ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 35.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: If I'm jumping the gun on this question, please forgive me. But I'm curious to know, what happens to the structures of the liturgy during the medieval period of history. >> DR. ARTHUR JUST: Thus far, Joshua, we have followed the development of the liturgical structures through the domestic period and the imperial period. In your question is a natural transition to now the third period in the history of the liturgy which is sometimes called the medieval period. When you look at the dates of these periods, they're not always clean, and we date the imperial period from the time of Constantine until, really, the time of Gregory the Great, which was from 590 to 604. So we use the date of 600 as kind of the transition into the medieval period. But it's important to recognize that this period already begins with the first barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire in the year 410. Now, you might not think the influx of these barbarian peoples into the Roman world would have an impact on the liturgy, but they did. The fact of the matter is, you have a clash of cultures going on already beginning in the year 410, and for the next two hundred years, you see the sorting out of how it is that these two cultures are going to come and live together in as peaceful a way as possible. Now most of us, when we think of the Roman Empire, of gladiators and kind of the pagan feasts and those kind of things. We don't think of it as a moral or, shall we say, an ethical world. But compared to the barbarian cultures, Rome looked downright puritan. We sometimes forget that, I always say my ancestors--I'm 100 percent German--so my ancestors, the ones that came down from the north, are the ones that really not only affected the world at that time, but really affected the life of the church in a way that was rather profound. What you found happening in the transition here from the imperial to the medieval period, is that the pastors of the church in the Roman Empire found themselves having to go back to the basics with these barbarian folk. They had to start teaching them the Ten Commandments, that it wasn't all right to just kill your neighbor, or to be kind of wantonly unfaithful to your wife. They found themselves doing catechesis in a way that they had never really done before, at least not in the last one hundred years or so. And perhaps some of the most profound changes on the church were in the liturgy itself. Again, perhaps we don't realize how sophisticated and elegant the Roman mind was and, therefore, the Roman liturgy. If we were to go back and look at that Roman liturgy, we'd be very surprised say, in the year 400, how crisp and clean, how flatfooted it was, how unadorned it was, for all intents and purposes. It was the barbarians who enjoyed more ceremony, who wanted to place on top of the liturgy things that did not necessarily belong there and so the medieval liturgy that we think of when we think of kind of the high Roman liturgy, was a product not of the Roman mind, but of the barbarian mind. As one of my professors used to say, they had the curlicue mind. They had the vivid imaginations. They were the ones who wanted more and more and more. And so what you see happening, already in the year 410, but certainly to begin to heat up in the next two centuries, is a liturgy beginning to grow and not only to grow, but to become more and more obscure to the people. Now, this is a complex time, and when we start talking about the medieval period from the year 600 to 1517, we're talking of a period of almost one thousand years. And in that period of time, there are lots of things that are happening, and it's difficult to kind of paint in broad strokes. Particularly because of the sake of time, we�ll have to make some very general observations about some of the influences of the barbarian culture on the liturgy. I'd like to do that by a principle that we'll come back to later on in the final questions. It is one that we really need to contemplate today in our church. I mentioned it before, but here is where you can really see historically where adapting liturgy to culture had disastrous effects because really, what the Roman church didn't was it changed its liturgy so that it would conform to barbarian culture. Now, we could be really hard on the church, then. I don't know if we�d be any better than them, but the fact of the matter is, when you have the axe of the barbarians at your throat, you're probably going to make changes in the way you wouldn't make if you didn't have such pressure. And the reality was the church was in danger of losing lives as a result of this cultural influx of peoples. And so many changes they make are out of absolute kind of desperation and necessity for fear of their life. But the results of all these changes, the results of adapting liturgy to a different culture, is what, in a sense, not only leads us into a situation where the church now is, in a sense, a church that confesses a false doctrine, but it also has a liturgy now that does not reflect the biblical world that we've been talking about so far. Let me just give you some examples so you can get a feel of what I'm talking about. Perhaps the biggest difference between the barbarian culture and the Roman culture was the fact that they worshiped things, inanimate objects. They were essentially animists so they would worship trees. They would worship the storms. They were fascinated by lightning. There were sacred rocks, things like that. One of the things that the church began to recognize is that they could not move them from this idea of worshiping things. And so what they did in their wisdom is they simply replaced rocks with relics. So instead of worshiping rocks, they worshiped the bones of St. Peter or the wood of the cross or the shroud of Turin, as you know, we've heard, at least a while ago, as being an authentic relic from the time of Our Lord. These kinds of things became now part of the piety of the Christian church. And it was a kind of natural--it was certainly a move that was in part to Christianize some things. But the fact of the matter is, they�re still worshiping things. Even though they may be holy things, they are not what is part of the biblical understanding of who God is and that we're not to worship idols. Other examples, and this is one I think comes up in a later question, but I think I'll deal with it here. And we can expand upon it when that question comes up. Perhaps, in terms of just the life of the church, the biggest difference is this separation between clergy and laity. Now this is, in a sense, already beginning before the barbarian invasions because the church is becoming so large that they need more and more clergy. They need more and more people to work in the church and so there is a bit of a class system beginning to develop. But it was certainly the case that the laity still had access completely to the liturgy of the church. They were coming to the Sacrament regularly. They were singing the ordinaries. They were participating in the psalms. They are part of the liturgical life of the church. What happens with the barbarians is this: even though you begin to see monasteries and convents growing up before the barbarian invasions, the growth of these two institutions takes place during the barbarian period. As I said before, the barbarians had trouble with the Ten Commandments. So many of them found that that kind of cramped their style and they didn't really want to participate in the life of the church. So what they did was they found somebody in their village or somebody in their group who was more given to be pious, and they sent them to the monasteries or to the convents to represent them, to vicariously lead the Christian life on their behalf. Now what happens is that these monks and these nuns, particularly the monks, they become the liturgical experts. They become the professional Christians. They become the ones who, in a sense, do the liturgy for the people of God. And what is remarkable is the way in which this takes place structurally within the church. Now, you can see here there are a lot of things that are kind of flowing together. The separation of clergy and laity is also reflected in the fact that one of the things that absolutely fascinated the barbarians, this is what they really loved about the Christian church, was this urban liturgy, this liturgy in the town because it was grand. It was ceremonial. It captured their very vivid imaginations. And so they wanted to do this up in their northern little burgs in Germany and France and places like that, but they didn't have a big city. The had these small little villages. So how can you have a liturgy on the town if you don't have the city? Well, they solved that problem in really somewhat of an ingenious way is to build huge basilicas in these places. There really didn't have the people to support them, but they built these huge basilicas and what they did was they did the liturgy on the town, this urban liturgy, within the church itself. And so in this cruciform shape, which you'll see on the diagram, they would build chapels along the sides, and these became places, of course, for the relics. These became places for the laity to kind of come and in their private devotional life, worship. This is where the novenas begin to-- these are those private worship services that were paid for. This is where the novenas would take place. And this was kind of a natural place for processions to begin and end or in the process of moving towards the main part of the church, they would use these chapels. Now, if you look at that diagram, you will see there is a church within a church. And if you've ever been to Europe, if you've ever been to some of the large basilicas in Europe, you will see that there are these kind of walled structures right in the center of the church. I studied at the University of Durham. And in Durham, England, there is a Norman cathedral there, a thousand years old. And it's a perfect example of this where there's really kind of a stone facade that surrounds this church within the church, and on the outside of it, you know, there's all these chapels. What happened in the liturgy is this: that they would regularly have these kind of processions throughout the church. They would start in one of the chapels at the very beginning of the morning, like they did in the city in one of the squares. They'd have matins there, and then they would process through, you know, stop at another chapel in midmorning. They�d process through, stop at another chapel, then make their way into the center church where they�d have the word and the sacrament. And then afterwards, at the end of the day, they�d process out and do vespers in another Chapel. Now this, of course, this is the beginning of the Stations of the Cross, the procession from place to place within the church itself. What develops out of all of this is the fact that the clergy, the professional Christians, are in the center part, and the unprofessional Christians, the laity, are in the outer part. And what that means is very simply this: that the laity really do not participate in the two vital structures of the liturgy, word and sacrament. What is happening here is that the laity are no longer hearing the word of God. The word of God is read their in what is called the choir, where all the monks are who were singing the liturgy. They hear it. But the laity, if they want to hear it, they've either got to get very close to the place where the wall is, and most of them don't do that. So they're cut off from the word of God. There does develop a part of the liturgy here at this time called the prone where the Bishop would actually come out of the center part of the church and kind of talk to the laity in a popular devotion. And this was really kind of a way to reach out to them. And it was a very important part of the liturgy for the medieval church because this is one of the few places where the laity had access. And then when it comes time for the sacrament, this is, of course, way up front. And there was oftentimes a screen, what the Eastern Church calls the iconostasis. There was a screen, and it was said silently. The liturgy of the Lord�s Supper was said silently so only the priests that were around the presiding minister, the celebrant, could hear the liturgy. Even the monks in the choir couldn't hear it. This is an extraordinary thing, if you think about it, that nobody hears the liturgy. Now, there are all kinds of things that we kind of think about as being parts of the liturgy that we, as Lutherans, have moved away from. But they all started at this time. To just give you more examples, if the laity could not participate in the liturgy, if they could not in any way have access to word and sacrament, what did they do? Well, I've already mentioned they go to the chapels. This is where the rosary develops. They can't have access to the vital structures of word and sacrament. So the priests, in a pastoral way, give them these rosaries and tell them what to say. And so they're milling around the church with their beads saying the rosary, which was a way, in a sense, keeping them in contact with the churches liturgical life. Now, you know, many of us think of the rosary and we go, oh, you know, that's an abomination. But there are going to be many medieval Christians in heaven because of the rosary. The rosary was a very important part of their life. Some of you who have been to those churches, you know how some of these altarpieces are just phenomenal in their artwork. It's called a reredos. And you have all these statues in their. Well, one of the real abominations of this period, in terms of just kind of a false understanding of the Lord's Supper, this is one of the things that Luther just railed against when he made his reformations, as I am sure Dr. Brauer is talking about. But there comes to develop this understanding that the mass is a sacrifice where we are, as the people of God, through the priest, offering up to God and unbloody sacrifice to propitiate him so that he might not be angry with us. Now, what you have here is really kind of almost a pagan, in a sense, an Old Testament understanding of sacrifice, and not even an Old Testament. It's really an abomination, as Luther said, where we're doing something to make God, you know, be happy with us. Now that completely undermines the once and for all character of the sacrifice of Christ. But the reason for the altar is that as that unbloody sacrifice, you know, goes up to God, the sweet smell of that sacrifice is already captured by the saints on the altar as it moves up toward God. That's why they build them because of their doctrine. And you can really see in some of the cathedrals that there are extraordinary elaborate efforts to highlight this really horrible understanding of the Lord's Supper. Here we've taken what is gift, and we've made it our work which is really one of the great problems with the medieval liturgy. Some other things that, again, you may be familiar with as some of the things that we, as Lutherans, have tried to move away from. There is nothing wrong with elevating the host and elevating the cup. That is certainly a gesture that shows people here is the body of Christ. Here is the cup of Christ's blood. But in the medieval church, the reason they did the elevation is because the laity was not coming to the sacrament anymore. They were coming maybe once or twice a year. And since the sacrament--the liturgy of the sacrament--was silent, nobody knew when it was coming about. So what would they do? When it came time for the words of institution, they would ring the bell. When the people heard the bell, they knew this was the moment of the words of institution. They would rush, you know, towards a view of the altar, and then as they now being alerted by the bell, look up at the priest, who they can't hear, they see him elevate the host. They see him elevate the cup. And then how did they commune? They communed with their eyes, not with their mouths. This is why that part of the liturgy is their in the medieval church. Now, I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. What has happened here is that there is this huge separation between clergy and laity. Perhaps, in conclusion here, before we move into some of the other aspects of this, perhaps the saddest part of this is the fact that not only can they not hear the word of God, not only can they not hear the liturgy of the Lord's Supper or receive it in their mouths, but they are not even able to respond because the hymns, the ordinaries: Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis, Sanctus, Angus Dei, now become professional pieces that only choir's can sing. This is where you see the rise, now, of choral music, but it's very complex. And it's not only complex, but it's very repetitive, and there are things that are called tropes and sequences and all these kinds of things where they would take the vowel at the end of the Alleluia and just spin it out forever, or just kind of repeat the sequences over and over again in the middle, but they were complex. People who were not professional musicians or who had not been trained in a choir could not sing them. So who sang the responses of the people of God on behalf of the people is the professional choirs, which are the monks, again, showing the separation between clergy and laity. This, in summary now, for this introduction to the medieval liturgy, what has happened is that this wonderful, clean, crisp, bi-fold shape of the historic liturgy that comes to its kind of flowering in the imperial period now begins to become clouded over. I mentioned before that it was like a fog had overtaken it. What really is at stake here is that people are no longer able to participate in these vital structures. They no longer have access to Christ. And this is a problem that goes on for many, many centuries. This is the kind of liturgy that Luther inherited. And because of that, Luther found it necessary to make some of the reforms that he did. One of the most important things for us to remember here is that these changes came over a long period of time and that many of these pastors were trying to be faithful in a very difficult time. But once these things are in place, it's very difficult to change them because these become things that people are used to. They become part of life, and these kinds of abominations get handed down and are thought of as being that is the way in which we worship. That is why we have to be so careful what we do in worship. That's why we have to analyze it very, very critically to make sure that what we do is something that does speak clearly of the Biblical faith, that speaks true doctrine, and that is faithful and reverent to Christ's presence. We�re going to see that in this medieval period, we have an example for us today because in many ways even though we're not facing in any way the same kind of challenge that they faced with the coming of the barbarian cultures, we do live in a multicultural world, and we have to remember what are the first things in our liturgical life that help us maintain this Biblical faith in a world that is essentially hostile to the gospel. As we do that, we're going to find that the medieval period is a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on how it is that we must understand ourselves in perhaps a time when we are in a post-Christian world. And one of the things that many of us, as we study the liturgy, think about when we think about the situation we're in today, is that we're back in that period again. We are, in many ways, closer to that great shift in cultures than we have been in in any other time in history. And so this is an important period, a time when we must be very aware of and recognize some of the challenges that they faced and that we are facing today.