As I have mentioned in the past, I have very much appreciated and benefited from the fraternal and collegial camaraderie of the Council of Presidents. Although the members of the Council – the thirty-five district presidents, the six synod vice presidents, and President Harrison – all have different ideas, perspectives, and approaches, as well as disagreements on matters of importance, there is very much a shared commitment to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, and a mutual desire to serve, support, and care for the pastors, congregations, schools, teachers, other commissioned workers, and recognized service organizations of the Synod to the best of our respective and collective abilities. All our meetings together aim at these very things.
I have no doubt that one of the reasons for this fraternity of colleagues, even among men of sometimes pronounced differences of opinion, is that every one of our meetings includes time spent in the Word of God and prayer, in the study and discussion of the Bible and the Book of Concord, and in the in-depth discussion of theology in connection with the life of the Church. These multiple ways of entering into the consideration and conversation of God’s Word are no mere “side bar,” but a mainstay of our time together on each and every occasion. Such wrestling with our theology is likewise the best source and strength of our pastoral fellowship within our circuits and at every level of our life together as The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
Over the past several years we’ve been steadily working our way through the articles of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. At this week’s meeting of the Council of Presidents, which began this past Saturday, I had the privilege of presenting on Article XV, concerning “Church Usages” or “Ecclesiastical Rites.” Preparing to speak on this important article of our Lutheran Confessions was both interesting and invigorating, and I was grateful for the assignment which afforded me this opportunity to dig deep into the topic.
Article XV of the Augsburg Confession and its Apology make two fundamental points, each accompanied by some clarifying sub-points. In the first place, we confess that the customary or traditional ceremonies of the church ought to be kept where they can be used without sin, and as they contribute to the good order and tranquility of the church. The crucial second point is that the people are to be carefully instructed that such human ceremonies not be made into burdens on anyone’s conscience, as though they were necessary for salvation, or as though they merited grace, forgiveness of sins, and righteousness before God.
There is a certain tension in these two points, which can present a real challenge to us in practice. Our Confessions observe that human ceremonies have a beauty, goodness, and wisdom, which can too easily tempt our sinful hearts to prize them above the Word of God and our “ordinary” vocations and stations in life. By the same token, there are similar dangers involved in doing away with customary ceremonies, as other human works and new ceremonies replace them. The problem is found in our fallen flesh and sinful hearts, and the only solution is found in the Word of God, in the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
Our Confessions follow Dr. Luther in recognizing the distinction and relationship between faith and love – the very things which resolve the “tension” involved in Article XV. It is by faith that we are set free from all legalism and works righteousness, which would weigh upon consciences. But in love for one another, for our forebears in the faith, and for our neighbors in the world, we exercise our freedom by agreeing upon common practices for the sake of unity, and gladly make use of customary ceremonies for the sake of the clarity and consistency of our life together. This is why the Lutheran church orders of the sixteenth century adopted practices in each territory, and made every effort to share similar practices with the neighboring territories, but without condemning or breaking fellowship with those neighbors over differences in adiaphora.
The Lutheran Reformers and Confessors differed significantly from their protestant counterparts in the way they approached, thought about, and practiced the faith in these matters. Whereas the Protestants tended to reject any sort of ceremony that lacked a specific biblical mandate, the Lutherans kept those traditional practices that did not contradict the Word of God. That was no accident, it was the conservative approach affirmed in Article XV of the Augsburg Confession. Not as though necessary for justification, but for the sake of love, unity, peace, and good order: points that are repeated in at least half a dozen other places within the same Confession, as well as being exemplified in the actual life of the Lutheran churches throughout the sixteenth century.
One of the things that struck me as I was preparing to present on Article XV is the way that more recent debates on worship practices have often reversed the way that the Lutheran Reformers and Confessors understood the roles of faith and love in these matters. For Dr. Luther and those who followed his lead, it is in faith before God that we are perfectly free, slaves to no one, whereas in love for our neighbors we are the servants and slaves of all. Applied to worship practices, we are bound to no man-made ceremonies as we stand before God by faith in Christ Jesus; yet, in love we willingly adopt and abide by agreed-upon adiaphora embraced in common with our brothers and sisters in Christ, gladly receiving and using the traditions handed down from our fathers and mothers in the faith. In our own day, by contrast, it is common to hear arguments that worship requires only what is necessary to faith – the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Holy Sacraments – whereas love is invoked to embrace a wide diversity of practices. By this approach, faith is no longer the guardian of freedom before God in the righteousness of Christ, but establishes a minimum standard and requirement of practice, a lowest-common-denominator of unity; and love no longer directs us to compromise our personal preferences and discipline our practice for the sake of peace and unity with others, but is seen as a license for self-expression.
As always, our Lutheran Confessions call us back to the Word of God, to the Gospel of Christ, to the righteousness which is ours by His grace through faith in His Cross and Resurrection, and to the life of love which is lived according to His Ten Commandment within our respective callings and stations in relation to our neighbors in the world. Faith toward God and fervent love toward one another is the constant refrain, not only in Luther’s beautiful post-Communion Collect, but throughout the Liturgy of the Gospel and in every nook and cranny of our life together in Christ. The wisdom of our Lutheran forefathers recognized the blessing of customary ceremonies, while also insisting that consciences must be guarded against every temptation of works righteousness. We do well to exercise that same wisdom as we live and worship in the fear and faith of God.