This inaugural column is addressed to the Evangelical Catholics of the Missouri Synod. You don’t call yourselves that, of course, but I don’t know what else to call you. You are exactly the counterpart to your ELCA cousins (brothers? sisters?) who are known as Evangelical Catholics, so if you insist on a separate name you’ll have to tell us what it is. Whatever you may be called, you are the continuation of a important tradition in American Lutheranism.

For more than a hundred years every American Lutheran body has had such a minority group like yours which specialized in the study of liturgy and advocated ways to improve our liturgical life. What’s amazing when one looks at the phenomenon is that you have always had a more powerful impact than any group your size should be permitted in a democracy. You defy every “quota system.” As a result, each generation of Lutherans has been given a healthier practice of liturgy, and after a bit of clamor new practices become tradition. “It’s always been that way” follows the seven last words of the church, “We’ve never done it that way before.”

You are the folks who gave us the Common Service in 1888 and all its derivatives like The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) in 1941, which came to us by way of the English Synod (later the English District). Through the years you have set admirable standards and norms in architecture, music, vestments, and ritual which we now take for granted, but were originally ridiculed as popery and marginalized as fascination with trivia. You gave us the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) and its LCMS derivatives Lutheran Worship (LW) and now Lutheran Service Book (LSB).

Where is the LCMS liturgically? Absent any statistically reliable study, I will venture a cautious guess based on my contacts throughout the synod in 42 years of ministry. My lens is the liturgical movement as understood by Arthur Carl Piepkorn. He was suspicious of the “dress makers” (as von Schenk called them) in the liturgical movement, although he did advocate historic vestments. He favored most of the Vatican II liturgical reforms that ultimately made their way into the LBW. Piepkorn was a confessionalist, first and last. He considered the restoration of the eucharist to American Lutheranism to be the primary need of modern Lutherans. As an example, he once told us that a congregation of soldiers in the mud or a rural congregation with a celebrant in coveralls celebrating Eucharist is ultimately more liturgical than Solemn Vespers beautifully sung in the most elegant gothic church with the finest vestments!

By Piepkorn’s sacramental measure, then, you should understand that there has been marked improvement since his death. When I was ordained in 1965, many in the synod were still talking about “quarterly communion.” It was an immediate memory for most, although I think by then a monthly celebration was more the norm. It would be my guess that it is now twice monthly for most LCMS congregations. And I would think that the number of congregations celebrating eucharist at every liturgy, every Sunday, has multiplied many times since 1965 (about 1% then). When I go back to Lake Wobegon for eucharist, I notice that most members of the congregations receive. That’s a significant change from my childhood with many deliberately “fasting” from the sacrament for fear of making it “too common.” Piepkorn would applaud the noticeable movement to more frequent communions by the baptized.

But there has always been another side to the story of Missouri’s apprehension of liturgy. The Augsburg Confession along with the lesser confessions give Lutherans a definite “liturgical home.” That home is the eucharistic liturgy of the west. By 1800, the erosion of theology and liturgy made that home unrecognizable. Lutherans discovered they would have to begin the difficult struggle to recover confessional liturgy. Martin Stephan, the founder of the Emigration Society that was to become the Missouri Synod, started us on the right track with confessionally sound theology and liturgy, but he had to be expelled (for reasons apart liturgy). We found ourselves far from our ethnic home as well as liturgical home with only a minority willing to enter the struggle to recovery.

Many anti-liturgical influences work to make your task difficult. Missouri still suffers from lingering pietism. “Faith” sometimes appears more important than the gift of the sacraments. (Witness the “Communion Statements” in many Sunday bulletins explicating in great detail the requirements for admission to the sacrament.) Rationalism can be seen in the constant effort to explain every mystery and the reluctance to let a mystery stand alone. Missouri never established any kind of “liturgical authority.” The rubrics are routinely ignored and the orders are “customized” to suit any whim. (That is why it is vain to blame elected officials who cannot change things.) Through years of Americanization, the Lutherans of the LCMS have built in their own unique “default ecumenical home.” This home is decidedly anti-Roman Catholic and decidedly pro-evangelical Protestant, and that stance has taken a toll liturgically. The expulsion of Piepkorn and the realignment that began in 1973 served to reinforce a strongly evangelical Protestant self-image. In 1817 the Prussian Union attempted to force Lutherans into replacing our liturgy with the Reformed version. Although the LCMS has been incredibly rigorous in guarding against unionism (the intrusion of Protestantism) at the front door, the enemy has come in disguise through the back door, a fundamental Bible firmly in hand. In some congregations we may be farther than Walther from our liturgical home—the catholic eucharistic liturgy. Yet many others are closer to great tradition than Walther.

Here is my advice for you younger generation of pastors who are seeking to restore our liturgy. I hope you will not dismiss me simply because I am proud to be Piepkornian and was educated and formed by the full Concordia system before 1973.

1. There is no “silver bullet.” Liturgical reform will come only one parish at a time. It is hard work because you are still a minority. Don’t get angry. Learn to take small gains graciously. Take my word for it. We have come a long way just in my lifetime. I wish we had come further, but then I think what a mess we Lutherans had on our hands 200 years ago. I am grateful for what the Holy Spirit has accomplished. It is tempting to blame our elected officials (presidents). Remember that they are elected by the majority to reflect majority prejudices and preferences.
2. Make your case on Lutheran grounds. The case for liturgy should be made from our deep appreciation of baptism (with its follow-on partner, absolution) and the real presence in eucharist. It is only the gospel that will ultimately convince people. Walther (in Law and Gospel) draws the connection between preaching and confessional doctrine on the sacraments. The arguments from aesthetics or style finally depend upon taste and cannot be decided definitively. Von Schenk and Piepkorn were right to disown the dressmakers of the earlier generations of liturgical advocates. Only the confessional argument will ultimately convince Lutherans.
3. Persuade by loving your people with the Gospel. Sasse (in This Is My Body) makes an excellent argument from Luther’s assertion that the sacrament is the gospel. Even in the polemical atmosphere at Marburg, Luther saw that the real presence is much more than a mere cognitive construct in need of intellectual defense. All the elaborate theology and all the detailed rubrics through the ages have followed, not preceded, the simple practice of the sacraments by billions of people who were drawn to these sacraments by the gospel.
4. Closed communion is a tool of Calvinism. Keep it in your tool box until you need it. All the Calvinist and Anabaptist confessions have a prominent place for closed communion. The Lutheran confessions have none. Open communion for the unbaptized is not an option, but there are many, many degrees of closed communion. Pastors and congregations can work out a practice, but there is no need to make exclusion so prominent that it clouds the gift of communion for the faithful. We do not want the faithful to misconstrue the gift of communion and make it the exclusive privilege for the worthy elite (as seems to be the failing of Calvinism). What is communicated when a church looks and sounds like an airport invaded by Homeland Security? After all, how many are there out there on a given Sunday trying to cheat the church out of a proper communion? Missouri’s obsession with closed communion has seriously impeded the people’s appreciation for liturgy. As does our unique practice of “open absolution.”
5. Cease the practice of “open absolution.” Most of the arguments proffered against open communion actually do apply to the practice of open (or general)  absolution. The ancient formula of absolution begins “I forgive you.” The “you” is always singular, as in the Small Catechism. Missouri stands alone in routinely pronouncing a general absolution (“you” becomes plural) for all present, including the unbaptized. If all are absolved, all should be admitted to eucharist. The closest parallel is Rome which permits it only in the gravest, life-threatening circumstances (such as before battle). Just use one of the declaration of grace formulae and begin to foster private absolution.
6. Vatican II reforms can help us. Rome has been most successful in bringing the faithful to the table. The bit of whining that accompanied the Vatican II liturgical reforms was a small price to pay for a marvelous pastoral reform with the multiplication of people receiving the body and blood of Christ. We Lutherans should look at how they did it. They turned the altar to face the people, exactly as Luther recommended. They translated everything into vernacular English (or another appropriate language), also as did Luther. They distributed many roles (altar servers, lectors, prayer leaders, catechists, eucharistic ministers) to laypeople, all the while preserving the integrity of the ordained. The LSB readily admits to conducting the liturgy in the mode of the LBW (which is the Lutheran version of Vatican II liturgical reforms).

May the Holy Spirit bless your important pastoral work. Success will happen “when and where God wills” (Augsburg Confession 5). Who knows what you can bequeath to the church? Forty years hence they will say, “We’ve always done that!”