Oh, Fill us Lord...

In my last post, a question was asked about what I meant when I wrote about liturgy as: "Some days are good, some not so good."

So, if you'll allow me a little leeway, I'll try to explain in a roundabout way via something that happened at church this morning:

Now all the vault of heav'n resounds
in praise of love that still abounds:
"Christ has triumphed! He is living!"
Sing, choirs of angles, loud and clear!
Repeat their song of glory here:
"Christ has triumphed! He is living!"
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Eternal is the gift he brings,
therefore our heart with rapture sings:
"Christ has triumphed! He is living!"
Now still he comes to give us life
and by his presence stills all strife.
"Christ has triumphed! He is living!"
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Oh, fill us, Lord, with dauntless love;
set heart and will on things above
that we conquer through your triumph;
grant grace sufficient for life's day
that by our lives we truly say:
"Christ has triumphed! He is living!"
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Adoring praises now we bring
and with the heav'nly blessed sing:
"Christ has triumphed! Alleluia!"
Be to the Father, and our Lord,
to Spirit blest, most holy God,
all the glory, never ending!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Emotionally speaking I'm very low maintenance but I choked up on that third verse. That one verse sums up, with frightening clarity, my Christian vocation. Coupled with a beautiful (and well known) tune it was a powerful moment that is special because of its rarity. Made all the more powerful because the liturgy set the stage. Like the setting of a precious gem, the liturgy should focus all our attention to the gem that is the Triune God and the means by which we know the Trinity: Baptism, Eucharist, and the Word (though not technically a sacrament seems to function like one). So when I say that some days are good (liturgically speaking), I mean days like today. It was good.

Alas, not every Mass is this good. For various reasons, some of the liturgical settings (there are ten of them!) in the ELW seem to be lacking. Unlike the Orthodox Divine Liturgy or the Roman Missal, Lutherans have more choice in liturgical settings. And with more choice comes more responsibility. Maybe this choice is our (Lutherans) cross to bear. Maybe this is God's way of showing us what is, and is not, right and salutary. I'd like to think so. I'm sure that in the fullness of time, consensus will emerge amongst worship leaders in the ELCA on which settings do the job, and which are dross. I am hopeful. The Spirit will guide us as always. In the mean time, I'll enjoy those Sundays when the liturgy is not just the liturgy but becomes that which moves us towards God.

Faith of our Fathers Lutheran Colloquium

A friend of mine who is going through the Orthodox catecheses shared a web page on a Lutheran to Orthodox colloquium which I have linked to the title of this posting. So far I've listen to:

The Church in Orthodoxy: Scratching the Surface

and

Justification

They are both quite interesting. In a nutshell both describe their spiritual movement from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy; the former stresses the ecclesial nature of the Orthodoxy church (i.e. the role of Bishop), the latter about the OC understanding of the hallowed Lutheran topic of justification. Not so surprisingly, both stress the importance of the liturgy in the life of the church. Coming as I do from a Lutheran church that actually does liturgy, it struck me that neither speaker had much of a rich liturgical experience when in Lutheranism. Of course I can only speculate as to the extent of their liturgical worship life, but if it's what passes as liturgy in the Lutheran church these days I'll bet it wasn't much.

As I said, my church does liturgy. For all of its faults at least in this case it has it right. Some Sundays are good; some not so good. But at least we live out our fellowship of, and worship in, Christ *through* the liturgy and don't try to water it down. Much has been said of the importance of liturgy in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, but not much has been said about its importance in the Lutheran, much less, Protestant tradition. What a shame. No wonder people search and search for genuine spirituality; they get little of it from most church worship services. What an opportunity for the church! Maybe this explains the movement from Protestantism to Orthodoxy and Catholicism?

Of Sin and Death

One of the vexing problems of the Church in its mission to preach the Gospel is the issue of sin, the consequences of sin, and the role of the man Jesus of Nazareth regarding this sin. If you have read any of my other postings you may have read that I think the various doctrines of atonement -- i.e. the Augustinian view of original sin and what Jesus did on the cross to atone for that sin -- to be the biggest barrier to evangelism. Later theologians (Anselm, Abelard, and Aquinas) modified St. Augustine's view of original sin but it all starts from his doctrine.

The question is always: If God is infinitely good and is love (and loves his creation), how is it that he would sacrifice his Son to expiate a sin that we didn't commit. Moreover, how was it necessary for God to appease his own sense of honor (per Anselm) with his own beloved Son? etc, etc. These are just some of the questions that non-believers (Agnostic or otherwise) have when the Good News is preached. And it all comes back to original sin.

All of this is introduction to the document that I have just read and that I commend for your edification. The title is "Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy" and I feel it's not only excellent resource about sin for any Christian but in particular for Lutherans. I'm coming to the conclusion that Luther was closer to Orthodoxy as a basis for his theology than previously thought (yes, the Finnish school of Luther study has affected me. To the good I might add).

One thing I've noticed while reading about Lutheran history is that the founding fathers of Lutheranism were very concerned about "innovations" to the faith. The arguments leading up to the writing of the Formula of Concord were debated among the various followers of Luther (all laying claim to the true/pure teachings of Fr. Martin), and it seems that those theologians who "innovated", i.e. created new doctrine (or doctrine which was felt to be new) -- whether heretical or orthodox -- were chastised and said doctrine rejected; in some cases rightly so. However, it seems to me that this might have been an easy way to maintain control over doctrine that wasn't from the western tradition. Because of this, theologies from other Christian traditions seem foreign to us westerners. I say this because I don't think this paper is such an innovation since this paper is, by definition, Orthodox. But I'll leave that for you to decide.

Please click on the post title above for the PDF document and let me know your thoughts.

Note (2008/01/12): A number of edits have been made to fix sloppy terminology (and thinking).

Advent Meditation

For your Advent observance.

1. Introitus: Ad te levavi
2. Responsorium Graduale: Universi
3. Alleluia: Ostende
4. Offertorium: Ad te levavi
5. Communio: Dominus dabit
   

Various and Sundry....

Over the last two weeks I've been planning on blogging about a number of topic. Alas, December being the most hectic month at my home, I've decided to just touch on each of these topics, however briefly, with the express intention of expanding on each of them over the next month. I promise. Really, I mean it this time. Here they are, in no particular order of importance but the order in which I will comment about them:

1. Liturgical practice as understood by a Pentecostal theologian and its relation to worship in the church.
2. A critique (and edited version by yours truly) of Martin Luther's "A Simple Way to Pray".
3. A discussion of praying the "hours".
4. A plug for, and discussion of, the movie "Into Great Silence".
5. An interesting article from The Journal of Lutheran Ethics about the "Greeley Principle" and the role of the Lutheran Church for post moderns.

So, off we go...

Liturgical Practice via Pentecostal Theology:
I came across this link from some other blog (can't remember where now) and was impressed with comments about liturgy like this:

The traditional liturgy doesn't exist primarily to foster interpersonal relationships. It operates on a very different paradigm. In the liturgy we are, in a very real sense, objectively recognizing God for who he is. And in the midst of proclaiming who God is, we encounter God. At the end of the day, we may not be particularly drawn toward individuals, but in a good liturgy, we are drawn to God. We recognize him for who he is.

Now that's really about as good as it gets. When describing liturgy for those who might not understand liturgical whys and where fores, one could not do much better (and probably worse) than to use that quote as a staring point.

A Simple Way to Pray:
Again, I'm not sure how I came across this, or even why but Luther's advice to his barber on how one might pray has all the earmarks of Luther's writing for the laity: Simple, straightforward, folksy and practical without being childish or corny or trite. All the versions I found on the web were html only and the formating was, well, let's just say it left something to be desired. So I spent some time doing a little formating and editing to make it easier for me to read (see sidebar on the right). I hope it is helpful for you.

Praying the Hours:
I'm not quite there yet, but God willing, I'll get to a point where I am at least praying the hours in the morning and night; more than that will be frosting on the cake. Why would I want to do this? Well, the subtitle of my blog states the reason fairly well: fuller communion with Christ (God). I've come to realize that two activities are essential for a Christian who wants to be more than superficially religious: Reading Scripture and prayer. The former has not been much of a problem; the latter has. So I'm trying to start slowly (maybe with the help of Brother Martin) in this activity. Currently I'm using this link for the daily readings and Psalms. There is a beautiful Lutheran breviary by Phillip Pfatteicher called The Daily Prayer of the Church and it's a wonderful book. However, it's a tad intimidating so I'll wait to buy that when I'm ready.

Into Great Silence:
If you are religious of the liturgical bent then you must see this movie about the Carthusian monastery "La Grande Chartruse" and the monks who live and work and pray there. There is a reason why it has garnered so much praise (both religious and non-religious). First, it's visually stunning; parts are filmed in high definition film that are so clear it makes your jaw drop. There are montages that convey so much symbolism I've had to watch it twice to digest even half of the meaning. Second, the life these monks live is really awe inspiring, (I can't say I would want to live this way my whole life but I do feel a pull towards this type of quite life). These monks really are God's athletes. Third, their devotion to prayer is quite motivational. And I need all the motivation I can get.

The "Greeley Principle":
Follow the link above to an article by David L. Miller about how the Lutheran Church has dropped the ball in the role it should be playing in regards to our spiritual growth. He brings up a number of good points that I will tease out in a later post (I promise) but please pay attention to his assertion that contrary to what some in the church believe, there is a strong desire to know and experience the transcendent which is proved by the number of "spirituality" books one can see in bookstore or the ubiquitous Wayne Dyer that comes on once or twice a year when public television wants money. The church is ready made (by definition) to show people that this is indeed possible and the church has the way. But read it for yourself.

The Church as tradition

After some time away reading the wonderfully thought provoking book "Silence" by Shusaku Endo, I'm back to reading theological books. My current book is "Lutheranism" by Gritsch and Jenson (see side bar). So far this has been an interesting read even with Jenson's somewhat dense writing style. I was, however taken with this paragraph:

As a community of a story, the church lives by tradition. That is, the church depends at any time on being told this story, and therefore on those who have already heard it; and the church cares for it own future by in turn telling the story. The reality of the church at any time is the reality of a link in the tradition; the reality of the church is a hermeneutic event of the move from hearing to telling. So also an individual believer belongs to the community as one who hears from others and then speaks to others: faith, to, is a hermeneutic reality, and occurs in tradition. Both the church and the individual believer therefore depend on "the" tradition, on the totality of witnesses from which, at any time, we have heard the gospel.

I thought "What a wonderful explanation of the church and why tradition matters so much!" Even if we can't define it as satisfactorily as Jenson, we know this to be the case. One would think Lutherans should the first to say "Amen" to Jenson's take on what the church is. Sadly, this is not necessarily so.

When I read that paragraph I was immediately reminded of something I saw at worship a number of Sundays ago. I was at the early service and had some time to burn. I passed the extra time by reading, waiting for Mass to start. Then I saw Dr. Paul Manz. If you are a Lutheran, you ought to know who Dr. Manz is. For those who don't: Dr. Manz was the preeminent Lutheran organist, improvasationalist and hymn writer for more than 40 years. He spent over twenty years as my churches cantor and it has been easily that long since I had seen him. He was old and bent which was a bit sad but he still looked as I remembered him so many years ago. It just so happened that Dr. Manz and his wife sat two pews in front of me that morning.

As the service progressed I wondered how much of the new worship book (ELW) Dr. Manz would know (if he knew any of it) and how much he would approve, or disapprove. As providence would have it, we used one of the hold-over LBW liturgies. Dr. Manz would have his wife help him and with some of the page flipping (for the hymns) otherwise it was by memory. I appreciated tradition that morning more than most.

Jenson's take on how the church "lives" was reinforced by my observation on that Sunday; it is this tradition of story that connects us, in every time and in every place, to all the saints before us and to those that follow.

And yet, Jenson says:

Under the authority of Scripture and the whole tradition, we will become free to worship in other ways than we have done, and, in whatever ways, for other reasons than that we have always done it so. The church cannot avoid being a social force; under the authority of Scripture and the whole tradition, the church will be a cell for the future rather than the past, and be free to alter its own social structure in order to be this. Any attempt to decree that a particular form of government, or of ministry, or of worship, or of social presence, is permanently necessary to the church is a declaration of independence from the Scripture and creeds.

Something to chew on.