Worship 101- Who are the Lutherans?

Pastor Katie talks a little about the beginnings of the Lutheran church back in 1517 as well as the Lutheran church in today’s world. 

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Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hi, my name is Pastor Katie McNeil. I am the pastor here at St. John Lutheran Church, and welcome to what we're calling Worship 101. Because we have realized that as Lutherans, we use a lot of language and we do a lot of things where if this isn't your home turf, if this isn't how you were raised, it might seem a little strange. You might have some questions. And so we're trying to answer some of those questions in this mini-series we have that we're calling Worship 101. So for today's episode, we are gonna go back to the beginning as we ask the question: what are Lutherans? Lutherans get their name from a guy named Martin Luther, who you may or may not have heard of. Martin Luther back in 1517, legendarily speaking, nailed these theses to a door, and these theses were things that he saw were wrong with the church. So what was wrong with the church? Well, the Catholic Church at that time had a massive, massive amount of power and authority. And unfortunately, various structures within the church abused that power. They abused that authority. And so they took advantage of the fact that no one could read. They took advantage of the fact that very few people spoke Latin. They took advantage of people's concern for their immortal soul. And so they started to do several practices that Luther had concern with. Luther had a big concern with the selling of indulgences, and indulgences were these tracts of paper basically, where a person could pay X number of dollars and then get so many years taken off of their time in purgatory, which is like the middle ground before they get decided of going to heaven or hell. And Luther said that's not how that works. And Luther took issue with the fact that no one had a clue of what was happening in worship because it was happening in Latin, and everyone Luther knew spoke German. And so they didn't know what was happening. They didn't understand the readings of scriptures, they weren't able to participate in their faith, and they were being held at bay. There was some gatekeeping happening so that the average person couldn't feel like they had ownership or had a connection to their faith the way that he thought that they should. So Luther, like I said earlier, posted these things called 95 Theses. These were 95 points he wanted to talk to church leadership about. He started off by writing them in Latin, trying to get the church leadership to have some level of conversation with all this with him. They were not too keen on that idea, and so Luther then wrote them in German and started to pass them around to people for other people to hear what he thought was important. And this was all happening at a very convenient time. Just, you know, 50, 60 years earlier, in the 1450s, this guy named Gutenberg had invented a printing press. And this meant that all of Luther's writing, the theses, other tracts of writing, he could make copies of and he could distribute widely to people. And so this was at the beginning of a wider spread of literacy. This was at the beginning of this great technological jump. And so Luther was really just the right time for all of this. And so people started to hear what he was doing, what he was talking about, and they got excited and they rallied around him and they wanted to kind of continue what he was saying. Now we don't need to get into all the details. But Luther and the Pope and the religious leadership, they went back and forth. There's this whole thing of Luther stating, here I stand, I can do no other, because he was convinced that he needed to be someone who could reform the church and bring the church back to its scriptural basis. Now they did not take too kindly to that. They excommunicated him. They had a warrant out for his arrest and all this stuff. And so he, in his hiding, took that time and started to do more work to continue his efforts to bring the faith to the hands of the people. This is when he went back to the Hebrew and the Greek, the original languages of the Bible, and translate them into German so that everyone could read their own Bibles. He was not the first person to try to translate, but again, this happened to be at the time when the printing press was in use. And so people could get their hands on these German scriptures and read them for themselves. They could get their hands on his German writings of teaching and explaining scriptures so that they could, in their own homes, experience faith formation in ways they had not been able to before. So, like I mentioned earlier, one of the things that Luther was talking about was that people couldn't buy their way out of purgatory. God's salvation was a free gift. The grace of God was a free gift given to all people, and that wasn't something that the church could gatekeep or couldn't keep away from people, and people couldn't buy God's grace. It was just a gift. Luther wanted to make sure people in their own homes could study and understand scriptures, so he wrote a little tract called The Small Catechism. And this book went through the Apostles' Creed, it went through the Lord's Prayer, it went through the Ten Commandments and other common prayers so that people in their own homes could start to explore and learn and figure out what these texts meant in their daily lives. And in keeping with Luther's effort to make sure that faith was in the hands of all people, he promoted this idea that the priests were no closer to God than the janitor, the person washing the floors of the abbey. And so he said that God's grace and God's love reaches to all people equally. And that was something of a big deal at the time. Because at the time it was considered that the priests had a special relationship with God and that they would kind of mediate on some level the way that people could participate in faith and participate in their relationship with God. So as you can see, Luther's ideas for the common people really took hold, really took shape, and they really got excited about it because this was putting faith at their hands. Now, of course, as you know, once we have an idea and we have a person and we have lots of ratings about what this idea means, inevitably someone will have a question, someone will have a disagreement, and then sometimes there are fracturing and things like that. So at the time of Luther, actually, there's already people who were taking his core ideas and breaking off into other directions with them, trying to understand how baptism works, trying to understand what happens at communion. There were different people trying to sort out how all this worked, and because Luther opened that door at this particular time, they would go in all kinds of directions. And that's not even it. Because as we go further into the future, there's multiple different kinds of Lutherans. There are several large denominations, but there's also many, many little denominations of Lutherans. And they all hold the same basic theology, but there's still differences in how they run their churches and how they ordain people or who they allow to be ordained and things like that. And so these differences wind up creating more denominations. They agree on the same basic principles of Lutheranism, but some of the polities and some of the interpretations of how Luther presented things, they differ. And those differences unfortunately frequently cause fractions and separations in the church. So the ELCA, as it's more commonly known as, is actually the result of a merger of several Lutheran denominations. There was the ALC, the LCA, and the AELC. We churches love our alphabet soup. Suffice it to say, these were all smaller denominations of Lutherans, some German, some Swedish, and they realized that their similarities far outweighed their differences. And the differences were actually creating more problems than it was worth. And so they chose to come together to form what is now known as the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, because that way they could work together, they could worship together, they could serve together, and they could, you know, combine their resources and be a better force for ministry in the world serving together than separately. And one of the things that separates the ELCA from some of the other major Lutheran denominations, well, I'm the result of that. The ELCA ordains women, and some of the others do not. And so that's one of the primary things that people notice about the differences of the major arms of Lutheran churches today. So I mentioned earlier that we've got this denomination, right? We've got this group of churches that are all banded together under the same concept and structure of beliefs and how we structure our churches. And that is a nationwide thing. It's the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which means all the churches in that denomination in this entire country are together. As you can imagine, that is a lot of churches and a lot of people, which means it's hard to necessarily support all of them together. It's hard to have communications across all of them together. It's hard to vote on things with all of them together. And so to help support the way that churches can function and support one another in their ministries is we have a structured system. It all starts at the congregation level. Because again, Luther wanted to bring faith back into the hands of the people. And so the congregation is where everything starts in the Lutheran Church, which, if you know how the Catholic Church works, it's very different than how the Catholic Church works. So we start at the congregation, and then congregations within a certain geographic area are in what's called a synod. Fancy church word, just take it for what it is. The synod is a bunch of churches in a geographic area. For instance, the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania is a synod of 160 some congregations, whereas New England, including half a dozen states, is also one synod, I think with about 160, 180 congregations. So then those synods get formed into regions, which is, I don't know, six or seven synods joined together to do more things together. And then those regions, which there's so many less than ten or dozen across the country, those regions come together to form the churchwide. And for the Lutheran Church, churchwide is based in Chicago. And then every three years, all the churches, in all the synods, I should say, all the synods higher, or not higher, all the synods elect delegates to go to a churchwide assembly. So that way we start at the congregation. The congregation sends representatives to a synod gathering. At the synod gathering, people are elected to represent them at a church-wide gathering. And so therefore, at the churchwide gathering, which helps shape the direction of the entire church of the country, it really comes down to how the congregations have chosen to represent themselves in that space. So with the congregation being the foundation and the source of everything, the question becomes then how does a congregation get a pastor? In some denominations, the higher level of organization will just take a pastor and say, this is where you're going to serve. But that goes against the Lutheran way, which is having congregations have a strong voice in the way that ministry happens. And so it's, I liken it a lot to like a dating service. And so the bishop, who's in charge of the synod, that geographic collection of churches, the bishop will know which pastors are looking for a church. And they know which churches are looking for a pastor. And they will basically say to each one, you look like you'd be a good match for so-and-so. You look like you'd be a good match for this church. This church, I think you'd be a good match for this pastor. And then they put us in a room together, basically, and they say talk. And the church has what's called like a call committee. It's a group of people that the church selected to be in charge of finding the next pastor. And so then you talk with the call committee, you talk with them about what your gifts in ministry are, what your challenges in ministry are, you talk about your hopes and dreams, you talk about your sense of what God is doing in this world, and you see if it's a match. You see if you get along, you see if your vibes match. And you just talk about everything. And then if that feels good, then you go to what's called the council. The council is the governing body in a congregation. They're like a board of directors. And they will talk with this candidate, this potential pastor, and they will say, you know, the same kinds of things, they'll have similar conversations, and if the council says, We think this is a good match, and if the pastor says, I think this is a good match, then the pastor goes in front of the entire congregation and preaches and leads worship, and then the entire congregation holds a vote right then and there, which is a little intimidating, but right then and there they hold that vote and they decide together as a congregation, do we want to call this pastor? Now, at the same time, the pastor is praying and reflecting and discerning, is this a congregation I want to lead? And so then together they both decide, and if it's a yes and a yes, wonderful, there's a match made, and the pastor is called to that position, and they are installed into that position, and they're there basically until either the congregation or the pastor says this doesn't feel like it's a good fit anymore. Now, if at any point along the way either the congregation or the pastor says, I'm not feeling this, no harm, no foul, they just simply stop their conversations, and the bishop and bishop staff help the congregation and pastor find their next potential match. So it really is a very collaborative effort between people and clergy, i.e., pastors and bishops, to make sure that we're all getting a voice in this conversation and that we're all able to participate in what the ministry and the life of the church will look like as we continue to grow together. So I'm what you might call a cradle Lutheran. Uh that basically means that I was born into a Lutheran family. Uh, we went to an ELCA church my entire life. I even went to a Lutheran undergrad. I did take a brief break from Lutheranism to go to a non-denominational divinity school just so I could kind of put my faith in conversation with other faiths to make sure that A, the Lutheran Church really was my home, and B, so that I could feel more confident talking about what makes Lutherans special and different. Now I know we talked some about the history of the church and how the logistics of all that happened, but some of what makes the Lutheran Church special is some of the theology and imagery that came out of the Reformation way back in 1517 or 1520. Luther in 1520 came up with this symbol, and this symbol is what's known as the Luther Rose. This version was actually made for me by my sister for my ordination. Now, as you can see, in the Luther Rose, there is a black cross right at the center. And then surrounding that black cross is a red rose, or pink in this case, or and surrounding that black cross is a red heart, or maybe pink in this case. Surrounding that red heart is a white rose, and then that's all placed on what's called a field of blue, a blue background, and it's surrounded by a gold rim. Now, Luther, when he was crafting this to kind of symbolize a lot of what he was holding within his theology or the way he was understanding God, had this to say about it. He says, First, there is a black cross in a heart that remains its natural color. This is to remind me that it is faith in the crucified one that saves us. Anyone who believes in the heart will be justified, as it says in Romans. It is a black cross which mortifies and causes pain, but it leaves the heart its natural color. It does not destroy nature. That is to say, it does not kill us, but keeps us alive. For the just shall live by faith in the crucified one, aka Jesus, as it also says in Romans. The heart should stand in the middle of a white rose. This is to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. It puts the believer into a white and joyous rose. Faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives, as it says in the Gospel of John. This is why the rose must be white, not red. White is the color of spirits and angels, as is kind of sort of referenced in Matthew and John. This rose should stand in a sky blue field, symbolizing that a joyful spirit and faith is a beginning of heavenly future joy, which begins now and is dressed in hope, not yet fully revealed. Around the field of blue is a golden ring to symbolize the blessedness in heaven that lasts forever and has no end. Heavenly blessedness is exquisite beyond all joy and better than any possessions, just as gold is the most valuable and precious metal. So this rose becomes something that encapsulates a lot of what's important within this understanding of faith that Luther had. Another way that Luther approached this is something that I would hazard to say a lot of Lutherans don't even know about, and that's called the five solas. Sola is similar to how we use it in music, but like a solo, only, by itself, primarily, etc. Now I said there's five, there's five only's, but it just means that these are five things that are of key importance. So we've got uh solo scriptura, that means by scripture alone. And so what that means is that everything we do comes back to scripture. You heard in that description of the Luther Rose how Luther went back to scripture several times as he's trying to formulate why these images hold importance for him. And throughout his small catechism, his teaching document, again and again he goes back to scripture and says, this is why I think this way, because it's founded in scripture. So we have sola scriptura, we have sola fide, which means by faith alone. And this means that we are given the gift of faith in Christ, and we are given that gift to have that relationship with God, and it is by faith alone that we are saved. It is not through our works, it is not through what we do, it is by the relationship that we have with Jesus Christ and with God and our Creator. And then another one we have is solo gratia, and that is by grace alone. Because as I mentioned way at the beginning, it is by God's grace that we are saved. It is by God's unmerited love for us. There's nothing that we do that offers us forgiveness, that earns us forgiveness. It is by God's grace alone that we are able to continually come back to God, confess the ways that we have fallen short as people, as we inevitably do. And it's by God's grace that we are offered forgiveness and love and mercy, and the chance to keep trying, and the chance to keep returning to our relationship in Christ with God. And then, of course, speaking of Christ, there's solo Christus, which is by Christ alone. We are saved by Christ alone. And that is our connection to our Christian faith, where Jesus Christ stands at the center. Jesus Christ, who is God's word incarnate, God's word in flesh and living among us, God living with dusty, dirty hands and feet and getting hungry. God was a person living among us, and then that God also died on a cross, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven. And it is by the work of Christ, that death and resurrection and ascension, that we are brought to God, and that we are brought to salvation, and that we are brought to faith. And then, of course, last but most certainly not least, we've got Solidia Gloria, which is by the glory of God alone. And it is by the glory of God alone that we live and breathe and have our being. Everything that Jesus accomplishes. His death, his resurrection, his ascension, everything that we do is by the glory of God. And actually, J. S. Bach, if you know who that is, he was a famous Lutheran composer. And he at the end of his manuscripts would often put SDG, Solis Dei, Soli Deo Gloria, by the glory of God, because he knew that everything he did was to the glory of God. So obviously, there is so much more we could talk about about what are, who are, why are Lutherans. There's so much more in the history, there's so much more in all of the influences Luther had, there's so much more in the contemporaries of Luther, and then also how Luther's works then went about and brought out a counter-reformation in the Catholic Church, where the Catholic Church did say, we were losing our powers. You're right. But by that point, the train had left the station, the Lutherans were their own identity, and thus began the Lutheran Church. So there's more we can say about that. There's more we can say about the theology of Lutheranism, there's more we can say about the different denominations within Lutheranism itself. But I hope this gave you just a glimpse, just a taste, of what are, why are, how are Lutherans, as we begin to explore what makes St. John Lutheran Church special and also what connects St. John Lutheran to the rest of the country in the ELCA as we explore the worship whys and the worship 101s of St. John Lutheran Church. And if this piqued your interest a little bit, I hope you will join us next week as we explore the history of this specific church. This congregation was founded in 1897, and I can imagine that you can imagine that there's a whole rich history of this congregation here in Mars, and I hope you join us next week as we explore the 101 of the history of St. Johnson Church in Mars, Pennsylvania.