Announcing the Fourteenth Annual Oktoberfest and Third Annual Liturgical Seminar

The Fourteenth Annual Oktoberfest and Third Annual Liturgical Seminar will take place at St. Paul’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Kewanee, Illinois, October 11-13, 2009 (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday)

Conference theme: Not a Matter of Indifferent Things

This year we are pleased to welcome as our guests the three men who have most recently joined the staff of Gottesdienst as our online editors.

Reverend Frs. Heath Curtis, Larry Beane, and Rick Stuckwisch will be joining us for a discussion of the Divine Liturgy of the Church, to provide their insights on the questions which arise in connection with the ongoing debates concerning why certain styles and elements may or may not be counted as permissible in worship, and what is at stake in the worship wars of the 21st century. Fr. Curtis is the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Edwardsville, Illinois, and Trinity Lutheran Church, Worden, Illinois; Fr. Beane is pastor of Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, Louisiana; and Fr. Stuckwisch is pastor of Emmaus Lutheran Church, South Bend, Indiana.

Sunday afternoon at 5 p.m. is our Autumn Choral Vespers, followed by our annual bratwurst banquet (if you haven’t had our award-winning Sheboygan brats, it’s high time you did!).

On Monday morning, following Holy Mass at 9:30, the seminar runs until 3:15 p.m. the following questions are on the table for discussion by our guests:

“So what's negotiable and what isn't, in worship?"
“Nothing is an adiaphoron in a state of confession: meaning what, exactly?"
“Is Gottesdienst adiaphora? Of course not, but why not?"

Tuesday, October 13 (Liturgical Seminar)

On Tuesday, matters raised in the Monday discussions will be considered further in a roundtable liturgical seminar designed to seek uniformity in our worship practices. Informed Lutheran clergy are particularly invited to provide input and exchange of ideas, although all are invited to stay for the day.

REGISTRATION: $25 per person (students $20) $40 per couple — includes Sunday banquet and Monday continental and luncheon; no charge for children with parents.

Log on at www.liturgyseminar.blogspot.com for details and to register.

Parish Service Announcement

Please see this non-liturgical post over at Four-and-Twenty on calls from folks "looking to get in touch" with one of your parishioners.

+HRC

Kurt Marquart's "Liturgical Commonplaces"

by Larry Beane

Lutheran Blogger Wild Boar of the Forest has posted a link to this prescient October 1978 article (CTQ 42:4) by the sainted Rev. Prof. Kurt Marquart called "Liturgical Commonplaces."

The article is worth a fresh read, especially now that 31 years have passed, and we have been through two new hymnals since the article was written. It is classic Marquart: scholarly without being pedantic, deep without being ponderous, witty without being flippant.

On a personal level, Prof. Marquart was one of my favorite professors during my sojourn as a seminarian at Concordia Theological Seminary (2000-2004). It was a privilege to study the whole of the Book of Concord with him. I also took other classes with Prof. Marquart, including an elective on Lutheran Worship, and another on Apologetics. I found every moment in Prof. Marquart's classroom to be edifying.

He is also the first Lutheran pastor that I ever saw genuflect at an altar (which was his own parish church, Redeemer - Fort Wayne). He was a tireless defender of the traditional liturgy, and was fond of relating the account of how Russia became a Christian nation, with the Grand Duke's envoys being so impressed by the Greek liturgy that they could no longer tell whether they were in heaven or on earth. Prof. Marquart often mused about what their reaction would be today in many LCMS churches.

But what stood out most was Prof. Marquart's kindness, gentility, and compassion, his never being too busy or proud to chat with lowly students (in a half-dozen different languages). He was the type of Christian who would be completely and equally at ease in a palace, a parliament, or a Pizza Hut.

Anyway, we Lutherans don't believe in eulogies, and Prof. Marquart would likely tell me to stop singing his praises at this point and focus on the Lord, the Gospel, and the Holy Word and Sacraments, so I will.

Here are a few salient quotes from the article "Liturgical Commonplaces":

"'Hearing the Word of God' was once a weighty phrase, corresponding to an awesome reality. Today, in the thinking of many, the whole thing can be taken care of without inconvenience or loss of time, if need be, by tuning in to the 'Lutheran Hour' while devoutly chewing Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way to Six Flags!"

"The notion of 'worship' in popular Protestanism does not seem to suggest anything so formal as a church service. It is more likely to be associated with rousing choruses of 'How Great Thou Art,' either at a Billy Graham rally or in a rugged setting out of doors, preferably round a campfire, holding hands. Mawkish gimmickry of various kinds is marketed as making for "effective" worship. Church services themselves, however, are seen as rather drab and dreary on the whole . They tend to be viewed not as banquets, but as menu-reading sessions."

"Repelled by this bloodless, Law-oriented, moralizing religiousity, multitudes seek solace in the murkiest, mumbo-jumbo and readily fall prey even to celluloid absurdities."

"Lutheran understanding of worship can still be aborted by means of a facile doctrinaire schematism which thinks rather abstractly of 'Means of Grace' or 'Word and Sacraments,' rather than concretely of Baptism, preaching, absolution, and Eucharist."

"If the Lutheran Church is serious about representing, not sectarian whims, but the pure Gospel of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ, then she cannot in principle wish to squeeze the devotion of Zulus and Spaniards, Chinese and Americans, Brazilians and New Zealanders, all into one narrow sixteenth century Saxon groove.... Here and now we must concentrate not on liturgies in general, or on some pseudo-cosmopolitan hotchpotch, but on a form or forms suitable to an English-speaking, specifically North American, environment."

"Granted the substance, then, form is relatively indifferent. But only relatively. 'Surely,' asks C.S. Lewis, 'the more fully one believes that a strictly supernatural event takes place, the less one can attach any great importance to the dress, gestures, and position of the priest?'. The argument holds only for a choice among equally acceptable alternatives. For surely nobody would care to complete C.S. Lewis' sentence like this: 'The more one fully believes that a strictly supernatural event takes place, the less one can attach any great importance to whether the celebrant is dressed in jeans or smokes cigarettes at the altar.'"

"It is indeed, an adiaphoron whther the Introit is spoken or chanted. It does not follow, however, that the Introit may, therefore, be spoken or chanted indifferently, negligently, or perfuntorily. That can never be an adiaphoron."

"A traditionalist Roman Catholic observed very perceptively of the post-Vatican II liturgical changes that a doctrine like the Real Presence can be materially altered and even surrendered without any explicit pronouncement, simply by a more permissive ceremonial (e.g. heedlessly dropping particles of consecrated bread to the ground)."

"To plead for mercy before a human court, for instance, while remaining seated, hands in pockets, and chewing gum, would be insufferable. It seems even more incongruous for a clergyman to sit down comfortably during the Kyrie or the Gloria in Excelsis, legs crossed so as to give maximum exposure to canary-colored socks, and gaze into the congregation to see who is there."

"The idea, for instance, that the Service should be 'meaningful,' that is, clear and obvious to any casual visitor who might pop in from the street, is short-sightedly pragmatic. A 'service' tailored to such a misguided ideal would comprise a melange of threadbare banalities, which even the casual visitor is likely to find unbearable after the third time - not to speak of the faithful who attend regularly for threescore years and ten."

"[Preachers ] must constantly build and reinforce a soundly, uncompromisingly Christian perspective. Preaching is this sort of spiritual battle for men's minds and souls. It is not an anemic recitation of pat formulas and cliches. That is merely sermonizing. Preaching is the ever-fresh exposition and application of God's living Word for today."

"If the liturgy is boring to children it is usually because the parents do not find it very interesting either. If children saw adults treating the Sunday Service as the most important activity of their lives, they would respect it too, and would never dream of treating it as a pop-event, to be tinkered with by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. A church which has won the conscientious loyalty of parents - particularly fathers (Eph. 3:15; 6:4)! - will have the devotion of their children too. But a church which abjectly capitulates to the whims and tastes of adolescents will have, and deserve, neither."

These are just a few gems plucked from their setting. I would urge all to read the piece in its entirety.

The article is chock full of Scriptural references, citations from the Lutheran confessions, and narrations of historical precedent in the Church - presented in a scholarly, yet almost conversational delivery that is anything but dry. It is as relevant today as it was three decades ago. Prof. Marquart will often challenge you to dig deeper theologically, will always make you think, and will occasionally make you chuckle out loud.

Once again, the link is right here for download. Coffee not included.

The Missus & The Missus Dominicus

The bishop shall be the husband of one wife - or, if you will, the missus dominicus is to have but one missus. And as Fr. Luther discovered with "Kitty, my rib" he who has found a good wife has found a precious treasure, indeed. This is true for all men, but perhaps even more true for the parish pastor. For few professions have as their prerequisite that one "manage his own household well." For example, you can get quite far in politics, or as a carpet layer, or in the plumbing business with a lousy home life. Not so among us, at least not for long.

Thus, I am most grateful for the Lord's gift to me in my wife and children. I could not ask for better. Like it or not, fair or not: the Frau Pastor and her brood have a lot to do with how well the pastor is received in the parish.

All that being the case - what's up with this trend I've seen in installations and ordinations lately to make the wife (not so much the kids) almost a co-ordinand/installee? In one place the wife comes up right after the installation vows to be introduced effusively by the Officiant (to much applause), right in the midst of the service. In another, the ordinand sits with his wife in the front pew rather than in that lonely chair near the chancel steps. In yet another the wife puts the stole on the ordinand - (I am not making that up - there are pictures out there to prove it, but charity precludes posting them here). In all places (it seems) it has become "Pastor Schickelgrüber and Sally" in the installation/ordination sermon.

I think I get what these well-meaning folks are getting at: like I said, the missus can really help a given missus dominicus to swim or sink at a given parish. So, they figure, she ought to get a little credit at the Big Show. This is taken to a greater extreme in the PLI culture of a "ministry team" - indeed at PLI camp, pastor and wife are expected to show up for the training - and no kids allowed, even nursing infants (I am not making this up, either.).

But I think the introductions during the installation, the sitting with the wife during the ordination, the "and Sally" in the sermon actually backfire and put more pressure on pastoral wifery. It all reinforces the ultimately unhelpful idea of the "ministry team." My wife is not in the ministry anymore than my mom was a meat cutter or on a "meat cutting team" because my dad worked at Econofoods. The ministry team mentality just serves to make the wife even more of a lightening rod for the pastor's failings in his calling - as well as setting expectations for the wife's life in the parish that are unrealistic and unhelpful, especially to the introverted and just plain not-interested-in-teaching-Sunday-School-thanks-anyway.

The good pastoral wife is a good wife. That's what the Bible says: the bishop should manage his household well, not that his wife be his "ministry partner," whatever that might mean. And the calling of Christian wife and mother in the fishbowl of the parish is calling, difficulty, and pressure enough for one woman. In a small parish, like the ones I serve, the pastor's wife is as likely as not to be pretty involved - all the people who are actually in church on Sunday morning end up being pretty involved because there are few hands to do the work. But the work she does is that which she would do in her parish were she married to a farmer rather than a pastor. At least that's the ideal - for her own husband will himself be tempted to load her with duties she shouldn't have to shoulder: and I'll be first to intone mea culpa on that score. Which is all the more reason to publicly demonstrate that this woman is a wife, not part of a two-for-the-price-of-one sale.

Of course, this could all be avoided by following the traditional rubrics of an ordination or installation. . .

+HRC

PS: Speaking of ordinations - recently, I heard this one for the laying-on-of-hands blessing verse and I find it hard to beat, though I'd like to see your best shot in the comments.

"I am sending you to them, and you will say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God.' And whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house, yet they will know that a prophet has been among them."

More discussion on the consecrated elements

by Larry Beane

Here is an interesting "diablog" between Deacon Latif Gaba and Dan at Necessary Roughness regarding the Holy Eucharist - more specifically, the practical issue of how the reliquiae (the unconsumed consecrated elements) should be treated.

It's nice to see spirited discussion carried on respectfully by both sides.

As a comment to his own blog post (and as such, might be missed even by subscribers), Deacon Gaba has an eloquent and helpful little excursus that I think summarizes much of the controversy:

Beside the comment I posted at Dan's blog, I'd like to comment also on the following from his blog post:

"The Roman Catholic Church treasures the unconsumed hosts and wine because they teach that the elements have been transubstantiated, or transformed. The elements are parts of God and should themselves be adored, worshiped, etc."

A couple things.

1. There is virtually never such thing as unconsumed wine in the Roman Rite, at least when priests' practices are consistent with the rubrics of that rite.

2. The consecrated bread or wine that is unconsumed, whether in the Roman or Lutheran Churches, is not treasured because of transubstantiation, but because of the orthodox doctrine of the real and true presence of our Lord in the Sacrament. The way the RC Church conceives of the Real Presence is via transubstantiation. I see that as a flawed concept. Nonetheless, it is beside the point.

3. It is quite false to claim that either the Lutheran or the Roman Catholic Church believes or teaches that in the elements in the Sacrament we have "parts of God." God is never partitioned, or parted, from Himself, neither in the three Persons, nor in the self giving of Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Christ in His Sacrament is beyond all mathematics (as Luther put it at Marburg). For He is the font of endless mercy (as Ambrose puts it in one of his prayers). His sacramental body, like His ecclesial body, cannot be hacked into parts, but is an organic whole. Where you find one particle, you have the whole.

As Thomas Aquinas writes:

And whoe'er of Him partakes,
severs not, nor rends, nor breaks:
all entire, their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousand eat,
all receive the selfsame meat,
nor do less for others leave.

(A sumente non concisus,
non confractus, non divisus:
integer accipitur.
Sumit unus, sumunt mille:
quantum isti, tantum ille:
nec sumptus consumitur.)

And as Johann Franck writes:

Human reason, though it ponder,
Cannot fathom this great wonder
That Christ's body e'er remaineth
Though it countless souls sustaineth,
And that He His blood is giving
With the wine we are receiving.
These great mysteries unsounded
Are by God alone expounded.


The Deacon's words make me ponder the Eucharist and the Words of our Lord - (a common consequence of much of Brother Latif's writing and conversation).

This made me think about how I often hear from well-intentioned (but wrong) Reformed folks that we Lutherans believe in "consubstantiation." This would be the case if we believed the substances of bread, body, wine, and blood were intermingled as particles of one another and were somehow glued together, or if we believed the bread to be a conduit for the body of Christ and the wine were merely a vessel containing the Lord's blood. None of this is the essence (from Latin: "esse" meaning "to be) of the word "is." We Lutherans reject consubstantiation as much as we reject transubstantiation.

This is why Luther, in his debate with Zwingli, kept returning to the words of institution, the verb of which is "is." Jesus uses the verb "to be" without qualification and without sophistry. To put it the way many Roman Catholics (rightly) confess: "The Mass is a miracle." It should also be said that the word "sacrament" is based on a Latin way of saying the Greek word "mysterion." The Eucharist is a miracle and a mystery.

The "is" doesn't imply that it "is" for only a short duration of time (like the half-life of a radioactive isotope), nor that it is for the time that it is in the mouth of the communicant. There is an eschatological nature of the word "is" - concerning Him whose incarnate flesh "was, is, and is to come." The Words of Institution are the stuff of eternity. Just as the crucified, dead, and buried body of Jesus did not lose its divinity on the cross and in the tomb (to later return to the body of Jesus at the resurrection) - so is the reality that the bread "is" and the wine "is." The bread and wine have changed (while yet remaining bread and wine) - they do not merely "contain." Any attempt to impose rationality, compartmentality, or temporality onto the Lord's simple verb "is" is nothing less than intellectually manhandling the Holy Things. Even as the Lord told Moses, "I am who I am," which in no way is limited to the present tense (for God is eternal). Similarly, His body and blood are what they are.

And this is precisely why we Lutherans are so fastidious about consuming the elements.

For consumption of the elements is the only way that the Presence in the elements ceases. Not because God ceases to exist, but rather because the elements themselves do! When the host and the wine are consumed (through eating and drinking), they chemically disappear. Bread and wine are broken down by the body, converted into caloric energy (heat), and are, in essence, burned.

It is interesting that burning is the way that holy things that must be discarded are typically "consumed." Rather than have a holy thing desecrated (such as a woman's blouse that had the Lord's blood spilled on it as a result of Luther's shaky hand), the object is consumed through burning (as Luther ordered the blouse to be). Burning with fire is essentially the same thing as eating. Both result in the consumption of the elements - which prevent desecration.

We are indeed commanded to consume the body and blood of Christ ("Take... eat..."). The argument about tabernacling the elements - at least among Lutherans - has nothing to do with monstrances and superstition - as no Lutheran advocates such a use. Any attempt to raise that specter in this day and age among Lutherans is to make a classic straw man argument. Rather, the discussion has to do with the best way to consume the elements. Some consume them through immediate eating and drinking so as to avoid desecration, while others reserve the elements against the next communion (to be eaten and drunk) or in order to bring to the sick and shut in (to be eaten and drunk).

In the latter case, some pastors simply believe it is not fitting to use a hospital tray as a temporary altar. They also believe the sick should participate in the parochial Mass in so far as they are able. Consuming the elements consecrated at the parish altar is a way to do this. There simply are no Lutheran pastors seeking to use the host as a talisman. So any arguments concerning such abuses are not germane to the discussion. These pastors are, rather, seeking the most reverent way to consume the Lord's body and blood. And it follows that if one is going to reserve the elements (whether for the sick or to use in the next communion), a fitting box ought to be used - not a Jif peanut butter jar with a sticker on it that says "consecrated wafers" to be put in the cabinet next to the can of WD40 and a pack of Post-It notes - while the elements await consumption.

If we believe the elements "are" what the Lord says they are, we are going to be reverent, even worshipful, in their presence. Some Protestants, and even some Lutherans, have made the charge that those who adore the consecrated elements (whether at the elevation or when in the presence of tabernacled elements) are committing idolatry.

This line of reasoning led me to ponder the Magi.

For these men of the East made an arduous journey of hundreds of miles along the bandit-ridden highways of the fertile crescent so that they could worship God. But isn't God everywhere? Might they not have just stayed home? Instead, they traveled in order to worship God in His flesh, kneeling down before the Baby Jesus. They did not worship Him piecemeal, a thumb, an eye-socket, and a spleen. No indeed. They worshiped Him in His whole and holy body, in a catholic and wholesome sense. But neither did they worship Him from afar, apart from His bodily presence. Rather they went to where God was found physically. And they bowed down before His body, adoring His flesh. And it was in no way idolatry to genuflect and worship His flesh - for the flesh of Jesus is the True Body of Christ, God incarnate. His body simply is.

In fact, it would have been sinful not to worship the fleshly body of this little Nazarene Child.

This is said in so many words by St. Augustine:

"'Worship His footstool.' His footstool is the earth, and Christ took upon Him earth of earth, because flesh is of earth; and He received flesh of the flesh of Mary. And because He walked here in this very flesh, he also gave this very flesh to be eaten by us for salvation. But no one eats that flesh unless He has first worshiped it. Therefore the way has been found how such footstool of the Lord may be worshiped, so that we not only do not sin by worshiping, but sin by not worshiping." (emphasis added)

A similar confession was made by St. Athanasius:

"If any one says that the flesh of our Lord as that of a man is inadorable, and is not to be worshiped as the flesh of the Lord and God, him the Holy Catholic Church anathematizes."

Both of these quotes are endorsed by the Lutheran confessions, as they appear in the Catalog of Testimonies of the Book of Concord.

If we are indeed to worship the Lord's flesh, especially before eating it (as St. Augustine implores us to do), that has ramifications on how we ought to treat the elements which our Lord, in His miraculous and creative Word, has declared: "This is..."

Thank you, Latif and Dan, for leading me to ponder the sacred mystery of our Lord in His incarnate flesh and blood!