Luther on the “Consecration” in the Lord’s Supper

In the Lutheran Liturgical tradition, the Words of Institution have a consecretory character to them, as seen in the following words of Luther:

For, God be praised, in our churches we can show a Christian a true Christian mass according to the ordinance and institution of Christ, as well as according to the true intention of Christ and the church. There our pastor, bishop, or minister in the pastoral office, rightly and honorably and publicly called, having been previously consecrated, anointed, and born in baptism as a priest of Christ, without regard to the private chrism, goes before the altar. Publicly and plainly he sings what Christ has ordained and instituted in the Lord’s Supper. He takes the bread and wine, gives thanks, distributes and gives them to the rest of us who are there and want to receive them, on the strength of the words of Christ: “This is my body, this is my blood. Do this,” etc. Particularly we who want to receive the sacrament kneel beside, behind, and around him, many, woman, young, old, master, servant, wife, maid, parents, and children, even as God brings us together there, all of us true, holy priests, sanctified by Christ’s blood, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and consecrated in baptism. On the basis of this our inborn, hereditary priestly honor and attire we are present, have, as Revelation 4:4 pictures it, our golden crowns on our heads, harps and golden censers in our hands; and we let our pastor say what Christ has ordained, not for himself as though it were for his person, but he is the mouth for all of us and we all speak the word with him from the heart and in faith, directed to the Lamb of God who is present for us and among us, and who according to his ordinance nourishes us with his body and blood. This is our mass, and it is the true mass which is not lacking among us.”

Quoted in Lutheran Worship: History and Practice, (St. Louis: CPH, 1993), pp. 426-427.

Repristinating…an Attitude

To be called a “repristinator” is not exactly a compliment in our Church body. This is a label that is often used of those who bring back into the Church’s usage things that have been lost and forgotten for centuries, but were regular (and pleasing) features of the Lutheran Divine Service at the time of the Reformation and the years following. It is often used by those brothers who are content with doing things the way they’ve been done for a “long time” (about fifty years), and do not see the need to look back into our history, to wade through the Pietism and Rationalism, in order to evaluate our practices against the norm of those who were closest to the Reformation.

Granted, there are a few Medieval customs that are better left in the past. In fact, a repristinator would be someone who brings things into usage for the simple fact that it was done “back then.” Like someone who likes “old stuff” just because it is “old stuff.” I can’t speak for others, but I know that for myself, I am a repristinator–not merely of old ceremonies–but of an attitude. I’m not so much interested in what was done, as I am in what the Reformers’ attitude was towards the sacrament, towards the conduct of the Service (which, inevitably, came out and became visible in what was done). Ceremonies and customs will change over time. Some will fall out of usage, some will be brought into usage as the Church decides is useful.

But what I think many of us are seeking to recover is not merely the outward mask, but the inner spirit. Not the customs, but the pious attitude of the Reformers. And that, I believe, is what has truly fueled the restoration of some of the older ceremonial (elevating the host; genuflecting; etc.) among many of my brothers. Mostly, it has to do with reverence. Reverence for the holy things of God. Reverence for His Word, for its preaching. Reverence for the Sacrament, for Christ’s holy Body and Blood. This, to a large extent, was lost for who knows how long in our Church Body–lost by pastors, and therefore lost to our church members.

If I’m going to be called a reprisinator for this, then I will gladly wear the label. This is the attitude behind so many of the ceremonies that the Reformers joyfully retained. Of course, there is also order, and love, and humility. These also, as described by Paul H. D. Lang in Ceremony and Celebration, are the biblical principles behind many of the traditional ceremonies that were observed by the Reformers and which many of us today are striving to restore.

But reverence, order, love, and humility can be maintained with or without the ceremonies. One can conduct a bedside Communion Service with reverence and dignity, without the normal ceremonies, which simply shows that the most important thing is the inner attitude of the celebrant, not the outer ceremonies. A pastor in a congregation that is not accustomed to the more elaborate ceremonial of the Reformers may still conduct a reverent Divine Service, but most of us find ourselves doing naturally what was prescribed by earlier Church Orders when we focus our reverence on the holy things of God.

As I said, I cannot speak for others, and perhaps there are some who are true “repristinators,” mere peddlers of old things, but that is not my aim. My aim is to conduct the Divine Service, indeed, all Services of the Church with reverence, dignity, humility, good order, and love/courtesy. In seeking ways to make such things visible, it certainly helps to have a treasure trove of precedent, since I don’t really like to make up things.

Ascension Day: A Sneak Preview…

I hope to see many of my congregants at church tomorrow night celebrating Ascension Day (for me, the day that I first sensed the “inner calling” to pursue the Holy Ministry, sitting in Church in Plant City, FL on A Cappella Tour no less). Here is a sneak preview of my sermon: 

Attempts to reach the heavens go all the way back to Babel and the tower built by the descendants of Noah. All religion, in some way, is an attempt to reach up to God, to built our towers to heaven. Christianity is radically different in the sense that as a religion it is about God coming to us first, and taking us back with Him into heaven. It is about a God who frustrates every attempt of man to make his own way to God, or to build his own towers.

Because such towers, such attempts, always result in pride or are fueled by it. The people who built the tower of Babel, had they been able to achieve their goal, would have doubtlessly congratulated themselves, and patted themselves on the back for their great accomplishment. God knew this. He knew that if they accomplished this feat, they would think they could do anything. “Nothing will be impossible for man.”

So he comes down and scatters them. It’s not that He does not want to be close to man, to have fellowship with him. But He refuses to be a reward for man’s efforts. If He is to be close to man and man is to be close to God, then it will be on God’s terms, not man’s. And it will be the result of His efforts, His striving, His sacrifice—not man’s.

Practical Antinomianism

Had a wonderful discussion yesterday morning at Circuit Winkel regarding the teaching on the third use (function) of the Law in the Lutheran Confessions. The brother pastor who was leading this discussion spoke of what he calls a “practical antinomianism” that seems to prevail in our Synod.

In other words, there seems to be a great weakness in our pastoral practice in the area of individual application of the keys. A pastor proclaims publicly from the pulpit God’s wrath against all kinds of sin and disobedience, but fails to follow through with this preaching when he is sitting one on one with a person who is living a sinful life. We let them off the hook, and do not tell them that their souls are in danger if they do not repent.

I think he is right on. As a pastor I know I have failed in this. In my sermons I have proclaimed God’s Word concerning sin, and yet have “provided soft pillows for the impious” (to use the words of Chemnitz) when I am face to face with a member who needs to be admonished. What makes this so hard? What do we fear? We fear the people. We fear their reactions when we tell them that they are living contrary to God’s holy Word. We fear losing them as members. You name it, we fear it.

What we should fear is being enablers. Ezekiel 33 is pretty clear: “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.” We should be more afraid of God, and more afraid of what may happen to the person’s soul if he or she is not warned of the danger, than we are of that person’s reaction, or that he or she might not like us.

Easy to talk about; hard to do. We think, perhaps, that we are showing mercy, or being patient, or showing love, and that may very well be our motivation. But if we see someone heading down the river in a boat towards a waterfall, towards certain doom, and we smile and wave and act like everything is hunky-dory, how loving is that? It’s sort’ve an earthy analogy, but if I have a booger on my cheek, I’d want someone to tell me, though it might be embarrassing. But we should not be in the practice of pronouncing absolution before the proper time.

I don’t know what the answer is. Well, actually I do know. The solution is to stop being afraid of being disliked, or in my case, being afraid of making people feel uncomfortable, and just speak the truth in love. I pray constantly for the ability to do this, to be faithful, to sound the warning when I see the sword coming, and to speak peace to troubled consciences. God give us all strength to do our duty, even when it makes us or someone else uncomfortable.

Cantate: John 16:5-15

An excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon: 

So one way or another, the Ministry of the Word is despised—either because it preaches God’s wrath against unbelief, or because it preaches a free righteousness. The devil cannot stand for either to be proclaimed truthfully in the Church. And so he does what he can to dismantle this preaching. If he can’t lead a preacher to speak falsely against the Word, then he leads him to sin and dishonor so that he might discredit the Ministry among the people.

He howls and rages, because of this Ministry. He wants ever so much to sabotage the good that is done in a Christian congregation by creating doubt and by leading people to focus their attention on things that are of little importance, so that they might not trust in Christ alone. But Christ says: “The ruler of this world is judged.”

Full text follows.

Men Acting Like Children

Ran across this quote in Gene Veith’s latest book on Vocation and thought I’d pass it along:

It is certainly true today that in man/woman relationships, the man often plays the role of the needy one. He presents himself as troubled, unhappy, and emotionally vulnerable. The woman feels sorry for him, and is attracted by the prospect of helping him, even saving his life or saving his soul. But what these men are doing is appealing to a woman’s maternal instincts. The woman is asked to play the role of the mother, not the bride. The man is playing the role of the child, not a potential husband.

(Gene Edward Veith, Jr. & Mary J. Moerbe, Family Vocation: God’s Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood. Crossway: Wheaton, IL, 2012: 50)

A Custom Explained

I have often wondered what the purpose in having the men sit on one side of the Church and women on the other was. I am told that this was the custom for many years in the congregation I serve. Was it really just another example of Missouri Synod Lutherans denigrating females? Another one of those, “See–I told you that the LC-MS is weird” moments.

But alas! The custom was explained to me recently by a lady who grew up in a church nearby, now in her 80′s. I asked why this was done, and she, without pause, said this: for the sake of the nursing women. Duh! Of course that makes perfect sense. Women nursed, something very natural, and there were no “cry rooms,” so they did it right there in church. For the sake of modesty, and I would suppose, the wandering eyes of the men, they sat on opposite sides.

I don’t know if that was the reason for other congregations that did that, but this lady was pretty certain that was the reason. I suppose it was after the dawn of bottle-feeding or the idea of nurseries in the church that this custom became obsolete. Maybe there was an even more fundamental reason for it, an unspoken one: that when we come together as the Body of Christ, that relationship supercedes our human relationships.