Reference Publications

What matters most in worship?

Lutheran, The, Sep 2004 by Staples, Mark A

Gordon Lathrop: Word and sacrament, of course

Gordon Lathrop may be terminating his 30-year career as a seminary professor, but he hasn't lost the fire in his belly to teach American Lutherans-and others-about what matters in worship.

If anything, the fire burns brighter than ever.

What matters most? That would be word and sacrament, he says without missing a beat.

It's no surprise, coming from Lathrop, a foremost international authority on liturgy. he fears that too many Lutheran leaders are identifying with American evangelicalism, which he calls "the dominant religion on the scene."

"God bless that movement," says Lathrop, the Charles Schieren Professor of Liturgy at the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia since 1984. "It has an important place, and right now it has a lot of political power. But the witness to faith in America needs also and especially to include the clear Lutheran proposal for worship: an assembly of the people of God around the central gifts of word and sacrament."

American evangelicalism, he says, frequently features a worship structure involving opening exercises, a practical sermon often based on one Scripture verse with a focus on converting the hearers, and a segment where individual hearers decide to become Christians.

"In such a style the sacraments are marginalized, and the richness of the lectionary disappears," Lathrop says.

Maintaining the Lutheran proposal is a special challenge in the modern age "when Lutherans have long thought of themselves as an immigrant presence," he says. "Now they are wakened to genuinely feeling a part of American culture. What is needed is that they bear witness to God's gift in that cultural situation, to Christ's action for us, not to the centrality of our decision."

Lutheran worship growing

In such a time, classic Lutheran worship, he says, is experiencing "a genuine growth in the depth of its central accent on God's grace through word and sacrament."

But Lutheran congregational leaders also face and submit to the relatively easy temptation to offer "a menu of worship options," a temptation, he says, that places "marketing choice and style at the center."

"Church leaders need to remember to do the harder work, keeping word and sacrament firmly in the center, celebrated with eclectic or using blended styles," he says.

Lathrop notes that a variety of worship styles is both welcome and needed: "The Reformer Martin Luther wrote two proposals for worship, not just one, noting different ways the mass may be celebrated, making use of chant as well as chorale. But the focus should not be on style."

Historical bookends

Lathrop's teaching career features his participation in significant historical "bookends." Some 30 years ago he was involved in the preparation and production of the Lutheran Book of Worship.

Recently he has been part of the Renewing Worship project, which featured consultations on preaching, music, the arts, worship spaces, the principles of worship and proposed texts for new worship materials.

The 2005 Churchwide Assembly will consider a Renewing Worship proposal based on materials featured in nine volumes. These materials will result in a new worship resource and companion resources offering musical variety and a mix of linguistic styles-all gathered around the central practice of word and sacrament.

Future discussions also will center on how to best use resources so worship and the mission of the church are related.

"Word and sacrament at the heart of worship provide us in the assembly with a richer worldview that takes into account justice and care of the Earth," Lathrop says. "If we revise our tradition too drastically to seem more 'American,' we will come up short."

Lathrop has observed these positive developments in the life of the church during the past 30 years:

* An increase in the frequency of the celebration of the Lord's Supper in many congregations.

* A continued seriousness toward ecumenism as noted in the widespread use of the Revised Common Lectionary and lectionary-based preaching.

* The growing recognition of baptism as central to our worship and lived out in our daily lives.

* A slow awakening to the importance of the great vigil of Easter.

* The growth of the adult catechumenate and all that it means about the mission situation in which the church finds itself.

"So much for retirement," Lathrop later e-mailed from a Texas pastors' conference. he rattled off several things congregations can do to deepen their worship life (see story at right) and said yet again: "The best answer is in the means of grace themselves, in word and sacrament, not in gimmicks."

For a study guide, see www.thelutheran.org/study.>Staples is director of communications at the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia.