12 October 2009

Post-Octoberfest Musings

This year's Octoberfest at St. Paul's in Kewanee addressed in general the topic that the divine liturgy is not an indifferent matter - sort of Gottesdiesnst's motto. The format was a panel discussion (this is the second such I've been subjected to in two weeks and my opinion is that they are rather pointless and need to go bye-bye!) and despite the wretched manner of the forum there were some interesting highlights along the way.

Pastor Petersen said a most interesting thing when he noted that we'd likely give a man a pass on shoddy liturgy if he did a bang up job delivering law (that showed us our sin and invited to repentance) and gave us sweet Gospel. I immediately thought: Amen! And then I thought, you know, that's probably a unique Lutheran position. It's not that it justifies mutilation of the liturgy; for a service with the liturgy done well AND an outstanding sermon is simply an unbeatable combo. But if you have to choose between impeccable liturgy with inane or even heretical sermon vs. deformed liturgy with true and solid preaching, well, a Lutheran, I suspect, will choose the latter every time. How did Blessed Loehe put it? "The Church remains what she is even without a liturgy, she remains a queen even in beggar's rags. It is better to give up everything else and to hold only the pure doctrine than to go about in the pomp and glory of splendid services which are without light and life because the doctrine has become impure - Yet it is not necessary to let the Church go in beggar's rags. Much better it is that her prayers, her hymns, her sacred order, the holy thoughts of her Liturgy, should be impressed upon the people innocently, and in sermon and catechetical instruction used as a living book for proof and instruction. The true faith finds voice not only in the sermon, but it is prayed in the prayers and sung in the hymns." (Three Books, p. 198, 199)

Pastor Stuckwisch, as is his wont, invited us to focus on the main thing and to see that we continually speak of the liturgy as our Symbols do - as the Lord's mandated giving out of His absolution, His teaching, His body and His blood for our forgiveness, life, and salvation. Although he didn't allude to the theses he composed, they were definitely in the background and right on.

Pastor Curtis thought that a way around the endless debate on "taste" is to ask why? Why would you change this? What's the thinking behind it? And he posited that in his conversations, the reason usually comes round to this: so that we can reach those who are turned off by the traditional. As though what was converting them was something other than the Word. In fact, Pr. Curtis suggests, there a latent (or not latent in some cases) Arminianism at work, whereby we seek the right emotional tools to get unbelievers to assent to salvation. I think he's truly onto something there. I thought of how Dr. Rast has been pointing out for some time that it's new measures all over again!

Pastor Eckardt did best of all what he always does: he preached us Jesus and he presided with reverence and love at the Holy Table. The votive festival was for the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, and beginning with James and how our desires conceive and bring forth and sin finally gives birth to death, the law he delivered to us was from Herod and the insatiable nature of sexual sin, truly a bottomless pit that beguiles and entices, but that ends in death and destruction. Who was free and who was the slave? Herod was slave to his appetites and John was the free man even while he sat in prison and even in his death. John must decrease and Christ must increase. John decreased by a head, to show us that Christ must be our head and the one who fills us with His will and desires. Christ who was increased by being lifted high on a tree to let His blood flow for us. And I'm leaving out more than half of the insights. It was a stunning homily delivered, as is Pr. Eckardt's wont, off the cuff.

6 comments:

Rev. Thomas C. Messer, SSP said...

Nice summary of the discussion today. As for the format, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I disagree with you. I like the panel discussion format much better than the "Read a written paper" format. I think it allows for a lively exchange of thoughts and ideas that sitting and listening to a paper does not. To be honest, I'm just bored stiff when sitting and listening to someone read a paper they wrote to me. Write the paper, let me read it, and then let's meet and have a discussion about it. In this case, I don't think a formal written paper was necessary to discuss the topic at hand. It's a topic that has been written about ad nauseum. We've reached a point on this topic where discussion and application are in order. Put the topic on the table and let's hash it out. Far more interesting, imho. But, to each their own, I guess.

What is it about the format that you don't like? You say it's pointless and wretched, but don't say why, and I'm genuinely curious.

Thanks,
Tom

P.S. Good to see you in the flesh again, although I wish you would have been able to stick around and join in the discussion we had this evening. Very interesting.

Rev. Eric J Brown said...

I firmly believe the way that this debate will end up turning is when we move away from "you can't do that" onto "tell me, what benefit does this bring?"

If I say "You can't" - the burden of proof is upon me - I have to convince someone that they cannot do something they clearly want to. If I say, "How is this better, how does this improve upon proclaiming Christ" then the onus is upon them. . . and I've also set the terms of the discussion along lines that are favorable to me -- or in other words, I've made them think about Christ.

William Weedon said...

Tom,

My suggested ideal format is this: a paper which is prepared and shipped out to participants ahead of time, and then not read but briefly summarized (you know, giving all the stuff that got left out because it was thought of after sending it off!), and then discussed at the gathering.

The reason I find this panel thing annoying is because it frees the panelists from the deeper, disciplined thought that a paper forces them to.

William Weedon said...

Eric,

Very good thoughts. Though I do think that the question of loyalty to the Symbols declarations on this matter should not be totally ignored. Is a church that abandons the historic liturgy for this contemporary worship able to speak the Symbols as their own? It's a question of integrity. "We do not abandon the Mass; we keep traditional ceremonies." Really???

Anonymous said...

Rev. Brown is right. Exhort, don't mandate. We won't have unity until appreciation for our liturgical tradition is uniform. You can't mandate appreciation for liturgy even if you could mandate its use.

If a mandate may be made while preserving "good order in the Church and for the sake, of tranquillity" then let's go for it, but I don't think there's any question that mandating only LSB liturgies would cause disorder and unrest. There has been an entire generation that grew up with Lutheran contemporary worship, knowing nothing of traditional liturgy. I do think we could achieve greater unity and tranquility by seeking agreement on some basics, and saving mandates for things that are contrary to Scripure and threaten faith, like decision theology, seeking the Spirit outside of Word and Sacrament, etc.

There is danger in overemphasizing the importance of human services, which are "truly snares of consciences," lest we confuse anybody to think are useful or necessary for justification, in which case we "simply establish the kingdom of Antichrist."

Further, the confessions describe a number of practices to show that many traditions man be maintained if they are taught that they don't merit grace. The confessions don't mandate these practices and they aren't necessary. If you interpret "we retain the mass" to be a requirement, then you have to, among other things:

"maintain church-polity and the grades in the Church [old church-regulations and the government of bishops],"

"hold one communion every holy-day,"

And my favorite: "[retain] among us the Latin lessons and prayers"

I'd like to find that church, because my Latin is getting rusty.

William Weedon said...

The question I have on "retain the Latin READINGS and the prayers" is "was ist das?" I ask, because one of the first things Lutherans did away with in the Mass were Latin readings - the principle was that the readings should be in the language of the people even if the rest of the service was sung in Latin. There are some exceptions, but it was pretty wide spread, pretty early. Surely Melanchthon knew this as he penned the AC and Ap. This may be quite off base - I've not really tested it out - but I have wondered if what he meant were the readings and prayers *of the Latin rite* as opposed to something new or the Greek rites. I may be totally off, but it is something I have wondered.

Human ceremonies are snares to conscience only if they are taught as divine worship which merit the forgiveness of sins. They are no snares to conscience when it is taught that they are reverent and fitting additions received from our Fathers that adorn the Divinely mandated administration of preaching and the Sacrament.

As to compulsion, we have no mechanism for such even if we wanted to use it. We have persuasion. That's it. But the case can be made persuasively, I believe.

Here is some more from Fr. Heath that he gave me permission to use as I like. I posted it to ALPB on the discussion of the Worship Theses of the COP:

http://www.alpb.org/forum/index.php?topic=2362.msg122001#msg122001