Bet you have never heard this. . .

Typically Lutherans are sensitive about ceremonies.  Though Lutherans are much more comfortable on the whole with the recovery of ceremonies lost over time, it is still not uncommon for Lutherans to complain that this or that is too Catholic.  I get it.  I am old.  I grew up in a Lutheran congregation that was particularly sensitive in this regard.  They did not apply the label to the tolling of the church bell during the Our Father or the Verba Christi and would have been highly offended if someone had said it but they definitely wanted to make sure that people did not mistake them for what they were not.

The old joke is that if identical twin boys, one a Roman Catholic priest and the other a Lutheran pastor, walked down the street in clericals, any Lutheran worth his salt could tell them apart and knew which was his guy and which was not.  I have not seen much evidence of the truth of this but I take it at face value.  Lutherans can smell a Roman without too much trouble.  At least they think they can.

Oddly enough, however, when have you ever heard a Lutheran turn up his or her nose at something and dismiss it by saying That is too Protestant?  Of course not.  You have never heard this.  While it does not take much to violate the smell test against those things too Catholic, no Lutheran I know would ever complain that something was too Protestant.  Lutherans are quick to accuse Reformation era practices and the very words of Luther himself as being suspect.  Luther, after all, must have had a bad day when he said we ought to make the sign of the cross.  He surely did not mean to tell us we should do this.  Maybe we could if we really wanted to but most Lutherans know they don't want to, right?

So that is my point.  The complaining style Lutherans are always on the hunt for things too Catholic but they have yet to find something too Protestant.  If you don't believe me, look at how hard it is to convince folks that adding back into the rubrics the catholic practice of our past and throughout the ages is legitimate and authentic.  But we Lutherans will accept every liturgical free for all borrowed from the Baptists and the non-denominationals and gladly affirm that this practice is thoroughly legit.  It just might be that we really do not know who we are....