In the midst of postings regarding worship style and emergent church forms, I turned to the Augsburg Confession to recall what our tradition teaches about the nature of the church.
The church is the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly. And it is enough for the true unity of the church to agree concerning the teaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. It is not necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies instituted by human beings be alike everywhere.
Augsburg Confession VII (from Kolb/Wengert translation of The Book of Concord)
What does this mean?
I’m not sure what it means to agree concerning the Gospel or the Sacraments – you know, there are lots of details, lots of jots and tittles when you talk about the Gospel and the Sacraments. But what I find interesting here is that the Reformers named Word and Sacrament as essential to the life and unity of the church. Word and Sacrament, we read in Article V, were instituted so that we may obtain faith. The church, then, cares for and administers these means of faith, these means of grace – and it is these things that the church must be about.
Now, we all know that this article of the Augsburg Confession is often quoted by our friends in the Word Alone movement (of which I am a former member) as their confessional rationale for rejecting the historic episcopate and denominational worship resources. I don’t want to go in that direction.
But at the same time, the manger in which we lay these essentials of Word and Sacrament – the liturgy – is not mandated by our Confessions or our church constitution ("It is not necessary that human traditions, rites . . . be alike everywhere."). There is genuine and legitimate flexibility in how we care for and administer the Office of Preaching and the Sacraments. Am I wrong?
However, I don’t think this confessional article gives us permission to simply dismiss 2000 years of liturgical tradition. But I think a legitmate tension exists between the riches of the liturgical tradition, the confessional emphasis on Word and Sacrament (as opposed to any particular liturgical order), and the pastoral challenge of proclaiming the Word and administering the Sacraments in a post-modern world.
We Lutherans are not Anglicans – for better or for worse we don’t have a Book of Common Prayer. A particular order of worship is not in our church’s teachings or confessions. We Lutherans have Word and Sacrament, and the grace they convey. Apart from the essentials of Word and Sacrament, I am struggling to see what type of liturgical framework is essential to Lutheran worship or identity.
Well, there’s the open can of worms. I look forward to your response.
Peace to you.
The Lutheran Zephyr 