By Pastor Rich Futrell
All congregations and pastors in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pledge to uphold and follow the Lutheran Confessions. That’s a basic requirement of membership. And that’s also what separates us from all other Christian churches.
At my ordination vows, I, as your pastor, vowed to “perform the duties of [my] office in accordance with these Confessions [the Lutheran Confessions].” And so, in faithfulness to your call to me as your pastor, as someone who is supposed to follow the Lutheran Confessions, I have tried to do exactly that.
Now, when you called me called to preach, teach, and follow what is in our Confessions, you were simply doing what Lutheran churches have done since 1580. What you may not have known was what that entailed. So, let me share with you some quotations from our Confessions, so you can better understand who we are to be as Lutherans.
We [Lutherans] do not abolish the Mass, but religiously keep and defend it. Masses are celebrated among us every Lord’s Day and on other festivals. The Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it, after they have been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other such things (Ap, XXIV, 1).
Here, was see a description of what Lutherans do and how they worship. We have the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. We follow the usual public ceremonies (that means the traditional, historic liturgy of the Church). We read from a lectionary. We pray the prayers of the Church. The pastor wears the usual vestments. When the Confessions were written, that included the stole and chasuble (what I wear during communion), which Martin Luther also wore.
So, although some of this may seem new to you, it’s simply what we were supposed to be doing all along. It’s simply me as your pastor trying to be faithful to my call and ordination vows. It’s simply your pastor trying to “play by the rules” that we’ve all agreed to as Lutherans since 1580.
But I suppose it’s worth asking, “Why would we willingly choose to live out the faith in such a way?” What was the worldview of our Lutheran fathers? And what is our worldview supposed to be on such matters?
Our Lutheran Confessions answer that in passing in several different places. In our Solid Declaration, we state “that we will not make or receive a separate or new confession of our faith” (SD, The Comprehensive Summary, 2). We assert that we have not “invented a new interpretation” (AC, XX, 12) and, even more, that “we have not said anything new” (Ap II, 15).
In truth, our Lutheran Confessions charge the Roman Catholic Church of creating new doctrines, ceremonies, and interpretations. The overriding claim of our Lutheran fathers is that we did not draw up any new doctrines, but have, instead, restored what the New Testament Church has always taught and practiced.
Do you realize what we are saying as Lutherans? Our belief and practices are not new. No, we have simply restored what the New Testament Church, from the beginning, has believed and practiced. In other words, the Lutheran Church is not a new Church that started in the 1500s by a rebellious monk, Martin Luther. No, it was a monk, Martin Luther, whom the Roman Catholic Church had excommunicated, who was forced to try to restore what the Church had always taught, believed, and practiced.
That’s a huge claim! That means our Lutheran fathers meant for us to be what the Roman Catholic Church claimed to be but was not. We are supposed to the Church of the 1st century still preaching and teaching. We are supposed to be the Church of the 2nd century still preaching and teaching, and so on. That is why our Lutheran father, Martin Chemnitz (the “second Martin”), could make such a bold claim when he spoke about the newly formed Anabaptists. He said, “We also hold that no dogma that is new in the churches and in conflict with all of antiquity should be accepted” (Examination of the Council of Trent, Vol I, 258).
That’s why, even with all the jokes about “change” in the Lutheran Church, there is a ring of truth to that. Again, our Lutheran Confessions say: “Nothing in customary rites should be changed without a reasonable cause. So to nurture unity, old customs that can be kept without sin or great inconvenience should be kept” (Ap XV, 51).
But what if “customary rites” have changed over the last 500 years without a reasonable cause? Then, as Lutherans, we are gently to restore them, so we can still be the living face of the same New Testament Church that has confessed and lived out the faith for these last two millennia.
Are you beginning to see what we say we will believe and practice when we say we will follow the Lutheran Confessions and be Lutheran? Perhaps, that is why our Confessors start our Confessions, saying that they begin “with intrepid hearts.” May our hearts also be intrepid, so we may be willing to learn the fullness of the faith. And may we also be willing to learn and change when what we think the faith is, based on our experience, does not line up with Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. May God bring us all to such a place. Amen.
