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.