Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere

We Lutherans do not use the words "high church" or "low church" to describe worship.  Those are Anglican terms.  In Anglicanism being "high" or "low" indicates which side of the  Anglican "middle way" you are leaning, whether to Rome or to Geneva.  Since Lutherans don't lean, or at least they shouldn't, and Lutheranism is not a middle way, at least when it's running on all its cylinders, "high" and "low" don't do justice to Lutheran worship.  You might say that Lutheran worship is always "high" in the sense that it has a profound recognition of the majesty and awe that befit heavenly Jerusalem, and yet it is always "low" in the sense that we don't reach up to God with our ceremonies but God reaches down to us in Christ through the proclaimed Word and the Sacrament.

With five years of Higher Things youth conferences under my belt, and having just returned from this year's two Sola conferences in San Antonio and Grand Rapids, worship is foremost on my mind at the moment.  I share a few reflections here.

Worship is something best done and not debated; experienced and not exegeted.  The profound majesty, the relaxed dignity, the soaring hymnody, the caring and pastoral preaching, the intimacy of the Sacrament - words simply fail to describe.  These things must be experienced - heard, smelled, touched.  To read and debate about worship makes as much sense as arguing about food and wine away from the table.  And at the table, who has the time or the inclination to argue?

One thing I greatly appreciate about worship at the Higher Things conferences is how it can span austere simplicity and cathedral majesty without being forced.  Like a well-worn shoe, it always seems to fit.  From the little group Compline services chanted a capella in the dorms to the wondrous Divine Service with its grand intonations, the experience is one of Lutheranism in the fullness of its liturgical freedom.  Constrained to our common hymnal and restrained by the boundaries of the liturgy, we are yet free within those boundaries to rejoice in the manifold gifts of God's grace as God's free children.

I'm impressed with the simplicity of Matins and Vespers - psalms, readings, hymn, prayer.  If one left out the closing hymn, a service like this could easily be done by any group of school children in 20 minutes.  I loved the incense at Evening Prayer.  "Let my prayer rise before You as incense."  The prayers of God's children rise up as a cloud before the Throne.  Some folks have a hard time with the sneezies, but I've found that pure rock frankincense has very little allergic reaction.  Unless you are predisposed.  Some services had enough clergy to constitute a pastors conference or at least a Winkel; other services had but a single pastor.  Some pastors wore albs; others wore cassock and surplice.  Each brought the stoles and vestments of his home congregation.

Perhaps the most wonderful thing is that nothing that went on (except maybe that pinch of Evening Prayer incense) couldn't go on at any given Lutheran congregation on any given Sunday were we so inclined.  My youth group encountered nothing out of the ordinary for them.  Yes, it was louder and bigger.  There were lots of us there, and we're Lutherans, we like to sing.  All fifteen stanzas.  Yes, the organist was a little more "assertive" than the nice lady who plays the organ tenderly and softly at home.  But hey, sometimes you have to blow the dust off some of the hymns and take them off road.

As a pastor, preacher, and presider, I return from these youth conferences renewed in our Lutheran liturgical tradition.  We have a great treasure; I hope someone's taking inventory.  I pay a little more attention to the details that so often slip in the casual comforts of home.  I  listen more attentively, sing more intently, preside with greater dignity. Those hymns that sounded so majestic with 900 young voices, sound just as good with 100 creaky voices or the dozen that come out for Evening Prayer on Wednesdays to sing a capella.  A joyful noise to the Lord is always joyful, no matter how great or small, all thanks to Jesus.