Liturgy as Best Practice
We who conduct traditional liturgical services have certain advantages. In many ways, our task is far easier than those who choose a different path.
For example, by keeping an altar, a Best Practice stretching back into antiquity and retained by the Lutheran reformers - we have a place to gather the elements that we are consecrating. Having an altar is not just a matter of theological theory, but of practicality. For by gathering the elements and consecrating them together, there is no ambiguity regarding what is consecrated and what isn’t. Our Lord’s word “this” (as opposed to “that”) in the consecration permits the celebrant to indicate exactly what is being consecrated and what isn’t. In my own case, the elements that I am consecrating are on the altar, and more specifically, located on a central linen cloth called the corporal (Latin: “body”). The elements that are not being consecrated are not on the corporal, and are covered up. There is clarity in this ancient Best Practice. The Words of Institution in the hymnal include two signs of the cross, a Best Practice which indicates exactly which elements are being consecrated. There is clarity in word and in gesture concerning what is the body and blood of Christ, and what isn’t.
Since about 80% of human communication is non-verbal, rubrics are important in the Divine Service - especially for the consecration of the elements. The Words are primary and necessary; they are the verba Christi, the words of Christ, after all. Christ is our High Priest. He is our Celebrant of celebrants. He is the one speaking the word “My” and inviting us to “take.” For that reason, the traditional Best Practice is to read or chant the words exactly from the ordo, without deviation, even if the celebrant has them memorized. The traditional Best Practice is that if he flubs the words, he should start over, so that there is no ambiguity or doubt about the consecration of the Sacrament. At the consecration, our Lord’s words - not ours - accomplish what they say they accomplish. There is nothing that we can add to improve these words, or make them somehow more special or sincere-sounding by exchanging the Lord’s words for our own.
Traditional worship is the culmination of centuries of Best Practices that takes all the guesswork out of the celebration of the Divine Service. No time and energy goes into what I will be wearing as the celebrant. I don’t have to plan the order. I don’t have to write a new script every week. There are no logistical issues about where to put the elements, or how to indicate what is being consecrated and what isn’t, since there is an altar: a table upon which the bread and wine are gathered, and where they can be clearly consecrated, and from there distributed. The traditional rubrics of consecration - bodily actions such as genuflecting, elevating, and ringing bells - also communicate and confess unambiguously that we believe God is present with us in space and time by means of a miracle. A Lutheran Mass is sacramental, and is very different than a non-denominational memorial ordinance of bread and wine (or grape juice). And this is clear in both the words we say (the black) and the ceremonial acts that we carry out (the red) in tendem.
We traditionalists have a great advantage in standing on the shoulders of centuries of Best Practices.
CoWo or Modern Worship (so-called) is much harder. Those who lead the worship have a plethora of issues to navigate. Its practitioners have left the well-worn path of Best Practices to chart a new course into the unknown. There are always unintended consequences and unforeseen challenges in such deviation. They are unintended, because these churches and pastors are sincere. In the above example, the pastor really believes that wearing a TV-show t-shirt as he celebrates the Mass is beneficial to his flock and serves to advance of the Gospel. The pastor and the congregation are sincere in their contention that removing altar, font, and pulpit, and replacing these with a stage, is an improvement in their context. There is no evil motive going on here.
That said, leaving Best Practices behind creates some logistical issues.
Without an altar, the celebrant cannot gather the elements that he is consecrating in one place. This is especially a challenge in a large congregation - and most especially where individual cups are used instead of a chalice. Even traditional churches, for the most part, use the individual cups, creating complications regarding gathering the elements, distributing them, and dealing with the reliquiae. The simple Best Practice precedent set by our Lord: having the communicants share one chalice (per the Words of Institution spoken by our Lord Himself, preserved and given to us by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration), serves as a helpful rubric: “Drink of it, all of you. This cup is…” Our Lord’s clear invitation and imperative take all of those complications away. If we share one cup, we are following our Lord’s Best Practice. The wine is gathered, not scattered, it is easily managed during the consecration and distribution, and the cleansing of the remaining blood means drinking from, and cleaning, one metal cup instead of many glass or plastic cups with traces of the holy blood that must not be desecrated.
There is always a cost to deviating from Best Practices.
Some very large LCMS congregations opt for pre-packaged plastic communion packs with both wafer and wine (or juice). In such churches, you might see them being held by everyone in the seats, while the celebrant consecrates his own elements - making the sign of the cross over them, and then encouraging the congregation to tear open their own packaging, eating and drinking what is hopefully actual bread and wine (though grape juice is often used). There is no gathering of the elements, no clear consecration of those elements that the people are holding and consuming, and no sense of unity that we are partaking of that which was gathered at the altar during the consecration. There is the unintended sense of atomization instead of the Best Practice of communal intimacy, not to mention doubt about what was actually consecrated.
And then what happens to the reliquiae? And if there is no clear reverence for it, what does that confess about the Lord’s Supper?
The Best Practice of having communicants kneel reverently at a rail, communing together, and receiving the body and blood directly from the hand of their pastor, speaks volumes about who we are, and what the consecrated elements are. This culmination of centuries of Best Practices is able to deal with things like Christ’s body accidentally being dropped, spilled blood, and using a purificator to wipe the chalice. Our Best Practice takes out all of the guesswork, and allows us to focus on the miracle instead of logistics.
Of course, as things exist currently in the LCMS, churches are free to uphold, or reject, Best Practices - and thus incur the unintended consequences. Even in the example of the contemporary Mass above, making use of grape juice, which the CTCR rather forcefully ruled out, is still done.
In the LCMS, we have set aside the Best Practice of bishops to oversee pastors and congregations. We have created a complex web of ecclesiastical supervision that includes not only individual District Presidents, but also the Council of Presidents, the Praesidium, the Synod President, the Synod Convention, the District Convention, the Board of Elders, the Board of Directors or Church Council, and the Voters’ Assembly.
Because of our polity, the CTCR can issue an opinion on grape juice that can simply be ignored. The convention can pass closed communion resolutions, and any congregations can just opt out. Unintended consequences and confusion can be practiced in one congregation, while its neighbor follows Best Practices.
Medieval deviation from Best Practices regarding Holy Communion was part of what made the Reformation necessary. Regarding the liturgical confusion and issues of their own day regarding Word and Sacrament, the reformers put the issue squarely on the shoulders of the church’s leadership (AC 24:14-18):
[14] The bishops were not ignorant of these abuses. If they had corrected them in time, there would now be less discord. [15] But until now they have been responsible for many corruptions seeping into the Church. [16] Now, when it is too late, they begin to complain about the Church’s troubles. This disturbance has been caused simply by those abuses that were so open that they could no longer be tolerated. [17] There have been great disagreements about the Mass, that is, the Sacrament. [18] Perhaps the world is being punished for profaning the Mass for such a long time and for tolerating this in the churches for so many centuries by the very men who were both able and duty-bound to correct this situation.
But, of course, we in the LCMS have no bishops. Article 24 notwithstanding, the Best Practice of the liturgy - including the unity of its use in our synod - is treated as just one option among an infinite number of alternatives. Contrary to the Best Practices of the church universal of every age - including among the men who wrote the documents of the Book of Concord - our congregations are sovereign and independent, synod is advisory, and whatever happens, happens. Every organ of synod can speak, and every organ of synod can be ignored.
Unless and until that changes, that’s the hand we’ve been dealt, the cross we are called to bear. But it is a double-edged sword. For as congregations and pastors we are free to address and advocate for these Best Practices - both in our writing, and in how we worship, as celebrants and as participants. The Best Practice of the liturgy brings salvation to bear in Word and Sacrament, and avoids the complications of unintended consequences.