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| Indiana-Kentucky
Synod |
Sanctus | ||
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A
Newsletter of the Worship Committee of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod |  | |
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June,2006
Preaching, Prayers and Pretzels | |
Sanctus
is an occasional newsletter of the Worship Committee of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod.
It is mailed bi-monthly, as part of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod Resource Packet,
to to Rostered Leaders and Lay Congregation Chairs (presidents or vice-presidents).
Sanctus is also mailed to the Worship Planning Team chairs
in our I-K Synod Congregations. If you are a local worship planning leader and
would like to join this mailing, please contact Pr. Rudy Mueller, Rmueller@iksynod.org
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June
2006 Sanctus Online: | ||
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As we enter these "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer", this Sanctus becomes a mixed-bag issue. We include some Renewing Worship news, along with notice of other resources. There is a sermon by Dr. Hank Langknecht, Professor of Homiletics at Trinity Seminary. He preached this sermon at the first Preaching for Mission Event in Fort Wayne, back in October 2005. This is the first in a series of sermons preached at the Preaching for Mission Events that will be published in the Sanctus. Rudy Mueller offers some more conversation on Eucharistic prayers.
And the pretzels - well, we'll let you handle that. It is, after all, the time for "soda and pretzels and beer".
You
can pre-order your copies of Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Go to www.augsburgfortress.org
to place your order. The cost now is $17.50. This new worship resource is scheduled
to be published on October 3, 2006, and the cost then will be $20 each. AugsburgFortress
is offering twelve-month financing on purchases of the pew edition.
Congregations have been mailed a Preview Kit, which includes a CD music sampler and a CD-ROM with sample graphics, order forms, logos, and more. [Note that the two discs have been labeled backwards, and replacement discs have been mailed to all congregations.]
The
Leaders Ritual Edition (altar edition), the Leaders Desk Edition, and Accompaniment
Editions (one for hymns, one for liturgies) will also be available the first of
October.
Maretta Hershberger reports that the Worship Committee of Christ the King in South Bend has been "talking about doing the "With the Whole Church" worship study early in the fall prior to the introduction of the new book, simply offering it during the education hour as one option for any interested adults.
In a completely separate conversation, there were individuals talking to our Christian Ed folks about the need to educate children about worship. The two conversations came together to result in a "worship education blitz" for the month of October, culminating in the introduction of the new book on Reformation Sunday and a hymn festival that Sunday evening (the day after the synod event here).
"Many of the details are still to be worked out, but the emphasis will include small group engagement and adult and youth education, all having the "With the Whole Church" study as a base, curriculum for children yet to be determined/designed, and probably a sermon series. Hopefully not only will our whole church family know a lot more about worship in general than they did before, but this should generate some excitement for a new worship book with new songs from the whole family of God. (To say nothing of the fact that everyone is already looking forward to the day when there will only be one book in our pews anymore instead of three!)"
Besides www.onelicense.net, there is a new and similar site at www.licensingonline.org. This site works like OneLicense, but includes some publishers not found at OneLicense. Check out both for getting copyright permission quick and easy.
www.sundaysandseasons.com has added a new User Guide to the Sundays and Seasons.com online help documentation! In it, you'll find information about the site and its different sections, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to use each feature.
We've
broken it down into 5 areas, labeled just like the tabs at the top of your Sundays
and Seasons.com page: Home, Planner, Reference Library, Hymns & Songs, and
NRSV Bible. For those who'd like to learn more about the different terms on the
site, we've also included a glossary.
Eucharistic
Prayers: Structure and Contentby Rudy Mueller
The form and structure of the Eucharistic prayer with which we are most familiar is that found in the Lutheran Book of Worship (as well as With One Voice). It reflects the form of the West Syrian family of eucharisitc prayers. It should be noted at the beginning that there are other forms found in the liturgical history of the church, and certainly a variety of forms are used today throughout the church.
he eucharistic prayer proper is set in the context of the Liturgy of the Meal, which begins with the Peace. The earliest practice (Didache and Justin Martyr) seems to place the peace before the offering, reflecting the word of Matthew 5.23-24. St. Augustine reports that it took place after the Lord's Prayer and before communion, the present day position in the Roman rite.
As mentioned above, Justin Martyr reported that after the kiss of peace the bread and wine were brought forward. This simple offertory was expanded over the centuries to include a variety of gifts, accompanied by the singing of Psalms, verses, or sentences. By the 5th century the Roman rite provided a prayer to be said over the offerings, a prayer excised by Luther but restored by the LBW.
The dialogue is one of the most ancient elements of the Eucharistic liturgy. The first pair of verses is a salutation; the second pair is invitation lift heart, soul and body before God (Lietzman, Mass and the Lord's Supper, p 187, says it is to meet the coming Lord); the third pair introduces the prayer of thanks that follows.
The preface "is always addressed to … God the Father, and praises him for what he has done or praises him through Jesus Christ" (P Pfatteicher, Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship, p 159). Note that the Renewing Worship materials call this the "Initial Thanksgiving". Its purpose is to connect the act of thanksgiving to the specific occasion of the season or day.The preface ends with "… and join their unending hymn". This leads to the hymn of Isaiah 6.3, which the prophet heard the seraphim calling to each other. The word 'heaven' was added "to increase the picture of God's grandeur" (Pfatteicher, p 161). By the fourth century the Sanctus was included in all the liturgies of the Church, both East and West. "Blessed is he who comes" was added quite early and is found in nearly all Eucharistic liturgies. Luther placed the Santcus after the words of institution in the Formula Missae and the Deutsche Messe. He called for the elevation of the elements during the singing of the "Blessed is he.."
The Prayer of Thanksgiving follows and includes:1. invocation and description of God's attributes
2. narrative thanksgiving in which the mighty acts of God are recalled, concluding with work of redemption effected in Jesus Christ
(these mighty acts may include creation; pre-Abraham stories such as Noah and the flood; the promise to Abraham and Sarah; events in the history of Israel, especially the Exodus)
3. words of institution, basically following 1Corinthians 11.23-25 (with some additions from the Last Supper narratives of Matthew and Luke), concluding with an acclamation - Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The Eucharistic Prayer of the Roman rite (Sacramentary, p. 506) offers four optional acclamations:a) Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
b) Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory.
c) When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.
d) Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world.4. anamnesis, which remembers before God with the offering of the bread and cup, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
5. intercessions, which includes the invoking the Holy Spirit (epiklesis) upon the gifts of bread and wine that they might be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and upon the assembly that they might truly benefit from eating and drinking (in some Eucharistic prayers the intercessions are expanded to ask for God's blessing upon the church and its leaders, and in some cases the world and those in need)
6. doxology, a Trinitarian praise of God, during which the elements may be lifted to God, and not for the assembly to see
7. the Great Amen, whereby the assembly makes the prayer prayed by the presider its own (Justin Martyr, First Apology 65.3; 67.5; says that the people gave "their assent with and "Amen!"
The
Lord's Prayer asks for daily bread. Tertullian, in his early 3rd century
De oratione says that this bread is the spiritual food of Christ. Later
in the century Cyprian (De oratione dominica) also makes this connection.
"Thy
kingdom come" invites Jesus to come in power and glory, but if not, then
in bread and wine.
The hymn "Lamb of God" was "originally part of the Gloria in Excelsis and was introduced as an independent song … around 700 ad. It was, at that time, used as a devotion during the fraction [=breaking of the bread]… and was repeated as long as the breaking of the bread lasted" (Pfatteicher, p 188). When the fraction was dropped it took on its three-fold form and 'grant us peace' became the last words. In Luther's Formula Missae it was sung by the assembly while the priest communed himself.
Following
the distribution, the LBW provides a post-communion rite:
(*
= optional)
1. blessing*
2. canticle*(to be sung as the table is cleared)
3. prayer
4. blessing5. dismissal
Often a recessional or closing hymn is sung between the blessing and dismissal.
For the most part, the elements of the Eucharistic prayer listed above are found in all Eucharistic prayers. Their form and the order in which they occur may vary, as does their content, and sometimes even their meaning.In Holy Communion and Related Rites, pp 61-71, a variety of Eucharistic prayers are offered. They share the same order, but their structure and content are different. How do you choose a prayer to be used? One good way to test them out is to pray them out loud. Go into the worship space, go up to the table, and pray them aloud. Do they work as prayer? Do they work as proclamation? Do they work as a public spoken document? And what of the theology? We take a look at the theology of Eucharistic prayers in the next issue.
Friday,
October 7, 2005
Texts
for the day were those of Proper 22, Year A
Isaiah 5.1-7, Psalm 80.7-14, Matthew
21.33-46
Sermon
Text: Philippians 3:4b-11
If
anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh,
I, Paul, have more:
Circumcised
on the eighth day,
a member of the people of Israel,
(Of the tribe of Benjamin,)
a
Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as to the law, a Pharisee;
as to zeal, a persecutor
of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet
whatever gains I had,
these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
More than that,
I
regard everything as loss
because of the surpassing value
of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things, and
I regard them as rubbish, in order that
I may gain Christ and
be found in him,
not
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but one that comes
through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God based on faith.
I
want to know Christ and
the power of his resurrection and
the sharing of
his sufferings by
becoming like him in his death, if
somehow
… I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
St. Paul is talking about the difference between a "clean install" and an "upgrade-in-place."
I am not a fully qualified computer geek … but I do know the difference between a "clean install" and an "upgrade-in-place."
A "clean install" is where you buy a new operating system … like Windows XP … or OS 10.4 "Tiger" and you bring it home and you put the disk in your computer and you tell it to,"Wipe out all the data …
all the games, all the statistics in Free Cell, all the best times in Mine Sweeper, all the downloads,
The advantage is you don't then have to worry about some old bit of data … some old spreadsheet … or pop-up blocker … or anything that still lurks around inside your computer …
You don't have to worry that some old bit of something is going to be incompatible with the new software … won't cause it to crash … won't slow it down.
In an "upgrade-in-place" you don't erase the old data … you just ask the computer to install the new operating system in, under, and with your files and your programs …
The risk is … those old files, those old programs may not be fully compatible with the new software … and it may happen that something will crash …
A piece of software might freeze … unable to continue to run under the new
regime …
Or some old data might cause your new system to run more slowly
than it can.
As St. Paul talks about his life in Christ … he is talking about the difference between a "clean install" and an "upgrade-in-place."
According to Paul's testimony, Jesus Christ has overwritten Paul's whole soul … every element of his software … every element of his identity is overwritten … layer by layer.Jesus
overwrites Paul's righteousness under the law;
Jesus overwrites Paul's zeal
as a persecutor of the church;
Jesus overwrites Paul's status as a Pharisee
Jesus
overwrites Paul's status as a Hebrew born of Hebrews
Jesus overwrites Paul's
membership of the tribe of Benjamin
Jesus overwrites Paul's membership in the
people of Israel
Jesus overwrites the sign of the covenant of Abraham …
Paul's circumcision …
When
it's all over, St. Paul is as naked as the day he was reborn.
And he says,
"Whatever
gains I had (all that old stuff), these I have come to regard as loss because
of Christ.
More than that, I regard everything as loss
because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake
I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order
that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
St. Paul is talking about the difference
between a "clean install" and an "upgrade-in-place."
I
have never done this.
Before I became a Christian I was a European American
… and I still am;
Before I became a Christian I was a German- American
with healthy doses of Scotch, Irish, and French Canadian … and I still am;
Before
I became a Christian I was college educated headed for advanced degrees …
and I still am;
Before I became a Christian I was Philadelphia Flyers fan …
and I still am;
Before I became a Christian I was active in the Protestant
faith … and I still am;
I
do not count the elements of my identity as rubbish … I cling to them fiercely
…
and the lie I tell myself is that all those elements of my identity
are okay …
they are not inconsistent with my baptismal identity …
So
there is really no need to make them as rubbish … not really.
I'm
wrong … but I can't help it.
I don't want to lose the old data …
I don't want to have everything overwritten … not even by Jesus Christ
I
like my life … and all those aspects of it
I
know that we talk the talk about how baptism is a "clean install."
But
it's a pious fiction …
Members of my congregation … my friends …
cling fiercely to their identities …
They are Lutherans … They are
members of Gethsemane … They are upper-middle class …
They are Buckeye
fans …
They are educated and have sophisticated taste in liturgy and music
… and they are not giving those things up.
We
talk the talk about daily dying and rising in Christ …
It's pious fiction
…
At best we do an "upgrade-in-place."
So
that we can still access the old data … Still look at the old files …
Still
marvel at the time we won 25 straight games of "Free Cell."
My
Christian identity is almost entirely an "upgrade-in-place."
And
we believe that it's okay.
We believe that it's okay to have these various
old identities … as long as we keep our priorities straight.
St.
Paul would say … no
St. Paul we say that we are trying to be the Church
by being "unwounded healers."
Our
old identities will always involve compromises … some trivial compromises
(Do
I stay home from church in order to watch the Colts on the early game?)
…
some major compromises
(Who is more my brother, a fellow conservative mid-western
American or an Iraqi Christian?)
Our old identities are always a problem.
The new software might run okay for a while … but eventually some commitment, some understanding, some old file will be incompatible and we freeze.
And even if the old identities don't directly conflict with the new identity … it will slow it down … keep it from doing all that it can do.
Maybe
you're still thinking …
"Wait a minute … that's crazy …
we don't have to give up our old identities …"
I know … it seems
crazy … certainly I can be a Lutheran and still be a Christian … right?
But
look again at what St. Paul gave up.
We're not talking about anything that
should have gotten in the way of his being a Christian:
…
his circumcision … his sign of being a son of Abraham … how is that
a problem?
His being in the tribe of Benjamin … that shouldn't be an impediment
…
Pharisee? Nicodemus was a Pharisee … he was a faithful follower
…
Persecutor of the Church? Well, okay … that's one is
a problem …
But
the other ones should have been okay … no reason to overwrite everything
… is there?
Except that he does.
Do
we really think our identities as Lutherans … as Notre Dame fans … as
intellectuals … as Midwesterners …
Do we really think they are any
more or less a problem then being from the tribe of Benjamin … a child of
Abraham?
But how about this:
Let's consider another clean install that St. Paul talks about earlier … back in chapter two:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Paul
testifies in chapter two of Philippians that the first act of salvation was this:
Jesus
goes through a "clean install."
If
being equal to God is enough of an impediment to mission that Jesus feels he has
to give it up … overwrite the data …
How in the world can we maintain
that being a Hoosier fan … or a Lutheran … a German-American …
or even a Christian …
If Jesus gives up being God in order to serve … how do we hold on even to being a Christian in order to serve?
St. Paul is talking about the difference between a "clean install" and an "upgrade-in-place."
And
we're not going to do it.
We can't do it.
I doubt that St. Paul was really
keen on doing it.
But
Christ can do it to us.
Christ will do it to us … even against our will.
How
it happens is that Jesus puts before us something so stunning … so incredible
… so wondrous and joyous
A version of Windows XP so dazzling that you
give up your current version even though it means losing your string of 15 straight
wins at "Free Cell."
(I'm not even going to mention that XP in Greek
is Chi Rho)
We are never going to give up all claims to all our identities
… no way.
But Christ can do it in us …
And how it happens is that
Jesus puts before us something so stunning … so incredible … so wondrous
and joyous …
St. Paul puts it this way
I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings
by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from
the dead.
I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his
own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing
I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I
press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
How
it happens that we give up all claims to all our identities is that Jesus puts
before us something so stunning … so incredible … so wondrous and joyous
…
Resurrection life …
Forgiveness Reconciliation Community
Banquet
Feast The Kingdom
| Resurrection Life | ||
| Forgiveness | Reconciliation | Community |
| Banquet | Feast | The Kingdom |
Jesus lays all that before us
And as we are drawn to that which God promises eventually
eventually we give up everything else … the road to heaven is paved with "Winking Luther t-shirts," Buckeye necklaces, hymnals, prayer books, and membership cards to the G.O.P.
Drawn to what God promises … we will leave it all behind.
The
movement goes like this
Jesus wrenches us from all our former identities
Jesus
brings us into God's presence and lays all the promises out before us
Jesus
brings us into God's presence and enables us to be at peace with our brothers
and sisters
Jesus brings us into God's presence and forgives our sins …
and seats us at the heavenly banquet
And before we know it, we've forgotten
who we used to be and, frankly, wouldn't go back to our old identities if we could.
In
fact, when we're done there is this feeling like, "Let me die now …
my life is fulfilled."
That's the movement from old identity to no identity to imago Dei … image of God.
In fact, it's the exact movement that we go through every Sunday in the liturgy … and even some Fridays.
We confess our Sins … where Jesus releases us from all the claims of our former identities …
We
read the Word and hear it preached … where Jesus lays all the promises out
before us
We pass the peace … where Jesus announces our peace … and
enables us to establish that with our brothers and sisters
Jesus seats us at
the heavenly banquet
And before we know it, we've forgotten who we used to
be and, frankly, wouldn't go back to our old identities if we could.
In fact,
when we're done there is this feeling like, "Lord, now you let your servant
go in peace according to your Word … my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people."
________________________________________________________________
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