A Different Issue...

I mentioned on another forum that there was a difference between those who add to the Divine Service ceremonies and liturgical elements not spoken of in the rubrics or in ordinary use in the Church and those who take away the minimal ceremonies and liturgical elements specified in the rubrics or in ordinary usage in the Church...

What I mean is this, while incense in the Divine Service is not specified nor even mentioned in the rubrics as an option, there are those parishes and those Pastors in the LCMS who include incensing the altar as part of the Divine Service. This is an addition to the rubrics and an exception to the ordinary usage of our church body today (though certainly historic and ordinary in the church at large). To add this to the Divine Service represents a change but a change distinctly different from those who routinely omit major portions of the Divine Service or substitute non-liturgical elements or hymns that do not actually replace those elements (though as with the Divine Service, Setting 5, there are hymns appointed for this purpose).

I am less concerned about these additions than I am the omissions. These additions would certainly be noticed by those who do not routinely see them but, within the fabric of the ordinary, would recognize and feel at home with the Divine Service. In contrast, those who omit whole portions of the ordinary and therefore cause a substantial tear in the fabric of the Divine Service, present the worshiper with something unrecognizable and strange.

Friend Will Weedon put it this way. You can watch a service in Latvian and because it follows the form and pattern (indeed the very words) of the Divine Service, you feel at home within this liturgy. From personal experience, I mention a time when I visited a Swedish parish celebrating their 150th anniversary. They invited the choir of the Uppsala Cathedral to be the choir for the Divine Service (LBW form) and later for a concert. Because they followed the form of the LBW Divine Service, it was familiar to me, though I do not speak much Swedish.

So you may add incense or a different form of the Eucharistic Prayer or different musical settings or additional ceremonies (deacon, sub-deacon, etc), and it is familiar even with the addition of these elements. You may change the musical forms but keep the ordo and it is familiar and recognizable. But mess with the ordinary, change the form of the ordo, substitute different elements of your own composition for the parts of the Divine Service, and the service is no longer recognizable. It has become alien and foreign -- it may be Biblical, it may be orthodox, it may be welcomed by the congregation but it is a rift within the communion and a tear of the fabric of the Lutheran Church.

Therefore, I may not like musical changes but if the Divine Service is there, if the liturgical form and its words recognizable, I find it hard to complain (well, I will, but you get what I mean). Rather, the problem we have is when the fabric of the Divine Service has been tampered with in such way that it is no longer recognizable, then, Houston, we have a problem...