The Lutheran Zephyr

ELCA Provides Press Release Featuring its Critics

The ELCA News Service offered a press release detailing and linking to the scathing critiques three Lutheran theologians have of the proposed social statement on human sexuality.  Whereas some of these guys have few nice words to say about the ELCA, the ELCA itself is helping them spread their harsh rhetoric.  Ironic, no?

My comment on the proposed social statement on human sexuality and these theologians' critiques will be shared in the coming weeks.

Peace.

The Limited (Yet Often Overblown) Power of Church Bureaucrats

I was reading a post on another Lutheran pastor's blog where I saw a comment that questioned the quality of Augsburg Fortress' work over the past few years, and pined for the last generation of worship materials (LBW and WOV).  This, along with a few other comments critical of the new Lutheran Study Bible, got me all riled up (you'll see plenty of my comments over on his blog), because I've heard this kind of stuff before.

Over the years I've had unique opportunities to meet with hundreds of Lutheran lay and ordained leaders, first as the Director of Alumni Relations for our seminary in Philadelphia, and then later as a sales representative for Augsburg Fortress.  I heard joys and praise for the organizations for which I worked, and also concerns and critiques.  When these church leaders offered their critiques, I often heard a common strain in their chorus:

"The church isn't what it used to be.  Everything would be fine if we could only return to [insert era, usually:

• when the speaker was a child or young adult leader/pastor in the church; or,
• the era when their mentor/teacher was a child or young adult in the church, or when that mentor/teacher was a top leader in the church; or other eras, including,
• the Reformation; or,
• pre-Reformation; or,
• the early church]"

and related . . .

"Our [bishops, theologians, churchwide staff, publishing house] aren't as good as they were in my time, and we're declining as a church for it.  If only we had the likes of [insert name of "great" church leader, theologian, or publication from bygone era] we'd be much better off."

While I sympathize with their concern about the church, and am genuinely sad that they feel the church is not what it was or could be, I respectfully think their analysis of what is going on in the church is wrong.

Related to the first point: we cannot reprisinate an era that no longer exists - not the early church, not the Reformation, not the 1950s or early 1980s. 

Secondly, the claim that in a past generation the church was more faithful fails, upon further examination, to hold water.  Such a claim is often a cry of lament that a particular person, group, or theology no longer holds a prominent place . . . it is a cry that "we" are no longer "in charge" (whoever "we" are - adherents to a particular theological perspective, a once-priviledged class of individuals [white men, for example, who nonetheless are still quite priviledged!], or a small cadre of now-retired professors and their students, for example).

Furthermore, such claims of past faithfulness vs. a supposed current faithlessness tend to look at the past through rose-colored glasses.  Past generations had their strengths, for sure, but they also had their weaknesses . . . just like our generation.  While I gladly mine past generations for thier strengths, we cannot paint these generations as broadly more faithful than ours when these were generations in which women had their place (in the kitchen), people of color had their place (as the object of our colonial missions), and theology failed to speak to the reality of poverty and struggle shared by the majority of the world's citizens.  You call that faithful to the Lord who speaks Good News to the poor and uplifts the lowly and fills the hungry with good things?

But more importantly . . . I'm intrigued by the suggestion in the second claim that church "higher ups" have some amazing power to corrupt the church and lead it into a supposedly diminished stature.  As I stated on Eric's blog,

Behind all this criticism [of Augsburg Fortress, of the ELCA hierarchy] seems to be a populist uprising against the “higher ups” of church authority, as if they’re to blame for all our church’s problems. P’shaw. Despite one’s feelings about mergers, bishops, churchwide headquarters’ moves, or the publishing house, we’re a church with a polity that is functionally congregational. “Higher ups” have no power to get butts in pews or ears within ear-shot of the Gospel. Our church’s real (and supposed) decline (in numbers, stature, etc.) is not a function of willy-nilly bureaucrats but of local leaders (lay and ordained) neglecting their call.

So yes, offer critiques of Augsburg Fortress and churchwide offerings, but . . . but I certainly hope that pastors and lay leaders will look in the mirror when lamenting the state of the church today . . . because no cubicle-dwelling editor in Minneapolis or program assistant in Chicago has ever had the power to dramatically impact the viability of local parish ministries.

Strong critiques of churchwide structures and accusations blaming these structures for the supposed downfall of the ELCA often come, paradoxically, from folks with very pietistic, congregational perspectives.  That is, these are people who generally see the church as beginning with the individual believer, the home and/or the local congregation . . . but when it comes to explaining the so-called downfall of the church, they blame not the individual believer, the home, and/or the local congregation, but the churchwide structures.  Huh?

Congregations which struggle with issues regarding size, ministry, mission, faithfulness, "relevance," and other concerns would do well to be concerned less with what churchwide agencies are doing or not doing, and more with what they are doing or not doing locally.  The tasks of ministry are given to all the baptized and in local contexts, after all, not just outsourced to that small number of people with offices and cubicles at churchwide organizations . . . But if they do look to churchwide organizations with an open mind, more often than not they'll find a willing and supportive partner in ministry.  That's been my experience, anyway.

Reading the Proclamation, Missing the Holy Spectacle

I couldn't help but notice something odd as I watched President Obama address the joint session of Congress back on February 25.  You see, for the past several years I had listened to such addresses on the radio, as we didn't have cable or satellite television, and the reception through our rabbit ears antennae was awful.  But I watched this time, and was impressed by the grandeur of the event.  The President of the United States, the members of the US Supreme Court, the Cabinet, members of both houses of Congress, and other guests.  Quite a spectacle. 

But I was also surprised to see so many members of Congress, gathered there for this grand event, reading the President's address provided to them in fancy little booklets (look closely at the picture above).  Why not just look up, listen, and take in the event?  Why read?  You're in the House chambers, the President is speaking, and you're reading?  Surely these members of congress have staffers who are drawing up talking points, so there's no need to study the text at that moment.  Couldn't they have just listened to the President's speech?

I ask this question because I notice how so many folks read along in their worship bulletins at church.  I know that until a few years ago I used to read along, too.  But I fear that the printed word detracts from our ability to hear the spoken Word coming to us from outside of us, from the church, from God.  You see, reading and listening are different tasks, they happen at different paces, and they impact the individual differently.  For example, if I'm reading along as the lector is reading the first reading in worship, I find my eyes and my brain moving foward, racing ahead of the lector.  Inevitably I finish reading before the lector does.  So as I'm waiting for her to finish the reading, perhaps I move to a different part of my worship bulletin - the next reading, or the prayers, or the announcements . . . so that by about the second reading or the Gospel, I have read through the whole worship folder!

But meanwhile, I have missed out on hearing the articulation of God's Word.  I have clouded out the proclamation of the Word with my own visual consumption of the printed word.  I have failed to fully participate in the communal proclamation.  I may even have given short shrift to Paul's wisdom that "faith comes from what is heard" (Romans 10:17), for I was listening with my mind's ear to my own reading rather than listening to the Word proclamed before me and in community.

So too with the sacrament.  In the worship bulletins of many of our churches we print the text to the whole liturgy of the table, including the words of institution.  For many years as I sat in the pew I found myself reading along rather than taking in the spectacle of Christ's promise of real presence unfolding before me, missing out on the gestures, the words, the shared experience of Christ's sacramental presence.

Or to take an example from the classroom: When I teach lessons or offer workshops, I try to minimize my use of paper handouts or worksheets . . . for I find these to be a distraction for the students who are busy reading and wondering how these papers are going to connect to the class rather than listening to me.  If I do use these tools I distribute them not in advance, but only at the time when I need to use them.

And so I wonder if our Roman Catholic and Evangelical friends have a bit of wisdom that many of us in the Main Line are lacking.  I can't remember the last time I walked into a Roman Catholic or Evangelical church and was handed a 16 page worship folder.  Rather, I walk in and my mind, my ears, my heart, my attention is drawn to the spectacle that is unfolding before us, in proclamation, in prayer, and (in the Roman Catholic churches) in sacrament.

Yes, I know the reasons for printing a bulletin - to be welcoming to visitors, to reduce page-turning in a worship book, to help follow the service if the lector or presiding minister has a weak voice or if the worshipper has poor hearing, and to provide worshippers with a "take-home" piece . . . But I wonder if the costs - yes, the costs to the church of paper, staff time, photocopying, but not just that - I wonder if the costs to worshippers who might be distracted by the 16-page, self-contained, worship booklet that is resting in their hands might be too high for the sake of "convenience."  I'm not sure if I'll say that the proclamation of the Word is at stake, but I will get close to that line . . .

If our worship books are too complicated to use perhaps we should teach their proper use or, alternatively, ditch them.  If our worship service is too complicated, perhaps we should teach its pattern and prayers or, alternatively, simplify it.  It seems to me that teaching would be the way to go . . .

Sermons Updated

I've posted sermons to this blog for the first time in months.  Sermons from the first few months of my life as a pastor, as well as a few sermons from the end of my internship, have now been posted to the Sermons page.

Now, don't all rush.  Walking, please.  One at a time.  No pushing.  Thank you.

Language and Liturgy

I've been thinking about how we call on and refer to God in worship, particularly the first person of the Trinity.  I hear feminist critique regarding the overwhelming use of masculine language for the name of God, and yet I also know that going in a modalist direction - using language that describes God's actions rather than God's nature or being (ie, "Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier") is also problematic.

As part of my exploration of these issues I looked at how various Lutheran worship books have, over the years, expressed the Great Thanksgiving dialogue, used to initiate the prayers at the Liturgy of the Table (perhaps I'll repeat this exercise in future posts with a look at other liturgical texts).  Those books are:

Common Service Book and Hymnal, 1917 (CSB)
Service Book and Hymnal, 1958 (SBH)
Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978 (LBW)
With One Voice, 1995 (WOV)
Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 2006 (ELW)

Their rendering of the dialogue are as follows:

The Lord be with you (all books)

And with thy spirit (CSB, SBH)
And also with you (LBW, WOV, ELW)

Lift up your hearts (all books)

We lift them up unto the Lord (CSB, SBH)
We lift them to the Lord (LBW, WOV, ELW)

Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God (CSB, SBH)
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God (LBW, WOV, ELW)

It is meet and right so to do (CSB, SBH)
It is right to give him thanks and praise (LBW)
It is right to give our thanks and praise (WOV, ELW)

Just a few comments from this comparison - and this is a dangerous comparison to make, as these are ancient texts originally penned in ancient languages.  The Common Service Book rendering of these text is not the "original" rendering of these liturgical formulas which we share with the church catholic.  But the Common Service Book is a starting point for many American Lutherans as that was the first truly common worship book used by a large proportion of American Lutherans.  Here I am just looking at the evolution of these texts over the past hundred years.

First, the language was significantly changed to more common forms in the move from SBH to LBW.  "With thy spirit" becomes "also with you."  "Unto" becomes "to."  "Meet," which also means "appropriate" but which is rarely used in this way, is removed.

Secondly, in LBW "up" was removed from the congregation's response to the invitation by the presiding minister to "lift up your hearts."  Again, speaking only about these texts and without reference to the original ancient texts, I find this change to be fascinating.  The presider invites the congregation to "lift up" their hearts, and - since LBW - the congregation responds not with up/down language (though "up" is implied in the word "lift"), but says, simply, "We lift them to the Lord," with less directional reference.

It was also around the time of LBW that many churches removed their east wall altars and began praying and sharing the sacrament facing each other, rather than a wall.  Such a shift in orientation emphasizes that the Lord is present - particularly in this meal - not just in the heavens but on earth.  Removing the  "up" from the congregation's response reinforces this renewed awareness of our Lord's holy and real presence among us (see The Sunday Assembly, page 201, for more commentary on this).

Finally, it is in LBW that the object of our thanks - God - is referenced in the congregation's third dialogue response for the first time.  God is neither named nor referenced in the responses found in CSB or SBH (see above).  In naming the object of our praise, the LBW (inadvertently?) introduced a masculine pronoun where Lutherans hadn't employed one in the previous two worship books.  Thus in our last hundred years of Lutheran worship books, gender-specific language in this dialogue is to be found only in one book - the Lutheran Book of Worship - and at that in only one line of this dialogue, the congregation's third response.  The presider invites the congregation to give thanks to the Lord our God, and in all the books the congregation responds that it is right to do so.  It was LBW, as it removed archaic language forms, that introduced a masculine pronoun in this response: It is right to give him thanks and praise. 

In WOV and ELW, the dialogue response is changed to "it is right to give our thanks and praise."  Oh my.  In comparison with LBW this can looks like a navel-gazing, self-congratulatory refrain with an emphasis on "our thanks" rather than on the object of our thanks, God ("him" in LBW).  But this newer rendering of the text actually seems to be more in line with the CSB and SBH intent - affirming the rightness of giving thanks, and leaving the task of naming the object of our thanks to the subsequent prayers of thanksgiving.

What has this little exercise achieved?  Not much, honestly.  I've looked at a single liturgical formula and how it has been expressed in Lutheran worship books over the past century.  I note how language was updated to more common usage, how a textual change orients the congregation to our Lord's presence among us (rather than just "up" in the heavens), and how the masculine pronoun for God - though common in both Scripture and liturgy - wasn't part of this particular liturgical formula for Lutherans for most of the century.

What I haven't done is demonstrate the intent of the worship book editors or of the translators of original texts.  I haven't consulted commentaries on our worship books, except for the one noted above.  I've simply noted the changes and made some of my own comments.  There's plenty of room for further examination, particularly in relation to the intent of the original texts, and a discussion of our relationship with original texts and the received tradition would also be helpful.  But that's for another day . . .

Peace to you.

harder getting back in than I thought

So more than a week after I declare that I'll be back in the blogging saddle, I find myself wondering how exactly to get back in.  After three months of pause I find it hard to resume blogging, something that I had been doing for more than three years.  But in those three months of pause my life has changed quite a bit . . .

I was ordained three months ago.  And no, I don't hold any mystical understanding of ordination that would suggest I experienced some ontological change in my being upon ordination - though, as Sarcastic Lutheran put it on the day of her ordination (sorry, I can't find the link to her ordination post), how can you not be changed by all that prayer?  Though I won't attribute this change to my new "status" or funky new clothing or neat title, I cannot deny that my life has significantly changed since ordination.

For starters, I have real work to do, and less down-time.  For the months leading up to my ordination and call, I was working part-time at the congregation where I had served my internship, giving me the chance to blog and dabble in some volunteering at my daughter's school and make lunch each week for a certain political campaign's local office.  But even when I was on internship, I was, well, an intern - responsible for projects, yes, and various other tasks, but I didn't carry the kind of responsibility that I do now.  I learned tons on internship, an experience for which I'm terribly grateful, but there's something, well, different about what I'm doing now.

I'm settled down.  Not my personality, mind you, but my life.  I'm ordained and called to a congregation, and my wife has a tenure-track teaching position at a seminary.  We haven't been this settled . . . ever.  For the first time in the past many years, I'm looking at career and life through a longer lens - no longer in one-year increments (a year on the hospital chaplaincy residency, a year on internship ... ) but in five-year increments, even longer.  I'm settled, and am hunkering down for the long haul.  And it feels good.

And I'm awed.  I'm awed by the faith and life I'm witnessing in my congregation.  You see, as a parish pastor I get a front row to the life and faith of a community of believers . . . and what I see is just amazing.  Last week I preached about church being that place where we can and should bring our suffering, our rejection, our death (contra Peter; see Mark 5:31ff), for it is in Word and Sacrament and the fellowship of believers that we encounter the One who suffered, who was rejected, who died.  Later in that service, then, I could hardly fight back tears as I spoke the words, "This is the body of Christ, given for you," to a few elderly folks for whom the physical act of getting out of bed and coming to church is such a gargantuan effort.

And so with less free time, a longer view on life and ministry, and more time spent taking in the awe-inspiring experiences of faith and ministry . . . I am challenged to reclaim my blogging space.  And though returning to the blogosphere isn't high on my priority list right now - Word, Sacrament, youth ministry, education ministry, pastoral visitations, etc. are higher on the list - I want to get there, for it is in the blogosphere where I have found a community of believers and leaders who have taught me so much and who have so much to offer me.

Perhaps I'll start by simply sharing some ideas . . . we had a pretty successful intergenerational Stations of the Cross activity two Sundays ago.  And this weekend I'm chaplaining a Confirmation event for our synod where I'll be sharing some reflections on Christian identity using the popular animated movie Toy Story 2.  OK.  There's fodder for two posts.  Let' see how this goes . . .

Under Renovation: Grand Re-Opening Soon

After nearly three months away from the blog - not coincidentally, my first three months as a parish pastor - I've decided to return to the blog, though not without a few changes.  In the parish I have encountered many challenging theological issues, and witnessed many wonderful examples of faith in action, and I would like to use this platform to share these challenges and experiences. 

So, keep your eye here, your feedreader subscribed here . . . after some housecleaning I'll be posting some new content.  Soon.