An oddly missing hunger. . .

Orthodoxy in doctrine is supposed to lead to orthodoxy in practice.  That is the lex of ancient wisdom -- not simply a tie between the two but a causal connection in which right praying leads to right believing and right believing leads to right praying.  There are those who say there is no causal connection and, while both are good, either alone can exist for at least a while without the other.  Though I wish it were not so, I suspect there is truth in this.  I have no formula for estimating how long either can exist apart from the other but I know for a fact that it happens.

There are those who rightly worship in doctrinally stalwart sermons but in worship that is painfully cerebral and lacking in the earthy concreteness of the Sacraments.  We see it in seemingly orthodox Protestant bodies where the sanctuary is largely a lecture hall and the table holds money more than the bread of heaven or the cup of salvation.  There are also those whose worship is evidently Sacramental but whose homilies are barely moral encouragements without a hint of teaching or doctrine.  We see it in Rome with liturgy done competently if not well but without much time spent or expectation of teaching in the sermon.

We really do not need to look all that far away.  I grew up in an orthodox Lutheran congregation which was conservative in every way and proudly Lutheran but there was a mere tolerance of things liturgical and an absence of the Sacrament from Sunday mornings as well as from the piety of the people.  This was not the worst that could be but there was definitely something missing.  The orthodox preaching and teaching should have manifested itself in a hunger for the things of God in the Holy Eucharist.  They did not.  Many folks left after the offering on the rare (quarterly) Morning Service with Holy Communion.  There was no hint of discussion about much less interest in private confession.  There was certainly moralism but it was accompanied by an appreciation for orthodoxy of doctrine, especially in the realm of justification by grace through faith.

That era is gone.  Nearly every Lutheran congregation celebrates the Sacrament more often today than they did in the 1950s.  Weekly has become normal.  I am happy about that and am not complaining.  But it is worth noting that the more frequent Eucharists and the more sacramental preaching and teaching that is also typical of a confessional Lutheran congregation that this has not exactly been accompanied by a hunger and thirst for even more frequent communion or confession.  Why not?  The lex of ancient wisdom suggests that it should lead us to more rather than to less -- more frequent Communion, more frequent confession, more and deeper devotional piety, etc.  Has it?

My own history was to add the Eucharist so that at least three or four times a week the Sacrament was offered and a sermon preached on the texts -- independent services and not copies of a Sunday service and sermon merely repeated at a different time.  Yet as often as I tried to offer the Eucharist more frequently, I did not find a groundswell of people to welcome such.  I preached about the Sacrament in the hopes that such hunger would arise and it did not.  Honestly, I would have thought that a daily Eucharist would have been the norm in my parish a long time ago.  It would have been a taxing demand upon my time and energy but I would have welcomed it.  It did not happen.  I could have gone ahead and scheduled them but I know from attempts that the attendance would have been very small indeed.  I regret that I talked myself out of this discipline and piety.  I should have tried harder.

Perhaps we have hit a plateau.  Perhaps the demands of work and home and leisure are too great to find time for a daily Eucharist.  Probably most folks in the parish would not have thought it was a good use of my time as their pastor to hold such daily Eucharists.  Or, I am afraid, perhaps we did not encourage such a hunger as we might, as I might.  It could have been that this was a step too far -- the awkward move from orthodoxy to enthusiasm?  Zealots are not exactly welcome in our churches -- especially zealous pastors!  Could it be that this is what is lacking among us confessional Lutherans today?  Have we come up against a wall, so to speak, going so far with our orthodoxy of doctrine and our catholic practice but not so far that it would actually suggest that our lives needed to reordered toward such a hunger and expectation to hear more sermons and receive the Sacrament more often than weekly?  I leave it out there for your to ruminate upon and to help me find an answer to my question.  Have we quenched the Spirit but stopping at one point where we should have gone further?