Full even when empty. . .

There is no one plan for the architecture of a church.  We all know this and it has never been so.  Yet there are remarkable similarities between those church buildings which continue to invite, inspire, and include the faithful around the Word and Table of the Lord.  Despite differences, they all seem to reflect certain traditional ideals about the centrality of altar, the rising height of the ceiling, the focus of the vision from the pews, and the sense of reverence that remains even when there is nothing going on in the space.  They are full even when they are empty of people.  Folks know this even when unable to describe it.  In these spaces, conversations are instinctively hushed when no there is worship service happening.  It is the sense of the presence of God that cannot be tied to one period or style of architecture but is common to all of them.  The architecture directs the attention of the person to the God to whom the building points and whose presence in Word and Sacrament gives the building a reason for existing.  Except the modern.

Modern architecture too often is self-referential.  It relies on the building as its own expression and justification.  It points to itself in ways that even the more elaborate forms and styles of the past did not and do not.  Sometimes it is whimsy and novelty which are employed.  Sometimes it is in uniqueness that the architecture gets its purpose and goal.  Sometimes it is in the focus on the people who would gather in the building and the goal of providing accessible space for the horizontal dimension.  Sometimes it is on the lack of adornment that the building makes itself its own adornment and its own focus.  Sometimes it is the sharp corners which make it seem less friendly and less filled when full and more empty when not.  In any case, the hard judgment against so many modern buildings used for worship is that feel empty when full and when not full even emptier.  I wish I had better words to say.  The buildings try too hard to be relevant and end up being enemies of the very purpose for which they were erected.  Even when striking, the modern architecture points to itself more than to the purpose for which it was constructed and the God who is present even when the building itself is empty.

Occasionally these cold and sometimes brutal structures seem to cry out for someone to humanize the space.  I wonder if it s less the humanization of a space to make it more inhabitable than it is the loss of its purpose and reason for existence.  It does not draw the mind or the heart away from the person to the God whose house it is but leaves the worshiper cold and confused.  Why am I here?  Who is here?  Those are the two questions any architecture must answer in order to fulfill its sacred purpose.  The buildings of the past endure precisely because they answer these questions well.  The ones torn down or repurposed did not answer these questions well.  Even those outside the Church know the value of the sense of the sacred and when it is present and when it is not.  They know without being told to be quiet within this space and to reverence the God who is present even if He is not their God.  These venues work well for choral and instrumental music (especially organ, of course) precisely because they tend to do for the music what they do for the worship.  They magnify the setting so that even something simple seems profound.  In contrast to this, the flaws of too much modern architecture is that it makes what is profound ordinary.  It defeats the purpose for which the building exists and works against the sacred gathering of God's people around His Word and Table.  Even spaces which work well as lecture halls fail the Word and even spaces which work well as dining spaces fail the Sacrament.  Liturgical space has a function but it is not functional or utilitarian in the sense that too much modern architecture is.

I wish I could make this more intelligible.  It is not for lack of trying.  Sadly, even those with the most limited experience with churches and their purpose can tell almost immediately when a space is simply wrong or fails in its calling to be home to the holy.  I only wish somebody in architecture schools and on building committees could do the same.

What has changed over many years?

When I began life, everybody around me in the LCMS was in The Lutheran Hymnal and everyone around me in what would become the LCA and ALC was in the Common Service Book or the American Lutheran Hymnal.  Of course, all that changed soon.  In 1958 the Service Book and Hymnal replaced the LCA and ALC books and in the mid to late 1960s the era of Inter-Lutheran worship books was initiated leading to Lutheran Book of Worship and the LCMS version Lutheran Worship.  What could be said in the 1950s is that Lutherans may have had different worship books but they seemed to look and act and sound alike on Sunday morning more than has ever been since.  But the change has been more than simply about the worship books.

Across the more liberal bent of Lutheranism and across mainline Protestantism as a whole, the emphasis in worship, prayer, and hymns has moved to echo more nearly the primary emphasis in these churches on peace and justice and the increasing value of variety.  In the 1950s I am not sure it would be so easy as it is today to identify a sermon from the different Lutheran bodies.  Now is not much of a problem.  On the left are the themes of peace, justice, sexual identity and desire, and climate.  On the right is the cross and empty tomb, in other words, sin and forgiveness.  In the 1950s, the order was certainly very similar if not exactly alike even if some of the music was different.  Today on the left is the wholesale borrowing of the worst of Roman Catholic contemporary hymnody (Joncas, Haugen, etc.) and on the right the prevailing popular contemporary Christian music of the moment.  But, to be fair, both sides seem to presume that variety is the spice of life.

Whereas variety in the past might mean a variety of hymnals who all preserved more rather than less of the Lutheran liturgical tradition and its Western Mass form, today variety seems to mean anything goes.  I wish there was a way to go back to the way things were but I fear the genie is out of the bottle.  We may never get back to following the book or whatever book the churches have published and this is probably due to the fact that some either do not want to use any book or who insist that the causes du jour which are too avant garde to be reflected in any book.  In other words, both sides presume that books are merely suggestions and/or starting points for something that is local or ideologically driven.  It is no wonder that there is more liturgical chaos among Lutherans today than Theo Graebner ever could have envisioned going on 100 years ago.  Variety may seem to be the spice of life but we are over spiced with variety and it is killing the brand -- in ways that any number of Lutheran hymnals existing side by side never did in the past.  Even those who call themselves Lutheran do not know who we are anymore on Sunday morning.  We do not know what to say about God anymore and we cannot agree on what sin is so Lutheranism is a veritable muddle on Sunday mornings -- both to the assembly of the baptized and to the world around them watching them.  We could not have screwed things up more if we had tried deliberately.  Ok, maybe we did.  Maybe the ELCA worked too hard to look and act and sound like mainline Protestantism with all its liberal and progressive eccentricity and maybe Missouri has been watching too many evangelicals on TV.  In any case, it is killing the brand worse than just about anything else we could have done.

Owners or renters. . .

It is often said that we do not do a very good job recruiting, encouraging, and rewarding volunteers in our churches.  I suppose there is truth to this and it would not be wise to suggest otherwise.  But the care and feeding of volunteers presumes that the volunteers need to be rewarded to give of themselves toward their cause.  The volunteer needs to get something out of it in order to justify volunteering.  Except that the Church is not a cause and those who "volunteer" are not really volunteers at all.  If it does not belong to you, then you are a volunteer but if the Church is yours, if you belong to it by baptism and faith, then the questions remains, in what sense are you a volunteer?

We all know the drill.  Before or after the Divine Service, someone (usually the pastor because he has more authority or pull) will stand up and go over the list of activities going on and how desperately in need of volunteers the parish is.  Inevitably, there is a sign up sheet somewhere to jot down your name and let folks know you are stepping up.  In some parishes, a QR code means you can volunteer by smart phone.  In the end, a few folks are guilted into signing up, maybe a couple of others are called out by name and end up agreeing to serve to avoid being nagged anymore.  Some will sigh and give in only to keep the litany of pleading announcements from going on one more week.  But most folks will end up shuffling uncomfortably in their pews, avoiding any direct line of sight with anyone involved with the activity, practicing their excuses, sure that the old regulars will take care of it and staff the Sunday school or coffee hour or fellowship committee or maintenance group or yard sale.  If the Church had a draft, such a means would be employed to fix what everyone thinks is embarrassing and irritating.  

I fear the problem is that most folks do not really believe that the enterprise that needs the volunteers is really either urgent or necessary or at least not urgent or necessary enough for them to actually sign up and do it.  They are what might be called renters.  Renters rent because someone else takes care of the major stuff and all they have to do is the little stuff.  It is a vastly different enterprise than ownership which comes with a constant drain of time, money, and effort to keep up appearances.  The Church is filled with renters and has too few owners.  Renters occupy a pew but do not feel obligated to more than paying the monthly rent on their space.  Owners feel the responsibility to show up and cough up time, money, and skills to keep the place open and operating.  Renters have to be enticed to volunteer but owners know they have a duty and responsibility to the place.  They may not like it but the Church is theirs and so they show up bidden or not, whether they signed up or not, and do what must be done whether they like it or not.  Oh, they complain about those who are not there but they know the complaints change little or nothing and they just keep showing up and doing the work.

It might be tempting to complain but the reality is that the solution to this problem is not more complaints or more guilting folks into volunteering.  We would be better off trying to build a sense of ownership over the parish and its work.  That is not to imply that it is not God's House or His work but that we have been called into partnership with Him in the Gospel.  We each have our own callings and vocation as the baptized children of God and each of us is called to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.  This is our reasonable service and our stewardship.  The vocation as the children of God who belong to the Lord and whose labors are also for Him and to Him is precisely the thing that often seems missing.  When we treat the Church as belonging to a small group that excludes us, we are doing more than failing to volunteer.  We are renting God's house as if that was all there was to it.  It is not a better job of enticing folks to serve that we need but a stronger identity as belonging to God and His House as our own home.  

Growing up in a small congregation and then serving in a small parish right out of seminary, I can see where fewer numbers makes it harder to presume that a person is not needed.  There does seem to be a cohesiveness to a smaller parish that is sometimes missing in a mid or large size congregation.  But, again, it is not about the urgent need but about the identity we have as children of God who live out our lives in response to His goodness, with thanksgiving.  I will not suggest I was good at this but I do think it is something we all need to work at.  The Church has, in that sense, no volunteers but only those who have a sense of ownership and those who need to develop one. 

What kind of horse?

The pastoral ministry has always included a variety of horses in its stable.  A few of them are the stars, the race horses whose names are know by all.  Hopefully, most of them are the draft horses who do the work but are largely invisible.  You see what they have done but they seem to fade away, neither sleek nor handsome but solid.  Hopefully, a very few of them are wild and  unbroken, lazy and unproductive, and eat more than they work.  Of course, this is true of most professions.  It is not up to the seminary alone to discern which is which but those who commend someone to the seminary.

Nearly everyone focuses on the race horses.  They are sleek, fast, and impressive and command the attention of the eye and the mind.  We think we want every pastor to be a race horse.  The problem is that the rest of us cannot keep up with the race horse.  We end up being left behind in the dust or forgotten around the next bend in the road.  In reality the Church cannot stand too many race horses.  A few are okay and offer inspiration to the rest as well as their gifts to the whole but we would be in terrible shape if all our pastors were race horses.  

Most of us, me included, are draft horses.  We pull wagons and plow fields and carry riders and do whatever is needed to get the work done.  We know the route and do not need much attention to the reins but we have someone watching over us and our work just in case.  We eat a lot but we produce more than we consume – energy and effort given to the work we are here to do.  We can be a bit ornery sometimes but are mostly easy going.  We are probably rather ordinary in everything including appearance but strong, with faith enough to loan to those struggling.  We know the field and do not look behind us to count where we have been but plod along the path in the present, looking to the future, sure that the work we are doing will bring forth the fruit appointed.  We are solid and sturdy and look alike under the blanket and harness of clerical clothing and vestments.  We are not meant to stand out and shine but to labor where the Lord puts us for the work the Lord has given.  It is enough to be faithful.  Occasionally, we might shine.  The older ones who know the path and the field well train up the younger and the younger who are strong and impatient carry the weight while us older ones carry part of the burden and help to keep things in check.  

Of course, we all know about those who refuse to be tamed or ridden or wear a yoke.  They buck and snort, complaining about the work they never do.  They tend to be loaners or insist upon being at the head of everything, long enough to be noticed but not there to carry any weight.  They eat but do not produce and they are lazy and reluctant to be part of the stable or share the yoke.  We know about them also.  They are in the headlines for their screw ups are newsworthy and the leave blood and tears in their wake.  They break wagons and axles and turn them over spilling the fruit they were given on the side of the road as if it were less important than their own happiness or pleasure.  They dominate, sort of like wannabe racehorses, but their attention does nothing for the Church and makes every other horse in the stable look bad.  Yes, we have a few of those kind of pastors.  If God is gracious, not too many.  If we are faithful in our task of recruiting and nurturing young men for the ministry, we will not commend to many to the seminary to tame.  They will consume too many resources and will likely never be there to do the work the pastor is called to do.

For a long time now, we have not been doing the job we should in identifying, attracting, and retaining strong, stable, solid, and faithful men.  The fault lies with many – from pastors to lay folk to seminaries to bishops.  We have lately been doing better at the task of finding and commending men for the pastoral office.  But it is good to remember that we do not need to find the race horse or stallion in every pack.  We need draft horses to do the work without drawing undo attention to themselves  Think about this.  Good, solid, faithful, Lutheran men are exactly what we ought to be looking for to recruit for the pastoral ministry and sending to the seminary.  Bright, solid, attentive, teachable men with a deep and abiding faith are the prime candidates for the pastoral office.  This is who we ought to be focusing on instead of trying to find the next Kentucky Derby winner.  Someone who is in it for the long haul and who can carry the weight and do the work – that is our kind of guy.  You know some of them.  Find them.  Encourage them.  Pray for them.  Commend them to the Church.  And then welcome them back with open arms when they take up the yoke in your own field.  God help us, we need just these kind of men.

St. Augustine reminds us that a priest’s holy life can itself become an eloquent sermon.  I refer you to Book 4 of De doctrina christiana.  Augustine talks about the fruits of preachers of different levels.  Some wind up being celebrities and others saintly though less flashy.  Right now we need saints not celebrities, draft horses not race horses.  We need a deep bench and cannot afford to send the older ones out to pasture or fail to yoke them with the younger.  This is a team, a stable, and not a competition for greatness.  The battle in every pastor is inside himself, to be the best man God can make him to be for the sake of the Lord and the people given over to his care. 

Too short?

I know there are folks who will howl with laughter or frown in disagreement over me saying so, but the brevity of the Western Mass is something that seldom gets enough said about it.  Even with full choir and pews full of those to commune, the Divine Service or Western Mass does not take very long.  Count up its words in comparison to any of the Eastern Divine Liturgies.  The West has the shortest liturgy in regular use.  Aside from a few preachers who may compete with the brevity of the Western Mass form, even with sermon it does not take very long.  Between an hour and an hour and a half -- depending upon the extras sometimes introduced and the speed of the chanting and speaking -- and then you are packed up ready to go home.  It is shockingly short -- the time we spend meeting God where He has promised to be and responding to His generous grace supplying the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation!  It is, dare I say it, too short?!?!

Our age loves to shorten things and reduce nearly everything down to a set of Cliff Notes (remember those) or and an AI summation.  We immediately presume that the liturgy is too long, too complicated, and to imposing.  We need to figure out how to shorten it and how to dumb it down to the attention span and interest level of the average third grade child.  Or do we?  Is the problem the Mass is too long or the Divine Service too complicated?  I would venture to say that the liturgy is rather compact, a great deal packed into few words said and sung, and actions which say much with simple yet elegant ritual and ceremony.  Indeed, nearly everything explained takes more words and more time than the actual thing itself.  This is surely true of the liturgy.  Commentary and commentators use so many more words and so much more time to try and tell us what the liturgy says and what the ceremonies confess.  We do not need more words but we do need to pay attention to the words, rubrics, and ceremonies we have. 

Indeed, one of my complaints about most contemporary worship services done in what should be liturgical churches is that they consist of too many words and too many of the wrong words.  The discipline of the Divine Service is two-fold.  It is an economy of words but it is also a prime example of the right words.  That is worth noting at a time when the liturgy gets painted with false charges and contemporary worship services get a pass.  We are the inheritors of a rich liturgical legacy in the Western form of the mass and it is both profound in its brevity as well as profound in what it includes.  Before complaining about it, a word of caution.  Can you really do better?  Can you do better week after week after week?  And then there is the question of who checks up on what you are replacing the Divine Service with and if it meets muster?  If you cannot come up with something better or if coming up with something better means more words and more music, perhaps you ought to give the Western Mass rite another look.  It may even be too short -- not in the sense of too few words but not enough appreciation for its brevity and eloquence.