April 15, 2025 • 51 mins
Dr. Kent Burreson shares his 25-year journey teaching Lutheran worship, exploring how liturgy should serve the gospel rather than becoming an end in itself. He offers wisdom on balancing historical practices with contextual relevance while keeping Christ at the center of worship.
• Journey from liturgical purist to liturgical pragmatist
• How political tribalization has influenced church worship practices
• Rising interest in traditional liturgy among younger generations
• Origins and evolution of confession and absolution in the liturgy
• Luther's balanced approach to tradition versus traditionalism
• The importance of "contextual hospitality" in worship practices
• Understanding that liturgy serves as means toward mission, not an end itself
• The liturgical leader as servant within the assembly, not over it
Connect with Dr. Kent Burreson at burresonk@csl.edu or through the seminary's website www.csl.edu.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here.
It's a beautiful day to bealive.
I have Jack Kalberg in thehouse.
Brother, I know it's springseason, that's right.
We had this beautiful weekendof teaching.
We called it Freedom Weekend.
It was deep catechesis and youwere actually wearing a mask
because of all the allergensright now in the valley.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
You know I'm doing okay today.
Actually, I was actuallygetting overwhelmed with a bit
of an ear infection, so I gotthat taken care of and I'm
feeling a lot better.
But sometimes it's just likethe amount of stuff coming in
versus how fast your body canflush it out.
You know that's it was gettinga little overwhelming for me Get
it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hey, today we have the privilege of chatting with
Reverend Dr Kent Burris, andKent has been a longtime
professor, worship leader,taught on Lutheran worship.
One of my first Dr Burris and Idon't know if you know this one
of my first, like I go back,this is 25 years now or so first
(01:04):
memories of seminary life atconcordia seminary in st louis
was being in.
I think it was a late in myfirst year, maybe third quarter
or something like thatexperience in lutheran worship
and and walking through theliturgy and uh and oh yeah, this
is just.
I wasn't planning on sayingthis but going through the words
(01:26):
of institution in my class andI forgot to make the sign of the
cross over the elements and youkind of lovingly, kindly, said
normally we make the sign of thecross, tim.
You know, at these moments andthings I was so focused on the
word.
But then you said but it's okay, it's the power of the word,
(01:47):
not what we do with our handsper se.
So that was very, very kind ofyou.
How are you doing, Dr Burrison?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I'm doing very well.
Thanks, Tim.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
How many years now at the seminary?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
25.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, so that was like that was one of your first,
second, third year.
Maybe it was 22, 23 years ago.
But yeah, wild, wild, wild.
So much of what we're going tobe sharing today is based on a
presentation that Dr Burrisongave here in Phoenix in February
and please share.
We're going to get into yourstory here just a little bit,
but I love this.
Handle your journey fromliturgical puritist to
(02:21):
liturgical pragmatist.
Tell that story, dr Burrison.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Yeah, sure no to liturgical pragmatist.
Tell that story, dr Burzen.
Yeah, sure, no, glad to.
So that was sort of at theheart of the presentation that I
gave at the Worship and ArtsLeadership Conference.
So I mean, I probably drew thecontrast pretty starkly.
I always have pragmaticorientation in my bones, so it's
(02:46):
not like I was, you know, thisliturgical purist that you know.
We want to return to theTridentine rite or something
like that, you know.
I mean, which for Lutheranswould be extremely problematic
for a lot of different reasons.
So it's not like something likethat.
But so there's always been anorientation towards pragmatism.
But I think in my background,you know, in my education, I've
(03:11):
always had an interest in thehistory of the liturgy and that
was what I pursued in terms ofmy PhD, my doctoral studies at
the University of Notre Dame.
So there's sort of a naturalinclination for a liturgical
historian to be interested inthe rite, the shape of the rite,
you know, and honoring thosepractices from the past.
(03:32):
But I think, as I've taught for25 years now, I've become much
more aware of the fact that theliturgy and our worship should
serve the gospel and thegospel's force within the
church's life.
That's always the orientation.
It's the orientation ofLutheran confessions, it should
be the orientation of the churchCatholic and obviously should
(03:54):
be the orientation of theLutheran church.
And so I think that sort ofdrew me back into being aware of
not making liturgical purity adriving force in terms of how we
shape our worship lifecorporately as congregations and
(04:14):
then also as church in aCatholic sense.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So yeah, well, what other focus can liturgy have?
You say the liturgy is calledto serve, I would say, the grand
narrative, from invocation,baptism, to our ascending, and
the benediction, whether it'sfrom Numbers, chapter 6, or a
Pauline kind of blessing aswe're sent out.
What other end goal could theliturgy have that you think is
(04:40):
problematic, other than thegospel?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Well, I think some people would assert that the
liturgy should serve theinstitution and here I speak
about the institution of thechurch and also that it should
serve the.
It should be an identifyingmarker of the church in an
institutional sense, and so thenit, for those who are oriented
(05:05):
in that direction, it serves asa source of security or a source
of identity, and we should bedefined by the gospel without
equivocation.
That should be what defines ouridentity.
And so when we make somethingelse the definer of our identity
and you can talk about a wholehost of things, doctrine,
(05:27):
scripture, liturgy, fashions,whatever If you make that the
definer of your identity as aChristian and certainly as a
Lutheran, that's problematic,and I think that's the
orientation sometimes peopletake, that the liturgy should be
the definer of our identity.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
What's your perspective as culture has
shifted so dramatically, youknow?
And then you've got COVID andyou've got, you know, a
splintering of relationships.
We've made this statementaround the LCMS that we're
becoming increasingly tribal.
How closely connected do youthink is the secularization in
(06:09):
America to then the reactivity,to try and orient ourselves
around doing the liturgy right?
And if I do these externalthings, the way I hold my hands,
what I wear, et cetera, thenI'm seen as more pure, or at
least it's a virtue signal tothe people I want to be
associated with.
That I'm, I'm with, I'm withyou.
(06:30):
Do you think that's acceleratedbecause of secularization here
in America?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Well, it's a question .
I mean you mentioned thetribalization in our political
life and in our social life thattribalization obviously crosses
over into the church's life.
I don't think there's anyquestion that that kind of
tribalization um obviouslycrosses over into the church's
life.
I don't think there's anyquestion that that kind of
tribalization um is taken holdto a certain extent within,
within our life as uh, lutheransand certainly as Lutheran
(06:54):
Church Missouri Synod.
So you know, you can group atribe around the liturgy.
It's a very convenient kind offocal point um that we're
liturgical uh well, liturgical,liturgical purists from lack of
a better term we heighten thesense of the role of the liturgy
and how the liturgy shouldfunction, and so we can group
ourselves around one another anddefine ourselves in that way.
(07:17):
And so it does become a markerand a source of conflict
honestly within the church then,because others might define
themselves differently inrelationship to worship.
So it becomes very problematicand I think there's a lot of
crossover with our politicallife.
So a lot of those politicalkinds of identifying markers
also become part then of theconversation within the church
(07:38):
about liturgy, about confessions, about doctrine and those kinds
of things.
So, yeah, very problematic.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
There seems to be a resurgence and an interest in
liturgical worship, I think insociety right now.
I've noticed that a lot ofyounger families that we get to
our church we do bothcontemporary and traditional
styles of worship.
They're both liturgical, butI'm surprised by the number of
young families that areattracted to the more
traditional expression.
(08:05):
It's not the majority, but it'sa much higher number than I
probably would have seen in thepast and we see that even as a
trend where, like, a lot ofyoung men are getting attracted
to like Greek Orthodox and stufflike that because of its super
high liturgy.
What are your thoughts behindthat?
What do you think is drivingthat right now?
Speaker 4 (08:21):
That's a good question, jack.
I think there are a lot ofdifferent reasons.
What do you think is drivingthat right now?
That's a good question, jack.
I think there are a lot ofdifferent reasons.
I think this question ofidentity is a formative factor.
Seeking security, a sense ofconnection to the past is a
(08:46):
primary player, you know, sothat we're connected to the
church Catholic throughout theages, and that's a legitimate
and honorable kind of intentionin terms of associating liturgy
with that sense of the past andidentity as it rolls out of the
past.
So that's a good thing, I think.
When it's weaponized, though,then it becomes problematic.
But there are definitely, andthere are a lot of different
movements within differentchurch bodies and different
(09:07):
sectors of society.
For instance, there's been anorientation toward appreciating
liturgical forms from the pastin the evangelical tradition.
That's been going on for about25 years and honestly it was.
It was initiated to a certaindegree by Bob Weber, who is the
director of the Center forWorship Study at Wheaton College
(09:28):
for many years, and thenstarted his own institute and,
interestingly, he was educatedat his PhD.
His PhD is from ConcordiaSeminary.
Yeah, thanks, you know.
So Bob Weber had a significant,robert Weber had a significant
influence on that in theevangelical tradition.
But you can see it withinPentecostals, for instance,
(09:50):
there was a, there's a worshipbook, a liturgical theology,
written by Chang I forget hisfirst name right now Pentecostal
, interested in liturgy andhistory.
I mean that grounding in thepast is important for traditions
, for Christian traditions, forthe church Catholic, and so when
it's used in such a way that itdrives to the gospel, then
(10:12):
there's benefit in that kind ofassociation.
But when it's used in such away that it replaces that gospel
identity, then it becomesproblematic.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, it's interesting.
I want to think about liturgyLike I think of something that
can actually be done in allkinds of contexts.
I think you can have aliturgical worship service in a
camp, in a camp, out right Inyour camping clothes around a
campfire, and you, I will allowscreens in my worship in my
sanctuary.
When movie theaters allowworship and it's like, well, no
(10:49):
movie theaters have worship inthem, you can go and find
Lutheran liturgical services inthere.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
We're a part of a part of a church.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, that has liturgical worship in so many
different contexts.
I mean we have to La Mesa, whichis largely working, poor and
homeless.
It's a very liturgicalexperience for them.
It's tighter, our messagesthere are shorter.
They better include humor andtell me a good story and center
(11:21):
it in the story of Jesus.
It's an alpine cowboy church tomulti-sites, to larger venues
with you know 300 people, tovenues of you know 50 people or
so.
So it's, and all of thosecontexts are unique.
But the bones of invocationthrough benediction and
ascending are, they take place,they're just contextualized into
(11:44):
those settings and I feel superconsistent with our Lutheran
value of liturgical worship.
So, dr Burstyn, take us toschool here just a little bit.
You define worship history inthese ways splitter or lumper.
These are unique words, organicversus dynamic and receptive to
(12:05):
tradition.
So could you break some ofthose down for us?
You don't have to go into allof them, but take us to school
in terms of worship history.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Yeah, sure.
So the splitter, lumpercategorization comes from one of
my teachers at Notre Dame, paulBradshaw, sort of one of the
preeminent early church liturgyscholars of the past 30 years,
and so he characterized worship,especially his study of worship
(12:33):
in the early 20th century, asbeing oriented towards lumping.
In other words, it saw thissort of organic and so now I'm
moving into organic but it sawthis sort of organic kind of
development of worship in theearly church and so you could
connect the dots between variousthings.
You know you connect dotsbetween, let's say, apostolic
(12:54):
tradition, which was written insometime in the 250s.
You could connect the dotsbetween that and subsequent
documents that came.
And you can also connect, couldconnect back to the, the Jewish
experience in the anti in theintertestamental period.
So that's lumping.
You know you're creating thesedots, connecting historically
(13:16):
how things develop.
Splitting, which was Paul'sprimary approach, paul
Brancheau's approach andobviously affected me, is to say
that we don't see those kindsof connections necessarily and
they aren't necessarily drivenby design.
In other words, a lot of thestuff that the lumpers would put
(13:36):
forward would say that thechurch designed things to go
this direction, you know, andthe problem is that we don't
have a lot of documents,especially in the early church
period.
Even in the medieval period,though, we don't have a lot of
intentionality of design.
Things happen sort ofhaphazardly.
You know.
Now some things are by design.
(13:57):
You know, obviously theTridentine rite was spelled out
by Trent, by the Council ofTrent.
So there are things that are bydesign, but it's just the
overall picture.
You can't really describe it ashaving this kind of organic
development.
So there's probably, you knowPaul would always say there's a
middle position.
You know, in a sense there aresome things that are designed
(14:18):
and some things do flow togetherin terms of development, but
then there are other things thatthere are significant gaps in
terms of development, but thenthere are other things that
there are significant gaps interms of the liturgical history.
You can't connect the dots inthis way, you know, moving
forward.
So that sense of organicdevelopment is not in evidence
throughout all times and placesin terms of the development of
(14:41):
our worship historically, and soit's more and more of a dynamic
kind of process that plays outwithin the church's history.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Essentially, Could you tell us where?
Or maybe there's multipleplaces historically documented
where we see evidence of thechurch, early church, down
through the ages, where the ordokind of comes together, where
some leaders who are some ofthose leaders who are trying to
give the ordo for the church'slife.
(15:11):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean the ordo itself.
If you talk about the, itdepends upon how you talk about
the ordo, you know.
But the ordo itself, in termsof the structure of service of
the word, service of the Lord'sSupper, and then some kind of
baptismal reflection that'sgoing on in relationship to both
of those, that kind ofstructure we know is in
existence already by well.
(15:35):
It's probably in existence inthe New Testament period, so
it's probably laid out by theapostles.
We don't have anything in theNew Testament that says this is
the actual structure, but weknow that they were meeting on
Saturdays, service of the wordcoming from the synagogue, and
then service of the Lord'sSupper celebrated on Sundays,
and sometimes they would vigilthrough the night from that
service of the word into serviceof the Lord's Supper on Sunday.
(15:57):
But the strongest evidence wehave it's irrefutable evidence
in that regard is Justin Martyrin 150, it's irrefutable
evidence in that regard.
It's just a martyr in 150.
When he writes his apology tothe emperor as he's being
prepared to be shipped off toRome and eventually killed,
martyred for being a Christian.
He outlines the whole servicefor the emperor, basically to
(16:19):
say to the emperor we don't doanything weird strange, I mean,
christians were being accused ofdoing all kinds of weird things
and Justin's saying no, wedon't, here's what we do, you
know.
And so we have the outline thenfrom Justin Martyr of service
to the word, service to the Lordsupper, and a lot of the things
(16:42):
that we traditionally associateritually with that outline,
with that development, arecontained in that, in what
Justin offers.
So preaching, obviously, iscentral Prayer.
After the preaching, inpreparation for the Lord's
Supper, some kind of rite he'sindicating he doesn't lay it out
clearly, but some kind of ritefor celebrating the Lord's
Supper.
Readings I didn't mention thoseprior to the sermon.
(17:05):
He doesn't say how manyreadings, but he does say that
we read from the Old Testamentscriptures and presumably from
the New Testament scriptures.
So all of that is contained inJustin's outline.
And then that moves forward interms of the.
There isn't a lot of evidencein the pre-Nicene period, but we
have a few documents and thatessential ordo is laid out in
(17:30):
all of those documents, thengoing into the fourth century.
Once we get the fourth century,then we have all kinds of
evidence from a lot of differentsources.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Hey, did Justin Martyr talk at all about a right
of confession and absolution?
No, he didn't.
So, historically, do you?
Speaker 4 (17:49):
think— Now I should say, though, tim, repentance is
important.
Well, sure, repentance is partof his message, so that you know
the turning of Christians—whenyou become a Christian, the act
of repentance, the act ofturning against the lordship of
satan, evil, sin, etc.
Is a fundamental part of theconversion experience, and then
(18:09):
that life becomes that, thatturning becomes the shape of the
christian life moving forward.
But no, he doesn't talk aboutit like a right of confession,
absolution or something likethat yeah, and just to clarify
for people that haven't studiedlatin ordo means order, right,
structure and we so like we getthe word ordinance from that
(18:29):
right.
Yes, yeah, same source.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, that's good jack yeah well now, now my head
is going down.
The confession, absolution pathis like sure, two, 2.5
sacraments, you know.
I mean luther was evensensitive, but it didn't have a
physical element, you know.
So he said, he said no, but itwas obviously in the reformation
church, it was obviously amajor part of the liturgy.
(18:51):
Can you tell us, tell me thehistory?
I'm just curious maybe othersaren't, but they can stop
listening could you tell us ahistory of confession and
absolution being connected tothe ordo?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
yeah, sure so.
So the earliest forms, in theearly church, of confession and
absolution are what are calledtheir corporate forms of
confession and absolution.
So when somebody sinned theybecome a Christian.
They belong to the Christiancommunity, the part of the
family of God, part of thehousehold of God.
Some kind of major sin andmajor sins would include in the
(19:24):
early church period, adultery,murder, embezzling funds,
stealing those kinds of things.
So if a Christian does thesekinds of things, then they would
have entered the order ofpenitence, which meant that they
were separated from the mainassembly, couldn't participate
in the Lord's Supper.
There would be a period of timethat the pastor would say you
(19:45):
have to be in the order ofpenitence and reflect upon your
sinful condition and then youhave to publicly.
So you're public before thecongregation, Everybody knows
who's in the order of penitence.
This is a shameful act.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Well, and this included people in the early
church that may have turned awayfrom the church under
persecution right, that'scorrect.
And wanted to come back.
That's correct.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, that's correct, apostasy would also be
interesting.
So you're in this order andthen you're eventually restored
when you've undergone howeverlong the pastor thinks you need
to be in the order of penitence.
That kind of penance,eventually, or that kind of
confession absolution, driftsout of use by the time we enter
(20:28):
into the union betweenChristianity and the state.
So what we call Christendom,which happens from the fourth
century, from Constantine, allthe way up until about the
eighth century, eighth, ninthcentury, when you get to
Charlemagne, then theunification of society and
church is complete.
So by that point, this order,this public order of confession,
(20:49):
ceases to exist.
What takes over then?
It comes from the Celtic Isles,from Ireland, and that's
canonical penance, which is aform of penance that is shaped
within a monastic environment.
You know, christianity inIreland is born out of the
monastic experience.
So, uh, from that monasticexperience then, um, they're,
(21:11):
they're trying to, to, um, uh,control or or order the life of
the monks, and the way they dothat is through examination.
Um, so, examining the monk'slife, is it as pure as it needs
to be?
So they develop these lists ofsins that have to be examined,
(21:32):
and then the monk would confessthem and then be absolved and
then he would also be expectedto perform some kind of
satisfaction on the basis ofthose sins.
That form of confession andabsolution is what becomes
primary in the West and that'sthe form of confession
(21:53):
absolution that Luther railsagainst in 1520, 1521, and
following.
Luther doesn't rail necessarilyagainst confession absolution.
What he rails against is theform that it has taken, in which
the absolution is not primary.
The gospel is not primary.
In other words, you have toexamine yourself, list all your
(22:14):
you know, name all your sins youknow, and if you haven't named
all your sins, then you can'tfully, can't truly be absolved.
And of course you have toperform the satisfaction order
for your absolution to take hold, for your forgiveness to take
hold.
So there are all kinds ofrequirements, and that's all
part of the medievalunderstanding, justification.
And so it's problematic fromthat vantage point, because our
(22:35):
works are contributing to ourjustification.
So he says we need to return tothe primary form, which is
understanding that when thesinner comes and confesses that
he isn't turning, he's makingthat repentant act, and so
priority is then to forgive hissins, to restore his identity in
Christ.
And so that's what Luther does,and he points out the priority
(22:56):
of that.
So Luther's practice in his ownlife was to receive individual
confession absolution with hisconfessor, who was Bugenhagen,
the city pastor in Wittenberg,two, three, four times a week.
That was Luther's practicethroughout his entire life,
pretty much so.
(23:17):
Then in the medieval periodthere develops this rite of
public general confessionabsolution that's associated
with the vernacular in the mass.
So they start insertingvernacular services service of
the word, basically in the mass.
So the rest of the mass is inLatin and they insert this
vernacular German, french,whatever it is, depending upon
(23:39):
where you are right in themiddle, and that would often
include preaching.
Sometimes it would also includesort of a general rite of
confession absolution in thevernacular so that people can
participate in it, understand it.
All those kinds of thingsDidn't happen everywhere, but
(24:01):
certain places that defineworship and a whole host of
other things in the variousLutheran territories they start
developing use of this generalright of general confession
absolution within the divineservice.
And that goes back to thesemedieval vernacular rights that
were inserted into the mass.
They don't develop uniformlyacross all territories and there
(24:23):
are different forms that theytake, sometimes at the beginning
of the service, sometimes atthe point of the sermon,
sometimes at the end of theservice.
You know it's sort of all overthe board and that's the source
of our right of general publicconfession, absolution at the
beginning of our services inLutheran service book and
Lutheran worship and theLutheran hymnal.
You know that's the source ofthose.
(24:45):
But Luther would never havepracticed that because those
forms had not been inserted intothe right in Wittenberg when he
died.
He was aware of them because hereceives a letter from a pastor
asking about these, because thepastor has experienced them and
he wants Luther's opinion onthem and Luther says I suppose
(25:05):
they're good, they can be usefuland helpful with regards to the
gospel and absolution, as longas they don't displace private
confession and absolution, whichis really interesting because
essentially that's what happened.
You know, in terms of thepractice of the church this
becomes the primary form ofconfession and absolution and
individual confession andabsolution sort of has this sort
(25:28):
of rollercoaster historicalride in Lutheranism all the way
up to the 20th, 21st century.
So that's a long-winded answerto the history.
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
My understanding about the practice of penance
that would come after confessionand absolution was that it was
seen as a therapeutic thing.
Confession and absolution wasthat it was seen as a
therapeutic thing.
I could give this person thisthing that they could do, and
then they could feel totallyassured, beyond what I just told
them, that they're forgiven,right.
And then that kind of morphsinto or kind of develops
(26:00):
concurrently with this view ofpurgatory that these things also
now can serve to reduce yourtime in purgatory, right,
correct?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
So it's all part of the works righteousness,
orientation of the medievalchurch, right and it all
contributes to.
So there's sort of but that'snot how it begins.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Just to be sure, that's not how it begins.
It was more therapeutic in thebeginning and then it morphs
into that over time.
Right, that's great.
That's great, that's great.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Hey, that's really helpful.
I went.
I mean I have so many questions, but we got to get to other
things.
I'm going down this rabbit trail, but you know, confession and
absolution at the beginning ofthe service.
Sometimes I've thought like,well, shouldn't it kind of?
I mean, it can be anywhere.
And I think the best case forit being at the beginning is
(26:51):
connected to the invocation andthe remembrance of baptism to
move the sinner far from Godinto a recognition of their
saintliness because of the workof Christ through the cross and
the empty tomb and thereceptivity of that gift by
faith alone.
And now our hearts are preparedto hear the word right, and so
(27:14):
you can make that case.
But I can also make the casethat out of the invocation
directly into the hearing of theword, pre-lord's Supper could
be a really great time forconfession and absolution as
well as we prepare our hearts toreceive the forgiveness of sins
through the body and blood ofJesus.
Any take there, dr Burrison.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
No, unquestionably.
I agree with you completely,tim.
I mean it depends upon theritual purpose you know of the
confession and absolution.
It can serve different ritualpurposes depending upon where
it's placed and what its contextis, what it's juxtaposed to.
So if you want to associate itwith baptism and then with the
hearing of the word that'sassociated with baptism and that
(27:51):
flows from the ancient adultcatechumenate, which was the
process for making Christians inthe second, third, fourth,
fifth centuries, then that's alogical ritual association.
If you want to associate it,though, with, let's say,
reconciliation so here, paul, 1Corinthians, don't approach the
altar unless you're reconciledto your brother then confession
(28:11):
and absolution makes a lot ofsense right before the Lord's
Supper, and that's where it wasin the 1856 agenda of the
Lutheran Church of MissouriSynod.
It was after the sermon, beforethe celebration of the Lord's
Supper.
So this is even part of our owntradition.
In that regard, one of thethings that I've tried to
advocate for students isrecognizing that there are other
ways to, let's say, rituallyaccomplish what we want to
(28:33):
accomplish when we're using itat the beginning of the service.
So if we're trying to associateit with baptism I don't know
that people necessarily pick upon the association between
confession, absolution andbaptism.
I think we have to teach peopleand remind them what that
connection is, but is also to dothings like a service of
baptismal remembrance orbaptismal affirmation.
You know which?
(28:53):
Which other?
Well, for instance, the ELCA intheir new hymnal new hymnal
it's not new now, but they havethey have an alternate right of
baptismal remembrance.
I think that's really helpfulbecause it helps people to be
aware of my identity as abaptized child of God, baptized
in the gospel.
So yeah, I mean ritually, youcan use the rite of confession
(29:14):
and absolution in various placesin terms of what you want to
accomplish, and I think thatritual flexibility is at the
heart of a Lutheranunderstanding of adiaphora, you
know, for instance, Well, let'sget into it.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
You bring it up.
This is Formula of Concord,article 8, or 10, I'm sorry.
This also concerns the articleon Christian freedom, and there
is a lot of, if you hear theevolution of the liturgy.
There's a lot of Adiaphora here.
The church is just trying tofigure it out by the Spirit's
(29:46):
power to point people to Christand the gospel.
For weakening this article onChristian freedom and forcing
human commands upon the churchas necessary, as if their
omission were wrong and sinful,already paves the way for
idolatry.
Formula of Concord, and that'sin Article 10 and 15.
They talk a lot about this andwe've seen traditionalism kind
(30:07):
of taking root here in theLutheran Church, missouri Synod.
Here's a quote that you sharedTradition is the living faith of
the dead, traditionalism is thedead faith of the living.
So piggyback on even Lutherinto the formula of Concord on
his perspective toward traditionand traditionalism, dr Burrison
.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Yeah, no, that's a good question.
Luther respected the tradition?
Obviously he didn't.
He saw Lutheranism.
He saw well, he saw the church,of which he felt Lutheranism
was the expression, the properexpression of the church in
relationship to Rome and to theother reformers.
But he saw Lutheranism incontinuity with the church,
(30:52):
catholic, going all the way backto the apostles.
So that's why we confess everySunday, we are Catholic,
apostolic, a Catholic andapostolic church in the creed.
So he saw that kind ofcontinuity and he honored the
tradition.
But the tradition should neverfunction in a traditionalistic
(31:14):
sense, and that's drawing uponYaroslav Pelikan's quote.
That's where the quote comesfrom.
He delivered an essay years agoI mean in the 80s on tradition
and it's a very, very helpfulessay because what it does is it
outlines that tradition is toserve the life of the church.
The church isn't to servetradition, and that would
(31:38):
basically that's essentiallyLuther's approach.
You know, tradition shouldserve the church, not the church
serve tradition.
And sometimes we well often weget caught up in we end up
serving tradition as opposed totradition serving the life of
the church.
So it should inform thechurch's life, it should shape
(31:59):
the church's life according tothe story as you outlined
earlier.
It should center people intheir identity in the gospel, in
Christ himself.
And if tradition doesn't dothose kinds of things, then you
need to reform it.
And that's essentially whatLuther did with the Deutsche
Messe.
You're transitioning.
You know.
He made a revision to LatinMass so he didn't dispense with
(32:22):
Latin.
That was the language of thechurch, didn't dispense with it,
but he saw it primarilyoperating within um cathedral uh
churches, churches in cities,um operating with uh in
association with schools, um,because there the language of
latin was still beneficial, theywere going to teach in latin.
(33:01):
Um, yeah, nobility, right, mostof the people don't understand
Latin, so we need to make atransition into the vernacular.
So that would be an example ofthat kind of move in which
tradition does not control thechurch's life.
The church's life is served bythe tradition.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, we're seeing a rise in this, I think, in the
LCMS, in certain pockets, andthere's no judgment here, but I
feel I feel like there'sjudgment toward, toward some of
our practices, specificallyaround different instrumentation
(33:39):
.
Right, I could, I.
I think it's an art, it's amatter of Christian freedom how
a leader holds his hands wherehe stands, you know what he
wears per se to orient himselfas one who is a servant of
Christ serving God's people,word and sacrament.
I think there's a lot there.
But I know there's a lot ofintensity in our church body
(34:02):
against certain ways that theorder gets lived out and I've
been praying for contextualhospitality now for some time
and I don't see brothers goingaway from the order of the
divine service with a robust.
We're against this in any ofthe pockets that I'm a part of.
(34:22):
Like our worship, even in largechurches, you know churches
that are super mission oriented,all of us still have like the
general order of service.
The instrumentation just may bedifferent.
And the biggest thing for me tosay is were we influenced
negatively potentially by thechurch growth movement and by
(34:44):
newer songs written for moderninstrumentation?
Yes, I think.
I think there is some work thatneed and is still being done
toward that end Songs that thatmaybe were less than less than
theologically faithful.
They were obviously not Lutheransongs.
But today we have there was thesongwriters initiative you were
talking about in Wally andwe're trying to write really,
(35:06):
really excellent, excellent,jesus centered, lutheran
confessional identity centeredsongs right now.
So I guess to land it and getyour take, I don't know what
we're arguing about for peoplethat are observing some of our
worship.
It's like I think this I thinkLutheran worship, final comment
should be what unites us, likethe liturgy and the order should
(35:26):
be what unites us rather thandivides us.
But it feels like it feels likeit's still a divisive
conversation.
Any take there, Dr Burson?
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I mean there's no question it's still a divisive
conversation.
I don't think there's any anydoubt about that, and I think
part of it is is what againdrives us back to what's the
center of our identity as church, and here AC 4 and 5 are very
clear, augsburg Confession 4 andArticles 4 and 5 are very clear
(35:54):
that word and sacrament are theidentifying factors of the
church.
And you can't, going back toFormula Conqueror 10 and 15, you
can't.
And again going back to Form ofthe Conqueror 10 and 15, you
can't add to that.
You can't say well, the Pope isan identifying factor, or the
liturgy is an identifying factor, or this rite is an identifying
(36:17):
factor.
If you don't have that and glassis an identifying factor or any
particular kind of architecturefor a building, for a building,
you know, or whatever.
You can't make any of thosekinds of additions to word and
sacraments.
So that's the center of ouridentity and then so that should
lead.
That should lead, as you said,to contextual hospitality.
(36:38):
I mean, hospitality should beat the heart of that, of that
reality, and I think that's athat's comes to expression in
Luther's Freedom of a Christian,when he says a Christian is a
dutiful servant of all, subjectto none.
That's in the gospel.
You know, there is nothing thatlords over your relationship in
Christ and with God in Christ.
(36:58):
But then a Christian is adutiful servant of all, subject
to all.
So meaning that in everythingwe do and this would include
worship it's intended to servethe neighbor, and so in that
regard, I'm subject to all.
That's a hospitable stance.
Essentially, is what Luther'sadvocating for there, so that
(37:21):
when we come to the table and Ihave these kinds of ritual
practices in my worship and Ihave these kinds of ritual
practices in my book everybodyhas a ritual.
It doesn't matter what spaceyou're in or what worship
service you're in.
It all has a ritual in some wayor another.
So how do you receive what'sbeing done in that context in a
way that would continue toaffirm our unity in Word and
(37:43):
Sacrament.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, I'll give you a case in point our unity in Word
and Sacrament.
Well, I'll give you a case inpoint.
If I weren't to close any ofthe various contextual
gatherings around Word and Tablewithout saying God is good, and
the congregation responds allthe time like I would be sitting
, it would be, it would be solike people would be like what
are we?
Like?
That was embedded in ourcommunity when I came like to
(38:06):
disregard that would have beenvery un.
That's not in the divineservice.
Well, it's in the service hereat christ grainfield.
So I think I'm going to be apart of my service, yeah,
exactly absolutely.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
I mean that's a ritual act.
You know a ritual act that ispart of the life of that
particular, uh, community,christian community, church, you
know so.
So I mean, yeah, I mean youwould have been, you would have
been sinning if you had admittedit.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Yes, Our good Friday services.
When we blacken out thesanctuary, there's like not an
ounce of light that comes inthere because it's done in the
dark and you better have itblack in there.
Oh, you're going to hear aboutit.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
It's a beautiful practice.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
When I came to realize I was an outsider.
Now I'm an insider because I'vebeen here 12 years.
But right up front, I think alot of times we disrespect what
has come before us and pastorslike and you counseled toward
this beautifully, like, if youcome in and want to like, change
a lot of things concerning thedivine service, tread lightly
there, brothers, because there'sdanger in this Like, you're
(39:09):
going to hurt the core of whothat community is.
I love this quote that you sayculture is the soil in which
ceremonies and practices growand develop.
You better respect the cultureof the local church, dr Berson.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah, no, it's absolutely right, because the
nature of Christian tradition,christian history, is that
ritual is born pretty much fromculture in water, with the
triune name, that we celebratethe Lord's Supper by taking
bread, blessing it, giving itand eating it, and then some
other things like preaching.
(39:56):
We should preach, we shouldpray, you know, but there aren't
, I mean, and of course our Lordgives us the Lord's prayer as a
form of prayer.
This is a way in which to pray,and so we should pray in this
way.
But there's really very littlein the New Testament that's
ritually mandated.
And so then the church, from thebeginning, is drawing upon
(40:16):
culture.
You know, even the structurethat we talked about earlier of
Word, word service of the Word,service of the Lord's Supper,
that is a culturally derivedstructure.
It's not, I mean, yes, it'sembedded in the New Testament,
but it's a culturally derivedstructure because the service of
the word comes out of Judaismand comes out of the Jewish
experience, and the service ofthe Lord's Supper is formed
(40:39):
primarily from the Greco-Romanmind.
So culture is already at thebeginning, influencing those
kinds of things.
And then you can see thatthroughout the early church
period, you know, in terms ofdevelopment, and we're borrowing
all kinds of things.
We've talked about confessionof absolution before.
You know, the development ofthe practice of individual
confession of absolutiondevelops in the Celtic Irish
(41:01):
mind and in the Celtic culturalorientation.
So we're always engaged withcultural derivation of our
ritual practices.
And your example is how did itgo?
Speaker 2 (41:14):
God is good, God is good.
People say all the time thecongregation responds.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, wasn't Luther the one that made congregational
singing popular?
Right, I don't know how popularthat was prior to.
It's not information there wasnone.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah, there was none so yeah, that's a good example,
jack, of a culturally derivedreality.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, right question it's like the culture would have
been, I don't know, you wouldhave chanting from the the
priests, right, and I don't know, maybe a choir, but you
wouldn't have congregationalsinging, right, and this was a
radically different thing.
And now that's shaped, nowthat's common in catholic
churches.
Yeah, interesting, right.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Yeah, so they took that influence onto themselves,
yeah, no, it's right, this isright this is good, dr burris.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
yeah, well, wait, I could go.
We got to have you back onbecause there's so many.
We just touched the surface ona whole host of topics but I
think, to close, we are makingthe, I think, jesus-centered,
loving, kind argument forcontextual hospitality and there
are some in our church body whosay that the culture and
(42:23):
context I'll just throw outwhere my grandma lives up in
Crookston Minnesota, that there,my grandma lives up in
Crookston Minnesota, thatthere's very little difference
between Crookston, minnesota andGilbert Arizona, where we live,
and I've been there and I'vebeen here and I'm just here to
tell you like there's a lot ofdifference.
Doing ministry here is verydifferent than small town
(42:43):
Midwest and I just don't thinkthat those who have that
experience understand thedifferent needs.
And it's not better or worse,it's just the different context
in which we find ourselves rightnow and I'm praying, I'm
praying.
Really a lot of our podcastsjust orient around around
praying for contextualhospitality and there's radical
(43:04):
differences across the 35districts of the Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod.
Any comments there, dr Burrison?
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Yeah, so I'm reminded of Ambrose of Milan, so going
back to the fourth century.
So in his MystagogicalCatechesis, which are the
sermons or teaching that he didafter the baptism of all those
who were preparing for baptismat Easter, after the baptism of
all those who were preparing forbaptism at Easter, and he
indicates that in Milan which isa very unusual practice they
(43:32):
foot wash during the baptismalrite.
So they wash the feet of thecatechumens during the baptismal
rite.
And Ambrose observes this isunique to Milan, this is a
Milanese custom.
And he says we know they don'tdo this in Rome, but that's okay
, because this is our practicehere, this is what we do in
Milan.
So he's clearly indicating that, culturally, there's a
(43:56):
different environment,contextual environment, in Rome,
I mean in Milan, and it'slegitimate what they do, even
though in Rome they do somethingdifferent they don't practice
the foot washing and baptism.
So that's a parallel to theexact thing you're talking about
, tim, you know there are thesedifferences?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, and they saw themselves as united in the
Christian church.
No question, no question.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Nobody was saying you're not Christian because you
practice foot washing and yourbaptismal rite.
No, nobody was saying it.
And if they were, they werewrong, you know so so yes.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I love that you have a quote.
We're going to close with this.
The liturgist your quote on theliturgist is a presider in
Christ for the assembly inculture.
So here's what you say when itgathers and this is the church,
in the liturgy, the assemblystands in worship before the
creator as sacraments andservant in Christ of a new world
(44:49):
, a new made world.
This is serious business.
You say, the liturgicalminister presides not over the
assembly but within it.
He does not lead it but servesit.
How is this a different posturefor the liturgist?
And maybe you got this actuallyfrom Aidan Kavanaugh.
I'm just seeing that right now,but it's a great quote.
It's a different posture forthe liturgist, and maybe you got
this actually from AidanKavanaugh, I'm just seeing that
right now, but it's a greatquote.
(45:10):
It's a different posture.
We're here to serve rather thannecessarily to lead.
We're servant leaders, if youwill, first and foremost for the
propagation of the gospel, forthe sending of the saints out to
make more and more disciples.
Share a little bit around thatquote, dr Burson.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Yeah.
So the liturgical leader andthen this starts with the pastor
, obviously, but also wouldstretch into other roles of
leadership within worship isalways one whose call and I'm
using call broadly there thetask of responsibility that is
given to that particular person.
And a pastor, obviously it's inhis ordination and his call
(45:47):
from the congregation is alwaysone called to serve the church.
I mean that's in a sense that'salso AC4 and AC5.
The means of grace.
What's the pastor there for?
He's there to serve thecongregation with the gospel and
the story of God in Christ.
That's what he's there to do.
(46:09):
He's not trying to establishsome kind of identity.
He's not trying to establishsome kind of control of culture.
He's not trying to institutepractices that clearly
demonstrate the continuity ofthe church all the way back to
the first century.
That's not his primary task.
His primary task is to servethe assembly with the gospel and
(46:29):
, as Kavanaugh says, to shapethis understanding that the
kingdom of God, the city of God,if you want to call it that the
city of God, has been embeddedin the world so as to be the
agent of mission to the world.
So the pastor's primarilyresponsibility and other
liturgical leaders is to shapethe congregation to be the city
(46:53):
of God, to be the kingdom of Godin the midst of a fallen world,
in the midst of a world that isfalling toward destruction, so
that they can see what God isdoing in Christ.
That's what the leader issupposed to do in terms of his
service to the congregation.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well, it's very evident, then, that the liturgy
is a means toward mission.
The end is God's mission, thatJesus came to seek and save the
lost.
And we gather to recognize howlost we are, apart from the
saving of Christ, and then to begathered and scattered out into
our various vocations to bringthe love and light, the gospel
of Jesus Christ, to those whoare walking in darkness.
(47:32):
If the liturgy serves as anends rather than a means to an
end and I fear in some pocketsit's the end rather than a
catalyst for catechesis andtruth carried out into the world
if it becomes the end, we'remissing, it, we're making and
this is where, Dr Kieschnick,you can disagree with Dr
Kieschnick you're worshipingworship.
(47:53):
He said that before.
We're making the liturgy anidol.
Any comments there?
It becomes an end and it's notthe end, it's a scattering of
the gospel.
Right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
The end is the kingdom of God, which means a
new heaven and a new earth whereChrist reigns and rules over
all things and where he is thesource of our life in God.
That's the end, not the liturgy, and the liturgy should point
to that end.
You know, the liturgy shouldprovide a context in which we
realize and see that end.
(48:25):
We envision it by faith.
That's what the liturgy shouldserve enable that to happen.
But it in and of itself it'snot the end in any way
whatsoever and it can't be.
And it becomes back thatthere's no question that's
idolatrous.
Then something has replacedChrist, the liturgy has replaced
Christ, rather than seeingChrist at the center of the
(48:46):
kingdom of God that is embeddedin the worship experience of the
congregation.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
So good, Jack.
Closing comments.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
No, I agree, I mean that's.
I think that's the key thing is, we worship God, we don't
worship worship.
And worship is an amazing meansto hear God's word.
We should take it serious, weshouldn't be reckless with it,
but we should also demonstrateradical hospitality to the
community with it as well.
So that's what I'm praying forfor every healthy church to
(49:15):
embrace that posture.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I'm into that.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
This was so fun, brother.
We'll have to have you back onA lot more than can be said.
I love getting into the historyof the liturgy.
I'm a history guy from way backin the day, so it was
fascinating.
If people want to connect withyou, brother, how can they do so
?
Speaker 4 (49:31):
They can connect with me through my email buresonk at
csledu or go to the seminary'swebsite wwwcsledu and spit it
out.
Connect with me through that aswell, you're awesome.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Thanks for hanging with us today.
Listener, please like,subscribe, comment.
I'm sure we'll get somecomments and hopefully the
comments lead us to unity, leadus to.
And if you've got a differenceof opinion, man, shoot me an
email, talman at cglchurchorg,and we'll have you on.
You got a difference of opinion.
I think the church needs to getbetter at listening, caring for
one another, disagreeingagreeably and centering us by
(50:08):
the Spirit and the Word on themission of God.
God's call to get all of hiskids back.
It's a good day.
Go and make it a great day.
Wonderful work, dr Burrison.
Thanks, jack.
God bless guys.
Speaker 4 (50:17):
My pleasure.
Thanks, Tim.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here.
It's a beautiful day to bealive.
I have Jack Kalberg in thehouse.
Brother, I know it's springseason, that's right.
We had this beautiful weekendof teaching.
We called it Freedom Weekend.
It was deep catechesis and youwere actually wearing a mask
because of all the allergensright now in the valley.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
You know I'm doing okay today.
Actually, I was actuallygetting overwhelmed with a bit
of an ear infection, so I gotthat taken care of and I'm
feeling a lot better.
But sometimes it's just likethe amount of stuff coming in
versus how fast your body canflush it out.
You know that's it was gettinga little overwhelming for me Get
it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hey, today we have the privilege of chatting with
Reverend Dr Kent Burris, andKent has been a longtime
professor, worship leader,taught on Lutheran worship.
One of my first Dr Burris and Idon't know if you know this one
of my first, like I go back,this is 25 years now or so first
(01:04):
memories of seminary life atconcordia seminary in st louis
was being in.
I think it was a late in myfirst year, maybe third quarter
or something like thatexperience in lutheran worship
and and walking through theliturgy and uh and oh yeah, this
is just.
I wasn't planning on sayingthis but going through the words
(01:26):
of institution in my class andI forgot to make the sign of the
cross over the elements and youkind of lovingly, kindly, said
normally we make the sign of thecross, tim.
You know, at these moments andthings I was so focused on the
word.
But then you said but it's okay, it's the power of the word,
(01:47):
not what we do with our handsper se.
So that was very, very kind ofyou.
How are you doing, Dr Burrison?
Speaker 4 (01:53):
I'm doing very well.
Thanks, Tim.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
How many years now at the seminary?
Speaker 4 (01:56):
25.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, so that was like that was one of your first,
second, third year.
Maybe it was 22, 23 years ago.
But yeah, wild, wild, wild.
So much of what we're going tobe sharing today is based on a
presentation that Dr Burrisongave here in Phoenix in February
and please share.
We're going to get into yourstory here just a little bit,
but I love this.
Handle your journey fromliturgical puritist to
(02:21):
liturgical pragmatist.
Tell that story, dr Burrison.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Yeah, sure no to liturgical pragmatist.
Tell that story, dr Burzen.
Yeah, sure, no, glad to.
So that was sort of at theheart of the presentation that I
gave at the Worship and ArtsLeadership Conference.
So I mean, I probably drew thecontrast pretty starkly.
I always have pragmaticorientation in my bones, so it's
(02:46):
not like I was, you know, thisliturgical purist that you know.
We want to return to theTridentine rite or something
like that, you know.
I mean, which for Lutheranswould be extremely problematic
for a lot of different reasons.
So it's not like something likethat.
But so there's always been anorientation towards pragmatism.
But I think in my background,you know, in my education, I've
(03:11):
always had an interest in thehistory of the liturgy and that
was what I pursued in terms ofmy PhD, my doctoral studies at
the University of Notre Dame.
So there's sort of a naturalinclination for a liturgical
historian to be interested inthe rite, the shape of the rite,
you know, and honoring thosepractices from the past.
(03:32):
But I think, as I've taught for25 years now, I've become much
more aware of the fact that theliturgy and our worship should
serve the gospel and thegospel's force within the
church's life.
That's always the orientation.
It's the orientation ofLutheran confessions, it should
be the orientation of the churchCatholic and obviously should
(03:54):
be the orientation of theLutheran church.
And so I think that sort ofdrew me back into being aware of
not making liturgical purity adriving force in terms of how we
shape our worship lifecorporately as congregations and
(04:14):
then also as church in aCatholic sense.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So yeah, well, what other focus can liturgy have?
You say the liturgy is calledto serve, I would say, the grand
narrative, from invocation,baptism, to our ascending, and
the benediction, whether it'sfrom Numbers, chapter 6, or a
Pauline kind of blessing aswe're sent out.
What other end goal could theliturgy have that you think is
(04:40):
problematic, other than thegospel?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Well, I think some people would assert that the
liturgy should serve theinstitution and here I speak
about the institution of thechurch and also that it should
serve the.
It should be an identifyingmarker of the church in an
institutional sense, and so thenit, for those who are oriented
(05:05):
in that direction, it serves asa source of security or a source
of identity, and we should bedefined by the gospel without
equivocation.
That should be what defines ouridentity.
And so when we make somethingelse the definer of our identity
and you can talk about a wholehost of things, doctrine,
(05:27):
scripture, liturgy, fashions,whatever If you make that the
definer of your identity as aChristian and certainly as a
Lutheran, that's problematic,and I think that's the
orientation sometimes peopletake, that the liturgy should be
the definer of our identity.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
What's your perspective as culture has
shifted so dramatically, youknow?
And then you've got COVID andyou've got, you know, a
splintering of relationships.
We've made this statementaround the LCMS that we're
becoming increasingly tribal.
How closely connected do youthink is the secularization in
(06:09):
America to then the reactivity,to try and orient ourselves
around doing the liturgy right?
And if I do these externalthings, the way I hold my hands,
what I wear, et cetera, thenI'm seen as more pure, or at
least it's a virtue signal tothe people I want to be
associated with.
That I'm, I'm with, I'm withyou.
(06:30):
Do you think that's acceleratedbecause of secularization here
in America?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Well, it's a question .
I mean you mentioned thetribalization in our political
life and in our social life thattribalization obviously crosses
over into the church's life.
I don't think there's anyquestion that that kind of
tribalization um obviouslycrosses over into the church's
life.
I don't think there's anyquestion that that kind of
tribalization um is taken holdto a certain extent within,
within our life as uh, lutheransand certainly as Lutheran
(06:54):
Church Missouri Synod.
So you know, you can group atribe around the liturgy.
It's a very convenient kind offocal point um that we're
liturgical uh well, liturgical,liturgical purists from lack of
a better term we heighten thesense of the role of the liturgy
and how the liturgy shouldfunction, and so we can group
ourselves around one another anddefine ourselves in that way.
(07:17):
And so it does become a markerand a source of conflict
honestly within the church then,because others might define
themselves differently inrelationship to worship.
So it becomes very problematicand I think there's a lot of
crossover with our politicallife.
So a lot of those politicalkinds of identifying markers
also become part then of theconversation within the church
(07:38):
about liturgy, about confessions, about doctrine and those kinds
of things.
So, yeah, very problematic.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
There seems to be a resurgence and an interest in
liturgical worship, I think insociety right now.
I've noticed that a lot ofyounger families that we get to
our church we do bothcontemporary and traditional
styles of worship.
They're both liturgical, butI'm surprised by the number of
young families that areattracted to the more
traditional expression.
(08:05):
It's not the majority, but it'sa much higher number than I
probably would have seen in thepast and we see that even as a
trend where, like, a lot ofyoung men are getting attracted
to like Greek Orthodox and stufflike that because of its super
high liturgy.
What are your thoughts behindthat?
What do you think is drivingthat right now?
Speaker 4 (08:21):
That's a good question, jack.
I think there are a lot ofdifferent reasons.
What do you think is drivingthat right now?
That's a good question, jack.
I think there are a lot ofdifferent reasons.
I think this question ofidentity is a formative factor.
Seeking security, a sense ofconnection to the past is a
(08:46):
primary player, you know, sothat we're connected to the
church Catholic throughout theages, and that's a legitimate
and honorable kind of intentionin terms of associating liturgy
with that sense of the past andidentity as it rolls out of the
past.
So that's a good thing, I think.
When it's weaponized, though,then it becomes problematic.
But there are definitely, andthere are a lot of different
movements within differentchurch bodies and different
(09:07):
sectors of society.
For instance, there's been anorientation toward appreciating
liturgical forms from the pastin the evangelical tradition.
That's been going on for about25 years and honestly it was.
It was initiated to a certaindegree by Bob Weber, who is the
director of the Center forWorship Study at Wheaton College
(09:28):
for many years, and thenstarted his own institute and,
interestingly, he was educatedat his PhD.
His PhD is from ConcordiaSeminary.
Yeah, thanks, you know.
So Bob Weber had a significant,robert Weber had a significant
influence on that in theevangelical tradition.
But you can see it withinPentecostals, for instance,
(09:50):
there was a, there's a worshipbook, a liturgical theology,
written by Chang I forget hisfirst name right now Pentecostal
, interested in liturgy andhistory.
I mean that grounding in thepast is important for traditions
, for Christian traditions, forthe church Catholic, and so when
it's used in such a way that itdrives to the gospel, then
(10:12):
there's benefit in that kind ofassociation.
But when it's used in such away that it replaces that gospel
identity, then it becomesproblematic.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, it's interesting.
I want to think about liturgyLike I think of something that
can actually be done in allkinds of contexts.
I think you can have aliturgical worship service in a
camp, in a camp, out right Inyour camping clothes around a
campfire, and you, I will allowscreens in my worship in my
sanctuary.
When movie theaters allowworship and it's like, well, no
(10:49):
movie theaters have worship inthem, you can go and find
Lutheran liturgical services inthere.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
We're a part of a part of a church.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, that has liturgical worship in so many
different contexts.
I mean we have to La Mesa, whichis largely working, poor and
homeless.
It's a very liturgicalexperience for them.
It's tighter, our messagesthere are shorter.
They better include humor andtell me a good story and center
(11:21):
it in the story of Jesus.
It's an alpine cowboy church tomulti-sites, to larger venues
with you know 300 people, tovenues of you know 50 people or
so.
So it's, and all of thosecontexts are unique.
But the bones of invocationthrough benediction and
ascending are, they take place,they're just contextualized into
(11:44):
those settings and I feel superconsistent with our Lutheran
value of liturgical worship.
So, dr Burstyn, take us toschool here just a little bit.
You define worship history inthese ways splitter or lumper.
These are unique words, organicversus dynamic and receptive to
(12:05):
tradition.
So could you break some ofthose down for us?
You don't have to go into allof them, but take us to school
in terms of worship history.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Yeah, sure.
So the splitter, lumpercategorization comes from one of
my teachers at Notre Dame, paulBradshaw, sort of one of the
preeminent early church liturgyscholars of the past 30 years,
and so he characterized worship,especially his study of worship
(12:33):
in the early 20th century, asbeing oriented towards lumping.
In other words, it saw thissort of organic and so now I'm
moving into organic but it sawthis sort of organic kind of
development of worship in theearly church and so you could
connect the dots between variousthings.
You know you connect dotsbetween, let's say, apostolic
(12:54):
tradition, which was written insometime in the 250s.
You could connect the dotsbetween that and subsequent
documents that came.
And you can also connect, couldconnect back to the, the Jewish
experience in the anti in theintertestamental period.
So that's lumping.
You know you're creating thesedots, connecting historically
(13:16):
how things develop.
Splitting, which was Paul'sprimary approach, paul
Brancheau's approach andobviously affected me, is to say
that we don't see those kindsof connections necessarily and
they aren't necessarily drivenby design.
In other words, a lot of thestuff that the lumpers would put
(13:36):
forward would say that thechurch designed things to go
this direction, you know, andthe problem is that we don't
have a lot of documents,especially in the early church
period.
Even in the medieval period,though, we don't have a lot of
intentionality of design.
Things happen sort ofhaphazardly.
You know.
Now some things are by design.
(13:57):
You know, obviously theTridentine rite was spelled out
by Trent, by the Council ofTrent.
So there are things that are bydesign, but it's just the
overall picture.
You can't really describe it ashaving this kind of organic
development.
So there's probably, you knowPaul would always say there's a
middle position.
You know, in a sense there aresome things that are designed
(14:18):
and some things do flow togetherin terms of development, but
then there are other things thatthere are significant gaps in
terms of development, but thenthere are other things that
there are significant gaps interms of the liturgical history.
You can't connect the dots inthis way, you know, moving
forward.
So that sense of organicdevelopment is not in evidence
throughout all times and placesin terms of the development of
(14:41):
our worship historically, and soit's more and more of a dynamic
kind of process that plays outwithin the church's history.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Essentially, Could you tell us where?
Or maybe there's multipleplaces historically documented
where we see evidence of thechurch, early church, down
through the ages, where the ordokind of comes together, where
some leaders who are some ofthose leaders who are trying to
give the ordo for the church'slife.
(15:11):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean the ordo itself.
If you talk about the, itdepends upon how you talk about
the ordo, you know.
But the ordo itself, in termsof the structure of service of
the word, service of the Lord'sSupper, and then some kind of
baptismal reflection that'sgoing on in relationship to both
of those, that kind ofstructure we know is in
existence already by well.
(15:35):
It's probably in existence inthe New Testament period, so
it's probably laid out by theapostles.
We don't have anything in theNew Testament that says this is
the actual structure, but weknow that they were meeting on
Saturdays, service of the wordcoming from the synagogue, and
then service of the Lord'sSupper celebrated on Sundays,
and sometimes they would vigilthrough the night from that
service of the word into serviceof the Lord's Supper on Sunday.
(15:57):
But the strongest evidence wehave it's irrefutable evidence
in that regard is Justin Martyrin 150, it's irrefutable
evidence in that regard.
It's just a martyr in 150.
When he writes his apology tothe emperor as he's being
prepared to be shipped off toRome and eventually killed,
martyred for being a Christian.
He outlines the whole servicefor the emperor, basically to
(16:19):
say to the emperor we don't doanything weird strange, I mean,
christians were being accused ofdoing all kinds of weird things
and Justin's saying no, wedon't, here's what we do, you
know.
And so we have the outline thenfrom Justin Martyr of service
to the word, service to the Lordsupper, and a lot of the things
(16:42):
that we traditionally associateritually with that outline,
with that development, arecontained in that, in what
Justin offers.
So preaching, obviously, iscentral Prayer.
After the preaching, inpreparation for the Lord's
Supper, some kind of rite he'sindicating he doesn't lay it out
clearly, but some kind of ritefor celebrating the Lord's
Supper.
Readings I didn't mention thoseprior to the sermon.
(17:05):
He doesn't say how manyreadings, but he does say that
we read from the Old Testamentscriptures and presumably from
the New Testament scriptures.
So all of that is contained inJustin's outline.
And then that moves forward interms of the.
There isn't a lot of evidencein the pre-Nicene period, but we
have a few documents and thatessential ordo is laid out in
(17:30):
all of those documents, thengoing into the fourth century.
Once we get the fourth century,then we have all kinds of
evidence from a lot of differentsources.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Hey, did Justin Martyr talk at all about a right
of confession and absolution?
No, he didn't.
So, historically, do you?
Speaker 4 (17:49):
think— Now I should say, though, tim, repentance is
important.
Well, sure, repentance is partof his message, so that you know
the turning of Christians—whenyou become a Christian, the act
of repentance, the act ofturning against the lordship of
satan, evil, sin, etc.
Is a fundamental part of theconversion experience, and then
(18:09):
that life becomes that, thatturning becomes the shape of the
christian life moving forward.
But no, he doesn't talk aboutit like a right of confession,
absolution or something likethat yeah, and just to clarify
for people that haven't studiedlatin ordo means order, right,
structure and we so like we getthe word ordinance from that
(18:29):
right.
Yes, yeah, same source.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, that's good jack yeah well now, now my head
is going down.
The confession, absolution pathis like sure, two, 2.5
sacraments, you know.
I mean luther was evensensitive, but it didn't have a
physical element, you know.
So he said, he said no, but itwas obviously in the reformation
church, it was obviously amajor part of the liturgy.
(18:51):
Can you tell us, tell me thehistory?
I'm just curious maybe othersaren't, but they can stop
listening could you tell us ahistory of confession and
absolution being connected tothe ordo?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
yeah, sure so.
So the earliest forms, in theearly church, of confession and
absolution are what are calledtheir corporate forms of
confession and absolution.
So when somebody sinned theybecome a Christian.
They belong to the Christiancommunity, the part of the
family of God, part of thehousehold of God.
Some kind of major sin andmajor sins would include in the
(19:24):
early church period, adultery,murder, embezzling funds,
stealing those kinds of things.
So if a Christian does thesekinds of things, then they would
have entered the order ofpenitence, which meant that they
were separated from the mainassembly, couldn't participate
in the Lord's Supper.
There would be a period of timethat the pastor would say you
(19:45):
have to be in the order ofpenitence and reflect upon your
sinful condition and then youhave to publicly.
So you're public before thecongregation, Everybody knows
who's in the order of penitence.
This is a shameful act.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Well, and this included people in the early
church that may have turned awayfrom the church under
persecution right, that'scorrect.
And wanted to come back.
That's correct.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, that's correct, apostasy would also be
interesting.
So you're in this order andthen you're eventually restored
when you've undergone howeverlong the pastor thinks you need
to be in the order of penitence.
That kind of penance,eventually, or that kind of
confession absolution, driftsout of use by the time we enter
(20:28):
into the union betweenChristianity and the state.
So what we call Christendom,which happens from the fourth
century, from Constantine, allthe way up until about the
eighth century, eighth, ninthcentury, when you get to
Charlemagne, then theunification of society and
church is complete.
So by that point, this order,this public order of confession,
(20:49):
ceases to exist.
What takes over then?
It comes from the Celtic Isles,from Ireland, and that's
canonical penance, which is aform of penance that is shaped
within a monastic environment.
You know, christianity inIreland is born out of the
monastic experience.
So, uh, from that monasticexperience then, um, they're,
(21:11):
they're trying to, to, um, uh,control or or order the life of
the monks, and the way they dothat is through examination.
Um, so, examining the monk'slife, is it as pure as it needs
to be?
So they develop these lists ofsins that have to be examined,
(21:32):
and then the monk would confessthem and then be absolved and
then he would also be expectedto perform some kind of
satisfaction on the basis ofthose sins.
That form of confession andabsolution is what becomes
primary in the West and that'sthe form of confession
(21:53):
absolution that Luther railsagainst in 1520, 1521, and
following.
Luther doesn't rail necessarilyagainst confession absolution.
What he rails against is theform that it has taken, in which
the absolution is not primary.
The gospel is not primary.
In other words, you have toexamine yourself, list all your
(22:14):
you know, name all your sins youknow, and if you haven't named
all your sins, then you can'tfully, can't truly be absolved.
And of course you have toperform the satisfaction order
for your absolution to take hold, for your forgiveness to take
hold.
So there are all kinds ofrequirements, and that's all
part of the medievalunderstanding, justification.
And so it's problematic fromthat vantage point, because our
(22:35):
works are contributing to ourjustification.
So he says we need to return tothe primary form, which is
understanding that when thesinner comes and confesses that
he isn't turning, he's makingthat repentant act, and so
priority is then to forgive hissins, to restore his identity in
Christ.
And so that's what Luther does,and he points out the priority
(22:56):
of that.
So Luther's practice in his ownlife was to receive individual
confession absolution with hisconfessor, who was Bugenhagen,
the city pastor in Wittenberg,two, three, four times a week.
That was Luther's practicethroughout his entire life,
pretty much so.
(23:17):
Then in the medieval periodthere develops this rite of
public general confessionabsolution that's associated
with the vernacular in the mass.
So they start insertingvernacular services service of
the word, basically in the mass.
So the rest of the mass is inLatin and they insert this
vernacular German, french,whatever it is, depending upon
(23:39):
where you are right in themiddle, and that would often
include preaching.
Sometimes it would also includesort of a general rite of
confession absolution in thevernacular so that people can
participate in it, understand it.
All those kinds of thingsDidn't happen everywhere, but
(24:01):
certain places that defineworship and a whole host of
other things in the variousLutheran territories they start
developing use of this generalright of general confession
absolution within the divineservice.
And that goes back to thesemedieval vernacular rights that
were inserted into the mass.
They don't develop uniformlyacross all territories and there
(24:23):
are different forms that theytake, sometimes at the beginning
of the service, sometimes atthe point of the sermon,
sometimes at the end of theservice.
You know it's sort of all overthe board and that's the source
of our right of general publicconfession, absolution at the
beginning of our services inLutheran service book and
Lutheran worship and theLutheran hymnal.
You know that's the source ofthose.
(24:45):
But Luther would never havepracticed that because those
forms had not been inserted intothe right in Wittenberg when he
died.
He was aware of them because hereceives a letter from a pastor
asking about these, because thepastor has experienced them and
he wants Luther's opinion onthem and Luther says I suppose
(25:05):
they're good, they can be usefuland helpful with regards to the
gospel and absolution, as longas they don't displace private
confession and absolution, whichis really interesting because
essentially that's what happened.
You know, in terms of thepractice of the church this
becomes the primary form ofconfession and absolution and
individual confession andabsolution sort of has this sort
(25:28):
of rollercoaster historicalride in Lutheranism all the way
up to the 20th, 21st century.
So that's a long-winded answerto the history.
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
My understanding about the practice of penance
that would come after confessionand absolution was that it was
seen as a therapeutic thing.
Confession and absolution wasthat it was seen as a
therapeutic thing.
I could give this person thisthing that they could do, and
then they could feel totallyassured, beyond what I just told
them, that they're forgiven,right.
And then that kind of morphsinto or kind of develops
(26:00):
concurrently with this view ofpurgatory that these things also
now can serve to reduce yourtime in purgatory, right,
correct?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
So it's all part of the works righteousness,
orientation of the medievalchurch, right and it all
contributes to.
So there's sort of but that'snot how it begins.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Just to be sure, that's not how it begins.
It was more therapeutic in thebeginning and then it morphs
into that over time.
Right, that's great.
That's great, that's great.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Hey, that's really helpful.
I went.
I mean I have so many questions, but we got to get to other
things.
I'm going down this rabbit trail, but you know, confession and
absolution at the beginning ofthe service.
Sometimes I've thought like,well, shouldn't it kind of?
I mean, it can be anywhere.
And I think the best case forit being at the beginning is
(26:51):
connected to the invocation andthe remembrance of baptism to
move the sinner far from Godinto a recognition of their
saintliness because of the workof Christ through the cross and
the empty tomb and thereceptivity of that gift by
faith alone.
And now our hearts are preparedto hear the word right, and so
(27:14):
you can make that case.
But I can also make the casethat out of the invocation
directly into the hearing of theword, pre-lord's Supper could
be a really great time forconfession and absolution as
well as we prepare our hearts toreceive the forgiveness of sins
through the body and blood ofJesus.
Any take there, dr Burrison.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
No, unquestionably.
I agree with you completely,tim.
I mean it depends upon theritual purpose you know of the
confession and absolution.
It can serve different ritualpurposes depending upon where
it's placed and what its contextis, what it's juxtaposed to.
So if you want to associate itwith baptism and then with the
hearing of the word that'sassociated with baptism and that
(27:51):
flows from the ancient adultcatechumenate, which was the
process for making Christians inthe second, third, fourth,
fifth centuries, then that's alogical ritual association.
If you want to associate it,though, with, let's say,
reconciliation so here, paul, 1Corinthians, don't approach the
altar unless you're reconciledto your brother then confession
(28:11):
and absolution makes a lot ofsense right before the Lord's
Supper, and that's where it wasin the 1856 agenda of the
Lutheran Church of MissouriSynod.
It was after the sermon, beforethe celebration of the Lord's
Supper.
So this is even part of our owntradition.
In that regard, one of thethings that I've tried to
advocate for students isrecognizing that there are other
ways to, let's say, rituallyaccomplish what we want to
(28:33):
accomplish when we're using itat the beginning of the service.
So if we're trying to associateit with baptism I don't know
that people necessarily pick upon the association between
confession, absolution andbaptism.
I think we have to teach peopleand remind them what that
connection is, but is also to dothings like a service of
baptismal remembrance orbaptismal affirmation.
You know which?
(28:53):
Which other?
Well, for instance, the ELCA intheir new hymnal new hymnal
it's not new now, but they havethey have an alternate right of
baptismal remembrance.
I think that's really helpfulbecause it helps people to be
aware of my identity as abaptized child of God, baptized
in the gospel.
So yeah, I mean ritually, youcan use the rite of confession
(29:14):
and absolution in various placesin terms of what you want to
accomplish, and I think thatritual flexibility is at the
heart of a Lutheranunderstanding of adiaphora, you
know, for instance, Well, let'sget into it.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
You bring it up.
This is Formula of Concord,article 8, or 10, I'm sorry.
This also concerns the articleon Christian freedom, and there
is a lot of, if you hear theevolution of the liturgy.
There's a lot of Adiaphora here.
The church is just trying tofigure it out by the Spirit's
(29:46):
power to point people to Christand the gospel.
For weakening this article onChristian freedom and forcing
human commands upon the churchas necessary, as if their
omission were wrong and sinful,already paves the way for
idolatry.
Formula of Concord, and that'sin Article 10 and 15.
They talk a lot about this andwe've seen traditionalism kind
(30:07):
of taking root here in theLutheran Church, missouri Synod.
Here's a quote that you sharedTradition is the living faith of
the dead, traditionalism is thedead faith of the living.
So piggyback on even Lutherinto the formula of Concord on
his perspective toward traditionand traditionalism, dr Burrison
.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Yeah, no, that's a good question.
Luther respected the tradition?
Obviously he didn't.
He saw Lutheranism.
He saw well, he saw the church,of which he felt Lutheranism
was the expression, the properexpression of the church in
relationship to Rome and to theother reformers.
But he saw Lutheranism incontinuity with the church,
(30:52):
catholic, going all the way backto the apostles.
So that's why we confess everySunday, we are Catholic,
apostolic, a Catholic andapostolic church in the creed.
So he saw that kind ofcontinuity and he honored the
tradition.
But the tradition should neverfunction in a traditionalistic
(31:14):
sense, and that's drawing uponYaroslav Pelikan's quote.
That's where the quote comesfrom.
He delivered an essay years agoI mean in the 80s on tradition
and it's a very, very helpfulessay because what it does is it
outlines that tradition is toserve the life of the church.
The church isn't to servetradition, and that would
(31:38):
basically that's essentiallyLuther's approach.
You know, tradition shouldserve the church, not the church
serve tradition.
And sometimes we well often weget caught up in we end up
serving tradition as opposed totradition serving the life of
the church.
So it should inform thechurch's life, it should shape
(31:59):
the church's life according tothe story as you outlined
earlier.
It should center people intheir identity in the gospel, in
Christ himself.
And if tradition doesn't dothose kinds of things, then you
need to reform it.
And that's essentially whatLuther did with the Deutsche
Messe.
You're transitioning.
You know.
He made a revision to LatinMass so he didn't dispense with
(32:22):
Latin.
That was the language of thechurch, didn't dispense with it,
but he saw it primarilyoperating within um cathedral uh
churches, churches in cities,um operating with uh in
association with schools, um,because there the language of
latin was still beneficial, theywere going to teach in latin.
(33:01):
Um, yeah, nobility, right, mostof the people don't understand
Latin, so we need to make atransition into the vernacular.
So that would be an example ofthat kind of move in which
tradition does not control thechurch's life.
The church's life is served bythe tradition.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, we're seeing a rise in this, I think, in the
LCMS, in certain pockets, andthere's no judgment here, but I
feel I feel like there'sjudgment toward, toward some of
our practices, specificallyaround different instrumentation
(33:39):
.
Right, I could, I.
I think it's an art, it's amatter of Christian freedom how
a leader holds his hands wherehe stands, you know what he
wears per se to orient himselfas one who is a servant of
Christ serving God's people,word and sacrament.
I think there's a lot there.
But I know there's a lot ofintensity in our church body
(34:02):
against certain ways that theorder gets lived out and I've
been praying for contextualhospitality now for some time
and I don't see brothers goingaway from the order of the
divine service with a robust.
We're against this in any ofthe pockets that I'm a part of.
(34:22):
Like our worship, even in largechurches, you know churches
that are super mission oriented,all of us still have like the
general order of service.
The instrumentation just may bedifferent.
And the biggest thing for me tosay is were we influenced
negatively potentially by thechurch growth movement and by
(34:44):
newer songs written for moderninstrumentation?
Yes, I think.
I think there is some work thatneed and is still being done
toward that end Songs that thatmaybe were less than less than
theologically faithful.
They were obviously not Lutheransongs.
But today we have there was thesongwriters initiative you were
talking about in Wally andwe're trying to write really,
(35:06):
really excellent, excellent,jesus centered, lutheran
confessional identity centeredsongs right now.
So I guess to land it and getyour take, I don't know what
we're arguing about for peoplethat are observing some of our
worship.
It's like I think this I thinkLutheran worship, final comment
should be what unites us, likethe liturgy and the order should
(35:26):
be what unites us rather thandivides us.
But it feels like it feels likeit's still a divisive
conversation.
Any take there, Dr Burson?
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I mean there's no question it's still a divisive
conversation.
I don't think there's any anydoubt about that, and I think
part of it is is what againdrives us back to what's the
center of our identity as church, and here AC 4 and 5 are very
clear, augsburg Confession 4 andArticles 4 and 5 are very clear
(35:54):
that word and sacrament are theidentifying factors of the
church.
And you can't, going back toFormula Conqueror 10 and 15, you
can't.
And again going back to Form ofthe Conqueror 10 and 15, you
can't add to that.
You can't say well, the Pope isan identifying factor, or the
liturgy is an identifying factor, or this rite is an identifying
(36:17):
factor.
If you don't have that and glassis an identifying factor or any
particular kind of architecturefor a building, for a building,
you know, or whatever.
You can't make any of thosekinds of additions to word and
sacraments.
So that's the center of ouridentity and then so that should
lead.
That should lead, as you said,to contextual hospitality.
(36:38):
I mean, hospitality should beat the heart of that, of that
reality, and I think that's athat's comes to expression in
Luther's Freedom of a Christian,when he says a Christian is a
dutiful servant of all, subjectto none.
That's in the gospel.
You know, there is nothing thatlords over your relationship in
Christ and with God in Christ.
(36:58):
But then a Christian is adutiful servant of all, subject
to all.
So meaning that in everythingwe do and this would include
worship it's intended to servethe neighbor, and so in that
regard, I'm subject to all.
That's a hospitable stance.
Essentially, is what Luther'sadvocating for there, so that
(37:21):
when we come to the table and Ihave these kinds of ritual
practices in my worship and Ihave these kinds of ritual
practices in my book everybodyhas a ritual.
It doesn't matter what spaceyou're in or what worship
service you're in.
It all has a ritual in some wayor another.
So how do you receive what'sbeing done in that context in a
way that would continue toaffirm our unity in Word and
(37:43):
Sacrament.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, I'll give you a case in point our unity in Word
and Sacrament.
Well, I'll give you a case inpoint.
If I weren't to close any ofthe various contextual
gatherings around Word and Tablewithout saying God is good, and
the congregation responds allthe time like I would be sitting
, it would be, it would be solike people would be like what
are we?
Like?
That was embedded in ourcommunity when I came like to
(38:06):
disregard that would have beenvery un.
That's not in the divineservice.
Well, it's in the service hereat christ grainfield.
So I think I'm going to be apart of my service, yeah,
exactly absolutely.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
I mean that's a ritual act.
You know a ritual act that ispart of the life of that
particular, uh, community,christian community, church, you
know so.
So I mean, yeah, I mean youwould have been, you would have
been sinning if you had admittedit.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Yes, Our good Friday services.
When we blacken out thesanctuary, there's like not an
ounce of light that comes inthere because it's done in the
dark and you better have itblack in there.
Oh, you're going to hear aboutit.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
It's a beautiful practice.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
When I came to realize I was an outsider.
Now I'm an insider because I'vebeen here 12 years.
But right up front, I think alot of times we disrespect what
has come before us and pastorslike and you counseled toward
this beautifully, like, if youcome in and want to like, change
a lot of things concerning thedivine service, tread lightly
there, brothers, because there'sdanger in this Like, you're
(39:09):
going to hurt the core of whothat community is.
I love this quote that you sayculture is the soil in which
ceremonies and practices growand develop.
You better respect the cultureof the local church, dr Berson.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah, no, it's absolutely right, because the
nature of Christian tradition,christian history, is that
ritual is born pretty much fromculture in water, with the
triune name, that we celebratethe Lord's Supper by taking
bread, blessing it, giving itand eating it, and then some
other things like preaching.
(39:56):
We should preach, we shouldpray, you know, but there aren't
, I mean, and of course our Lordgives us the Lord's prayer as a
form of prayer.
This is a way in which to pray,and so we should pray in this
way.
But there's really very littlein the New Testament that's
ritually mandated.
And so then the church, from thebeginning, is drawing upon
(40:16):
culture.
You know, even the structurethat we talked about earlier of
Word, word service of the Word,service of the Lord's Supper,
that is a culturally derivedstructure.
It's not, I mean, yes, it'sembedded in the New Testament,
but it's a culturally derivedstructure because the service of
the word comes out of Judaismand comes out of the Jewish
experience, and the service ofthe Lord's Supper is formed
(40:39):
primarily from the Greco-Romanmind.
So culture is already at thebeginning, influencing those
kinds of things.
And then you can see thatthroughout the early church
period, you know, in terms ofdevelopment, and we're borrowing
all kinds of things.
We've talked about confessionof absolution before.
You know, the development ofthe practice of individual
confession of absolutiondevelops in the Celtic Irish
(41:01):
mind and in the Celtic culturalorientation.
So we're always engaged withcultural derivation of our
ritual practices.
And your example is how did itgo?
Speaker 2 (41:14):
God is good, God is good.
People say all the time thecongregation responds.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, wasn't Luther the one that made congregational
singing popular?
Right, I don't know how popularthat was prior to.
It's not information there wasnone.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah, there was none so yeah, that's a good example,
jack, of a culturally derivedreality.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, right question it's like the culture would have
been, I don't know, you wouldhave chanting from the the
priests, right, and I don't know, maybe a choir, but you
wouldn't have congregationalsinging, right, and this was a
radically different thing.
And now that's shaped, nowthat's common in catholic
churches.
Yeah, interesting, right.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Yeah, so they took that influence onto themselves,
yeah, no, it's right, this isright this is good, dr burris.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
yeah, well, wait, I could go.
We got to have you back onbecause there's so many.
We just touched the surface ona whole host of topics but I
think, to close, we are makingthe, I think, jesus-centered,
loving, kind argument forcontextual hospitality and there
are some in our church body whosay that the culture and
(42:23):
context I'll just throw outwhere my grandma lives up in
Crookston Minnesota, that there,my grandma lives up in
Crookston Minnesota, thatthere's very little difference
between Crookston, minnesota andGilbert Arizona, where we live,
and I've been there and I'vebeen here and I'm just here to
tell you like there's a lot ofdifference.
Doing ministry here is verydifferent than small town
(42:43):
Midwest and I just don't thinkthat those who have that
experience understand thedifferent needs.
And it's not better or worse,it's just the different context
in which we find ourselves rightnow and I'm praying, I'm
praying.
Really a lot of our podcastsjust orient around around
praying for contextualhospitality and there's radical
(43:04):
differences across the 35districts of the Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod.
Any comments there, dr Burrison?
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Yeah, so I'm reminded of Ambrose of Milan, so going
back to the fourth century.
So in his MystagogicalCatechesis, which are the
sermons or teaching that he didafter the baptism of all those
who were preparing for baptismat Easter, after the baptism of
all those who were preparing forbaptism at Easter, and he
indicates that in Milan which isa very unusual practice they
(43:32):
foot wash during the baptismalrite.
So they wash the feet of thecatechumens during the baptismal
rite.
And Ambrose observes this isunique to Milan, this is a
Milanese custom.
And he says we know they don'tdo this in Rome, but that's okay
, because this is our practicehere, this is what we do in
Milan.
So he's clearly indicating that, culturally, there's a
(43:56):
different environment,contextual environment, in Rome,
I mean in Milan, and it'slegitimate what they do, even
though in Rome they do somethingdifferent they don't practice
the foot washing and baptism.
So that's a parallel to theexact thing you're talking about
, tim, you know there are thesedifferences?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, and they saw themselves as united in the
Christian church.
No question, no question.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Nobody was saying you're not Christian because you
practice foot washing and yourbaptismal rite.
No, nobody was saying it.
And if they were, they werewrong, you know so so yes.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I love that you have a quote.
We're going to close with this.
The liturgist your quote on theliturgist is a presider in
Christ for the assembly inculture.
So here's what you say when itgathers and this is the church,
in the liturgy, the assemblystands in worship before the
creator as sacraments andservant in Christ of a new world
(44:49):
, a new made world.
This is serious business.
You say, the liturgicalminister presides not over the
assembly but within it.
He does not lead it but servesit.
How is this a different posturefor the liturgist?
And maybe you got this actuallyfrom Aidan Kavanaugh.
I'm just seeing that right now,but it's a great quote.
It's a different posture forthe liturgist, and maybe you got
this actually from AidanKavanaugh, I'm just seeing that
right now, but it's a greatquote.
(45:10):
It's a different posture.
We're here to serve rather thannecessarily to lead.
We're servant leaders, if youwill, first and foremost for the
propagation of the gospel, forthe sending of the saints out to
make more and more disciples.
Share a little bit around thatquote, dr Burson.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Yeah.
So the liturgical leader andthen this starts with the pastor
, obviously, but also wouldstretch into other roles of
leadership within worship isalways one whose call and I'm
using call broadly there thetask of responsibility that is
given to that particular person.
And a pastor, obviously it's inhis ordination and his call
(45:47):
from the congregation is alwaysone called to serve the church.
I mean that's in a sense that'salso AC4 and AC5.
The means of grace.
What's the pastor there for?
He's there to serve thecongregation with the gospel and
the story of God in Christ.
That's what he's there to do.
(46:09):
He's not trying to establishsome kind of identity.
He's not trying to establishsome kind of control of culture.
He's not trying to institutepractices that clearly
demonstrate the continuity ofthe church all the way back to
the first century.
That's not his primary task.
His primary task is to servethe assembly with the gospel and
(46:29):
, as Kavanaugh says, to shapethis understanding that the
kingdom of God, the city of God,if you want to call it that the
city of God, has been embeddedin the world so as to be the
agent of mission to the world.
So the pastor's primarilyresponsibility and other
liturgical leaders is to shapethe congregation to be the city
(46:53):
of God, to be the kingdom of Godin the midst of a fallen world,
in the midst of a world that isfalling toward destruction, so
that they can see what God isdoing in Christ.
That's what the leader issupposed to do in terms of his
service to the congregation.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well, it's very evident, then, that the liturgy
is a means toward mission.
The end is God's mission, thatJesus came to seek and save the
lost.
And we gather to recognize howlost we are, apart from the
saving of Christ, and then to begathered and scattered out into
our various vocations to bringthe love and light, the gospel
of Jesus Christ, to those whoare walking in darkness.
(47:32):
If the liturgy serves as anends rather than a means to an
end and I fear in some pocketsit's the end rather than a
catalyst for catechesis andtruth carried out into the world
if it becomes the end, we'remissing, it, we're making and
this is where, Dr Kieschnick,you can disagree with Dr
Kieschnick you're worshipingworship.
(47:53):
He said that before.
We're making the liturgy anidol.
Any comments there?
It becomes an end and it's notthe end, it's a scattering of
the gospel.
Right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
The end is the kingdom of God, which means a
new heaven and a new earth whereChrist reigns and rules over
all things and where he is thesource of our life in God.
That's the end, not the liturgy, and the liturgy should point
to that end.
You know, the liturgy shouldprovide a context in which we
realize and see that end.
(48:25):
We envision it by faith.
That's what the liturgy shouldserve enable that to happen.
But it in and of itself it'snot the end in any way
whatsoever and it can't be.
And it becomes back thatthere's no question that's
idolatrous.
Then something has replacedChrist, the liturgy has replaced
Christ, rather than seeingChrist at the center of the
(48:46):
kingdom of God that is embeddedin the worship experience of the
congregation.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
So good, Jack.
Closing comments.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
No, I agree, I mean that's.
I think that's the key thing is, we worship God, we don't
worship worship.
And worship is an amazing meansto hear God's word.
We should take it serious, weshouldn't be reckless with it,
but we should also demonstrateradical hospitality to the
community with it as well.
So that's what I'm praying forfor every healthy church to
(49:15):
embrace that posture.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I'm into that.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
This was so fun, brother.
We'll have to have you back onA lot more than can be said.
I love getting into the historyof the liturgy.
I'm a history guy from way backin the day, so it was
fascinating.
If people want to connect withyou, brother, how can they do so
?
Speaker 4 (49:31):
They can connect with me through my email buresonk at
csledu or go to the seminary'swebsite wwwcsledu and spit it
out.
Connect with me through that aswell, you're awesome.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Thanks for hanging with us today.
Listener, please like,subscribe, comment.
I'm sure we'll get somecomments and hopefully the
comments lead us to unity, leadus to.
And if you've got a differenceof opinion, man, shoot me an
email, talman at cglchurchorg,and we'll have you on.
You got a difference of opinion.
I think the church needs to getbetter at listening, caring for
one another, disagreeingagreeably and centering us by
(50:08):
the Spirit and the Word on themission of God.
God's call to get all of hiskids back.
It's a good day.
Go and make it a great day.
Wonderful work, dr Burrison.
Thanks, jack.
God bless guys.
Speaker 4 (50:17):
My pleasure.
Thanks, Tim.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the
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(50:40):
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