Lord Jesus Christ, be present now; our hearts in true devotion bow. Your Spirit send with light divine, and let your truth within us shine.
Unseal our lips to sing your praise in endless hymns through all our days; increase our faith and light our minds; and set us free from doubt that blinds.
Then shall we join the hosts that cry, “O holy, holy Lord Most High!” And in the light of that blest place we then shall see you face to face.
All glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three in One! To you, O blessed Trinity, be praise throughout eternity!
Text attributed to Willhelm II, 1598-1662; translated by Catherine Winkworth, 1827-1878.
This hymn, ELW 527, brings to mind questions about learning ways to be flexible with our liturgy. Can we learn this hymn, by singing it often and in the prominent place as Gathering Hymn, so that it becomes familiar, almost to the point of memorization? Can we then spring from this comfortable position of familiarity to the point of intentionally using this hymn as the sole member of the Gathering rite?
The text for this hymn is wonderfully revelatory in a rather concise way. It describes our prayers for what we hope to happen in our worship, proclaims to whom we are praying, and sings our praise to the Holy Trinity. This hymn “does” in two minutes what we often do in the ten minute medley of Gathering Hymn, Kyrie, and Canticle of Praise.
All too often at First Lutheran, we encounter a conflict on Sunday morning. The conflict centers around our intention to be faithful to form, which butts against our need to be mindful of the passage of time. Our desire to be faithful to “the liturgy,” (in this sense the received tradition of worship services past,) sometimes causes us to retain portions of “the liturgy,” (in this sense the order described by the rubrics) that aren’t necessary to our worship on that particular day, but omit portions of the liturgy that we really must do every time we gather.
I experience an inner anguish every time we omit the Great Thanksgiving because the clock is running out, while mindful that our service that morning has included a ten-minute gathering rite that incorporates a five stanza processional hymn, a Kyrie, and a canticle of praise. In our worship planning, can we anticipate and identify what demands upon time will be present on a given morning, and then be intentional about how we “fill” the vessel of our liturgy? Can we do so while conveying to the assembly that we aren’t simply omitting important portions of the liturgy, but using texts, anthems, psalms or other songs that also achieve what we intend?
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Hospitality and liturgical tradition
First Lutheran Church is a liturgical church. Our members, those who have been attending for many years and those who have joined recently, expect and yearn for the liturgy, in its centuries-old historical form, to be done well and with integrity.
Scan our congregation and see the people who are faithful pillars of our church, whether having attended for five weeks, five years, or five decades, and witness a testimony to the strength of our worship. We need to have confidence that what we do every Sunday is attractive and hospitable to any guests that enter our nave with us.
We must be confident that in our worship we are encountering God, through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, “in Word, water, bread and wine” to “serve our community and the world.” We must be confident that in our worship, our guests and our neighbors will experience that encounter as well, by witnessing and participating in the actions we do.
Our confidence should be inviting. Frank Senn asks in his book New Creation this question: “What is the witness of the worshiping community to visitors?” He continues with this observation:
“Do the people join in the liturgy, making the responses in a way that seems second nature to them and singing the songs with enthusiasm? Augustine testified that the sight of the people at worship and the vigor of their singing was a powerful factor in his own conversion.
“There’s a sense in which nothing is more hospitable than a congregation that knows its liturgy well and does it with a lack of self-consciousness that says: this is as natural to us as life itself. This is our life before God.” (New Creation, 113)
As hosts, we do well to celebrate our liturgy with joy and confidence. We must learn and practice the parts we have as participants in corporate worship, so that we can be evangelists through our actions.
At least two corollaries emerge. First, we must be willing to provide means to teach our liturgy, both to members and guests. This includes teaching by the example of how we worship and also teaching by means of time spent outside of worship studying texts, music and history. Second, we can learn to welcome our guests through personal interaction. Our gestures of hospitality can include personally inviting a guest to sit nearby, or showing where in the hymnal a hymn is found, or simply saying “Welcome, and ask me if there’s anything you’d like to know.” These sort of personal gestures are nothing less than what we do when guests arrive at our houses. We can practice them at church as well!
Scan our congregation and see the people who are faithful pillars of our church, whether having attended for five weeks, five years, or five decades, and witness a testimony to the strength of our worship. We need to have confidence that what we do every Sunday is attractive and hospitable to any guests that enter our nave with us.
We must be confident that in our worship we are encountering God, through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, “in Word, water, bread and wine” to “serve our community and the world.” We must be confident that in our worship, our guests and our neighbors will experience that encounter as well, by witnessing and participating in the actions we do.
Our confidence should be inviting. Frank Senn asks in his book New Creation this question: “What is the witness of the worshiping community to visitors?” He continues with this observation:
“Do the people join in the liturgy, making the responses in a way that seems second nature to them and singing the songs with enthusiasm? Augustine testified that the sight of the people at worship and the vigor of their singing was a powerful factor in his own conversion.
“There’s a sense in which nothing is more hospitable than a congregation that knows its liturgy well and does it with a lack of self-consciousness that says: this is as natural to us as life itself. This is our life before God.” (New Creation, 113)
As hosts, we do well to celebrate our liturgy with joy and confidence. We must learn and practice the parts we have as participants in corporate worship, so that we can be evangelists through our actions.
At least two corollaries emerge. First, we must be willing to provide means to teach our liturgy, both to members and guests. This includes teaching by the example of how we worship and also teaching by means of time spent outside of worship studying texts, music and history. Second, we can learn to welcome our guests through personal interaction. Our gestures of hospitality can include personally inviting a guest to sit nearby, or showing where in the hymnal a hymn is found, or simply saying “Welcome, and ask me if there’s anything you’d like to know.” These sort of personal gestures are nothing less than what we do when guests arrive at our houses. We can practice them at church as well!
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