ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 58.LW2 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> JOSHUA: You referred to building blocks. How are building blocks used in a service like matins or morning prayer? >> DR. JAMES BRAUER: These portions of the service we can call the building blocks. That's a good name as any. They are parts of the service so if we do a service like matins or morning prayer, and here I would ask you to turn to Lutheran Worship page 208 to follow along as we do this. Matins is a service that can be led by a layman as well as pastors. It's an ancient service. We're not dealing here with the history, but to actually take the service in the book and look at how these parts are exhibited will help us understand how they get used. So if you're on page 208 you'll notice that the first thing called for is a hymn of invocation. The idea of invoking the Holy Spirit obviously suggests a prayer. So if we�re thinking of what kind of element would that be, if you choose such a hymn, obviously, you are doing a prayer move. Now, if it's a praise move, then obviously, that's what's happening at that point. Then comes No. 2 in the rubrics some opening versicles followed by glory be to the Father and to the Son, the Gloria Patri ending which gives a Trinitarian focus to each time that you use these words derived from the psalms. Oh Lord open my Lips. My mouth will declare your praise. That would be a prayer act. Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me, O lord. Again, calling upon God in prayer and then glory be to the Father. Now this shifts, and often this happens in prayer acts, that it shifts to an act of praise so that is prayer is followed, connected to praise. The closing line of that, rubric 3, praise to you 0 Christ. alleluia continues the praise move or there are alternates then that don't use an alleluia in Advent and Lent. So it's just avoiding that praise to God, Greek version of Hebrew. In Hebrew it would be hallelujah, in Greek alleluia. And that�s moved into the language of worship. So we have encountered so far prayer, praise. Now at rubric No. 4, called the invitatory, the opening antiphon designed to what's going to follow, a psalm, the Venite, is from Psalm 95, the opening words of that psalm. So when we look at the psalm text, oh come let us sing to the Lord and make a joyful noise, it's not hard to recognize this is a fruit of faith move, a praise move. Let us make a joyful noise, then some things about God are mentioned. The deep places of the earth are in his hand. The strength of the hills is his, the sea, so you're thinking about the whole creation and you want everyone to kneel down and worship and thinking of yourself as belonging to his sheep. And closing then with a continued praise with the Trinitarian ending, glory be to the Father. That is framed by starting, blessed be God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So again, this is completely a praise act. That was rubric 4. No. 5 is a hymn. Now, depending on what�s chosen there, it could go a couple of different ways. It could participate in the word. It could be mostly praise. It could even be a prayer. Typically in offices like matins, we like to use a praise move there. This would be like an Old Testament psalm followed by a New Testament paraphrase of scripture or praise of God psalm-like creation. Then No. 6 is another Psalm. Depending upon what's chosen, it could be a morning prayer, it could be a praise of God. It could be meditating on the power of God's word, say, in Psalm 119. So depending upon where the text goes, it would fit in the praise category, in the prayer category, or even in just meditating on the acts of God. It would almost be a listening. The advantage of the psalms is that they have this multifarious qualities that flow in and out so they're very rich in drawing us into this interaction with God. Then comes No. 7, a reading. Obviously, this is a time for listening, meditating, and reflecting on all that God does for us. Then comes No. 8, a little response. Oh Lord have mercy. Thanks be to God. That's a double move. You listen to the words, prayer, praise. Or, an alternate way to do it, the common responsory, a little bigger kind of structure. Forever, all Lord, your word is firmly set in the heavens. Lord I love the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells. It's kind of a praise act there. So again, it's referring to the power of the word and the praise act closing with glory be to the Father, and then that repeated line. Then you can see on page 212, 213, that there are different ones provided for the Lenten season, for the Easter season that make a similar move. So, when you look at the page it looks complicated, but they provided the alternate parts. So we've had prayer, praise, and word up to this point. And mostly, it's prayer and praise so far. Now we come to Rubric 9, sermon. Sermon may follow. So this is not required. But when the Reformation chose to use matins and vespers from the monastic life, this became an important feature for congregational life. So when it's used there, typically, it will have a sermon. This would obviously be a point where the word is the focus. Then there is allowed for an offering. Now, where do we put the offering in the prayer, praise, word, sacrament ceremony? Is it just a ceremony? There's action. I would say no. I would probably put it in the response, the fruits of faith, kind of a praise act in which we're offering, from ourselves, money which represents our talent, time, and energy for use by the kingdom of God. It may have even a prayer act attached to it. So again, it's kind of mixed up, but in the thank you category, the response side. Then Rubric 11, a canticle. Here is provided the Te Deum which is an invention of the church. It's not biblical, but wonderfully lifting of Jesus Christ and praising God thinking of it done through all ages, the angels being involved. This is not only the full earth, but the heavens and the earth praising God. And at the end, even uttering a prayer, therefore, help your servants. The other canticle that's provided is the Benedictus, blessed be God, the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. This was the song of Zechariah when he found out that he would have a son, John the Baptist. That was a New Testament canticle that got associated with morning services. So we have two types here, one created by the church, one that's biblical. Those would be considered acts of praise sometimes with a small move of a prayer act. Then at Rubric 14, it says the prayers. Here we begin a series of prayers, and it continues not only with the opening, Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Clearly a prayer for the mercy and grace of God, then the Our Father, a series of collects with a salutation that starts it. Now, you could ask: what is a salutation? Lord be with you, and also with you. It's kind of a greeting. It's hard to fit that in one of our five categories: ceremony, word, sacrament, prayer, or praise. So occasionally, we find an element that doesn't fall neatly, but it reminds us to listen up that we're about the Lord's things. And then we turn to prayer, a series of prayers, obviously, they are in the category of prayer. And it's a series of prayers because the church prays in these services for all types of things. That is their task, as the people of God, to ask for things the world needs, that they need, their friends and family need. Then finally at Rubric 18, we have let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God. A little kind of greeting, both sides of it, pastor�s part or leader�s part, let us bless the lord, an invitation. People respond thanks. It's a praise move. And the final act, then, is a benediction. A benediction is God delivering his blessing through his minister. So there's two ways to phrase this in here. When it is a minister, a pastor doing it, he delivers it for God in a way the Old Testament priests would deliver a benediction for God. When it is a lay person who does it, then the word us is used. Be with us all so that that person is included in the gift of the benediction to which we respond an amen. That's the design. So you can see, that when you look at it, there's considerable prayer. In this service there was considerable praise. There is a lot of quoting of scripture. Often that becomes the way we put words in our mouth to do these other actions, prayer and praise. But also times of listening. And there may be some ceremony like the kneeling act, a change of posture can assist one or another of these and help us focus on it. But there is no element of a sacrament in this service. So sacrament is, in Christian liturgy, not a requirement, but it can be there. And we can look at them as being in the gift department or the thank-you department, the sacramentum or the sacrificium. That's how we can look at liturgy and tie them to our understanding of what's going on in the ways of God.