Comings and Goings, Part III

Continuing from my last post . . .

So what is it that anchors our churches in who they are and tells their story when pastors and people come and go in this ever so transient age?

The Liturgy.

The liturgy remains when pastors come and when pastors go. The liturgy joins us with Christians of all times and places. The liturgy doesn't change with every passing fad and whim but keeps us anchored in the truth of God's Word. The liturgy joins us with the story of God's people from age to age. We hear and sing the song of the angels at Jesus' birth. We pray "Lord have mercy!" with the beggars in Jesus' day. We speak the same creeds that our brothers and sisters in Christ have spoken for centuries. We pray with David his psalm of repentance: "Create in me a clean heart, O God!" We join in the "Holy, holy, holy" of the angels around the throne of God, and the "Hosannas!" of the crowd as Jesus entered into Jerusalem to die. We join with John the Baptist in his "Behold, the Lamb of God!" and sing Simeon's song after receiving our Lord in His Supper. And that's just in the Divine Service. In the prayer offices we have Mary's song, Zechariah's song, and the creed-like TeDeum. And most importantly, each Sunday we gather with Christians of all times and places, in the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, around the same Lord and receive His gifts.

That is who we are. And the liturgy teaches us who we are. That story is our story.

Which is why keeping and preserving the liturgy is such a priority in our day and age. That doesn't mean that everything always has to be done the same; that we have to have the same liturgy they used in Luther's day and before. No, there is room for every generation to make the liturgy their own - but that is quite a different thing than gutting it or throwing it out altogether. When the liturgy is adapted, it is still the same liturgy and recognizable as such. In our Lutheran Service Book, Divine Service settings 1-5 are different from one another, and yet at the same time have a unity about them. And as said above, these should be generational - not daily or weekly changes. That the life of the church be well-grounded, stable, and consistent.

So even as people come and go so much in our churches, the liturgy remains. As pastors come and go, the liturgy remains. As catechesis is not done as strongly as it should be, the liturgy remains. But when all of the above happens and the liturgy does NOT remain, but is sacrificed on the altars of relevance, popularity, newness, or change, what is left? The story is gone, the catechesis is gone, the anchor is gone, and the church is set adrift and often becomes a cult of personality - the personality of the pastor or programs, flashy building or coffee bars.

Is that not what we see in so many churches and places today? Yes, our true unity is in Christ - one Lord, one faith, one baptism - but we should not spiritualize this unity. For just as the Son of God became incarnate for us and for our salvation, so too our unity in Christ is "incarnated" in the liturgy. In words and water and bread and wine our Lord comes to us today for us and for our salvation, bringing His gifts of forgiveness and life. And so our unity is not purely "spiritual" (as Luther fought against with the enthusiasts) but neither is it merely physical (as Luther fought against with Rome) - it is both. The spiritual come in the physical, God using the physical things of this world to give us His spiritual gifts. And it is the liturgy that serves this end and serves us to this end.