The Original Lutherans & their Prized Possession
Today we dedicate a new worship book. It is called Evangelical Lutheran Worship, or, "ELW" for short. And just what is evangelical Lutheran worship? What distinctive contribution do we evangelical Lutherans make to worship? Well, let me start with the original Lutherans.
A number of years ago, my wife, Laurie, and I had the opportunity to go to Wittenberg, Germany where the Lutheran reformation began almost 500 years ago in the early 1500s.
And in Wittenberg,
all the important Luther sites are strung out on one long street: the castle
church, city hall, the city church, the university. And down on the very
end, is the Lutherhaus, the old 40-room Augustinian monastery where
Luther lived and which eventually became home for him and Katie.
Today it is a museum. But it is not just any museum. It is the museum that houses the most precious Lutheran artifacts in the world. We had a tour of it guided by the museum’s director, Dr Martin Treu. And towards the end of the tour, I asked Dr. Treu what the most precious item in the collection was. And he began jumping up and down, throbbing with excitement. The question thrilled him. And I could hardly wait for his answer.
I thought he was going to say a Luther bible. Or, an original copy of the 95 Theses. Or, the original Luther rose. But, no. Bursting at his buttons, he very proudly declared that the most valuable item was a copy of the first Lutheran hymnal. There are only two left in existence, he said. And they had one. It was by far the most precious item in the entire collection.
Liturgy: The People's Work
Hymnals, congregational song, people like
you and me sitting in the pews with a mass-produced hymnbook in our hand.
That is a Lutheran “invention”!
Before the Lutheran reformation there were
no mass-produced hymnbooks for people in the pews. First of all,
there were no mass-produced books period until Guttenberg’s invention of
moveable type. Books were written out by hand. And so, only a few copies of
each book were made. And secondly, because of this, it was not the people
who usually did the singing. The song was quite often offered up by choirs,
especially in the big cities and cathedrals. By and large others sang while
the people listened. Mainly, it was the monks and the boys in Latin school who sang.
But, Luther felt that you “the people,” the laos, the laity, should sing. You should not be mere spectators at worship. You should be actively engaged participants. Worship is your work. The people’s work. Your leiturgia, as they say in Greek. Your liturgy. And so, the Lutherans developed congregational song. Us singing song. Us together, the whole assembly, with mass-produced, common books in our hands, that is one distinctively Lutheran contribution to worship.
Message Music: The Gospel
A second Lutheran contribution to worship is the marriage of word to music. In the Lutheran church, our music is always “message music.” It is never just “mood music” (the kind you hear in malls or elevators). In the Lutheran church, music is always, always, always paired with the Gospel word of Jesus Christ. The music itself conveys the message.
Sometimes when I hear our organist play, I wonder what in the world is he doing. He never plays something the same way twice. But I do know what he is doing. He is always experimenting with the sound. He is trying to find the best way musically to express the message of the words. And almost every Lutheran organist I know tries to do the very same thing. In fact, our organist tells me that for him to play something the same way twice would be like for me to preach the same sermon twice (a most distasteful thought!).
Our worship, our congregational song, our liturgy, the stuff contained within this book is all about proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. It conveys not just a mood, but a message. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is such a powerful and potent message that cannot be conveyed in words alone, but also takes heart-moving songs and rich, thick-textured sacramental actions.
But all of it is centered and focused on
justifying faith in Jesus Christ, which is what makes our worship
evangelical—gospel-centered, which is certainly not a word the original
Lutherans invented, but which they did put at the very heart and core of
their identity. The original Lutherans did not call themselves “Lutherans,”
they called themselves “evangelical.” They were evangelical catholics, the
gospel-centered branch of the catholic church. Which we are still today,
when we are truly Lutheran.
The original Lutherans never claimed to be the only true church, rather they claimed to be a gospel-centered movement within the church of which there is only one. There is only one church. And together we all praise the one God, we worship God, we declare God worthy, worthy of our worship and praise—above all by our faith in the life-saving work of Jesus Christ. Faith is worship; worship is faith. That’s what the original Lutherans said.
God-Focused, Christ-Centered Worship
And I like the way that gets played out in this new book. Once you get this book into your hands, take a good close look at it. And notice how, even in the title on the spine, the words “Evangelical Lutheran” fade out until all you see is “Worship.”
And that is a third thing that is so distinctively Lutheran. In Lutheran worship the focus is not on us. The focus is not on our thoughts or our moods and our emotions. You do not see a lot of “I, I, I” or “me, me, me” in Lutheran hymns or liturgy. And the focus is certainly not on our Lutheranism. You will not find one hymn that praises Martin Luther. Rather the focus is on God and God coming to us in Christ…and we responding with faith and thanks and praise.
And so, we draw broadly for our core worship resources. Parts of this book are very old and use worship patterns and texts that go back to the earliest Christians. Parts of this book are new-to-us, but are not very new at all. They have been used by other Christian assemblies in different places around the world for years, and we are finally…finally!…getting with it. Parts of this book are new and are unique contributions to our worship life in the 21st century. They are a living testimony to the Holy Spirit still at work in the midst of our worship life today and to the fact that the church is always reforming. And now we have about 25 years to enjoy them all before another worship book gets published (if they are still publishing books in the 2030’s).
I don’t know if this book will make you jump up and down like Dr Treu did at the Lutherhaus. But I do know this: evangelical Lutherans have made great contributions to worship. And for that we offer thanks to God.
Pastor Paul Jaster
Emmanuel Lutheran Church
360 Princeton Ave
Elyria, OH 44035
pastor@elc-elyria.org