Is there a Lutheran liturgic?

Every now and then and sometimes in comments on this blog people will lament that this or that liturgical practice is not Lutheran.  These range from crossing oneself to genuflecting to elevation to chasubles to kneeling to incense to reservation to ashes and so on.  I suppose you could make a case that some practices were indeed common or not rare at the time of the Reformation or shortly thereafter and some did not endure but the charge about something not being Lutheran is a confusing one.  Is there such a thing?  Do our Confessions presume or promote a Lutheran liturgical theology or practice?  I thought that we insisted upon no novelty, no innovation, and no deviation -- only the preservation of faithful catholic doctrine and practice.  I thought that we insisted Rome was the innovator whose novelty threatened catholic doctrine and practice.  I thought our liturgical issue with Rome was precisely insisting upon those doctrines and practices which were not catholic?

I hear people of a certain age (because they are the only ones who can remember them) wax longingly for the time when Lutherans were minimalists ceremonially, their clergy wore the black gown, when the clergy attire was suit and tie, and their principle was less is more in everything except beer and brats.  That is the poorest excuse for a Lutheran liturgic possible.  To reach back into a certain period of Lutheranism and hold it up as the best practice is to defy the catholic principle claimed in the Augustana.  The problem here is not even going back into a catholic practice but setting a boundary date of 1517 (or a century or so later for the real Lutheran purists) and saying this is the time period that defines the height of Lutheran doctrinal and liturgical achievement.  Really?  And then there are those who would insist that somehow this period was devoid of the influence of Rationalism, Pietism, and Protestantism.  

A month or so ago we heard on social media from those who quote a line from Chemnitz and then drone on about hands of blessing or some other point in order to repudiate the practice of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  Okay.  I get it.  You don't like the practice.  So, the Lutheran genius is you don't have to do it or you don't have to head down the aisle to receive them.  No biggie.  But to discredit those who use ashes as somehow not really Lutheran is a joke.  Lutherans insisted they did not have a Lutheran liturgic except the catholic practices that could be observed without sin.  For those who say that wearing ashes is like displaying your works righteousness and your trust in your own efforts to be saved, you have set up a convenient straw man that exists no where except in your own mind.  I could write a similar paragraph for every liturgical practice that the Lutheran minimalists (the Amish of Lutherans) object to but I won't.  Let me just say this.  If you do not like it, don't do it.  It would be wrong of you as a pastor to go to a parish which has such history and practice and dismantle what is there but nothing is forcing you to introduce such practices where you are either.  Why is such ire and upset reserved for those who advocate for a richer Lutheran ceremonial within the tradition of the Augustana while those who jettison every liturgical practice and form are given a pass?  Is a clerical collar responsible for the demise of Lutheranism or is it those who just plain don't want to be Lutheran in the mold of the Augsburg Confession?

Then there are those who make this what the Reformation was about.  Really, Luther was ready to split the Church in the West over a few liturgical practices?  Pretty arrogant, don't you think?  The difference between the papists and the Augsburgers was not was about what you wear or if you bow or genuflect or ashes and the like.  It was about authority.  Either Scripture is the authority or the words of man (whether they are in the mouth of pope, council, or teaching magisterium).  If you want to be a real Lutheran, don't pick petty liturgical battles.  Instead, look at the issue of authority.  The only reason why anyone but a jerk or a fool might divide the Church is over the legitimate issue of this authority.  To steal it away from Scripture and place it in the likes of a guy named Francis is what the Reformation was really about.  Except in the minds of those who don't like liturgical things.  They confuse being anti-papist with being anti-catholic.  By the way, Lutherans then might have said that Rome was not catholic.  It was not merely a matter of labeling but of insisting that Rome had violated the rules of catholicity in order to be Roman.  Maybe some Eastern Christians might agree with that as well.  As for me I want nothing to do with a faith that has its establishment date as either 1517 or 1847.  Either it is the catholic and apostolic faith or none.