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“Worship Music”
PENTECOST 8
(special series on worship)
July 26, 2009
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I suppose that if anything, I was a “traditionalist” from a worship viewpoint, all the way back to my growing up in St. Olaf Lutheran Church in Austin, down in southern Minnesota. Imagine attending services with up to 60 adult choir members, all robed, processing every Sunday while singing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” four pastors, and a professional organist, the consummate church musician, playing a pipe organ with nearly 3,000 pipes. Imagine being led in worship by the choir and the organ, singing “Immortal, Invisible” or “Lead on O King Eternal.” As I grew older I sang in the high school choir with about 40-50 others, at the middle service, but I often attended the third service just to take part in the worship. I knew the introit, the Gloria Patri, Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis and the rest of setting one from the Service Book and Hymnal by heart. I loved that service so much that as an adult I signed a petition against moving to the LBW when it came into use. I grew to love the LBW too, but it just wasn’t quite the same. It’s funny because during one of my internship, the lead pastor of the church I was at had been stonewalled by the worship and music committee for several years, on starting a contemporary service. So I said, “let me do it.” And he said, “go for it.” I attended contemporary services at Baptist and Catholic churches, Russian Pentecostal services, Presbyterian services, everywhere I could find one. I stole or borrowed what I thought was the best and made it Lutheran. What fun, what an experience, what a lesson. We had our first service and it took off. It grew and began attracting people in a way that I could not have imagined. A Lutheran contemporary service with ideas from all over northern California becoming the biggest service at a church worshipping about 325 people every Sunday. So what does this have to do with us? Well, I’m glad you asked. We are Lutherans. No surprise there. The past few weeks we have been talking about Lutheran worship – liturgy, sacred time and place, where God meets us, how in some respects we go against cultural norms. So let’s look at just where we’ve been, and maybe where we’re going… We are a “confessional church,” meaning that we accept the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a true witness to the Gospel. So, how does the Augsburg Confession define “the church”? In Article VII we read that it’s nothing more than the gathering of saints where gospel is proclaimed and sacraments administered. Word and sacrament create the church, define the church. No proclamation of the gospel, no sacraments, no church. So what are the common characteristics of Lutheran worship? Gathering, Word, meal, and sending. We gather together, called by the Holy Spirit. God speaks to us in Scripture, in the readings, the preaching and in song. Law and gospel awaken and nourish faith. In the meal we hear the Words of Institution; God’s word of command and promise, we share in the means of grace; forgiveness and salvation given through faith. We are sent to continue our participation in God’s mission – to live as Christ’s body in the world. Our gathering and sending are centered in Word and sacrament; God is at the center of our worship as we gather together in a holy time, a holy place, sacred time, sacred space, God’s time, God’s space. God comes to us in our worship, wherever two or three are gathered in his name. God comes to us in ways we cannot anticipate, in ways we don’t expect. God is the actor in our worship, we are the beneficiaries. We don’t worship for God’s sake, but for our sakes. Jesus is the Word of God incarnate and scriptures are the written word of God, through these forms as through the sacraments we receive faith, forgiveness and new life. In some respects you might say our worship is “counter-cultural,” not the counter-culture we would hear about from the 1960s-70s, but from the standpoint that the values held dear in the secular world are not our values as Christian Lutherans. We don’t worship to escape from the “real world,” instead we worship in the “real world,” the “already/not yet.” Our worship is a taste of what is to come. So which worship service am I talking about? Is it the Saturday evening service or one or the other of our Sunday services? Alternative, traditional, blended? What exactly is our own culture here at LCC? What is our heritage? How far back do you want to go? Gathering, word, meal and sending are a direct connection to the ancient church and to services ever since. The Lutheran emphasis on Word and sacrament could not more pronounced – it’s a connection to the “first Mass of Christ” and Luther is the one who said that the “nearer our Masses are to the first Mass of Christ, the better they undoubtedly are…” as noted by Pastor Joan last week. And here we get the idea that one size doesn’t fit all – as someone has noted, just ask any missionary. Our Lutheran tradition is one that encourages worship in ways that promote faith. Which occasionally means we, like Luther, will borrow from the culture to do just that – promote faith. Look at what Luther did with church music. Gregorian chant, metrical settings of the psalms borrowed from the Calvinists in Switzerland and France, the latest (in Luther’s time) German and Latin polyphony, pilgrimage songs sung by Christians on their way to Rome or elsewhere, compositions according to the guild of Meistersinger tradition, and taking, “baptizing” songs from non-religious sources into Lutheran services. And all this was happening simultaneously! This is our tradition. Brothers and sisters, we have been, we are, blessed with rich traditions in our worship music here at LCC. But here we need to keep in mind that our worship music enhances worship, it is part of our response to God, praising God, and it is also missional in that it may reach the visitor, the sojourner with the Word of God. If it is something that attracts people to our services, that leads to, or strengthens faith, then it is part of our outreach here at LCC. AMEN. Rev. Bruce Hannem, Associate Pastor
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa, Minnesota |
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