lion and the Lamb lie down and rise up together, unto everlasting life.
The transcendence and immanence of God are thus resolved and held together in His one Body, crucified and risen. For He is true God, exalted and glorified, and all things are put beneath His feet. But He is also Immanuel, the God who is with us, who is the true Man, who lives and abides in the flesh forever, closer than a brother. For He is not only like us, but He has drawn near to us, and given Himself for us, in order to save us, to make us His own Bride, to wed us to Himself as one flesh and bone, and of one blood, in such a profound and intimate way that even death shall never part us.
He is the New Adam, and we are His New Eve, given life from His wounded side, and given to Him by the Father in peace and love. He is the Husband of one Wife, His Holy Church; and He is the Head of His Body, the household and family of God, in heaven and on earth. He is our Strength and our Song, for He is our Life and Salvation. In Him, the true and only God is very present and at work, revealing and giving Himself to us: in, with, and through His own human nature, His flesh and blood.
Our foremost interest, emphasis, and concern, therefore, in approaching the Divine Liturgy and true spiritual worship, is the Person and work of Christ Jesus. Not only historically, but here and now in the Life of His Church. For He is both the Subject and the Object of the Liturgy and of worship.
That is to say, not only is He what the Liturgy and worship are about; and not only is He the Content of the Divine Liturgy and of Christian worship; but He Himself is the Liturgist (the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament Priesthood with its liturgy), and He is the first and foremost Worshiper of the Father (the true Man, who is the very Image and Likeness of God, who lives in perfect faith and love).
Having come down from the Father in love, He is lifted up and returns to the Father in peace. He has descended from heaven, even into the depths of our sin and death, in order to ascend with us in tow. He is the Apostle of the Father, who is sent to us from the bosom of the Father, in order to make God known to us. And He is the Author, Perfecter, and High Priest of the Christian faith, who has been sacrificed and slain for us, who ever lives to intercede for us before the Throne of God. He is the one Mediator between God and Man, in whom the Father comes to us and we are brought to the Father.
Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the finish, and He loves them forever. What He has accomplished and completed by His Cross, and manifested in His Resurrection from the dead, He now distributes and bestows by His Gospel: to the ends of the earth, even to the close of the age. His High Priesthood and His Liturgy continue forever. Not only before the Father in heaven, but also in His Church, wherein He is the One who speaks and acts, who does and gives all good things.
Monday, May 7, 2012
A Few Minutes with Fr. William C. Weedon, LCMS Director of Worship and International Center Chaplain
I recently had the pleasure of spending a few minutes chatting with Fr. William C. Weedon, newly installed LCMS Director of Worship and International Center Chaplain, to ask him a few questions about his new post. Here's his response.
GOTTESDIENST: As Director of Worship and IC chaplain, what will some of your duties entail?
WEEDON: Let's start with the easier one: as IC Chaplain I'm responsible for coordinating and planning the services that take place in the International Center Chapel (it needs a name!), and in general finding ways for "the Word of God to dwell richly" among the employees in the building as they seek to seek to serve the needs of the Church. In today's Chapel, President Harrison spoke of the three meanings we find in the NT for "confess" - confession of sins, of the faith, and the confession of praise. As chaplain in this place, it's my calling to assist the workers in embracing all three meanings: learning what it means to live together under the forgiveness of Jesus – and so forgiving one another, building each other up in our wonderful doctrinal heritage, and also growing in the joyous praise of God. They are all tied together as we learn to "say back" to God what He has graciously said and revealed of Himself to us.
As Director of Worship, I'll hope to entice the pastors and parishes of the Synod into a joyous, reverent, and intentional embrace of our heritage as Lutheran Christians – a heritage that virtually drips with the sweetness of the Gospel at every turn. One wonderful thing about that heritage is that it is always open-ended: the Lord of the Church is never done giving His gifts. He always has more: new gifts, new songs, new joys for His Church. But (and this is crucial) these "new" gifts never come by way of replacement of the heritage that has gone before but always as its natural unfolding and growth. "One generation shall declare your works to another." This happens as the song of previous generations lives on on our lips and in our hearts, and as we teach that song to the next generation, and add whatever new the Lord gives in our own day along with it. Also, keep your eye out for workshops for hymn-writers, continued publication of the Let Us Pray series – AND the addition of a set of historic, one-year Let Us Pray cycle, ongoing Lectionary Summaries and perhaps a revival of the Lutheran Musicians Enrichment opportunities.
GOTTESDIENST: You’ve said before that we have a “rich, intentional and beautiful liturgical heritage” and that within that heritage “we possess a wide range of freedom.” What does that mean for LCMS congregations?
WEEDON: The sainted A. C. Piepkorn once famously wrote that the responsible exercise of freedom is itself a catholic virtue. He was right, of course, and yet the chief freedom we are concerned with when we speak of Christian worship is not the freedom from our liturgical heritage, or even the freedom to mold our liturgical heritage, but the freedom that that heritage bears such sublime witness to: the liberation of creation from its bondage to decay, sin and death! Freedom isn't making up a new liturgy each week – in fact, that can end up being bondage to the itch for the novel that Luther decried in the intro to the German Mass. On the contrary, the freedom to which our liturgical and hymnological heritage bears witness is the freedom to live in the Spirit where all is gift from the hand of the Crucified and Risen One (even the sufferings!) who IS the Forgiveness of our sin and the Destruction of all our death, and so where all of life is referred in thanksgiving to His heavenly Father, who has now become our Father. This is the freedom to be the children of God that our Baptism has made us, the freedom to which absolution constantly restores us, and that the most venerable Eucharist strengthens within us every time we receive it in the joys of repentance and faith.
GOTTESDIENST: How can pastors be more purposeful in cultivating a rich liturgical life within their congregation?
WEEDON: First let them be men of prayer. The Daily Office should be no stranger to our pastors. We have rich resource here. I think of Treasury of Daily Prayer or The Brotherhood Prayerbook among others. Let the pastors be men of prayer and among their concerns in prayer, let them pray for the renewal of their parishes (that they might truly become outposts, colonies of the Age to Come)and for a growing and deep reverence and love for the Blessed Eucharist in their congregations. Let's also watch HOW we conduct ourselves in the service of bringing the gifts of God to the people of God. Not stiff and wooden and choreographed, certainly not casual and comfortable, but with fear and trembling, commingled with the unutterable joy of being in the presence of the Lamb of God with all the saints and angels. When pastors orient themselves toward this great present but unseen reality in our worship, it will then invite the congregation along with them into the holy presence. We also need to remember this: the liturgy is at its heart simply prayed confession, prayed doctrine. Discomfort with our historic liturgy may sometimes be a sign and symptom of discomfort with the Lutheran doctrine embedded in it. That needs then to be addressed for what it is: not a quarrel about worship style, but a struggle to confess the truth of God.
GOTTESDIENST: What can the pastors of the LCMS be doing or praying for that will assist you in your new role?
WEEDON: The pastors of the LCMS need above all to attend to this: the preaching of the Word entrusted to them. The preaching of God's law in such a way that the sinner is not merely irritated but slain; the preaching of the Gospel in such clarity that the slain are raised from the dead by the life-giving Spirit. I have said for many years that what we face in the Synod is not so much a crisis of liturgy as a crisis of preaching. Lutheran liturgy tends to take care of itself when the preaching is strong. There is nothing that would so strengthen the worship life of the congregations of our Synod, nothing that would so delight our Lord's heart, as more careful attention to our preaching. If there is one thing we should ask the Lord of the Church to grant us, it is renewal in the pulpit. That will lead, I firmly believe, to renewal at the altar, in the choir loft, and out in the community.
 |
| Fr. William C. Weedon, LCMS Director of Worship and International Center Chaplain |
GOTTESDIENST: As Director of Worship and IC chaplain, what will some of your duties entail?
WEEDON: Let's start with the easier one: as IC Chaplain I'm responsible for coordinating and planning the services that take place in the International Center Chapel (it needs a name!), and in general finding ways for "the Word of God to dwell richly" among the employees in the building as they seek to seek to serve the needs of the Church. In today's Chapel, President Harrison spoke of the three meanings we find in the NT for "confess" - confession of sins, of the faith, and the confession of praise. As chaplain in this place, it's my calling to assist the workers in embracing all three meanings: learning what it means to live together under the forgiveness of Jesus – and so forgiving one another, building each other up in our wonderful doctrinal heritage, and also growing in the joyous praise of God. They are all tied together as we learn to "say back" to God what He has graciously said and revealed of Himself to us.
As Director of Worship, I'll hope to entice the pastors and parishes of the Synod into a joyous, reverent, and intentional embrace of our heritage as Lutheran Christians – a heritage that virtually drips with the sweetness of the Gospel at every turn. One wonderful thing about that heritage is that it is always open-ended: the Lord of the Church is never done giving His gifts. He always has more: new gifts, new songs, new joys for His Church. But (and this is crucial) these "new" gifts never come by way of replacement of the heritage that has gone before but always as its natural unfolding and growth. "One generation shall declare your works to another." This happens as the song of previous generations lives on on our lips and in our hearts, and as we teach that song to the next generation, and add whatever new the Lord gives in our own day along with it. Also, keep your eye out for workshops for hymn-writers, continued publication of the Let Us Pray series – AND the addition of a set of historic, one-year Let Us Pray cycle, ongoing Lectionary Summaries and perhaps a revival of the Lutheran Musicians Enrichment opportunities.
GOTTESDIENST: You’ve said before that we have a “rich, intentional and beautiful liturgical heritage” and that within that heritage “we possess a wide range of freedom.” What does that mean for LCMS congregations?
WEEDON: The sainted A. C. Piepkorn once famously wrote that the responsible exercise of freedom is itself a catholic virtue. He was right, of course, and yet the chief freedom we are concerned with when we speak of Christian worship is not the freedom from our liturgical heritage, or even the freedom to mold our liturgical heritage, but the freedom that that heritage bears such sublime witness to: the liberation of creation from its bondage to decay, sin and death! Freedom isn't making up a new liturgy each week – in fact, that can end up being bondage to the itch for the novel that Luther decried in the intro to the German Mass. On the contrary, the freedom to which our liturgical and hymnological heritage bears witness is the freedom to live in the Spirit where all is gift from the hand of the Crucified and Risen One (even the sufferings!) who IS the Forgiveness of our sin and the Destruction of all our death, and so where all of life is referred in thanksgiving to His heavenly Father, who has now become our Father. This is the freedom to be the children of God that our Baptism has made us, the freedom to which absolution constantly restores us, and that the most venerable Eucharist strengthens within us every time we receive it in the joys of repentance and faith.
GOTTESDIENST: How can pastors be more purposeful in cultivating a rich liturgical life within their congregation?
WEEDON: First let them be men of prayer. The Daily Office should be no stranger to our pastors. We have rich resource here. I think of Treasury of Daily Prayer or The Brotherhood Prayerbook among others. Let the pastors be men of prayer and among their concerns in prayer, let them pray for the renewal of their parishes (that they might truly become outposts, colonies of the Age to Come)and for a growing and deep reverence and love for the Blessed Eucharist in their congregations. Let's also watch HOW we conduct ourselves in the service of bringing the gifts of God to the people of God. Not stiff and wooden and choreographed, certainly not casual and comfortable, but with fear and trembling, commingled with the unutterable joy of being in the presence of the Lamb of God with all the saints and angels. When pastors orient themselves toward this great present but unseen reality in our worship, it will then invite the congregation along with them into the holy presence. We also need to remember this: the liturgy is at its heart simply prayed confession, prayed doctrine. Discomfort with our historic liturgy may sometimes be a sign and symptom of discomfort with the Lutheran doctrine embedded in it. That needs then to be addressed for what it is: not a quarrel about worship style, but a struggle to confess the truth of God.
GOTTESDIENST: What can the pastors of the LCMS be doing or praying for that will assist you in your new role?
WEEDON: The pastors of the LCMS need above all to attend to this: the preaching of the Word entrusted to them. The preaching of God's law in such a way that the sinner is not merely irritated but slain; the preaching of the Gospel in such clarity that the slain are raised from the dead by the life-giving Spirit. I have said for many years that what we face in the Synod is not so much a crisis of liturgy as a crisis of preaching. Lutheran liturgy tends to take care of itself when the preaching is strong. There is nothing that would so strengthen the worship life of the congregations of our Synod, nothing that would so delight our Lord's heart, as more careful attention to our preaching. If there is one thing we should ask the Lord of the Church to grant us, it is renewal in the pulpit. That will lead, I firmly believe, to renewal at the altar, in the choir loft, and out in the community.
 |
| Fr. Weedon's installation as LCMS Director of Worship and International Center Chaplain |
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Role of Gottesdienst: my turn
While I certainly and wholeheartedly agree with Petersen's description of the role of Gottesdienst in the LCMS, I'm going to add two cents more.
Ever since the inception of Gottesdienst, I have considered the question of its role. In 1992, Jonathan Shaw and Richard Watters, and perhaps Doug Spittel and John Fenton (those two might not have been in on the ground floor, I forget offhand) launched this journal, asking Tom Von Hagel to be editor. They asked me to write an article for the first issue, on the historic lectionary. For the first couple years, it was something like eight pages long, and its purpose was to promote the historic liturgy of the Church, and in part to proclaim the Gospel by doing so and while doing so (sermons were in the mix from the start).
Then in 1995, the journal was about to fold, because Von Hagel was interested in other pursuits, and no one seemed to have the time to make it go. So Fenton and Spittel, and maybe Mark Sell, asked me if I was interested in taking over as editor. I figured I had nothing to lose, so, with about 40 subscribers left, all of whom were on the cusp of getting refunds instead of more issues, I took the reins, and immediately called on my friends and colleagues Karl Fabrizius, Aaron Koch, Jonathan Shaw (already on board), and John Fenton (also already involved) for regular participation. And I began to buttonhole people I knew, at conferences and such, offering subscriptions to most everyone I knew. Soon the numbers had risen to about 200 or 300.
Then in the late '90s, we discovered the internet, and with a new web site, we began to pull in subscribers hand over foot. Kathryn Hill soon became our able copyeditor. By the end of the 20th century we had gone well over the 1000 mark. Still very small, when compared to many other journals, but for something as specialized as we were, we figured we were doing pretty well.
And many of our subscribers were quite avid. We received routine correspondence encouraging us to continue, saying that Gottesdienst was a breath of fresh air, an oasis in the desert, a voice in the wilderness, a light in the darkness, etc. In short, we had tapped into a crying need--including among many lay people--for our Lutheran church to rediscover her heritage and liturgical beauty.
Bolstered, we continued year by year, bringing on new editors, starting this Gottesdienst Online, and finding ourselves seemingly to have become known by many in the LCMS as those liturgical guys: that is, Gurus, if you liked us, or Nazis, if you didn't.
And Gottesdienst became larger than it really was. Today, I am pretty certain that there is a fair number of people, particularly pastors who have come through our seminaries in the past twenty years, who may have never seen, or at least never read, an issue of Gottesdienst, or bothered to check this site, but who notwithstanding make mental associations. We have made some sort of mark. Reasonable minds can debate what sort of mark it is, but it is there.
What this means for me is that perhaps in some small way, in some small corner of the universe, we have helped churches, pastors, people to be more aware of what it takes to be faithful, and why it is important. We have sought not only to bend the knee, but to teach why the wise men did so. We have tried not only to promote liturgical worship, but to explain why liturgical worship was universal in all of Christendom until only very recently. We have endeavored not only to be dignified and grave in our approach to holy things, but to teach why the angels are. And if there are those who have learned from our humble efforts to be aware of those holy things and their salutary (and salvific) effects on us, then perhaps, at least to some extent, we have achieved our goal.
It is, finally, all about Jesus, who comes to us in his own appointed means of grace.
Ever since the inception of Gottesdienst, I have considered the question of its role. In 1992, Jonathan Shaw and Richard Watters, and perhaps Doug Spittel and John Fenton (those two might not have been in on the ground floor, I forget offhand) launched this journal, asking Tom Von Hagel to be editor. They asked me to write an article for the first issue, on the historic lectionary. For the first couple years, it was something like eight pages long, and its purpose was to promote the historic liturgy of the Church, and in part to proclaim the Gospel by doing so and while doing so (sermons were in the mix from the start).
Then in 1995, the journal was about to fold, because Von Hagel was interested in other pursuits, and no one seemed to have the time to make it go. So Fenton and Spittel, and maybe Mark Sell, asked me if I was interested in taking over as editor. I figured I had nothing to lose, so, with about 40 subscribers left, all of whom were on the cusp of getting refunds instead of more issues, I took the reins, and immediately called on my friends and colleagues Karl Fabrizius, Aaron Koch, Jonathan Shaw (already on board), and John Fenton (also already involved) for regular participation. And I began to buttonhole people I knew, at conferences and such, offering subscriptions to most everyone I knew. Soon the numbers had risen to about 200 or 300.
Then in the late '90s, we discovered the internet, and with a new web site, we began to pull in subscribers hand over foot. Kathryn Hill soon became our able copyeditor. By the end of the 20th century we had gone well over the 1000 mark. Still very small, when compared to many other journals, but for something as specialized as we were, we figured we were doing pretty well.
And many of our subscribers were quite avid. We received routine correspondence encouraging us to continue, saying that Gottesdienst was a breath of fresh air, an oasis in the desert, a voice in the wilderness, a light in the darkness, etc. In short, we had tapped into a crying need--including among many lay people--for our Lutheran church to rediscover her heritage and liturgical beauty.
Bolstered, we continued year by year, bringing on new editors, starting this Gottesdienst Online, and finding ourselves seemingly to have become known by many in the LCMS as those liturgical guys: that is, Gurus, if you liked us, or Nazis, if you didn't.
And Gottesdienst became larger than it really was. Today, I am pretty certain that there is a fair number of people, particularly pastors who have come through our seminaries in the past twenty years, who may have never seen, or at least never read, an issue of Gottesdienst, or bothered to check this site, but who notwithstanding make mental associations. We have made some sort of mark. Reasonable minds can debate what sort of mark it is, but it is there.
What this means for me is that perhaps in some small way, in some small corner of the universe, we have helped churches, pastors, people to be more aware of what it takes to be faithful, and why it is important. We have sought not only to bend the knee, but to teach why the wise men did so. We have tried not only to promote liturgical worship, but to explain why liturgical worship was universal in all of Christendom until only very recently. We have endeavored not only to be dignified and grave in our approach to holy things, but to teach why the angels are. And if there are those who have learned from our humble efforts to be aware of those holy things and their salutary (and salvific) effects on us, then perhaps, at least to some extent, we have achieved our goal.
It is, finally, all about Jesus, who comes to us in his own appointed means of grace.
Monday, March 12, 2012
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:
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.
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.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Contemptible Worship, Swedish Style
By Larry Beane
As if Lesbian "bishops" and gay porn in the cathedral weren't enough, here is the latest blasphemous attempt by the Lutheran (sic) "Church" of Sweden to engage the youth.
This about sums it up:
The church in Sweden has become increasingly progressive. In 1958, it allowed its first female priests, and two years ago ordained its first openly gay bishop, Eva Brunne, and gave priests the right to wed same-sex couples.
Idestrom says his modern Mass is a further development on the road of progress.
"People say this is exactly what the Church of Sweden needs," he said. "We need to develop the services so that we have a service also for people, mainly from the younger generation, who like this kind of music."That's always the rationale for "contemporary worship." And notice how it never stops with a few guitars, a flute, and a piano...
"There are churches who have U2 Masses, where they play music by U2, some have animals — horses and dogs and donkeys — and we have motor cycle Masses."This is exactly what happens when the church forgets that worship is Gottesdienst (Swedish: Gudstjanst), God's service - a holy, supernatural, sacramental transaction in which the Lord gives His gifts to His people in Word and Sacrament, who in turn worship Him with reverence and gratitude for the sacrifice that has saved them from sin, death, and the devil. Once that bond of mystery is broken, once the connection to the faith of our fathers is severed, there is not much left but a shallow and pathetic cry for attention that can quickly degenerate into a freak show.
At the heart of the matter, it's a first commandment issue. Do we worship and submit to Christ? Or do we worship ourselves and serve the god "entertainment"? The liturgical butchers of the "Church" of Sweden have made it clear what is the object of their veneration.
HT: Dr. William Tighe
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Worship Attire
By Larry Beane
An interesting article regarding the trend toward casual clothes in worship (and one way to address this pastorally): "No Hooters shirts in Mass, please."
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Lutheran Propers for St. Augustine
Lutheran Service Book (LSB) has given us a lot of possible commemorations, perhaps more so than any previous English language hymnal.
For example, in the Missouri Synod's sanctoral calendar on LSB page xiii, we find that "Augustine of Hippo, Pastor and Theologian" is commemorated on August 28 - which falls on a Sunday this year. Setting aside for the time being the sectarian terminology ("Augustine of Hippo, Pastor and Theologian"), it is a good development for us to honor whom the rest of western Christendom calls "St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church."
However, LSB does not provide any liturgical propers for the celebration of the feast. Fortunately, we do have some resources at our fingertips. Obviously, there are many ways to figure out what propers to use (such as Anglican and Roman Catholic resources), but so that my parish can commemorate St. Augustine per our own synodical calendar, here is what I happen to be using:
- For the collect, I am using the one in the Treasury of Daily Prayer.
- For the Introit, Gradual, Epistle, and Gospel, I am using the helpful volume edited by my colleague here at Gottesdienst, the Rev. H. R. Curtis: Daily Divine Service Book: A Lutheran Daily Missal (DDSB).
- For the Old Testament Reading, I am using the late Rev. Paul W. Nesper's reference called Biblical Texts. It is in reprint thanks to Concodia Theological Seminary Press.
Most of the legwork has been done by Fr. Curtis. The Introit comes from Sirach 15:5 (Antiphon) and Psalm 92:1-2. The Gradual is from Psalm 37:30-31. The Epistle is 2 Timothy 4:1-8, and the Gospel is Matthew 5:13-19. Since my congregation uses ESV, I did have to look up these texts in that version as opposed to Fr. Curtis's preferred KJV - which unlike ESV, is in the public domain.
As DDSB follows the tradition of the Common Service and The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) and does not include Old Testament readings, I used Fr. Nesper's reference work to give me some options. I looked up both the Gospel and Epistle readings in the index (page 438). I found that the Epistle is used in one lectionary for the 11th Sunday after Trinity. In turning to Trinity 11 (pages 380-381), I discovered that the Epistle was used in Lectionary 10 (see page 337). This happened to have been the old Synodical Conference lectionary. Back to page 380, it is clear that the Old Testament reading used by the Synodical Conference that matched up to the Epistle Lesson given in DDSB is Micah 2:7-13.
So, I now have a complete set of Lutheran propers to use for the feast of St. Augustine.
This is a little bit of work. However, it's a lot less work than it could have been, especially to the labors of Fr. Curtis.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
My Song is Love Unknown
By Larry Beane
The suggested Hymn of the Day for last Sunday, the fifth Sunday in Lent (Judica) is Lenten hymn My Song Is Love Unknown (LSB 430). The text was written by an English cleric named Samuel Crossman (1624-83).
Crossman began his churchly life as a Puritan - the faction of the post-Reformation Church of England that corresponds roughly to the more radical elements of the German Reformation. The Puritans sought to "purify" the English Church of its more Catholic elements - which in matters of liturgy, included things like candles, vestments, and the sign of the cross - which they considered to be "popery." One could argue that the Puritans were seventeenth century English OOGs (Opponents Of Gottesdienst).
After being expelled from the English Church in 1662, Crossman renounced his Puritanism, and in 1665 and was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church, serving as a royal chaplain, and shortly before his death, being named the Dean of the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in Bristol.
Coldplay's A Message (video above) borrows its "hook" from the hymn and builds a rock ballad on it.
Of course, fans of Issues, Etc. are familiar with a particular Coldplay tune.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Real Worship
I believe one of the reasons we have "worship wars" among American Christians is that it has been a long time since we have had physical warfare on our own soil. 9-11 was close, but even that was dominated not by the theology of the cross of Christ, but rather by a sense of the national therapy of Oprah.
Consider this poignant picture above of the ruins of a bombed-out church in Germany, where amid all the chances and changes of this life, the one thing that people could hold onto is the liturgy of the Church, the Mass, the real physical communion with the real physical Lord.
Notice what you don't see: entertainment. There is no gyrating chanteuse working the microphone like a Vegas performer, a spotlight shining on a grimacing drummer, a perfectly-coifed guitarist wearing the latest fashions, or a trendy prancing made-up motivational speaker with gelled-up hair and a plastic smile emoting in overly-dramatic hushed intonations.
Instead, we see a celebrant, deacon, subdeacon, and two servers, all reverently and historically vested, each stationed in his proper order, proclaiming by their very placement that no matter how unpredictable and desperate things may get in this war-torn existence, Jesus is here, week in and week out, in the midst of our pain and uncertainty. And the Church is here, century in and century out, bearing the Good News by proclaiming Christ crucified, the eternal Word of the cross. And even amid the rubble and missing walls and blown-out windows, the old stone edifice of the church building, even in its humiliated state, carries a reverent gravitas of which the latest and greatest multi-million-dollar "worship centers" are bereft.
And at the center of it all is the chancel. There is no stage, big screens, lasers, or sound system paraphernalia, but rather a simple but elegant book containing the liturgy and the Word of God, dignified candles flickering with the soft glow of the flames reminiscent of the Day of Pentecost and silently confessing the Son as "light of light, very God of very God." And of course, the Holy of Holies is the stone altar, anchored like the rock of St. Peter's confession amid the gravel of a desperate world, the marble slab upon which one finds the Cornerstone, the Christ Himself in the Holy Eucharist, the mystery of the Lord's Presence for the forgiveness of sins given by means of the simple creatures of bread and wine.
By contrast, "contemporary worship" is a sad and spiritually impoverished display of vulgar bourgeois suburban kitsch, a puerile frivolity that is more at home in a sterile strip mall or a vacuous night club than in the gritty real world inhabited by real people who suffer real pain and who need a real saving encounter with the real God.
That is why we need real worship.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Parental Cruelty and Reasons Not to Wash
Here is a link to some wisdom that just might make you laugh from the Hermeneutic of Continuity, the blog of Fr. Tim Finigan, a Roman Catholic priest in England.
HT: Dr. Tighe
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Great Gift Idea:
Recently Published: The New Testament in His Blood
. A Gottesdienst book by Burnell F Eckardt Jr. 118 pages, paperback. Available at www.lulu.com for $18.00 + s&h. Order quickly to get it for Christmas.
The purpose of this manuscript is twofold: first, to present the Divine Liturgy in such a way as to highlight its beauty and dignity, and second, to show the liturgy's necessity by making the connection between Christ’s fulfillment of the entire Old Testament and the proclamation of this fulfillment by the liturgy. It is not accidental that the term “new testament” refers both to the canon of apostolic books arising after Christ’s ministry and to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. There is an integral connection between word and worship, between faith and the reception of the incarnate Christ. And just as the written New Testament is the word of God, and therefore the ultimate norm and rule for all of Christian life, so the new testament as sacrament, in Christ’s blood, must be the heart of truly Christian worship, from which all other forms of devotion and piety flow.
. A Gottesdienst book by Burnell F Eckardt Jr. 118 pages, paperback. Available at www.lulu.com for $18.00 + s&h. Order quickly to get it for Christmas.
The purpose of this manuscript is twofold: first, to present the Divine Liturgy in such a way as to highlight its beauty and dignity, and second, to show the liturgy's necessity by making the connection between Christ’s fulfillment of the entire Old Testament and the proclamation of this fulfillment by the liturgy. It is not accidental that the term “new testament” refers both to the canon of apostolic books arising after Christ’s ministry and to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. There is an integral connection between word and worship, between faith and the reception of the incarnate Christ. And just as the written New Testament is the word of God, and therefore the ultimate norm and rule for all of Christian life, so the new testament as sacrament, in Christ’s blood, must be the heart of truly Christian worship, from which all other forms of devotion and piety flow.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Just Published: The New Testament in His Blood
A Gottesdienst book. 118 pages, paperback. Available at www.lulu.com for $18.00.
The purpose of this manuscript is twofold: first, to present the Divine Liturgy in such a way as to highlight its beauty and dignity, and second, to show the liturgy's necessity by making the connection between Christ’s fulfillment of the entire Old Testament and the proclamation of this fulfillment by the liturgy. It is not accidental that the term “new testament” refers both to the canon of apostolic books arising after Christ’s ministry and to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. There is an integral connection between word and worship, between faith and the reception of the incarnate Christ. And just as the written New Testament is the word of God, and therefore the ultimate norm and rule for all of Christian life, so the new testament as sacrament, in Christ’s blood, must be the heart of truly Christian worship, from which all other forms of devotion and piety flow.
The purpose of this manuscript is twofold: first, to present the Divine Liturgy in such a way as to highlight its beauty and dignity, and second, to show the liturgy's necessity by making the connection between Christ’s fulfillment of the entire Old Testament and the proclamation of this fulfillment by the liturgy. It is not accidental that the term “new testament” refers both to the canon of apostolic books arising after Christ’s ministry and to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. There is an integral connection between word and worship, between faith and the reception of the incarnate Christ. And just as the written New Testament is the word of God, and therefore the ultimate norm and rule for all of Christian life, so the new testament as sacrament, in Christ’s blood, must be the heart of truly Christian worship, from which all other forms of devotion and piety flow.
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