The Lutheran Book of Worship--quarter century reckoning.

The catchphrase of the now iconic Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, was "How'm I doin'?" After a quarter century it is appropriate to attempt to answer that question about the Lutheran Book of Worship. What were its goals, and what has it accomplished? This article is truly an attempt, since the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) did not work on liturgy and hymns from a previously articulated set of goals and because the book's accomplishments vary greatly from region to region, congregation to congregation. Whatever is claimed in the following paragraphs will be some place open to refutation.

There are, of course, the oft-quoted goals that are stated on page 8 of the Introduction to the LBW. In fact they are reflections on the completed work rather than a recipe for completing it. As they began their task, the four ILCW working committees tried to formulate such a recipe for doing their work on the basis of papers they had commissioned on various subjects. Those papers and the discussion they stimulated were all very good, but it soon became clear that they were leading nowhere. Theories and ideas were really put to the test when the committees set about drafting and selecting materials. After the smoke of battle had cleared, unstated but operative goals could be discerned in what had been produced.

After 25 years, the LBW has taken its place as a presence in Lutheran congregations and homes, including some Missouri Synod churches, and the "greening of Lutheran worship" has come full circle. Publishing house figures at the end of 2002 showed approximately 3.2 million copies sold. The LBW is also found in English-language congregations in various European cities as well as in other parts of the world where Lutherans desire to worship in English. One example is the Cathedral Church of Our Savior in Bukoba, Tanzania, where a weekly Eucharist in English is celebrated. The fifth edition of Laudamus, the multi-language worship book of the Lutheran World Federation, includes the Eucharist and the services of daily prayer from the LBW, thus spreading its influence to many parts of the Lutheran Communion.

The ILCW began its work in 1966, just three years after the Second Vatican Council issued its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It was a time when the Roman Catholic Church was working on a new Roman Missal and when most mainline churches in the English-speaking world were preparing new liturgical books. It was also a time when Lutherans were in the initial stages of ecumenical contact, setting up bilateral theological dialogues and participating in the work of Faith and Order which would eventuate in Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982). Therefore it is not surprising that early on the ILCW committed itself to close collaboration with other communions in the English-speaking world and the global Lutheran communion. The mutual exchange enriched the work of all with the result that, laid side by side, the new books were remarkable more for their similarities than for their differences. That was especially true of the liturgical texts.

In this commonality rooted in the Western or Latin tradition, however, lies something deeper. When Holy Baptism and the Eucharist are the focal points of liturgical action, those celebrating them are propelled into the context of the Great Church. Lutherans may have their particular way of celebrating these rites, but in so doing they step beyond confessional boundaries into the communio sanctorum where no such barriers exist. The ecumenical dimension is therefore built into liturgical worship.

Accomplishments

What has been accomplished over the quarter century past? Lutheran liturgical practice in North America has advanced another step. The LBW stands as successor to the Service Book and Hymnal (SBH, 1958) and The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH, 1941), its immediate predecessors. More important, it carries forth the tradition of the Common Service (1888), the rite that virtually all Lutheran bodies employed as they began to speak English. Recalling this fact is important, for the Common Service set Lutherans in North America on the high road liturgically. It reintroduced more of the historic Lutheran tradition than could be found in European books of the same vintage. It connected the American churches directly with the rich Latin tradition that Luther had preserved in the Formula Missae (1523).

During the intervening centuries, the celebration of the Eucharist as chief service on Sundays and Holy Days had given way to periodic celebrations. Preaching was exalted to the form of the Word, and so a preaching service on Sunday became the norm for Lutherans. In the traditions brought by immigrants to North America, it was the "first half' of the mass that fleshed out the Sunday service. But beginning with the Common Service, attempts were made to restore the full mass as norm. Seventy years later, progress having been made in most places from a quarterly to a monthly Eucharist, one still encountered the typical rubric in the SBH: (at the offertory) "When there is a Communion, the Minister ... shall uncover the Vessels and reverently prepare for the Administration of the Holy Sacrament." That clearly implies that sometimes (often?) there isn't. In the LBW just prior to The Prayers this note is found: "When there is no Communion, the service concludes ...," implying that such a service is the exceptional case. In order to take this step, the ILCW had to include a separate Service of the Word.

The LBW sets out the full mass as the normal Sunday service. In many places the weekly communion has resulted in illogical surgery to the traditional rite for, as it is said, reasons of time. But the tide has clearly turned, and the service of Word and Sacrament is more and more frequently encountered in Lutheran congregations and in synod and churchwide assemblies.

The LBW rescues the other sacrament, Holy Baptism, from the Occasional Services and presents it immediately after the Holy Communion. In the words of the introduction, this was done "to restore to Holy Baptism the liturgical rank and dignity implied by Lutheran theology and to draw out the baptismal motifs in such acts as the confession of sin and the burial of the dead." Baptism is a chief service of the congregation, not a private matter where the members are spectators, and it is gratifying to see how people have grasped this. (See the separate article about Holy Baptism in this issue.)

Another Lutheran principle was at work in forming the LBW. Liturgy must be in the vernacular; it must be "understanded of the people." Almost before the ink was dry on the SBH, a shift took place in the general attitude toward the classic sixteenth-century Tudor style of the Book of Common Prayer, not least because of the way the Revised Standard Version (1952) of the Bible had taken the field. It was self-evident that the LBW must be in a more contemporary style of English. The same daunting task faced the other Anglophone communions, including Roman Catholics. Fortunately the major texts were prepared together and issued as Prayers We Have In Common (1975). The new texts expanded the bond that the Tudor texts had created among Anglicans, Lutherans, and others to include Anglophone Roman Catholics. People were being schooled to pray in a new, less-stilted manner, in a style of language connected to their everyday way of speaking to each other. The LBW seems to have accomplished this task so well that many people are now at a loss when faced with SBH-style texts. Knowledge of Tudor grammar can no longer be assumed, even among the clergy. The Tudor style lingers on, as well it should, in classical hymns and, in some instances, the Our Father, but the bulk of liturgical prayer now addresses God as you, not Thou.

Using international, ecumenical texts enabled the LBW to restore the word catholic to the creeds. What began as Luther's natural borrowing of Christian from existing German versions ballooned over centuries of anti-Roman feeling into a huge pseudo-confessional issue. German ecumenical texts today still cannot employ katholisch. The most important thing is not, however, the restoration of the word because of faithfulness to the original texts, but the handle that catholic provides for teaching about the wholeness of the church and its universal reach, and that Lutherans are in sync with the rest of Anglophone churches when an ecumenical creed is confessed together.

The ILCW responded to a felt need to revise or replace the "old line" pericopes, especially to add readings from the Hebrew Bible. A global Lutheran effort at lectionary revision took place under the auspices of the Lutheran World Federation (1969-74). All were agreed on the desirability of amplifying biblical coverage, but the consultation was stymied by a difference of opinion about the new lectionary system adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, the three-year cycle of three readings per Sunday. The German churches insisted on retaining a modestly revised old-line series amplified by a six-year system of "preaching texts." The ILCW insisted on a revised Roman system both because it would keep preaching connected to the liturgical readings and because other Anglophone churches were going that route. If a choice had to made, it seemed more important to have readings in common with neighboring congregations than with other Lutherans overseas.

Thus the LBW contains a revised version of the Roman Catholic lectionary, one of several included in the liturgical books of the It vastly increased the scope of New Testament reading in the liturgy and added an Old Testament reading as one of the three Sunday pericopes, except during Easter. The churches took to the new system readily. Having a system in common stimulated weekly meetings of local pastors across confessional lines to discuss possibilities for preaching, to say nothing of a flood of commentaries and sermon helps. Soon there was pressure to deal with the variants from one system to another. In the case of the liturgical texts, the ecumenical collaboration had come before the texts were adopted. In the case of the lectionary, it came afterward. The result was The Revised Common Lectionary (1992) issued by the Consultation on Common Texts. That the LBW lectionary was thereby rendered obsolete is a positive sign of its success.

Along with lectionary reform went the revision of the calendar with its addition of such festivals as The Baptism of Our Lord and Christ the King. Changing the names of the Sundays between Easter Day and Pentecost to Sundays of Easter appropriately connected the Resurrection to the outpouring of the Spirit, making it clear that Easter is not a day but a week of weeks. The Lesser Festivals were amplified a little, and to them was added a set of commemorations of Christians throughout the ages whose faith and life had been particularly exemplary. This emphasis on Christian vocation beyond the precincts of the church itself and beyond the bounds of the Lutheran Communion has inspired liturgical creativity in many places.

For church-political reasons the full set of services for the Great Three Days that culminate Holy Week, the Triduum, could be included in the LBW Ministers Edition only, but even so they have made a surprising impact. People have grasped how the baptismal motif and that of the Eucharist/ Resurrection come together in the Vigil of Easter, how it is the nexus of the gospel itself.

The hymn committees also were involved ecumenically. Not only did they determine which hymns of the predecessor books had actually been used in the churches, but they gave full weight to a list of hymns compiled by The Consultation on Ecumenical Hymnody (those asterisked in the index of first lines). Where new tunes were needed, special preference was given to the American heritage of hymnody. It should go without saying that great care was taken to pass on the classic heritage of Reformation hymnody.

A format step signaled a revolution in our worship: including the little boxes containing P, A, or C. At first they were the cause of some merriment, but they have meant changing from our highly clericalized past when the whole liturgy was a dialogue between pastor and people to a much more corporate action in which lay persons assume key roles of leadership and the clergy preside. P is for presiding minister, not pastor, though the role is pastoral. Even in places where the LBW has made only a minor impact, it is rare not to find lay persons involved in the various leadership roles open to them. It is instructive to recall that not many decades ago the pastor even spoke the Our Father in the Eucharist alone, sometimes with the congregation joining in the doxology but most often strictly solo. It was truly a one-man show.

Flexibility is another potential gift of the LBW. Classically formed rubrics gave way to descriptive notes, thus changing the atmosphere of the service. Congregations are presented with a variety of liturgical possibilities enabling them to fit the materials to their needs and customs. Of course, this is risky, because the integrity of the ritual act must be maintained whether the service is very simple or more elaborate. Increased flexibility should entail more care and time in the preparation of a service. The Eucharist is set out in three complete musical settings, and there is provision for a Chorale Service of Holy Communion (all the necessary hymns are in the collection). The Service of the Word finds its place alongside offices of daily prayer: Matins, Vespers, Compline, Suffrages. One could go on. But how many congregations make intelligent use of this variety? All too often choices made when the LBW was introduced still determine the pattern. While it is entirely appropriate for the ELCA to issue supplemental materials and even to work toward a replacement for the LBW, most congregations have not yet begun to plumb the depths of the green book itself. Why is that?

Ecclesiology 

In many ways the ecumenical movement and the liturgical movement are twins. Vatican II and the work of Faith and Order leading to and beyond Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry are benchmarks of today's ecumenical movement, and, as already noted, this work was paralleled by the revision of most liturgical books. Fortunately, ecumenists are finally beginning to discover the relevance of the worshiping church. But the ecumenical vision of the church-that it is one communion or koinonia in Christ-parallels what is embodied in every eucharistic celebration.

Philipp Harnoncourt has written, "A church cannot define its essence by establishing what it is not, by setting dividing lines. Essence and identity must be defined from the center-that is, from the faith-center, from the living center. It is precisely the liturgy that is to be recognized as the church's living center and therefore its faith-center." In support he quotes article 10 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, "The liturgy is the pinnacle to which all the Church's activity strives, and the spring from which all its strength flows" (Studia Liturgica 32 (2002]: 171).

As any book of liturgy must, the LBW issues from and embodies that view of the church. Its potential contribution is an intensely corporate and thus sacramental view of the church. One should not be surprised therefore when the major criticism of both that sacramental vision and the various ecumenical agreements comes from those parts of the Lutheran Communion with strongly pietistic and free-church backgrounds. Is not the pivotal issue whether Christianity is seen in corporate, sacramental-ecclesiological-terms or as a matter of the salvation of individuals? Where the individualistic understanding of the church prevails-that it exists to save individual souls-there will be no felt need to plumb the depths of the LBW. All that is needed is a worship program.

Centered in Baptism and the Holy Communion, the LBW both shapes and presupposes an identity that is ecclesial and corporate. Where that is understood, the book has contributed to a vision of the church as both evangelical and catholic. Both the liturgical and the ecumenical movements among Lutherans are pressing the question of catholicity. Are we prepared to be evangelical catholics? Are we prepared to revise our Lutheran story accordingly? Or, better, are we prepared to recapture the vision of the Reformers?

Over the centuries when we lost a eucharistic piety and placed upon the office of preaching a burden it cannot really bear, Lutherans tended in practice if not in theory to abandon their baptismal tradition-Luther himself was a preeminent baptismal theologian!-for a confirmation tradition. We continued to baptize, of course, but we invested confirmation with vastly greater theological and ritual importance. This confirmation tradition places individual knowledge and commitment above corporate prayer and the sacraments and leads to determining confessional identity, to use Harnoncourt's phrase, "by setting dividing lines." When, following the lead of the LBW, Lutherans begin to identify themselves by Baptism and the Eucharist instead of preaching and confirmation, they are on their way to becoming evangelical catholics.

This new (recovered?) emphasis will inevitably be seen by many as diminishing the sermon, the proclamation of the Word, and as selling out the Lutheran heritage itself. But in fact it restores to preaching its supporting and necessary context and revives what the Augsburg Confession and its Apology are at pains to confess.

There is very little if any denominational specificity in the church's liturgy. Even when we celebrate the sacraments in our separate denominational settings, we are doing very ecumenical things. For the Eucharist, celebrated according to the tradition of the church catholic, is neither denomination-specific nor denomination affirming. Neither is the baptism by which the eucharistic community is established. They are acts of the whole church performed locally. Formed sacramentally, Christian identity cannot but press for greater realization of the unity of the church.

Striving to realize the evangelical catholic vision is, of course, a multifaceted task, something a worship book cannot accomplish alone. But the LBW has made its contribution to deepening that vision and reality in many places. In other places it has been used just as one had used its predecessors, with a blind eye to its inner logic and ethos, a fate its successors will also meet.

It cannot be claimed that the vision here projected was clearly in the minds of the ILCW and its working committees and that they prepared a book to further it. Viewing the LBW in this light could only be done reflectively and on the basis of experience with it. What guided the ILCW was a spirit of pastoral responsibility for the worship life of Lutherans in North America and a sense of fidelity to the liturgical and hymnological traditions of the Lutheran Communion and thus of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. And that inevitably led to embodying the vision.

To return to the title. Where it has been used not just as a program for Sunday worship but according to its own inner logic, the LBW has measured up and has put its stamp on the ongoing tradition of North American Lutheranism. There are many bright signs on the Lutheran horizon-congregations where the rediscovery of the catholic heritage is well under way. In that, the LBW has made its contribution.

Eugene L. Brand

Former Project Director

Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship