Association of Lutheran Church Musicians

ASSOCIATION OF LUTHERAN CHURCH MUSICIANS

REGION ONE CONFERENCE

WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

June 30 – July 2, 2008

“CALLED, GATHERED AND ENLIGHTENED”

June 30, 2008

1. How many do you worship?

I can’t imagine a better people to spend the first real days of summer with than you: a group of Lutheran leaders who care passionately about liturgy, hymnody and worship. I am honored to be with you these next three days because I share your passion and because I am convinced that what you do — what we do — is the single most important work of the people of God we call the Church.

You need to know that I have no advanced academic degree in liturgy. If you need to know more than a smattering of liturgical or musicological history or theory, there are plenty of others here who are abler than I. I am a parish pastor. My expertise isin leading parish liturgy. I make only two additional claims.

First, I have been blessed In thirty-three years of pastoral ministry to be surrounded by the very best collaborators, parish musicians such as Tom Schmidt, Roosevelt André Credit, to name a few, and parish pastoral colleagues like Bob Rimbo and someone who is already and yet-to-be, our associate pastor Jared Stahler. With partners such as these, I and those whose worship we plan and lead together have been immeasurably blessed.

My other claim to expertise is a heritage, which by another name is dumb luck. I was born at the right time and had the best mentors and teachers imaginable. I began preparing for ordained ministry at Concordia College, Bronxville, New York in 1967 and in that, my freshman year, had the privilege of working with a young Missouri Synod pastor from New Jersey to plan the New York celebration of the 450th anniversary of the posting of the 95 theses. That pastor’s name was John Tietjen. I was fortunate to be gifted with the best possible theological education in the schools and seminaries of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Since graduating from Seminex in 1975, I have been privileged to use all the “primary worship resources” of the LC-MS and ELCA, from The Lutheran Hymnal and Service Book and Hymnal to ILCWInter-Lutheran Commission on Worship), Lutheran Book of Worship, Lutheran Worship, Evangelical Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Service Book. Dumb luck and great privilege to be mentored by and collaborate with greatsin the most exciting time in the Church’s worship: the last 40 years.Parish pastor, great colleagues and dumb luck: those are my only credentials. Frankly, I’m very proud of them.

So, by asking a parish pastor with no other credentials to be both chaplain and keynoter, I believe you have clearly defined my task: It’s not to be an expert on liturgy, hymnody or academy, but to direct us in the power of the Holy Spirit to God the Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

With that in mind, I want to tell you what has been, for the last 11 years at Saint Peter’s in New York City, a recurring story.

Because we are in midtown Manhattan, we at Saint Peter’s have a lot of visitors from all over the Church and from all over the world. Almost every Sunday, especially in the summer, pastors and lay people show up to participate in our high mass, Spanish language misa or Jazz liturgy. Inevitably and especially when these visitors are from the heartland of America, one question always comes up: How many do you worship?

I don’t know when the word “worship” became an intransitive verb. I know what they’re asking but, I freely confess, I take perverse delight in my usual answer: One. Or if I’m in one of my “moods:” Three.

You see, as a product of forty wonderful years of Lutheran liturgical renewal and the discovery — some of you are too young to remember what came before that — I understand the importance of that question. Forty years ago — and ecumenically, no less! — we rejoiced to discover three “new” and basic truths about liturgy and worship in the western catholic tradition.

1. That it is all about Easter.
2. That it all has a twin Easter foci, namely Baptism and the Eucharist.
3. The most radical of all: that worship and liturgy is the work of the people.

Easter? Baptism, Eucharist, the work of the people?Celebration, jubilation, joy and community? In the early, heady days of Lutheran liturgical renewal you know what we called that? “Groovy.”

And we were really focused on all the mechanics and stuff of participation and, given where we were coming from, it was very, very good. How many lead worship, participate in worship, enjoy worship (once a novel idea), come to worship became a new and renewing thing. For a long time we had lost the horizontal, ecumenical, “all the people of God” dimension and this renewal — which I am convinced was led by the Spirit — has been and continues to be very, very good. Today — thank God! — we define really good liturgy as the authentic work of the baptized people of God, gathered around Word and Meal. Liturgy is what we do!

But this is what I think we’ve forgotten or, at minimum, underplayed. Liturgy is also what God in Jesus Christ does too. In liturgy, as we’re all working and enjoying, God is working and enjoying too. When we assemble around Bath and Word and Meal in Christian assembly, God shows up — “enthroned on the praises” of God’s people, as the psalmist puts it and joyfully does God’s proper work. This then, is my thesis for our gathering: When the people of God assemble around Word and Bath and Meal as God’s joyful, Easter people in Jesus Christ,(and this includes Matins, Vespers and all the liturgies of the Church) our liturgy is themeans by which God’s proper work gets done.

What I’d like to ask all of us to think about, talk about and pray about as we consider hymns and anthems, themes and emphases, “traditional,” “contemporary,” “blended,” (whatever they are) “gospel,” “jazz,”“Taizé,” “seeker” and other co-existing forms of the work of the people of God is not whether these elements, emphases and forms are tacky, tasteful, can stand the test of time or are any good, but how do these elements work together as means by which God’s proper work is done.

In order to do that, we need to remember what the proper work of God is. For that, I call your attention to something most of us learned (and probably memorized) in catechetical class. If you don’t remember that far back, the compliers of both of our current “primary worship resources” have provided us easy access. It’s from Luther’s Small Catechism, specifically his explanation to the Third article of the Apostle’s Creed. Hum along as I read it:

I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers and enlightens and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith. Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins — mine and those of all believers. On the last day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.

That’s our common Lutheran answer. Now here’s the question: As we’re all doing liturgy — the work of the people of God — how is this most certainly true?

July 1, 2008

2. The absence of the presence of God.

We always went to church when I was a young child, every Sunday morning. So did everyone else. There was never a question about that; not from me, not from my Lutheran church friends and certainly not from our Roman Catholic friends. There was this one kid, Howie Ross, who didn’t go to church on Sunday. He went every Friday night and every Saturday morning. He was Jewish. As I child, I didn’t know what that meant, except that he wasn’t “Catholic” and that made him more like me.

In those days no one would think to use the words “liturgical” and “renewal” in the same sentence. We did what our ancestors had always done, or so we thought. We went to church to meet God. And God was not easy to meet, at least not without a go-between.

Some of you might remember “church” in the 50s and 60s. The altar against wall; always clean, always “dressed.” A railing fenced us away from the altar, reinforcing the notion that the area between the rail and altar was holy ground. Whenever we had communion to further reinforce the point, the head usher always closed and locked the pastor inside the gate.

The Pastor alone was privileged to go inside the altar rail. Except when reading or preaching, he kept his back to us. When it came to communicating with God, he did all the talking, so he was seen as our go-between. This was reinforced at the beginning of every service when he stood outside the altar rail and led us to confess that we are “poor, miserable sinners.”

Communion was rare and daunting! You had to be confirmed to receive. Everyone was serious. No one ever smiled. No one ever touched another. The “greeting of peace” was not much more than a mini-benediction.

All my friends were having similar church experiences, except for the Roman Catholics; their experience was ratcheted up a notch because their experience was in Latin.

My point is really quite simple. Up through the 50s and 60s, we all knew when we went to church that God himself was present; usually angry, certainly not much fun to be with. But we weren’t present, whether we were “in church” or not.

This all came back to me two years ago when we introduced ELW at Saint Peter’s. We preceded our use of that book with three Sundays in succession of ‘historic” liturgies:” Page 15 of The Lutheran Hymnal; Setting Two of the Service Book and Hymnal; Setting Three of the LBW and finally Setting Nine of ELW — 50 years of Lutheran worship according to the original rubrics.

I don’t need to tell you how all this has changed, mostly for the better. Today’s liturgies are clearly understood as assemblies of the people of God. Liturgy is all of our work. Easter joy has replaced Lenten sorrow. Baptism is a way of living, not just a rite of passing. The Eucharist is a time for singing and rejoicing and touching — hugging, kissing, and blessing — is generally accepted and often overwhelmingly practiced by us all. Today there is little question that the people of God must be present. What seems to not matter is the presence of God. How many of us have said or heard (or thought) this: It didn’t “feel” like church?

This “absence” has brought several recent responses. “You and me” Jesus has been one of them, the development of worshiping communities that emphasize “a personal relationship with Jesus.” You can find this emphasis to be strongest in theoretically non-denomination, non-confession “mega-churches.” And the rise of what I am going to label the “liturgical left.” You, of all people, know exactly what I mean.

The other response is coming from what I am going to label the “liturgical right,” exemplified most clearly in the decisions of the Vatican to re-introduce the Latin mass according to the Tridentine rite as a way to re-introduce mystery and majesty — and not a little respect for authority — back into the liturgy.

Other responses include the growing popularity of spiritual direction, the use, in “special” liturgies of various chant styles, lighting schemes, candles and (gasp!) incense; and a whole new developing interest in the experience of the numinous in others from virtually any other religious tradition.

My point is not to judge, question or denigrate any of this, but simply to use these examples to illustrate the reality of the need: the presence of God’s absence.

What has been our Lutheran (and generally mainline “protestant”) response? Worship wars: Continually looking to the liturgical left or the liturgical right for all the “correct” answers to get, in the words of Whoopi Goldberg’s Sister Mary Clarence “butts in the seats;” choosing sides and waging war on the other with joyless abandon. There is, I believe, a better answer.

The great 20th Century theologian, Jaroslav Pelikan, baptized a Slovak Lutheran, died an Orthodox Christian, once rightly described the churches of the Augsburg Confession as being of “catholic substance and protestant principle,” and it’s time we affirm that he was correct. “Catholic substance and protestant principle” does not mean we are at war with each other nor that one side should win, rather it means that all we do ought to be held in, evaluated by and reformed through that creative tension. Let’s begin by declaring that the worship wars are over. It’s so “last Century” anyway.

Second, let’s test out my theory that the absence of the presence of God is what the “reformers” on the liturgical left and right and among us are addressing and, if my theory is correct, look for ways to address that issue. We’ve addressed it from the other side, with the renewals of the last three and a half decades; surely we can address it from this side with renewal through this decade.

I’m going to try and suggest some ways we might do that tomorrow.

But finally for today, let’s agree that the problem we are addressing is not the absence of the presence of God in our liturgies but the acknowledgement, recognition — feeling, if you will — about that absence. We are, after all, Lutherans. We live (and that includes worship) by trust in the promises of God. We know those promises:

“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them.”

“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I am with you always to the close of the age.”

“This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

And therefore there is never a question or a doubt that, when we gather around Word and Sacrament as the hymn puts is, “God himself is present.”

Knowing that; trusting that; let’s identify the ways we can help one another acknowledge, recognize and “feel” that presence. And if that’s takes reform and renewal, let’s just do it!

July 2, 2008

3. Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face

How can we restore as sense of God’s presence – a sense of reverence — in our liturgies today. By now you know my proposal: The liturgical renewal in the 21st Century must be about restoring a vertical-horizontal balance of worship by paying attention to the vertical, that is, by emphasizing and being attentive to the presence of God as much as we emphasize and are attentive to the presence of God’s people in our liturgies. I’m going to present you with two illustrations and make some suggestions and then open this up for comments, critiques and suggestions.

My first illustration about how we can achieve this is from one of the parables of Jesus. It is, I admit, but one parable, but its theme is common to several. Note the balance between the horizontal and the vertical, the community of disciples and their defined relationship to God.

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you. Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ “ [Saint Luke 17:5-10]

Might liturgical renewal in the 21st Century restore the sense that, for the community assembled around Word and Sacrament in the presence of God, “we are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.”

The second illustration comes from a hymn once included in LBW and now removed from ELW. This is the hymn I intend to use as the Hymn of the Day for my own funeral. The first stanza will suffice:

Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;

Here would I touch and handle things unseen;

Here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace,

And all my weariness upon thee lean.(Lutheran Book of Worship, 211)

Might liturgical renewal in the 21st Century restore that sense of awe?

Here are my suggestions, some admittedly trivial and manipulative, some not, to restore this proper liturgical balance.