“Unity in the Way of Worship (Ordo): Altar & Pulpit Fellowship and Liturgical Integrity”

The Augustana confesses and identifies the Church as “the assembly of saints in which the Gospel is taught purely and the Sacraments are administered rightly” (AC VII). That is to describe and define the Church in terms of the Holy Ministry (as confessed in AC V). I have long been struck by how closely that description matches the picture of the Church that Dr. Weinrich drew for us from St. Ignatius of Antioch back in the day – that of the bishop and the people gathered around the Lord’s Altar for the giving and receiving of Christ Jesus in His Word and Sacrament. Various theologians have referred to this sort of picture as a “Eucharistic Ecclesiology,” and I have found that way of thinking (in general) to be salutary. As we all eat of the one Bread which is the Body of Christ, and as we all drink from the one Cup which is the New Testament in His Blood, so are we all together one Body in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 10:16-17).

To think and speak of the Church on the basis of “the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments” (AC V) is to identify the Church liturgically, that is, with reference to the Divine Service. Really, the Holy Ministry, the Divine Service, and the Liturgy all refer to more or less the same thing from slightly different angles; each at its heart comprises the Gospel as it is preached and administered. Or, to say it another way, as the Apology explains, “the term ‘liturgy’ squares well with the ministry.” It is an ancient word for “public service,” which coincides “with our position that a minister who consecrates shows forth the Body and Blood of the Lord to the people, just as a minister who preaches shows forth the Gospel to the people” (Apology XXIV.80-83). A liturgist cares for and/or administers public goods.

The “Liturgy,” in this respect, is narrowly defined and understood as the public reading and preaching of the Holy Scriptures, unto repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, and the administration of His Holy Supper in the Name and remembrance of Jesus, according to His Institution (1 Cor. 11:23-26). At this point we do not yet have in view any particular forms of the Liturgy, nor any of those “human traditions or rites and ceremonies, instituted by men” (AC VII), which have developed over the course of the Church’s life on earth. To begin with we are dealing with those things that are constitutive, definitive, essential, and necessary to the Church, her life, her unity and fellowship. In this respect, the Liturgy is not incidental or irrelevant but foundational and fundamental, because the preaching of the Gospel and the celebration of the Eucharist are the means whereby God “gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where He pleases, in those who hear the Gospel” (AC V). And as the Church, properly speaking, “is the assembly of saints and true believers” (AC VIII), there is no Christian Church apart from the Liturgy of the Gospel.

My point in laying out the liturgical character of the Church is to emphasize the liturgical aspects and parameters of Church Fellowship. It is the Liturgy of the Gospel that we have in common, not only as individual congregations, and not only within our respective synods and regional churches, but also in our relationships with each other in the communion of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Indeed, the Liturgy is what connects us to one another as fellow members of the one Body of Christ, across the ages and around the world; not simply in the sense that we are all doing these same things, but more profoundly, that these sacred things of Christ Jesus – the faithful preaching of His Gospel and the right administration of His Sacraments in accordance with His Word – are the very things that bind us to Him and unite us with each other in Him. It is no accident or coincidence that St. Justin Martyr’s second-century description of the Divine Service still serves as an adequate and accurate summary of the Church’s liturgical life and activity on any given Sunday (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66-67); for the Lord in His mercy and providential care has preserved the Liturgy of His Gospel for His Church on earth, and He has preserved His Church on earth by the Liturgy of His Gospel.

Of course, heterodox, heretical, and sectarian churches also read and preach the Bible in some fashion and make use of the outward rites and ceremonies of Baptism and the Supper to some extent; yet, we do not enter into Pulpit and Altar Fellowship with those churches. We do acknowledge that heterodox Christians belong to the fellowship of the Church catholic by faith in Christ Jesus, notwithstanding their erroneous teaching and confession. But we do not condone or participate in their heterodox doctrines and practices by exchanging pulpits with their preachers, communing them, or communing with them. In many cases, unorthodox teaching will manifest itself in unorthodox liturgical practices – and by the same token, we should add, unorthodox liturgical practices will often result in unorthodox doctrines. What is more, since the preaching of the Gospel is itself a constitutive part of the Liturgy, it will always be the case that teaching and practice – doctrine and doxology – rise or fall together over time. But the point remains that even impeccable rites and ceremonies are not sufficient in themselves to establish Church Fellowship where there is no harmonious agreement in the teaching and confession of the faith.

Written confessions are obviously of significant importance in this respect, as the Lord has revealed His Word in the Holy Scriptures, and as His Church has inscribed her confession of His Word in Creeds and the like from the start. Our own Lutheran Confessions function as a means of both teaching and testing the preaching and practice of our pastors, and we rightly pledge ourselves to those objective writings in the Rites of Ordination and/or Installation to the Office of the Holy Ministry. The seriousness with which we treat the orthodoxy of our pastors is especially appropriate in view of the topic at hand, because our Church Fellowship is exercised, not in written documents, but in the actual preaching and administration of the Gospel by our pastors in the liturgical life of the Church – in fellowship with one another.

In short, Church Fellowship is pastoral fellowship, that is, a fellowship of pastoral care in all those things that pastors are called, ordained, and sent to do in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. This takes us back to the Augustana’s confession of the Church in terms of the Holy Ministry, but now in consideration of the unity and fellowship of churches with each other. What does that entail, and what does it look like? As the Church is the assembly of saints and true believers gathered by, around, and for the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the Gospel (AC VII), churches live in true unity and enter into genuine fellowship when their pastors are preaching the same Gospel in harmony with each other and likewise administering the Sacraments in conformity with their preaching. That’s not to say or suggest that the pastors will all be preaching exactly the same sermon; neither will they all be conducting the Liturgy in a kind of lock-step uniformity that allows no discernible differences. But pastors in fellowship with each other will be recognizably consistent and similar in their preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins in the Name of Jesus; and so will their liturgical practice be consistent and resonate with their preaching and teaching of His Word.

It bears noting that the right preaching and teaching of the Word of Christ Jesus is integral and essential to the right administration of His Holy Sacraments, both Holy Baptism and the Holy Communion (as well as Holy Absolution). Holy Baptism is given and received along with the teaching and observance of all that Jesus has commanded (St. Matt. 28:18-20); and not only is the Holy Communion given to disciples of Jesus (St. Matt. 26:26-28), that is, to those who are Baptized and being catechized in His Name, but it is administered in His “remembrance,” in proclamation of His death “until His comes” (1 Cor. 11:23-26). It is precisely for these reasons that the preaching of Christ Jesus is a constitutive part of the Liturgy. And that is also why an outwardly “correct” conduct of the external rites and ceremonies of the Liturgy is not sufficient in itself for the true unity and fellowship of the Church; orthodox preaching is also necessary.

In respect to both preaching and the entire conduct of the Liturgy we are dealing with pastoral practice and pastoral care, which are the heart and soul of Church Fellowship. By “pastoral care” I have in mind preaching, baptizing, catechizing, hearing confession, speaking Holy Absolution, administering the Holy Communion, visiting the sick and homebound, and exercising the cure of souls with the Word of Christ. Admitting individual Christians to the Sacrament of the Altar, whether the first time or any other time, is itself an exercise of pastoral care, which happens within an entire context of ongoing pastoral care. This point is fundamental to the orthodox practice of Closed Communion, which is nothing else and nothing less than the expression and actual practice of Church Fellowship. That is to say, pastors commune those Christians who are under their own ongoing pastoral care, as well as those Christians who are under the ongoing pastoral care of brother pastors with whom they share the same preaching and practice. Along the same lines, orthodox pastors will not commune Christians who are under a different pastoral care; nor will they commune individuals who have no pastor, although they will certainly invite and welcome such individuals to come under their pastoral care and to become part of the Church through catechesis.

In all of this, it is not so much that Church Fellowship is the prerequisite for Pulpit and Altar Fellowship, although that is also true; but it is more to the point that the Holy Communion is the actual embodiment of Church Fellowship in the exercise of pastoral care – in the preaching and practice of the Liturgy. So, the challenge that faces the Church on earth is discerning where such pastoral fellowship is located, and how it should best be carried out and practically expressed. And that challenge is all the greater where we have also to deal with differences in language and nomenclature, history, experience, and resources.

As previously noted, there is no expectation that pastors in fellowship with each other will conduct the Liturgy with absolute uniformity in every detail. Such an expectation would not be reasonable, nor even possible; pastors are all different, congregations are all different, church buildings are different in their architecture and furnishings, and any number of other differences enter into the equation. Thankfully, absolute uniformity in liturgical practice is not necessary to the exercise of pastoral fellowship. But all the differences do beg the question, as to how our pastoral fellowship shall be manifest and recognized.

There are those foundational givens which are necessary to Church Fellowship, such as we have already discussed. There must be the right preaching of the Gospel in all its truth and purity, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures – all centered and fulfilled in Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead – unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins. And there must be the right administration of the Holy Sacraments, in conformity with the Lord’s Institution and in harmony with the preaching of His Gospel. These are the most important and essential matters, so fundamental as to be cliché, and no Lutheran (indeed, no true Christian) would presume to argue otherwise.

But what of all the details that are not determined by the clear and explicit Word of God? It is in those areas of “adiaphora” that the Church has struggled to find the sweet spot between legalism and chaos. Within the Missouri Synod, for example, there has been increasing diversity in worship practices since the early 1980s, resulting in a decade or more of “worship wars” (throughout the 1990s), then settling into a status quo in which congregations are predominantly defined and identified by their particular “style” of worship, ranging from full-bore free-form “contemporary” practices that mimic Protestant Evangelicals, to carefully-ordered traditional “high church” practices replete with all the ceremonies. Every man appears to do whatever seems right in his own eyes; which is admittedly “biblical,” but not in a good way (Judges 17:6; 21:25)! Whether all of these styles actually maintain the fundamental integrity of the Gospel Liturgy in Word and Sacrament is debatable at best. In any case, even allowing for the sake of argument that all these things are permissible (1 Cor. 10:23), such a plethora of divergent practices is surely not edifying or beneficial to the unity of the Church or the tangible exercise of our fellowship. It is confusing and offensive to the people of God, misleading to those outside of His Church, and distracting from the One Thing truly needful. Albeit adiaphora are free in themselves, they are often so intimately connected to the preaching and administration of the Gospel that they cannot easily be distinguished in practical perception; so care must be taken that the actual Liturgy not be treated as if dispensable. If we do not wish to have “a king in Israel” (Judges 17:6; 21:25) – nor a Pope, for that matter – there must yet be some way for our pastors and bishops to manifest, measure, and recognize in practice our common confession of Christ Jesus, the unity of His Body, the Church, and our fellowship in His precious Gospel.

As Luther writes in his “Christian Exhortation to the Livonians” (1525): “For those who devise and ordain universal customs and orders get so wrapped up in them that they make them into dictatorial laws opposed to the freedom of faith. But those who ordain and establish nothing succeed only in creating as many factions as there are heads, to the detriment of that Christian harmony and unity of which St. Paul and St. Peter so frequently write. Still, we must express ourselves on these matters as well as we can, even though everything will not be done as we say and teach that it should be” (Luther’s Works AE 53, p. 46).

It was around that point that Dr. Luther finally consented to work on a German Mass (Deutsche Messe), after resisting the request to do so for some time. He feared that anything he might produce along these lines would be made into “a rigid law,” binding consciences in violation of Christian liberty. Yet, he saw “the widespread demand for German Masses and Services and the general dissatisfaction and offense that [had] been caused by the great variety of new Masses,” which so many others had rushed to make. So, then, while urging the freedom of the conscience before God in respect to “differences in liturgical usage,” Luther did set forth “The German Mass and Order of Service” in 1526. It was not his intention “that all of Germany should uniformly follow our Wittenberg order,” but he wrote that “it would be well if the Service in every principality would be held in the same manner and if the order observed in a given city would also be followed by the surrounding towns and villages” (Luther’s Works AE 53, pp. 61-62). In making this observation Luther acknowledges the blessing and benefit of having free things in common.

There is freedom and flexibility in human ceremonies. That there are many things which the Lord has neither commanded nor forbidden (adiaphora) is simply a fact, which we also teach and confess (FC X). The Lord has not specified every detailed nuance of New Testament worship; He has left most of those details to be worked out by His Church on earth and by the ministers of His Word in their pastoral care of His people in each parish. While the principles of adiaphora are often misunderstood, misconstrued, and/or misapplied, the actual freedom involved in that which God has neither required nor prohibited remains a blessing and a gift that He has granted to His Church for the sake of His Gospel, that it should have free course and be preached and administered to the joy and edification of His people in a wide variety of circumstances, across broad differences of time and place. But the freedom of adiaphora also means that the Church and her pastors are free to work toward common and consistent practices.

In asserting that “it is not necessary that human traditions or rites and ceremonies, instituted by men, should be alike everywhere,” the Augustana cites Ephesians 4 (verses 4-6) in affirming “the true unity of the Church” in the pure and right preaching and administration of the Gospel; for “there is one Body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all,” etc. (AC VII). Interestingly, although Dr. Luther does not cite the Ephesians passage in the Preface to his Deutsche Messe (1526), he offers a comparable premise as a compelling reason to seek unity and harmony in liturgical practice, not as though it were necessary, but because it is appropriate and edifying: “As far as possible,” he writes, “we should observe the same rites and ceremonies, just as all Christians have the same Baptism and the same Sacrament [of the Altar] and no one has received a special one of his own from God” (Luther’s Works AE 53, p. 61). In other words, the very oneness of the Gospel which is entirely sufficient for the true unity of the Church is also, in its own way, the ground on which the Church is well able to establish common and consistent practices.

In fact, the Lutheran Church has generally followed Luther’s advice in seeking to adopt, adapt, and make consistent use of worship practices in common, by and large preserving the liturgical traditions, rubrics, rites, and ceremonies of the Church catholic (AC XXIV.2-3). Consider the Lutheran Church Orders of the 16th and 17th centuries, which specify to varying degrees the way that pastors and congregations within a given territory should carry out the work of the Church. Those Lutheran Church Orders give directives in matters that are theologically free before God, but which the Church in her freedom chose to arrange and govern for the sake of consistency and unity in practice. Such consistency and unity are beneficial, not only for peace and harmony between neighboring parishes, but also for the clarity and precision of the Church’s catechesis and confession of the faith within each parish and beyond. “After all, the chief purpose of all ceremonies is to teach the people what they need to know about Christ” (AC XXIV.3).

The whole world knows that actions speak louder than words, and as we use care in the words that we confess in preaching, teaching, and otherwise, so do we rightly exercise care in our liturgical practice at the heart and center of the Church’s life. Along the same lines, Luther’s recommendation that churches should ideally seek to have Services, rites, and ceremonies in common is analogous to his admonition, in his Preface to the Small Catechism, that we should choose “one fixed, permanent form and manner” of teaching the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Our Father, and make every effort “to teach the young and simple people these parts in such a way that we do not change a syllable or set them forth and repeat them one year differently than in another” (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, CPH, 2008, pp. 247-248). While Luther did not dictate any one particular “form and manner” for everyone, he did provide his Small Catechism for the use of the Church, and the Lutheran Church in freedom and love has chosen to continue using that beautiful contribution – to the great benefit of many generations.

Similar principles of pastoral care in respect to liturgical practice are exemplified in the case of Wilhelm Löhe’s Agenda, written for the mission of the Church in the United States, based upon the forms and practices he found “in one or the other of the many old Lutheran [Church] Orders” (Liturgy for Christian Congregations of the Lutheran Faith, Third Edition, tr. By F. C. Longaker, 1902, p. xi). To prepare and produce such an Agenda is, in itself, to make decisions and offer directions in matters that are free; and to do so on the basis of past precedent demonstrates the intention to be in continuity with those who have gone before us in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus. There is a deliberate embracing and fostering of catholicity with past, present, and future generations of the Church. Similarly, Friedrich Lochner, a student of Löhe and one of the first pastors of the Missouri Synod, in his thorough study of the history, theology, and practice of the Liturgy, likewise gives careful attention to the practices of the Lutheran Church Orders (see The Chief Divine Service of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, translated by Matthew Carver, edited by Jon Vieker, Kevin Hildebrand, and Nathaniel Jensen, CPH, 2020).

Not surprisingly, the Missouri Synod took these things seriously from the beginning. A conservative hymnal and liturgical agenda were among the first things that C.F.W. Walther and the congregations under his care took the time and made the effort to prepare and produce in the early years of the Synod’s existence (the hymnal within a year, the agenda within a decade of the Synod’s beginning). What is more, the Synod’s Constitution has always stipulated, in one way or another, the necessity of “doctrinally pure agenda, hymnbooks, and catechisms in church and school” (LCMS Constitution VI.4, Handbook 2019, p. 13). As the Missouri Synod began to use the English language, they also adopted the “Common Service” of 1888, which had been developed by a joint venture of several Lutheran Synods in the Eastern United States. By deliberate intent, the “Common Service” was based upon “the common consent of the pure Lutheran Liturgies of the Sixteenth Century,” or, in those parts of the Liturgy where there was not “an entire agreement” among the Church Orders, “the consent of the largest number of greatest weight” (Luther Reed, The Lutheran Liturgy: A Study of the Common Liturgy of the Lutheran Church in America, Revised Edition, Fortress Press, 1960, p. 183).

The point here is simply to say that the Lutheran Church, from the outset and throughout her history, has recognized the benefit of common and consistent liturgical practices and the corresponding need for direction and guidance in these areas. That has been true especially among those who take doctrine and confession of the faith most seriously, precisely because liturgical practice is indicative of what we actually believe, teach, and confess, as well as a means of ongoing catechesis in God’s Word and faith. By the same token, the unity of a common confession of the faith is both embodied and substantiated by a unity of practice. It is true that Church Fellowship does not depend on a uniformity in adiaphora, but where there is fellowship in doctrine the Church will also tend to gravitate toward a common and consistent usage of adiaphora in the conduct of the Gospel Liturgy. And the beauty of it is, the Church is perfectly free to pursue that path. Indeed, it is not a violation but an exercise of faith and freedom when the pastors and congregations of a particular territory or jurisdiction of the Church mutually agree – in love – to order and conduct their liturgical life according to common rubrics, rites, and ceremonies.

The truth is that the Church cannot do those essential things that God has given her to do without some other rubrics, rites, and ceremonies to accompany them, even if those accompanying practices differ over time and from one place to another. The question is not whether to have and use such things, but how best to choose them – that is, by what criteria – and how best to think of them and use them. In fact, the use of rubrics, rites, and ceremonies is fundamental to the Ministry of the Gospel in the life of the Church. So, it is useful to unpack these things a bit and explain what they are and how they work:

Rubrics are the rules or instructions that guide and govern the conduct of the Liturgy, whether instituted by the Lord or left to the freedom of the Church to determine in love. In the Lord’s Supper, for example, the Rubrics given by the Lord are, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (and, “as often as you eat this Bread and drink this Cup, proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes”). Examples of the rubrics determined by the Church would include information on the day and time of the Divine Service (e.g., Sunday 9:00 a.m.) and basic logistical instructions for the distribution of the Holy Communion (in writing or by the ushers). Such rubrics are necessary to any sort of coordinated group activity, and so also for the Church’s life.

Rites are the words that are spoken, chanted, or sung by the pastors, cantors, choirs, or congregation, whether instituted by the Lord or left to the freedom of the Church to determine in love. In the Lord’s Supper, for example, the Rites given by the Lord are, “Take, eat. This is My Body, given for you. Drink of it, all of you. This Cup is the New Testament in My Blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” Examples of the rites developed by the Church in love include the Creed, the Preface, Proper Preface, and Sanctus, the distribution formula and distribution hymns, and the Post-Communion Collect, etc. All such rites are in keeping with the fact that we are verbal creatures, and that God Himself does and gives everything by and with His Word – which we are given to confess and pray to Him and to each other.

Ceremonies are all the actions, movements, postures, architecture, furnishings, vessels, vestments, paraments, artwork, and adornments involved in the conduct of the Liturgy, whether instituted by the Lord or left to the freedom of the Church to determine in love. In the Lord’s Supper, for example, the Ceremonies established by the Lord are taking the bread and the cup of wine, consecrating them with His Word, and distributing them to His disciples to eat and drink as His Body and Blood. Examples of the ceremonies adopted by the Church in love include the Sanctuary, the Altar, the crucifix and candles, the stole and chasuble, the Communion vessels, the Communion rail, and the work of Elders and Ushers in directing “traffic.” Some such ceremonies are inherent and inevitable to our life in the body, occupying space and time, as well as being unavoidably involved in the administration of the Holy Sacraments.

It is not possible to administer and receive the Means of Grace without ceremonies. However, not all ceremonies are created equal. Some ceremonies are better, and some are worse than others; and some ceremonies have no place in the Church, even if they would otherwise be “free.” All things are lawful in Christ Jesus, but not all things are meet, right, and salutary (1 Cor. 10:23). Any ceremony or practice that might be considered for use in the Liturgy must be measured and evaluated according to its service and support of the Word of God, and thereby determined to be more or less helpful to faith and love.

Our Lutheran hymnals and service books, and even the old Lutheran Church Orders, do not specify every detail of liturgical practice. Whereas the rites and rubrics of the Divine Service, the Daily Prayer Offices, and various other occasions, are more or less adequately provided for the use of pastors in their care for the Lord’s Church, certainly not all of the potential ceremonies are spelled out, prescribed, or described. As previously indicated, it is not necessary for all such human arrangements to be everywhere the same; nor would it be desirable for all of those details to be the same, even if that were theoretically possible. Practical matters can be dealt with pragmatically. But there are still a variety of adiaphora that may be practiced (or not) with theological significance for catechesis, confession of the faith, and pastoral care. And those choices and decisions do have some impact on the relationship of pastors with each other.

The boundaries and parameters of the Church’s freedom in worship are established and contoured, not only by explicit commands and prohibitions, but also implicitly by the constitutive rites and ceremonies of Holy Baptism, the Preaching of the Law and the Gospel unto repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and the administration of the Holy Communion in remembrance of Jesus. These divinely given Means of Grace are the foundation, the beating heart, and the central high point of the Church’s faith and life in Christ. Whatever else may be done in worship is determined in relation to these constitutive Means.

Beyond those basics, the measure of any given ceremony’s worth and benefit requires more than the avoidance of overtly false doctrine. The best ceremonies are not simply true, as opposed to false; they are positively helpful in teaching and confessing the Word of God, and they are beautiful in adorning His Liturgy of the Gospel. It is indeed appropriate and salutary to adorn the Liturgy with artistic beauty, as a confession of faith in the Word and work of Christ Jesus, and as a catechesis in the hidden Mysteries of His great Salvation. One may consider such examples as chanting, the sign of the Cross, chasubles, the elevation of the Sacrament, genuflecting at various points in the Liturgy, and the use of incense.

The broadest criteria for the consideration of any liturgical practice are faith toward God and love for the neighbor; which can also be summarized in terms of reverence and courtesy. That which is harmful to faith and love is not free but forbidden. And that which is irreverent, rude, or frivolous, is likewise not free but forbidden (FC SD X.1, 7, 9). The Second Commandment requires that God’s Name be kept holy, and that God must be sanctified by His priests and His people (Ex. 20:7; Num. 20:12; Lev. 10:3).

Courtesy and love for the neighbor do suggest a steady consistency and continuity of practice, which are so conducive to peace and rest in the Liturgy of the Gospel, because they allow for a ready participation of the entire congregation in the Church’s worship of Christ Jesus. By contrast, frequent fluctuations and diversity in practice are unsettling to the people of God and easily distract them from His Liturgy of the Gospel, because they require a level of literacy, attention, energy, and effort that tends to frustrate or prevent the participation of many members in the Church’s worship of Christ Jesus.

In considering various possible adiaphora, pastors should also take into account the larger fellowship of the Church catholic, including those who have gone before us in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus, as well as those who will follow after us (our children and our children’s children), and those with whom we are in fellowship in the present (and those with whom we are working toward Church Fellowship). This, too, is another exercise of love for the neighbor, a ready willingness to set aside our own personal proclivities and preferences for the sake of having “all things in common” (Acts 2:42-44).

Tradition is generally more conducive to the Gospel than novelty (1 Cor. 11:1–2, 16–26), because what is handed over is received as a gift or inheritance from the past, rather than being fabricated for ourselves and our own purposes in the present. Lutherans have therefore been evangelically conservative when it comes to tradition, in contrast to the legalism of Rome on the right and of the Reformed on the left.

Along similar lines, catholicity in practice is generally more conducive to love than personal innovation, because it belongs by definition to the entire Church, to the household of faith and the whole family of God, rather than being the unique invention or private property of an isolated individual or small group.

What is more, the collective wisdom of the Church is usually wiser than the personal insights of any one individual. True, the nature and needs of pastoral care require the free exercise of pastoral discernment and discretion, just as the Church in each time and place is free with respect to human customs. Yet, the starting point should be what has been given and received within the life of the Church, rather than the novelty of personal ingenuity. Consider the great value and benefit of the Church Year and Lectionary, the Ordinary and Propers of the Divine Service, and the use of customary vestments and furnishings.

These are some of the key criteria that should help to guide a pastor in caring for his congregation in the freedom of faith and the service of love. The same criteria are also of help to bishops and the churches under their care in working toward harmony and unity of liturgical practice, both within their respective jurisdictions and in the exercise of Church Fellowship with one another. To whatever extent we are able to share rubrics, rites, and ceremonies in common, those practices demonstrate, express, substantiate, and support our common confession of the faith, even as they also serve and support the preaching and administration of the Gospel Liturgy. What is more, those recognizably Lutheran liturgical practices also help the laity to distinguish and identify our Church Fellowship wherever in the world it may be found. Certainly, as we share the ecumenical Creeds and our Lutheran Confessions in common, it is also meet, right, and salutary that we should share those things that govern and guide our liturgical practices.

A Podcast on Pastoral Care, Church Fellowship, and the Practice of Closed Communion

The practice of Closed Communion has been the consistent teaching of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod throughout its history, yet it can be awkward and difficult to understand and to carry out consistently and clearly in the week-by-week life of the Church. Misunderstandings of Closed Communion, its meaning and purpose, have resulted in a variety of different practices across our congregations.

As part of my ongoing efforts to address these concerns and teach on these matters, I've recorded a half-hour audio-video "podcast," with the help of Rev. Danny Mackey (Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Muncie, Indiana, and our Indiana District Secretary), in the hopes that it will prove helpful to both pastors and laity. It approaches the topic of Closed Communion on the basis of our Church Fellowship, especially as a fellowship of pastoral care, within which the Sacrament of the Altar is administered in continuity with our shared catechesis and confession of Christ Jesus and His Word.

The podcast is available here: https://vimeo.com/1021013604

The Pastoral Care of Catechumens and Communicants

(Paper presented at the St. Michael's Conference, Zion, Detroit)

Thank God, we confess with Dr. Luther, even a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is: lambs and sheep who hear and follow the Voice of their Good Shepherd.

That is to define the Church in pastoral terms, and thus to emphasize the centrality of the Pastoral Office.  From St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Augsburg Confession, from the Word of our Lord to St. Peter, and from St. Paul’s words to the Church at Rome and to the elders of Ephesus, even to the present day, the Lord’s flock is gathered by and around the Ministry of the Gospel.

There is something lacking when the sheep have no shepherd.  So the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Good Shepherd of the whole flock in heaven and on earth, provides pastors and bishops to care for His Church in this world.

I. The Goal and Purpose, Ways and Means of Pastoral Care

So, what does a shepherd do?  How does a pastor care for the sheep of the Good Shepherd?  He is duty bound to feed and nurture the flock, and to guard and protect the sheep from the ravenous wolves and raging lions that would fleece them and devour them through falsehood and deception.

In the Name and stead of Christ, in the Spirit and the Truth, the pastor leads the lambs and sheep through the green pastures of the Word of God and the living waters of Holy Baptism to the Feast of the Lord’s Table in the Lord’s House.

Which is simply another way of saying that he makes disciples of the Lord Jesus by the way and means of Baptism in His Name and Catechesis in His Word, and that he also then communes those same disciples with the Body and Blood of the same Lord Jesus Christ, in remembrance of Him, with the proclamation of His death until He comes.  We could hardly summarize the Pastoral Ministry and Pastoral Care more comprehensively or more simply than that.

Use the old means in the old ways, Wilhelm Löhe advised and admonished the pastors in his day.  That means the preaching and teaching of the Word of Christ, and the faithful administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the Gospel.  And that is exactly right.  That is what pastors do, and that is how they care for the flock of God entrusted to their oversight.

Ordinary Pastoral Care is thus liturgical in its character and content.  By “ordinary” I describe what is primary and persistent.  Extraordinary Pastoral Care is more personal, addressed to the particular needs and circumstances of the one sheep who is wandering, lost, hurt, in danger, or caught up in some dire straits.  This “extraordinary” care is vital, but is not the norm by which everything else is determined and governed.  It is the exception that proves the rule.  Not only because it is incidental and intermittent, but because it is still rooted in the Liturgy of the Word and Sacrament, and it has for its purpose the reconciliation and restoration of the individual to the liturgical life of the Church, that is, to the green Pastures, the quiet Waters, and the banqueting Table of the Lord in His House.  On the cusp between the ordinary and extraordinary is the practice of Confession and Absolution, which preaches the Gospel of Christ to the individual from the Sacrament of Holy Baptism to the Sacrament of the Altar.

“Word and Sacrament” is not simply a cliché, but really is the definitive and decisive content of Pastoral Care.  The means of grace are the Lord’s own Staff and Stay for both His shepherds and His sheep.  We dare not lose sight of that fact, nor lay aside those means and let them go.

Nevertheless, using the old means in the old ways does not mean following a mechanistic checklist.  Pastoral Care does not “just happen” by way of an automatic assembly line process.  It is rather undertaken with paternal discernment and discretion.

The Lord does not simply provide a book of instructions, with rules and regulations for each and every situation.  There surely are rubrics to follow, both divinely given in the Holy Scriptures and established in love by the Church.  But the Lord also provides shepherds for His sheep, and fathers for His children, both at home and in the household and family of His Church.  Among His good gifts are these men who know and love the children under their care, who deal with them according to the Word and Wisdom of God, and who also adjust and accommodate their work and service, as needs may be, in the genuine freedom of the Gospel.  Indeed, the faithful exercise of this fatherly flexibility is the evangelical place and purpose of adiaphora.  The reason the Lord has left so many of the details and particulars unspecified, is not so that every man may do whatever seems right in his own eyes, but so that the Church in each time and place, and the pastor in each parish, may care for the flock in the midst of mortal life in this perishing world.  Adiaphora are not for the sake of anarchy, but for adaptability within the parameters of the Lord’s sheepfold.

Within this evangelical freedom of faith and love, the pastor does not compromise the confession of Christ, but engages the hard work of listening to and learning from His Word, in order to confess Him clearly and concretely in language appropriate to each context.  Whether to the congregation gathered for the Divine Service, or to the individual Christian who has come for Confession and Absolution — to the catechumens and communicants entrusted to his Pastoral Care in a variety of circumstances — the pastor labors to speak of Christ with tangible clarity, transparent simplicity, and faithful integrity.  It is not an easy job, but a necessary one.

In approaching the task of preaching and teaching the Word of Christ and caring for His lambs and sheep with His good gifts, the pastor should take to heart and be encouraged by the exemplary faith of little children.  It is the Father’s good pleasure to give them His Kingdom, and so, by His good and gracious Will, He reveals His divine Wisdom to them through the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus.  We confess this truth in our practice of infant Baptism, and in the baptismal rite itself, because we trust the Word of God to work faith, where and when it pleases Him, in those who hear the Gospel.  We baptize according to His divine command and with His Holy Name, and we are confident of His Word and promises, which are for us and for our children.

This confident confession and practice are in tension with many common assumptions and assertions about infants, toddlers, and young children, as to what they can and cannot do.  Without a Word of the Lord to support the claim, it is often stated that little ones below a certain age are unable to believe, comprehend, or confess the Gospel of Christ Jesus.  Or, if it is acknowledged that even infants may have such faith, it is still maintained that, prior to an age of discretion, these young Christians are unable to discern or grasp the particulars of the Gospel.

Admittedly, there is development of cognition, linguistic ability, and reason over time.  The Scriptures do speak of an age prior to which a child does not yet know “to refuse evil or choose good.”  And there are ways in which Christians are admonished to grow up from childishness into maturity.  Our Lord Himself grew and increased in wisdom and stature.  Yet, it is also made clear that infants and little children are able to believe and rejoice in the Gospel.  In fact, the greatness of their faith is the model for all Christians, which puts to shame the sophisticated knowledge and intelligence of this world.

Aside from the testimonies of Holy Scripture, it has seemed to me, in the course of my lifetime, that the more we learn about the human brain, infant life, and child development, the more we discover rather amazing capacities for learning, language, and relationships of love and trust.  Frankly, I don’t believe that anyone really knows or understands all that’s happening in the mind of an unborn or newborn infant, or even in the case of a toddler, although there’s already a great difference between an infant and a two-year-old, as any parent can testify from experience.  My sense is that science will continue to discover and demonstrate that little ones are capable of far more than past assessments and expectations have supposed.  Such insights can be helpful to us in discerning how best to teach and care for the youngest disciples of our Lord Jesus.  But to a certain extent, such things are still beside the point at hand.  Faith is obtained and nurtured by the Word and Spirit of Christ, and not by anyone’s reason or strength, regardless of age or ability. Pastoral Care seeks to know and love the flock as well as possible, but, from first to last, it relies upon the ways and means of the Gospel, rather than attempting to read hearts and minds.

My purpose in referring to these considerations of early childhood is simply to suggest that, in these matters, we ought to be agnostic in our assumptions and cautious in our conclusions.  By contrast, we are right to proceed with bold confidence in that which is sure and certain, because it is given to us by the Word and Wisdom of God, no matter if it seems foolish and odd in the perception of our fallen flesh.

Infant Baptism is a case in point, and the way the Church has gone about it, the Lutheran Church included, is instructive.  The infant baptismal candidate is addressed and regarded as a Christian, a servant of Jesus Christ.  He or she prays to the Lord, renounces the devil, confesses the Holy Trinity and the faith of the Church, and requests the gift of Holy Baptism, albeit through the lips and mouths of parents, godparents, pastor and congregation.

Lutherans do not consider this practice to be a pretense or play-acting in the case of infants, because the Lord is faithful and His Word does not return empty.  The infant comes to the Font embraced by that Word and promise of the Lord; he comes to the water already immersed in the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and that, not only before, but during and after the rites and ceremonies of Holy Baptism.  The little lamb is cared for by his shepherd, and his Baptism into Christ provides the precedent and pattern of ongoing Pastoral Care for his Christian faith and life.  His pastor continues to pray with him and for him, to call him to repentance and faith, to assist him in resisting the devil, and to bring him to the Father by the Spirit in the Son.

Remarkably, Dr. Luther points to the importance of this ongoing Pastoral Care, not only for the benefit of the baptized child, but also for the sake of the Church.  Far from regarding the little children as helpless liabilities or burdens, he admonishes pastors and parents to catechize them and bring them to the Lord’s Supper, in order for them to serve and assist the whole Church in fighting against the devil.

II. Ongoing Catechesis: to and from the Font, to and from the Altar

It is the Word of Christ that arms and armors the Christian of whatever stage in life against the assaults and accusations of the old evil foe.  That is why Pastoral Care, broadly speaking, is a continuous Catechesis.  In many and various ways, the pastor is always preaching, teaching, confessing, and exemplifying the Word of Christ.

Pastoral Catechesis does impart knowledge, it does assist with a growing comprehension of the Mysteries, and it does provide guidance in the way Christians are called to live.  However, at its heart, Pastoral Catechesis is always proclaiming the Law and the Gospel unto repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins.  That is the foundational word and work of all Pastoral Care.  As it precedes, accompanies, and follows the administration of Holy Baptism, so does it also extol and establish the pattern and shape of the entire baptismal life.  It is the Word that accomplishes the daily dying and rising of the Christian with Christ Jesus.

Catechesis is not simply nor even chiefly academic.  It is far broader and more comprehensive than that.  Perhaps it is helpful always to think of Catechesis and Pastoral Care in tandem, so that care is not attempted apart from the Catechesis of the Word, nor Catechesis attempted apart from the care and compassion of Christ, as a shepherd caring for the sheep, as a father for his children.

This catechetical care does not coddle.  It does include discipline and training: In knowledge, yes; and in the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of all true wisdom; and in the righteousness of faith and life.  It is a discipleship in the Way of the Cross, a lifelong apprenticeship in the Way of Christ, crucified and risen.  So it includes the Bible stories, as more than great stories, more than historical facts and information, as the very Life of Christ by which we live in Him.

The Ten Commandments, likewise, are the way that we should live in faith and love, and the criteria by which we examine ourselves and seek Absolution for our sins, because they are the way that Christ has lived in love for His Father and for all of us, for our salvation.

The Creed and the Our Father are prayers and confessions of faith in the Gospel.  We teach and learn them best by praying and confessing them, and we hand them over to our children and our catechumens by praying and confessing with them, in the confidence that whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.

Memorization of these key texts is beneficial and ought to be encouraged and stressed for the sake of instilling the Word of Christ in the heart and mind of every Christian.  But, in any case, whether sooner or later, Christian disciples will believe, and they will learn to pray and confess, in the way they are catechized.  The Word of the Lord that is spoken to them, for them, and with them, is the Word that is near them, in their ears and in their hearts, which also opens their lips and mouths to show forth the praises of God in Christ Jesus.  The stories of the Bible, the chief parts of the Catechism, the Psalms and hymns and Spiritual songs of Christ will shape the Christian catechumens in heart and mind, in body and soul, and provide them with a pattern of sound words for their confession and prayer of faith.

Now, then, here is the problem and challenge: Contrast this comprehensive view of Catechesis with what “Confirmation” has often been, driven as it is by its competing interests and concerns.  There are positives, no doubt, among them a consistent use of Luther’s Small Catechism with its profound, straightforward simplicity and its rather unique quality as a prayer book.  An emphasis on the basics of the faith, on the need for instruction in the Word of God, and on the seriousness of the sacramental life must also be applauded.  In these ways “Confirmation” has been a positive blessing.  Unfortunately, that is not all there is to it.

“Confirmation,” as we have come to know it, does have a checkered history with questionable origins and convoluted developments.  It began as a subtle-sacramentarian response to a crass-sacramentarian challenge, when Martin Bucer attempted to answer Anabaptist criticisms of infant Baptism by requiring a mature personal confession, a commitment to Christ, and a vow of obedience to the discipline of the Church as prerequisites to the Holy Communion.  Implicit in this move were doubts about the faith and confession of infants, and a shift away from confidence in the Word and Sacraments to a focus on human reason and resolve.

I’m not going to attempt a rehearsal of “Confirmation” history, especially since this has been done often enough and well enough by others.  It is a tedious tale, which leads further and further away from the catechetical center which has always been its only real merit.  There has been little unity or consistency in the various ways it has been used and understood over the years.  From its suspect start, it was further skewed by the dogmatism of Scholastics in the 17th century, by the subjectivism of Pietists in the 17th and 18th centuries, and by the secularism of Rationalists in the 18th and 19th centuries.  The end result has been a pseudo-sacramentalized graduation ceremony and coming of age party.  Not a great pedigree.

All of these developments are bad enough, in turning away from the objective Gospel of Christ to the intellect, emotions, and experience of the confirmands.  Even more unfortunate and troubling is the combining of Catechesis in preparation for the Holy Communion with a stress on personal maturity, commitment, and academic achievement.  The consequence of this combination has been a later age of “Confirmation,” and thus a later age of First Communion.  Whereas Lutherans in the 16th Century were typically admitted to the Sacrament between the ages of six and twelve years, Lutherans of subsequent generations have generally not communed until anywhere from twelve to sixteen years of age or later.

Despite all the rigor, expectation, and hoopla surrounding it, “Confirmation” has been marked by frustrations and failures.  And notwithstanding the good that has resulted through instruction in the faith, attrition rates have been notoriously high among “graduates” of this process.  At the same time, it is disturbing to hear Lutherans speak of their “Confirmation” and their “vows” in terms reminiscent of a protestant altar call, and in higher esteem than their Holy Baptism.

The ghost of Martin Bucer’s contribution haunts the Lutheran practice of “Confirmation” to this day.  Brothers, it should not be so.  That other Martin, Dr. Luther himself, was ambivalent at best about any such thing as “Confirmation,” but he did insist upon the need for ongoing Catechesis.  That is where our focus needs to be.

With or without a rite of “Confirmation,” Catechesis in the Word of Christ should undergird and permeate the entire life of the Church.  It is not a terminal degree program.  As the Christian is to pray without ceasing, so he must be catechized without ceasing.  So, too, the Christian home and family ought to resonate with the Word of God and prayer throughout the week.

Homeschooling provides a unique opportunity and a clear advantage in this regard, although, of course, that option is not universally possible or necessary.  Fathers and mothers will, in any case, certainly make time to pray with their children, to engage them in conversation with the Holy Scriptures, to observe with them the festivals and seasons of the Church Year, and to lead them by example.  They will also bring them to the Lord’s House on the Lord’s Day, no matter where and how they are being schooled.

Lutheran parochial schools do not replace the roles and responsibilities of parents in the Christian home and family, but they are able to assist parents in providing a context of Catechesis in the Word of God and daily prayer.  A solid Lutheran school with a sound theological base and a rich liturgical piety can be tremendously valuable in this regard.  Obviously, a less pious, heterodox, or secular educational environment will require an extra effort and proactive vigilance on the part of Christian fathers and mothers, who remain accountable to God for the Catechesis of their children.

The responsibility for family Catechesis belongs especially to the father as the head of his household, although it is often the mother who will be the main catechist of the children, especially in their youngest years.  I am persuaded that young Samuel, for example, was catechized at Hannah’s breast and on her knee before she entrusted him to the Lord and to Eli the priest at Shiloh.  Certainly, Luther has taught us that the head of the household is to catechize his children in the chief parts of the Christian faith and life: How they are to live, how they are to remember their Baptism, how they are to examine themselves and confess their sins, and how they are to pray and confess the Word of God.  Fathers should also teach their children, or have them taught, what the Sacrament of the Altar is, what it is for, and how they are given to eat and to drink the Body and Blood of Christ in faith and with thanksgiving.  As Pastoral Care is paternal, so is paternal care pastoral in a father’s Catechesis of his children.

In all of this, Luther clearly places the catechetical burden, not on the catechumens, but on the parents and pastors.  Those children (and servants) who refuse to receive instruction or rehearse the faith are to be disciplined.  Luther’s emphasis, however, is not on the catechumen’s achievement, but on the persistence of the Catechesis that fathers and mothers in the home and pastors in the Church are to provide.

The aim and purpose of memory work in this process is to establish a stable scaffolding and structure for securing the Word of God in the catechumen’s heart, mind, and life.  A similar but superior scaffolding and structure are provided by the context of God’s Word and prayer in the home, and by the family’s consistent participation in the liturgical life of the Church.  A child immersed in that catechetical context will be formed and filled up by it.  He will learn the faith by heart, so that he is able to recall his Baptism and the Gospel, to call on the Name of the Lord in every trouble, and to praise and confess Christ Jesus throughout his life.  Thus, the good and gracious Will of God is done among us also.

It should already be evident that the Catechesis of a Christian home and family takes its cues and draws its content from the Divine Liturgy, which is itself the primary Catechesis of the entire Church in the Word and Sacraments of Christ.  In fact, all Catechesis finds its orbit in the Liturgy, and its gravitational center in the Sacrament of the Altar.

The catechetical rhythm of daily prayer moves from the Divine Service on the Lord’s Day, through the week, back to the Divine Service on the Lord’s Day again.  That is the weekly ebb and flow of the Liturgy, whether gathered for Matins and Vespers with the congregation or with the family for morning and evening prayer at home.  The Christian is always living from the Font to the Altar, and from the Altar through all his days and nights back to the Altar again.

There is also the larger rhythm of the Church Year, the Sundays and Seasons of which are a school of faith in the Gospel of Christ.  Luther points to this liturgical Catechesis of the Church Year in his discussion of the Second Article in the Large Catechism.  It’s actually one of the shortest sections of the Catechism, precisely because, Luther says, the confession of the Son of God, His Person and Work, are treated in detail and at length through the Gospels and Festivals of the whole year.  We note that Lent and Easter, in particular, are catechetical in their origins.

The ancient catechumenate focused on Procatechesis during Lent, in preparation for Holy Baptism and participation in the Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil, and then on Mystagogical Catechesis in the meaning and significance of the Holy Sacraments throughout the Octave of the Resurrection.  There is still a benefit to thinking of these distinctions between Procatechesis in preparation for the Liturgy, and Mystagogical Catechesis in explanation of the Liturgy.  The one focuses on stories of the Bible and on the first three chief parts of the Catechism, the other on the Holy Sacraments and on their significance for the Christian faith and life.  But this is not a one-shot program culminating in “Confirmation.”  It is the pattern of the Divine Service itself, and of the daily, weekly, and yearly cycle of Christian prayer and Catechesis in the Word of Christ.  It is for this reason, for example, that I deliberately use the term “catechumen,” not only for baptismal candidates or confirmands, but for all Christians, notwithstanding their growth and maturity in the faith.  Even pastors, parents, and other catechists are still catechumens in this sense.

Not only what is said in the Liturgy, but also what is done; and not only what is done, but how it is done, confesses Christ and catechizes His Church.  The way a pastor approaches his preaching and conducts himself in the pulpit, and, above all, the way he administers the Sacrament, his reverence and decorum at the Altar, catechize the congregation in the Mysteries of Christ.

The Lord made clear in the Old Testament that His Name would be sanctified before the people by the construction and treatment of His Tabernacle and its furnishings, and by the vestments and conduct of His priests.  Though we now live and serve in the broad freedom of the New Testament, it remains the case that ceremonies confess what we believe and catechize the people in that faith.

Christian Catechesis, in all of these ways and means, is always aiming at a worthy and fruitful communion with Christ in His Body and His Blood, by way of faith in His Word and Holy Spirit.  As constant Catechesis is necessary for the sake of ceaseless prayer, so is ongoing Catechesis needed for the ongoing faithful reception of the Holy Communion.  We are not concerned with the completion of a once-in-a-lifetime program of study.  Rather, every Divine Service includes the Catechesis of God’s Word and the preaching of it, in order to bring the congregation to the Altar as worthy communicants.  Such Catechesis is fundamental to Pastoral Care.

III. The Holy Communion: Fellowship in the Body of Christ

Pastoral Care and Catechesis do include both preparation for and explanation of the Holy Communion.  But that is not all.  The actual administration of the Holy Communion is also an exercise of Pastoral Care, undertaken within a context of ongoing Pastoral Care and Catechesis.  The preaching, teaching, and confessing of the Word of Christ belong to the right administration of the Sacrament “in accordance with the Gospel.”  There is no Holy Baptism apart from the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and the Catechesis of all that Jesus has commanded.  Nor is there any Lord’s Supper apart from the remembrance of Jesus; for as often as we this bread and drink this Cup, we are to do so in remembrance of Him, by and with the proclamation of His Cross.  That proclamation happens by way of the Verba, which consecrate the Sacrament, but so also by the Propers, the Preaching, and the Prayers of the Day.  The giving and receiving of the Body and Blood of Christ are comprehended within this Catechesis of His Word.

So it is that “discerning the Lord’s Body” in the Sacrament necessarily begins with the Pastoral Ministry.  First of all, by the consecration of this bread and this cup with the Word of the Lord, which is the very thing that actually distinguishes the Sacrament from ordinary food and drink.  Then, also, the pastor discerns the Body and Blood of Christ by his reverent conduct at the Altar, and by His carefully deliberate handling and distribution of the Sacrament.  His preaching and teaching catechize the congregation in what the Sacrament is, what it is for, where it is found, and how it is rightly received.  But it is by the liturgical rites and ceremonies of the consecration and distribution that the pastor identifies the Sacrament itself and gives it to the disciples of Jesus.  There are no other ways or means by which anyone discerns the Body and Blood of the Lord than by this Pastoral Ministry.

The self-examination of those who would receive the Sacrament is likewise not a do-it-yourself exercise or personal achievement, but is always by the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus.  No one is able to examine himself rightly without help, for there is nothing in the self to begin with other than sin and death, from which no one can set himself free.  Recognizing the reality of that sin and death, repenting, and calling on the Name of the Lord in the righteousness of faith is accomplished in the heart by the Spirit through the Law and the Gospel.

It is the Holy Spirit who convicts the world of sin, of judgment, and of righteousness through the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name.

The self-examination of repentance is not achieved by cognition, intelligence, reason, or philosophical introspection.  The “self” is not so much the subject as the object of examination.  It is worked in each Christian’s heart, mind, and soul through whatever capacities the Lord has given to the person, but always and only by the Word and Spirit of God.  As also in the case of the renunciations and confession of Holy Baptism, we rely upon the Lord to search the heart and try the mind, to kill and make alive, to bring to repentance and bring forth faith where and when it pleases Him.  And that does not exclude the little children who are baptized and believe in Christ.

Again, as Dr. Luther exhorts in his Large Catechism, the little children are also to be catechized and communed, in order to help the grown-ups fight against the devil.  If St. Michael and his holy angels are known for defeating that old dragon and throwing him down, they do so beholding the face of the Father in the face of His little ones.

Whether literate or illiterate, everyone has help (and must have help) of one kind or another.  That help comes from the Lord through the means of His Word, whether it is spoken, written, memorized, or otherwise expressed and explained, depicted, or signified.  As the Catechism puts it, “the pastor may ask, or one may ask himself” the questions prepared for those who would receive the Sacrament.  The answers, too, are not self-invented, but are provided from the Word of the Lord.  To be sure, it is no child’s play, but it is for both young and old.

We need to guard against an intellectualizing of examination and discernment, as though they were an academic exercise, pursued and accomplished by one’s own reason and strength.  Neither age, nor ability, nor academic achievement is adequate preparation for the Sacrament, though all of the above will participate in the fine outward training of the body.  But these personal qualities and capacities are no more germane to a worthy reception of the Holy Communion than wealth or poverty, genealogy or gender.

The worthiness to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ comprises nothing else, nothing more nor less than repentant faith in His Word.  Such repentance belongs to the lifelong significance of Holy Baptism, which cleanses the conscience (also in the case of infants, toddlers, and young children) through the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead.

The Six Chief Parts of the Catechism are an excellent summary of such faith.  It may also be confessed even more simply or at far greater length; not as any merit or achievement, either way, but as a good fruit of the very faith that is confessed.  There is growth and maturing in this confession, but also a need for daily renewal.  We benefit, not only from Dr. Luther’s Catechisms, but from his own example and encouragement:

To become like a little child every day, by returning to the Ten Commandments, praying the Creed and the Our Father, recalling our Holy Baptism, confessing our sin and being absolved, and waiting on the Lord to open His hand and feed us with His Bread of Life.

Repentant faith in Christ derives from and depends upon His Word.  There is a need, therefore, not only for a solid foundation of Catechesis, but for ongoing Catechesis in the Word of Christ.  It is this Catechesis that brings the catechumen, week after week, to a worthy reception of the Holy Communion in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus.

The Holy Communion is the beating Heart and Center of the Church and Ministry, because it is the Gospel of Christ giving Himself most intimately to His disciples with all of His gifts and benefits.  This Sacrament confirms the baptismal faith and life of the catechumen.  It gives not only the assurance of forgiveness, but the actual forgiveness of sins, and with it the life and salvation of Christ.  It is union with Christ in body and soul, and the unity of the Church in and with Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  The Body and Blood of Christ are the Christian’s Spiritual Food and Drink, his Manna in the wilderness, the Medicine of Immortality, the Surety and Pledge of the Resurrection.

The Holy Communion is also Catechesis, teaching disciples the Love of God in Christ Jesus, and so also to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, and to love the neighbor as He does.  These are among the reasons, Dr. Luther indicates, for which we desire to receive the Sacrament frequently.  And from the earliest days of the Church, as also in Luther and Chemnitz, the bread made from many grains and the wine made from many grapes signify the communion of many Christians in the one Body of Christ.  The Sacrament actually achieves what it teaches.

The Holy Communion is not interchangeable with Holy Baptism or Holy Absolution; neither is it in competition with any of the Means of Grace.  It has its own proper place and purpose in the life of the Church.  As such, it should not be flattened out into a general theoretical category of “Sacrament,” nor reduced to a generic means of forgiveness.  No, the Sacrament of the Altar is what it is, an irreducible gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He gives to His Christian disciples to eat and to drink — that is, to those who are baptized, catechized, and cared for in His Name.  Pastoral Care for the Lord’s flock will therefore seek to serve His lambs and sheep with His Body and His Blood as faithfully as possible.

IV. The Pastoral Fellowship of the Church

Along with everything else the Sacrament is and does, it is more than simply an expression of fellowship.  The Holy Communion is the Church’s Fellowship in and with Christ Jesus.  We who are many are one Body in Christ, because we all eat of His Body.  We share this fellowship of the Sacrament with those who share the same Catechesis and Confession of the faith, because the preaching and teaching of Christ belong to the administration of the Holy Communion.  The Word and Sacrament belong together and are inseparable in practice.

Admission to the Sacrament of the Altar is therefore an exercise of Pastoral Care within the fellowship of the Church; not only within the local congregation, but in the larger fellowship of each pastor and congregation with other pastors and congregations.  Whoever communes at one Altar participates in all the other Altars of the same fellowship, under the shared Pastoral Care of the entire fellowship.  We commune the members of our sister congregations because they are under the care of brother pastors.

It is important for pastors and congregations of the same fellowship to have and use the same criteria for admission to the Sacrament of the Altar.  Which is why it is so alarming that the Missouri Synod is all over the map on precisely this point.  I’m not referring to a diversity in age, ability, or academic achievement on the part of communicants, since these differences are of no theological consequence but simply belong to the variety of gifts and the diversity of many members in the one Body of Christ.  The troubling diversity is that which is found in Catechesis, Confession, and Pastoral Care, the very things that ought to be the basis and the common ground of our fellowship.  What I mean is not simply that we are inconsistent in our preaching, teaching, and administration of the Gospel, but that we do not respect or adhere to these criteria in our Communion practices.  Not only is open Communion rampant across the Missouri Synod, but what is meant by “closed Communion” also varies dramatically.  Couple these trends with wide variations in catechetical methods and standards, and with a vast range of opinions regarding the Pastoral Office, and it becomes difficult even to identify what or where our fellowship is.

The inconsistencies are especially obvious in cases, such as I have witnessed, where members are not permitted their First Communion until their eighth grade Confirmation, while yet the same congregation welcomes visitors of every stripe to commune at a fully open Altar.  By contrast, even a much earlier First Communion does not equate to open Communion, not when the criteria of genuine Church Fellowship are consistently applied.  Those Christians who are baptized, catechized, and cared for by pastors of the same fellowship are communed within that fellowship, whether at home or away.  And by the same criteria, those Christians (or otherwise) belonging to another fellowship (or to no fellowship at all), because they are under a different Pastoral Care, are not communed at our Altars.  It is not a measure or judgement of worthiness in the heart, but an objective fact of Church Fellowship: The Sacrament is given within a context and fellowship of ongoing Pastoral Care and Catechesis, and not apart from that context.

The practice of Church Discipline, on the other hand, functions within the context of Pastoral Care to exclude from the Sacrament those members of the congregation who would commune unworthily on account of their persistence in false doctrine or some other blatant sin for which they refuse to repent.  The goal, of course, is to call them to repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  In the meantime, it is an exercise of Pastoral Care to withhold forgiveness and the Sacrament from the unrepentant, so long as they do not repent.

Such discipline applies, wherever it is called for, without respect or prejudice to persons or their age.  Young communicants who persist in false doctrine or immoral living should be put under discipline until they repent.  But here is where their lack of sophisticated reason serves the little children very well, since it is quite rare to find a young Christian guilty of unrepentant sin or heresy.  They do routinely sin and commit theological errors, but they also tend to accept correction from their pastors and parents, to repent of their sins, and to learn from their mistakes.

The point is that the vital unity of our Church Fellowship is found in a common Catechesis and Confession of Christ, and in a mutual context of Pastoral Care.  I do not refer to some abstract doctrine or theory, but to the work of the Ministry in practice, the preaching, teaching, and administration of the Gospel by pastors who are committed and accountable to one another.  That also requires an active communication among those pastors, especially within circuits, but as broadly as circumstances permit.  There is never enough time for everything we should like to do, but there needs to be time made for the exercise of our pastoral fellowship.

It is a false and superficial sort of unity to rely on the rite of “Confirmation” at some standardized age or grade level as our bond of peace.  The question yet remains, What is the character and content of the Catechesis preceding, undergirding, and following that rite?  And again, What is the nature and practice of the Pastoral Care encompassing all of the above?

In the interest of full disclosure, let me offer my own pastoral practice as an example of what I have in mind.  It has been fairly settled now for the past five or six years, although I continue to wrestle with the questions and concerns that touch upon my practice, especially as it pertains to the unity of our fellowship.

When I was ordained at Emmaus in 1996, there were no confirmands, nor any on the foreseeable horizon.  It was an aging congregation with very few children on the rolls, even fewer in church.  Among the children who were attending regularly were my own DoRena and Zachary, ages nine and seven, and of course we were teaching them the Catechism at home.

Early on, it was brought to my attention by the Board of Elders that Emmaus had a precedent for giving First Communion prior to Confirmation.  Already then, on the basis of what I knew of early Reformation practice, I was in favor of an earlier First Communion.  I was also leery of the exalted, even “sacramental” terms with which I heard the people speak of their “Confirmation.”  So, in view of past precedent, and with the blessing of the Elders, I began to offer First Communion to younger children following a public examination in the primary texts of the Catechism (along with the basic explanations of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Communion).  DoRena, Zachary, and another young lady, the three of them ranging in age from eight to ten years, were the first of my First Communicants.

In subsequent years, and really for quite awhile, I generally began Catechesis — one-on-one with each catechumen — between the ages of six and eight years.  Usually after a year or so, when I was confident they knew the basics of the Catechism, I would publicly examine a group of them at Vespers, and then admit them to the Holy Communion at the next Divine Service.

As the number of children at Emmaus increased, I made the move to holding regular catechesis classes, since I could no longer meet with each and every catechumen individually.  It was in the context of such classes that I noted the differences between the various children, with respect to their piety and personalities, their maturity and academic abilities.  Nothing shocking in that, but it pressed me to consider the criteria I was using for their First Communion.  What was I looking for and measuring in these children?  Was it simply a matter of memorization?  I had some very bright catechumens who were in class every week and able to memorize and recite the Catechism easily enough, but who weren’t in church with any consistency, and whose families were not exactly proactive in daily prayer.  I also had some other catechumens, who were not only in class every week but faithfully in church, often several times a week, and whose families were praying and confessing the Word of God at home every day, but who struggled with their memory work.

It was in light of those observations that I began to consider the family context as a higher priority and more decisive than memory work.  I’m still a fan of memorization, and I require it of all my confirmands, but I don’t treat it as a pre-requisite for the Holy Communion.  Where a family is faithful in Catechesis at home and in the liturgical life of the Church, I know that, sooner or later, the children will know the Catechism by heart.  In the meantime, I recognize that one can know something without having it memorized, or have something memorized without really knowing it.  So I’m looking for a stable context of ongoing Catechesis, and I work at establishing a pastoral relationship and rapport with each and all of my catechumens and their families.

One of the reasons I am able to take this sort of approach at Emmaus is that most of my families are homeschooling.  Not all of them, but almost.  The parents are proactive in educating their children, and they emphasize Catechesis as a fundamental part of their curriculum.  They’re also able to participate in weekday prayer offices and festival Services at church.  They don’t think of education in terms of grade levels, but are geared to thinking of each child as a unique individual.

My weekly catechesis class comprises children ranging in age from seven to fifteen or sixteen years, and each of those children is likely to be in that class with me for about that span of time before they are finally confirmed.  Prior to my class, they have catechesis class with Deaconess Rhein on Sunday mornings, usually from three or four years of age until six or seven.  So, there’s no lack of formal Catechesis at Emmaus, and the children all learn to know the Bible and the Catechism well, along with Psalms, Hymnody, and the Church Year.

And, from very early on, the young catechumens of Emmaus are also receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Communion.  No one communes automatically at any particular age, but almost all of the children of the congregation are receiving the Sacrament by the time they are five or six years old.  My youngest First Communicants have been three or four, admitted to the Sacrament on the basis of their family context, my pastoral communication with them, and their confession of Christ and His Body and Blood according to their own abilities and vocabulary.  Some of them are quite precocious, but what I’m measuring is their Catechesis and Confession, not their intelligence, bravado, or eloquence.  I don’t put them under the spotlight of a public examination, but I care for them, examine and absolve them individually.

I realize that I’m pushing the envelope with respect to the age of First Communion, but I haven’t done so to be provocative.  I simply aim to be a faithful pastor to the families and children under my care.  It is with caution that I have proceeded, in conversation with many colleagues, including open discussion in my Circuit Winkel.  I have not done anything covertly, but have sought the guidance and feedback of fathers and brothers in Christ.  I desire to be a faithful steward of the Mysteries of God, and so also a faithful shepherd of the lambs and sheep of Christ.

The first time I communed a three-year-old was after that particular child had been asking me for months already to give her the Sacrament.  When she looked me in the eye and asked me point blank, one Sunday at the Altar, why I wouldn’t give her Jesus’ Body and Blood, I spent the next several weeks trying to answer that question, even to my own satisfaction, and I could not.  She was baptized, catechized, and cared for.  She knew and confessed the Gospel.  She knew and desired the Holy Communion, clearly discerning the Body of Christ from ordinary bread.  And she did actually know the primary texts of the Catechism, well enough to pray them by heart with her family and the congregation.  She would often chant the Verba right along with me from her pew during the Divine Service.  I could not in good conscience deny her request for the Sacrament, which her parents also desired for her.

What I have found over the years, and what should not surprise any of us, is that the Holy Communion bears good fruits of faith and love in the lives of young Christians.  The children of Emmaus who began communing at a comparatively early age have remained faithful and active in the life of the congregation.  The attrition rate has been extraordinarily low.  The young communicants have continued in catechesis classes without dropping out, and have continued coming to church week after week into adulthood.  They tend to be quite loyal, in fact, because they love the Liturgy and, above all else, they love the Lord’s Supper.

The fruits of the Holy Communion that I have witnessed in my catechumens and communicants at Emmaus have confirmed for me the approach that I have taken.  Yet, I am fully aware that other pastors and congregations of our fellowship are at a variety of different points in their practice.  Many do not understand or agree with my approach.  Others are sympathetic, perhaps enthusiastic about our practice at Emmaus, but would not be able to follow the same path in their own context.  Which is why I teach my families to honor the practice of congregations they visit, and to respect the discretion and care of the pastors in each place.  Sometimes that is difficult and disappointing, but I believe it is the only way to proceed.

What I ask of you, and of my colleagues across the Synod, is a similar patience with me, and a serious consideration of these matters, perhaps from a new perspective.  My chief concern is to emphasize the central and salutary significance of the Sacrament, the necessity of ongoing Catechesis from infancy to old age, and the pastoral character of Church Fellowship.  Where these criteria are clearly defined and established, the age of First Communion will no longer be the issue.

On that note, I suppose that I do need to say something about Infant Communion, since it has been a topic of interest and of some controversy in our circles.  Given my references to Holy Baptism and infant faith, and the relatively young age of my First Communicants at Emmaus, you might conclude that I am advocating Infant Communion or inching toward that practice.  However, that is not the case.  I am actually not in favor of the practice.

I do not believe that a newly baptized infant would be an unworthy communicant, but neither do I believe that he or she should be communed at that point.  First of all, because it would break with our tradition and our fellowship.  Lutherans have begun communing children across a diversity of ages, but, historically, not infants, who are unable to speak.  Although it is somewhat inconsistent to accept the confession of infants by proxy in the rite of Holy Baptism, but to deny the confession of infants otherwise, the fact remains that we have baptized infants, and that we have not communed them.  Even my youngest communicants at Emmaus are able, in their own simple way, to confess their faith in Christ and His Sacrament.  So that is a decisive point for me.

Second, I am persuaded that a child should be weaned, at least, before being given the solid Food of the Holy Communion.  I know the ancient and Eastern churches have found ways of providing the Sacrament to nursing babies.  Yet, there is a natural transition from mother’s milk to solids, and it seems to me that should be respected.

Finally, because I am convinced that the administration of the Sacrament includes and requires an active exercise of Pastoral Care, I need to be able to engage the catechumen in conversation, even if only at a very basic level, before admitting him or her to the Holy Communion.  With some of my youngest communicants, depending on their personality, my communication may be very simple, and their responses limited and quiet.  However, there is a threshold that has been crossed, typically between three and four years of age, after which I am able to connect and engage with the child in a way that I could not before that point.  That is one of the key things I am looking for, and another decisive factor for me, in assessing a candidate for the Holy Communion.

Conclusion: Earlier First Communion, Ongoing Catechesis, and Delayed “Confirmation”

What, then, do I advocate?  Not a new age of First Communion, but a focus on the criteria of Catechesis, Confession, and Pastoral Care.  I want to see the Christian disciples of Jesus communed as early as feasible, but also faithfully “in accordance with the Gospel.”  That means ongoing Catechesis in all that Jesus has commanded, unto daily repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins.  Such Catechesis will be liturgical, rooted in Holy Baptism and always leading to and from the Sacrament of the Altar.  It will include a lively practice of Confession and Absolution for both young and old.

As far as “Confirmation” is concerned, if we are going to keep and use the rite as we have received it, I would just as soon reserve it until 18 or 21 years of age, or until the young adult is leaving home for higher education, military service, or to get married.  I certainly prefer to wait as long as possible before asking a child to make the vows and promises included in the rite of “Confirmation.”  But I do not want the reception of the Holy Communion to be contingent upon the maturity expected and implicit in such vows.  Rather, let us revel and rejoice in the Gifts Christ freely gives, which enable us and our children to grow up into Him who is the mature Man, who became the little Child for us, that we might become the children of God in Him.

The Pastoral Care of Catechumens and Communicants by Rev'd Rick Stuckwisch on Mixcloud