Growing up at a time when the lectionary was used in most Lutheran congregations, I also experienced the cycle of preaching texts which often, even regularly, replaced the readings appointed for the day. It was standard operating practice and part of the fruit of liturgical renewal was to point us back to making the homily stand within the liturgy and lectionary and not apart from them. There were Sundays in which the preaching text read at the start of the sermon was longer than the Gospel appointed for the day. It was not hidden what was important. Liturgy (and even the Sacrament of the Altar) were high in theory but folks came and stayed for the preaching, or so it was said.
In Missouri the sermon was so elevated from the liturgy that it had to carry the whole weight of the Law and the Gospel -- as if the order that preceeded it and followed it as well as the Sacrament bore no theological weight. The reality is that the liturgy is almost pure Gospel and this enables the sermon to be free from some artificial fairness barometer to give Law and Gospel their due. If you do not believe me, read Luther's own sermons. He speaks the Law with an ease and clarity often lost to us today among those in the pulpit and those in the pew. He knew instinctively (if not expressed doctrinally) that the sermon lived within the body of the liturgy where the Gospel was spoken and its gifts distributed without fail. Oh, how I wish we remembered this today.
In practice, some congregations dimmed all the lights in the nave so that the spotlight could be on the preacher and the sermon. Some inventive folk moved the sermon to the end so that they got the last word (instead of the liturgy). Some forgot that elevated pulpits were not to give visual weight to the sermon but to amplify the sound before PA systems were in vogue and the preacher could whisper into a device for dramatic effect and still be heard. No, all was not well before liturgical renewal even as all is not well after it. One of the key weaknesses we struggle with in explanation and in piety is the relationship of the sermon to the liturgy and the relationship of the liturgy to the sermon. It certainly does not help when people make up ideas about the placement of the creed prior to the sermon as the way of the people to tell the preacher what he is to say or the loss of any real offertory to the jump up to sing Create in me... as a prayer for God to put the words of the sermon to good effect in the hearers. It amplifies the sermon but at the expense of the liturgy. It is not a king of the hill competition but a fabric woven together from the first words of the liturgy through the lection to the sermon to the Sacrament. The more we deny this, the worse the problems will be for us going forward. It puts too much pressure and weight upon the preacher and forgets the riches of the Gospel that are said and sung in the liturgy in which the sermon has its rightful place.
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Every worship service should be grounded in the Liturgy, the reading of the Gospel, a reading from the Old Testament, and enhanced by a timely sermon. I suppose I might disagree with those in the Lutheran Church or any other Protestant body which relegates the time spent on a sermon to a short 15-20 minute exposition. It is far too easy to rely on the Liturgy to take up so much of the worship time, and adding the hymns and the offering, and communion, with the result of a very short teaching sermon. I think there can be a balance. I also believe trying to restrict the worship service to 60 minutes is not helpful. Perhaps, it should be an hour and a half? Is that too much to ask of the congregation? Soli Deo Gloria
On April 19, 1529, a protesting group made up six Lutheran princes and representatives of 14 Imperial Free Cities in Germany, along with some Zwinglian representatives, were gathered at the Diet of Speyer to protest the Roman Catholic majority's decision to rescind the provision of toleration of the 1526 Diet of Speyer.
This group submitted a "Letter of Protestation" at Speyer (see _Die Appellation und Protestation der evangelischen Stände auf dem Reichstage zu Speyer 1529_, p. 50) against the enforcement of the 1521 Edict of Worms, authorizing the removal of heretics (e.g., Lutherans).in Germany, as well as the repeal of the 1526 Edict of Toleration, issued at Speyer that allowed the free exercise of religion.
Members of this protesting group were referred to as "Protestants", and were not there to settle their theological differences, which continued to exist. Originally, the Protestant movement was more political, with any religious unity only in protesting the Roman suppression against non-Roman doctrines and practices.
Since then, the word "Protestant" has been given positive or negative meanings by various people.
_"It certainly does not help when people make up ideas about the placement of the creed prior to the sermon as the way of the people to tell the preacher what he is to say or the loss of any real offertory to the jump up to sing_ Create in me... _as a prayer for God to put the words of the sermon to good effect in the hearers."_
Specifically, that would include the people who prepared _The Lutheran Hymnal_ (1941) as well as the LCMS leadership and 30 synodical conventions over the past 80+ years since then who failed to correct such made up ideas about telling the preacher what he is to say.
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