ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 37.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. ******** >> NICK: You speak of allegory. I'm not sure I understand. Why do pastors today even need to allegorize the liturgy for the people? >> DR. ARTHUR JUST: One of the things we find in the church is that oftentimes, when things don't make sense, we try to explain them to people. This is what we call catechesis or instruction. And certainly the best kind of instruction is that which comes from the scriptures or the tradition of the church that has used the Scriptures as the foundation for its understanding of the things that go on in the church. But there has been a history in the church�s life both in interpretation of the Scripture and now, as we�re going to talk about it here, in the interpretation of the liturgy where explanations have been given that do not necessarily reflect the exact meaning or the exact reality of what is being explained. When we think of allegory, we oftentimes think of a spiritual meaning or a meaning in which we are trying to explain it in such a way that it doesn't necessarily reflect exactly the reality that the thing itself is about. And so you'll, for example, in the Scriptures see some of the early fathers, when they interpret Jesus with a great catch of fish start talking about the boat as the church and the nets as the sacraments and the fish as believers or unbelievers. Those that are caught are believers. Those that are not caught are unbelievers. That kind of thing. And that's allegorization. We're giving kind of a spiritual meaning to what are some of kind of the basic elements of the historical reality of Jesus in the boat and the nets and what it means to catch fish. The same sort of thing happens in the liturgy when it begins during this medieval period to become obscured, to be no longer clear in its intention. Now, what is interesting as you look at the history of the allegorization of the liturgy is that it really happens quite early in the seventh, eight centuries. And there are a number of different church fathers and a number of different ways in which it is allegorized. One of the ways in which it is allegorized is through the scriptures itself where the meaning of things is given a biblical foundation. Let me illustrate this so you have a sense of what this means. In the Roman church, before the barbarian invasions, they put candles on the altar. Now, why did they put candles on the altar? So that they could see. It was a very simple, practical reason. Two candles because they wanted to keep it simple, and the candles were just simply ways of assisting them to do the liturgy well, especially in churches that had become so large that it was hard to get the light into certain parts of the church. Well, later on when the barbarians kind of take over the liturgy, and the liturgy goes north and you have the two candles on the altar, one of the ways in which the liturgy is explained, or this part of the way in which the church is formatted, is that the two candles represent the two natures of Christ. Now, that's not what the candles are about. The candles are about giving light. But you can see there a kind of an allegorization. Another example is the bishop comes in and he takes his place, climbs up into the seat. Why is he doing that? Well so that he's in a place that's visible and a place usually in the formation of the church where there's amplification, that kind of thing. It's really a very practical reason, again. But the allegorization is that here, the bishop is like Christ ascending to heaven. So he's going up the stairs and ascending into heaven. There are other ones. When the bread and wine are taken to the table, you know, to set the table, this is like Christ being borne to the tomb. The altar is not just an altar; it is a tomb. Those kinds of things. I have one, though, that I have to tell you which is my favorite one. In the Roman world, we're talking about third, fourth century, when it got hot in the summer, what they used to do is they used to get these guys with these huge fans where they would blow the air through the chancel to kind of cool people down, but also when it got real hot in Rome, there would also be bugs on the wine. These are long services, big cups of wine, and there would be insects. And when the air was moving, they tended not to light on the wine which is kind of a practical thing again. Well, in the barbarian churches, when they go up north, okay, it's no longer July. It's no longer ninety-five degrees. It's January. It's freezing in these churches. Everybody is just frigid, but they still have these big fans blowing this air through the chancel. Well, they've got to explain this somehow, you know. And these, of course, are the angel's wings during the angels and the archangels and the whole company of heaven as they are beating their wings during the Eucharist prayer. I think you get the idea of allegory a little bit. This is explaining it in a way that is not necessarily reflecting, in many cases, the practical or even the theological reasons for what's going on. It begins to get outrageous, though, when it begins to take on a more natural characteristic. What I mean by that is where they are no longer going to the scriptures to the life of Christ to explain it, they're actually using nature itself. I�ll just give you one quick illustration so you get the idea. I'm sure you're familiar when you chant the psalms there is oftentimes what is called an antiphon which is a verse that we would repeat over and over again sometimes at the beginning and the end and sometimes through the psalm itself. Well, how do you explain this? Well, the way in which the natural allegorists would explain it is this: that this is like two turtledoves calling across to one another in the forest. There you see this kind of rhythm back and forth being reflected in nature as birds speak back-and-forth. Now, what we've done is we've really kind of removed the allegorization out of the entire biblical context itself. Some of the stuff really just gets kind of outrageous. The reason why I refer to it here is it is certainly a big part in the way in which the medieval liturgy was explained to people. But the reason I mention it is because you're going to find in your congregations today many allegorizations of liturgical things that aren't necessarily reflecting the reality of what's happening. Now, some of those things are very pious and many of them, especially in a congregation that has really come to value those, you want to be careful not to correct people or to just kind of let the allegories go. But occasionally, there are categories that you might want to address because they do not reflect what is, perhaps, a deeper and, say, a richer meaning that comes right out of the scriptures itself. Let me just give you an example of one that I didn't correct in my congregation. When I came into my little, small church in Middletown, Connecticut, I'll never forget how the altar guild, very proud of the altar area. They pointed out to me that there were three steps to go up to the altar. And in a very pious way, they told me the reason why we have these three steps is because pastor, when you enter the altar, you enter in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And they were just so dead serious about this, and I could clearly see that this was something that was important to them. Well, of course, I had an opportunity to converse with an elder about this who was one of the guys who built the church. He was there when it was built. And he told me in no uncertain terms that they had a heck of a time getting that altar at the right height so they had to put in an extra step so that it had exactly the right visual place in the church so that the people could see it and the like. And he said this thing about entering in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit really had nothing to do with why there are three steps. Now, there's a good example where you have kind of two different views. I certainly did not want to abuse those wonderfully pious women in my altar guild that this was something that was not part of their understanding of the altar. And in fact, I have to tell you, every time I entered into that sanctuary, every time I went to the altar, I thought of how I stepped up in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. It was a very valuable way of thinking of that. Now, what I'm saying is that some allegorization isn't necessarily bad. I've given you some examples that I think are good ones, even the ones that I illustrated from the medieval church. But just be alerted to the fact that when you come across things in the liturgy now that have explanations, make sure you know what exactly they are explaining, if they are explaining an actual kind of liturgical or biblical phenomenon or if they are an allegorization. Just one final note on this. This isn't a real big deal, but it's something that's helpful. Luther was very fond of the allegorization of the liturgy. So when you actually read Luther, you'll find that he adopts some of the medieval allegories. And of course, he had such a wonderful eye for bringing Christ out that he was able to adapt these to his own understanding of the gospel that was very salutary. So there is some pastoral benefits to this sort of thing. And this is one of the kind of positive aspects, particularly the biblical ones, not the natural allegories, but the biblical allegories in the medieval church that are very helpful. If you're interested in this, one of the most wonderful church fathers to read on this--and it really is delightful reading--is to read a man by the name of *Germanus who does an allegorization of the liturgy in the seventh century that is just delightful, you'll find it to be wonderful reading.