Worship Then-and-Now Is Topic at Lutheran Seminaries

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Dr. Mary Collins, OSB, and the Rev. Gordon W. Lathrop said the story of Jesus Christ has been retold around the world for thousands of years through Christian worship. They explored "the principles of the cultural adaptation of Christian liturgy" and other challenges facing modern churches in the 1999 Hein-Fry Lecture Series that concluded May 5.
Collins chairs the Department of Religion and Religious Education, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and Lathrop is professor of liturgy and chaplain, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Each made presentations at four of the eight seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Lathrop said the classic order of worship found in the Lutheran church and elsewhere is not tied to a particular tradition or attitude, but traces its origins to the pattern found in the gospel narratives relating the story of Jesus Christ. Much tinkering with the classic order of worship is therefore out of bounds, he said.
"The worship order applies the history of the story of Jesus to the present day lives of worshipers who read the gospel narratives. Our worship seeks to relate this history to the modern reader's different circumstances, purpose and reasons," said Lathrop. The worship order has been repeated throughout Christian history by communities fiercely interested in keeping Jesus' story alive, he said.
Lathrop cautioned his audience against what he called "deformations that are popular" in modern society. Such deformations tend to leave out preaching or to lose the centrality of the Lord's Supper in worship, he said. Lathrop said a misreading of Scriptures has led some worship leaders to make forgiveness necessary before one can partake in the Lord's Supper rather than seeing that all belong to the body of Christ.
Collins said human beings naturally resist giving up their claim to universal self-importance, so they demand from God "an extra-terrestrial= presence to ease their burdens" and complain about the experience of God's absence, failing to recognize the presence of God even when God is "intentionally absent" from the people God loves.
The practice of symbolically intense worship is the setting where people sense both the mystery and presence of a God in whom they place their trust, said Collins. In such community believers "short-circuit their acknowledged self-centeredness."
Through sacraments and by means of God's grace discovered in liturgy, worshipers continually sense the revelation of Christ in their lives, calling them out of themselves, Collins said. Therefore, worship practices have the potential to establish a growing understanding of what it means to be in relationship with Christ in the context of the God-given history of the world.
The practice of liturgy today demands new approaches in many quarters, Collins said, if the practice is to achieve its potential for helping strangers interpret the meaning of the story of Jesus. She said that many cultures, including African traditions, use repetition and dance in liturgy that is all-enveloping.
"This all-encompassing celebration of mind, body and spirit is an effective way of engaging in liturgy," Collins said. "It is a way of retrieving aspects that have sometimes been dropped from liturgical practice, a way of ritualizing ideas through the use of every means possible." She made a strong case for such celebrations "for the sake of the next generation."
Collins began the series Feb. 4 at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C.; Feb. 16 at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.; Feb. 25-26 at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif.; and March 9 at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.
Lathrop continued the discourse Feb. 11 at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa.; April 22 at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa; April 28 at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago; and May 5 at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.
The Hein-Fry Lecture Series predates the ELCA, which was formed in 1988. The endowed theological lecture series fosters original scholarship and enriches theological dialogue throughout the church. It combines the Dr. Carl Christian Hein Memorial Seminary Lectures of the former American Lutheran Church and the Franklin Clark Fry Theological Lectures of the former Lutheran Church in America.
The series is coordinated through the ELCA Division for Ministry.

[**Mark A. Staples, coordinator of publications and public information,
Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, provided the content of
this story.]

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