The post below, Faith Comes from the Preached Word of God, should lead all ministers and laity to the same conclusion as Luther's - the preaching of the Word is the most important aspect of the Christian Church.
Each week offers plenty of time to prepare a faithful sermon and write it out. That is the first priority. Second is pastoral visitation and education of the young. Gym workouts are acceptable if the minister gives the Word a workout during the week.
One way to prepare is to ditch the ridiculous Church of Rome three-year lectionary and return to the historic one-year, which is used in The Lutheran Hymnal and Lenker's Sermons of Luther. Then, read this sermon to the family, during the week, as leader of the household. Lenker often has long versions of the sermon and multiple copies. Ideas, illustrations, and Biblical interpretation are wrapped into one inexpensive but priceless package.
Starting perhaps on Thursday or Friday, the sermon should be written out completely. Writing is the most organized form of communication. Our thoughts are a jumble. Conversation is wordy and repetitive. Writing puts all the thoughts in order and develops them. "Writing makes a precise mind." The sermon should be delivered without the manuscript. The minister may need a short outline to stay on track. Walther wrote about having the complete manuscript there, but preaching freely. Many of us are too anxious and will fall into reading from the manuscript rather than simply using it as our blankie.
A Biblical text has its own outline. Each verse is a point. Stop when finished. A well prepared sermon will have an hour's worth of material available in spoken form. Good writing is more like an iceberg. Most of the preparation is concealed. Getting up in the pulpit and winging it does not work but the minister has a lid of ice under him, not an ice mountain. When preaching without preparation, he is likely to sink "beneath the waves with watery groan, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
The Book of Concord and Lenski have many good insights to add. Thanks to the Net, a minister can drop Luther quotes, Book of Concord citations, and Lenski into the text. The digital Lenski and Luther will give the exact citation with the copy and paste. Does Groeschel offer that? No.
I may be unusual in this regard, but I like to put a lot of good quotations at the end. The quotations I use are ones that I have collected over the years. All of them have citations, and they are free for anyone to use. I would rather read good material over and over than look for a fresh and exciting heretical statement designed for itching ears.
The printed sermon ought to be posted for everyone to read. Mark 4 (Matthew 13) teaches us to scatter the Word the way the Sower broadcasts the seed. Google Blogger makes it easy to post the sermon. The Bethany Lutheran Worship blog has sermons only and almost nothing else. Look at the map. People all over the world are using it daily. Plagiarists are not going to blog their sermons, because it is too easy to match them up with the original authors - who are never Lutheran.
I do not think that linking the audio is adequate. That will not work for many people. I never bother with someone's audio file. I doubt whether Granny in Wachahootchie Falls is going to use it either. Video files can be useful because the home-bound person is a part of the church service that way. As one man with ALS said, "I feel like I am there with you when I watch the video." Previously we had audio files for him to hear.
Video is fairly easy to manage, inexpensive to start. We are using Ustream right now. Bumping off the ads is going to cost members $4 a month. A large church could do that by paying the group fee, which is $100. There are other approaches, but all it takes is broadband and a $100 camera. One independent congregation uploads the file later. We broadcast live and save the file.
The Sermon is the Big Picture If the Christian Church is the way in which people receive grace, then the congregation and pastor are obliged to provide this grace as lavishly as possible. People do not come to church to be beat up by the Law and handed more Law as their medicine. That works with cults but it does not advance the Gospel.
The sermon is the primary Means of Grace in the Christian Church. The neo-crypto-papists want to elevate Holy Communion to that position. We provide Holy Communion each week for various reasons, but the preached Word is first. Holy Communion as the visible Word has far more meaning if it follows a real sermon that conveys Christ to the audience.
The congregation has many ways to support or undermine the sermon. I receive nothing but support from the readers and listeners, but my situation is unusual.
Members undermine the sermon by making the pastor the Keeper of the Flower Chart, the Man Responsible for Why the Church is Dirty on Sunday Morning, and the Main Reason Why Aunt Matilda Quit.
I am convinced that a Means of Grace congregation will exemplify what Luther taught about the Scriptures.
5 comments:
I think it is dangerous to elevate either Word or Sacrament to a place of superiority over the other - the two are indissolubly linked to one another. Elevating the Sacrament over the Word leans toward popery, while the other extreme leans toward pietistic Protestantism. I think that our dear Augsburg Confession put it superbly in defining the relationship between the Mass and the Sacraemnt:
"Wherefore the Mass is to be used to this end, that there the Sacrament [Communion] may be administered to them that have need of consolation; as Ambrose says: Because I always sin, I am always bound to take the medicine. [Therefore this Sacrament requires faith, and is used in vain without faith.]
Now, forasmuch as the Mass is such a giving of the Sacrament, we hold one communion every holy-day, and, if any desire the Sacrament, also on other days, when it is given to such as ask for it" (AC:XXIV:33-34
It seems clear from this that our Confession makes the "giving of the Sacrament" one of the primary elements of the Mass. Consequently, it is worth noting the Lord's providence in giving us the Blessed Sacrament . . . in the Holy Supper, faulty human pastors are not the ones "giving" It. In most "Lutheran" churches today, the "Sermons" are simply horrid. Where the Sacrament is, however, at least there is Gospel and Christ, even if He is absent in the Sermon. This is also why there is wisdom in the Historic liturgy of the Church; even if the Pastor botches the Sermon, the Means of Grace that is the Spoken Word is still present, in the varied and comprehensive fashion provided by the ancient one-year lectionary (as this post rightly notes).
While a good Lutheran Sermon is another exposition of the Spoken Word, the Lutheran Divine Service is designed so that the Holy Spirit still presents Word and Sacrament even when faulty and disingenuous pastors are not providing such a Sermon.
As a closing thought, I defer to the quote from C. P. Krauth regarding Holy Communion that I posted on my Facebook the other day:
"Men have talked and written as if the doctrine of our Church, on this point [of Holy Communion], were a stupid blunder, forced upon it by the self-will and obstinacy of one man. The truth is, that this doctrine – clearly revealed in the New Testament, clearly confessed by the early Church – lies at the very heart of the Evangelical system. Christ is the center of the system, and in the Supper is the center of Christ’s revelation of Himself. The glory and mystery of the incarnation combine there as they combine nowhere else. Communion with Christ is that by which we live, and the Supper is “the Communion.” Had Luther abandoned this vital doctrine, the Evangelical Church would have abandoned him. He did not make this doctrine – next in its immeasurable importance to that of justification by faith, with which it indissolubly coheres. The doctrine made him. The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is the most vital and practical in the whole range of the profoundest Christian life – the doctrine which, beyond all others, conditions and vitalizes that life, for in it the character of faith is determined, invigorated, and purified as it is nowhere else. It is not only a fundamental doctrine, but is among the most fundamental of fundamentals" (Charles Porterfield Krauth, "The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology").
Daniel,
You have a point.
In most "Lutheran" churches today, the "Sermons" are simply horrid
I would leave if the Lutheran pastor gives me a diet of horrid sermons. Besides, he is not the only one who is giving me the Sacrament.
Where the Sacrament is, however, at least there is Gospel and Christ, even if He is absent in the Sermon.
This is a poor excuse to put up with low standard.
I have been in the RC church - they got liturgy and they got Sacrament, in fact when the priest was allowed not to give a sermon, he just does the liturgy and gives us the Sacrament, there was no Gospel.
It is the preaching that allows you to hear and understand what you are taking in the Lord Supper. If there was no instruction, ie, no preaching, then you are taking the Sacrament ex-opera operato, a blunder which the BoC rejects.
LPC
LPC,
The Papists have no Sacrament, merely the false hope of some continued/perpetual sacrifice for sin - a meritorious work to please an angry God.
That being said, the Words of Institution are still present, as is the liturgy and the daily lectionary readings (albeit in the innovative 3-year form). While the falsehood of Rome and the Dominion of the Antichrist is great, the Gospel's power is greater and is still thankfully present; the Holy Spirit is able to change hearts even by means of the Gospel Word presented in the liturgy and other areas of the Roman Mass. To say there is no Gospel in the liturgy is disingenuous at best, Radically Protestant at worst.
I am concerned by your assertion that the preached sermon is necessary to receive the benefits of the Lord's Supper. I read something different in our Confessions. I read that the efficacious Word of God gives the Sacraments Their power and validates the promises and blessings that They offer.
Now, I certainly agree that the Blessed Sacrament does not benefit us ex opere operato, i.e. because of our actions of giving or receiving. No, in the true Catholic Church we recognize that the Sacraments benefit us because Christ's Holy Word says They do. Period.
Daniel
You got some self contradictions in your assertions.
Clue. You said
The Papists have no Sacrament
Yet you said this.
the Holy Spirit is able to change hearts even by means of the Gospel Word presented in the liturgy and other areas of the Roman Mass
The question is not whether God is able for God is able to do anything. That is not the issue.
Try not to be over zealous. I am not being disingenuous I am being consistent in my testimony against Rome.
Incidentally I heard the mass also in Latin.
In my case, by God's grace, the realization that Jesus died for me freely as a gift did not come while I was sitting inside the Roman Church going through the motion of the Liturgy.
My beef is that your argument effectively says the Sacrament is sufficient making the preached Word not necessary. You did not say this but that is the defense of your argument in defensing Roman Liturgicism.
Incidentally I have sat with Lutherans who believe they are saved because they go through the Liturgy every Sunday. What is this but another form of works.
Now, I certainly agree that the Blessed Sacrament does not benefit us ex opere operato, i.e. because of our actions of giving or receiving. No, in the true Catholic Church we recognize that the Sacraments benefit us because Christ's Holy Word says They do. Period
Yes but where did you get this?
You did not get this by mere hearing the Institution without teaching did you, for otherwise you could have been communing when you were 2 years old.
You got this because of Catechisis and my point is that preaching is an extension of .... catechisis.
This is the reason why Lutherans do not commune children and they do not commune anyone who has not been catechized.
Further your saying Now, I certainly agree that the Blessed Sacrament does not benefit us ex opere operato
Shows that you are proving my point, that the Word of Institution must be properly understood so as to be appropriated and believed.
LPC
Your argument is disengenuous, LPC. Taken to its logical conclusion, baptism does not and cannot save infants, because they cannot "properly understand" it.
FALSE!
The Holy Spirit enlightens hearts and minds - even those of infants and the mentally challenged - to understand the Words and Promises of God. "Human reason, though it ponders, cannot fathom these Great Wonders."
This is not Calvinism; everything doesn't fit nicely into a rational little box. We do not believe that God's gifts benefit us because we understand them.
"Where did I get this?" From the faith implanted in my heart by the Holy Ghost through the Sacraments and the enlightenment of Holy Writ.
You say that God's ability to do anything "is not the issue." But, my friend, it is ENTIRELY the issue. The issue which we are discussing is whether or not God's Means are efficacious if we are unable to understand them with our puny human brains. Alas, I can tell you that we are not able of our own merit. If a complete understanding is necessary for salvation, then we are surely damned. "Now I see a poor reflection, as in a mirror." We can only understand that which the Holy Spirit teaches us.
Can we learn more - can we get into the "spiritual meat?" Of course. But faith the size of the mustard seed can move mountains, and that faith does not come from ourselves.
As a final anecdote, I did not say that the preached Word is unnecessary; to the contrary, I said that the Blessed Sacrament and the Proclamation of the Holy Gospel are indissolubly linked. It's not an either-or game, as you're trying to make it out to be. It's both-and. What you fail to recognize is that the preached Word is available *even in the Sacrament,* even in the liturgy, and even in heterodox circles. Sure, some people view "going to church" in a meritorious light; that doesn't negate my point. God's Word accomplishes its purpose no matter where (or by whom) it is proclaimed. If you find that to be self-contradictory, take it up with the One who said "My Word will not return to Me empty."
Post a Comment