ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 76.LW2 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> JOSHUA: Luther also wrote the mass in the language of the German people; didn't he? What did he want to accomplish with this German mass? >> DR. JAMES BRAUER: In that German mass, Luther shows us what can be done with our eighth Lutheran principal, cultural adaptation, a process employing critical judgment about theology, liturgy and culture in matters of *audi opera, or things that are in the middle, neither commanded by God nor forbidden by him, but where we have to think about it. And, obviously, we can see at work here to make clear what God offers in Jesus Christ and for people to express thankfulness of faith in ways that are suitable to them. As the eight point ends in my draft of it, as Luther himself demonstrated. So that's what we're looking at. And here, he's trying to fit the German people. So now the whole service that has existed and Latin for one thousand years, he's moving into German. He's thinking, as you read his essay about this, of the uneducated lay folk. Now, I've often thought of that, and I'm sure others approach it that way, that we're talking about they never went to school. Because we think of education as school. But if you read carefully, I think you will discover that he really means this German mass to be for uneducated in the faith. There's almost a sense of evangelism about this against the false doctrine that they grew up with. So in the 1525 German mass, now this is a couple years after the Latin one, he needs a service that is so clear that they won't miss it. So this goes to various things. He's going to preach and teach in German. Now, that could happen in the Latin mass, a sermon in German. He's thinking of a whole schedule in Wittenberg and other such cities where on Sunday, you have a schedule that has matins early in the morning, then a Holy Communion service or mass before lunch, in the afternoon a vespers service so that you have two or three occasions for preaching. So whatever your station in life and your schedule on a Sunday, whether servant or master, whether boss or a child, you have a service to come to and a sermon to hear. He is thinking of through the week, and he's thinking that this unfolds different parts of scripture. The Sunday, for example, the gospel can be used at the Mass, and you can preach, say, on the epistle in the afternoon, so a breadth of scriptural material. Monday and Tuesday to have services, little gatherings with a time to teach the catechism, and hymns might be used with it, and prayers and so forth, and a small liturgy around it. Wednesday, to have a service where the sermon is from Matthew. Thursday and Friday to have services where the epistles and other New Testament scriptures are employed. On Saturday, to preach on John at vespers, in the evening. He's thinking of children being involved. For example, the schoolchildren in Wittenberg who were at the Latin school are learning German at home, but they're learning Latin at school and maybe even other languages. And they will read the scriptures in that morning matins, and they will chant the psalms in these other languages so when he's thinking German mass, he's thinking German services, he's thinking also of what other languages are being used. He's thinking hymns in the vernacular. So at this point, he is also producing some that can be used. In fact, in 1524, if I recall the date correctly, a little hymnal with eight hymns was produced in Wittenberg and Luther provides some new ones and other people as well. And some old ones translated. The pastor continues to chant the readings, the liturgy, and the music has to fit the German language. So let me explain that a little bit. The Latin mass in Sunday of great celebration or a festival, normally would try to do this with music, if you could. Now, the rural churches maybe didn't have the forces to do that, but you would need a chanter at the altar, the priest, you would need a choir who could take the portions of the service that would have music, and they may even sing hymns. The congregation might join in those hymns if they know it. So it's mainly the choir and the pastor who are going to do the service with music. So now he's thinking for our uneducated lay folk, and we can say the rural churches that are not going to be doing Latin, you have the pastor plus the congregation as a choir. There is no choir except the congregation. So what does he do? He says why don't we take the Sanctus and turn it into a hymn-like structure. Now, granted, his Isaiah Mighty Seer is the longest hymn in the book in terms of tune, but it is learnable. And every time you did the service, the congregation would sing this story of Isaiah next to the Holy Communion that they would receive and the words of institution. And you would obviously get the connection that the holiness of God and the awesome distance you were from God is broken through. He comes among us in the Lord's Supper receiving Christ's body and blood. How wonderful that God actually comes to my lips like the coals came to Isaiah�s lips and that the congregation would sing this kind of praise act at that point in the service, words of scripture paraphrased to be a way to express it again and again each time it�s celebrated. They became the choir. Now, the pastor would chant the readings. This had some benefit in getting it into a large room because they chanted text is actually easier to understand than spoken one. And, he would sing his part of the service. Now, he was quite adamant about pastors singing. In fact, he said if you can't sing, you shouldn't be a pastor. We've lowered standards for today because this requirement is not honest anymore, but that was his notion. So music was the way to do this service, whereas in the private mass system and the low mass, or that without music, had become the dominant one. He restores music to its proper place as the central way to do it as it was probably done in the ancient church. To have this poetic expression and the artistic expression. Now, that's challenged today when we have, you know, the parking lot problem. You've got to finish it in 58 minutes. And so we get different arrangement around the use of music. But this was his notion. So he needs now to have music that fits with German text and actually has solutions for chanting, solutions for hymn paraphrase that will do this. And if he can use old music, fine. It has to fit the German language. This is not like a Ford part--a Ford car part on a bicycle. They�re actually designed to fit together so he got a grant. Well, not a grant, but he talked the Duke into providing him with musician help to work with him for about three weeks, as I recall, so they could come up with all these musical solutions and that's actually in the German mass, how to chant, even the epistle and gospel. So he's looking for that kind of solution to fit the German people. Now, we have a design that�s even simplified so you begin with a hymn or German psalm, not just psalmody and introit by a choir, but use a hymn design perhaps. Then a Kyrie, he says a three-fold one, a small design, is good. Lord have mercy. Then the collect chanted. Then the epistle, and he's using an old eighth tone. That's a scale pattern. Then you could insert a German hymn. That's where the choir had done a gradual, then a gospel song on the fifth tone, a creed sung as a hymn so we have that big hymn version of the Nicene Creed that he prepared. A sermon on the gospel, the Lord's Prayer is paraphrased as an admonition. Now, he's thinking here of a small congregation in a rural place. He's got priests who are not very good at doing sermons and talking. They weren't taught that. They just did the mass according to the book up to that point. So he gives them an outline out of the Lord's Prayer to remind people, a teaching moment, each time they come to the Holy Communion what this is really about. That's the paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer and admonition to the congregation. So they're continually taught what this is, again. Then the words of institution. And now he has a practice that seems strange to us. The men would come forward and receive the bread first, then the women. Then you would do the words of institution around the wine and you distribute the blood of our Lord first to the men, and then the women. Now the men and women thing was how the ancient church did it. That went all the way back to the ancient times. It's disappeared in our twentieth century, but it was there. And so it is not a new thing that he asked for that. And during this time, people could even sing hymns. But at least the congregation will sing the Sanctus around this distribution moment so that they could think how wonderful that God comes to us this way. And then a quick close with a collect and a benediction. So it's a tightened up service, one that employs German language. Now, he didn't intend this as legislation to stop diversity. He was thinking of Wittenberg and the parishes in his region. In faith, the Christian, he says, is free of form. We're not required to have a particular form. But in love, we will discipline ourselves so that what we do serves the neighbor or the one who needs to be served by God's work among us. Our aim is to teach the word. We can have the altar away from the wall. That would be nice, he said, the pastor facing the people. Well, in the twentieth century, among us, that started to happen somewhat regularly. German hymns for parts of the service, as we mentioned, chant music that serves the German text and has to be designed that way and the content of this service is never a false doctrine or fuzzy kind of doctrine, but a clear pointing to Jesus Christ. That's what he accomplished in the mass, and it is a beautiful way of saying how the *audi opera and the commanded things can be handled right for a particular people.