Not an Abhorrence of Change, but a Love of Constancy

Q: How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Change? Lutherans don't change.

~insert laugh track here~

Okay, okay. It's true. Lutherans tend to be very resistant to even the slightest modicum of change. We're stubborn and we like it that way. Imagine this scenario: Pastor introduces a liturgical setting that the congregation has never sung before. We all know the result. The congregation will be muttering for weeks about how Pastor shouldn't have chosen such a complicated setting. "He should use things that we're familiar with," the people say in their post-service feast of roasted pastor. (Depending on how well the new setting was played, there might be a side of roasted organist as well.)

It's true that a sense of familiarity is highly crucial in the church. After all, there are two places that a person seeks constancy in their lives: within the home and within the church. (For a Christian, one might argue that the two are intrinsically connected.) When you come home at the end of the day, you expect certain things to be there. You expect the furniture to be the way it was when you left that morning, you expect the television to work, you expect the lights to be where they were, etc. etc. It is the same way with church (and when I say church I am not referring to the physical building). When you come back to church on Sunday, you expect the liturgy to be the same, the responses to be the same, and the Word of God to be present. You like things the way they are and don't want them to change, because you rely on those things to give you a sense of identity and place. In a world that changes around you constantly, and people always saying one thing and doing another, it's nice to see something that is solidly defined. It's nice to know that no matter what changes around you, you have something constant to sink your teeth into and hold onto.

The issue for Lutherans is not an abhorence of change, but a love of constancy. It's expressed in our hymns. "Change and decay in all around I see, oh Thou who changest not, abide with me" (TLH version of Abide With Me, v. 2). It's why we have a fixed liturgy that we use again and again and again. Think about it. In the home, people don't get a new set of furniture every day. They use the same old couches again and again because they are comfortable and familiar. The fabric smells and feels right, it looks right, it conveys a sense of completeness. So like that, we use the same liturgy again and again week after week, because it's comfortable and familiar.

Now, we can take this furniture analogy to a whole new level. In the house, some things just don't change. The walls stay in the same places, the lights don't move, and the doors don't suddenly change position in the house. These are the important things, and can be likened to Word and Sacrament within the church. The liturgy, on the other hand, is like furniture. What happens to furniture periodically? Mom looks at the living room and thinks, "hey, time for a change!" And she REARRANGES THE FURNITURE!! HORROR of HORRORS! When Dad comes home, he's bound to notice. When the kids come home, they're bound to notice. And they don't like the change at first, but I can almost guarantee you that within a space of twenty-four hours they will have adapted and end up liking the new arrangement just as well if not better than the old one.

This is a key thing to notice, hower. Mom didn't change the furniture. She rearanged it. The same thing should apply with the liturgy, that we don't change it, we simply rearrange it. Hence we have Divine Service I vs. II or III or IV. It's still divine service. All of the elements are there--the setting might be different. At some point, mom and dad might decide to purchase new furniture, and that really throws everybody off--this can be likened to changing "thou and thy" to "you and your" but honestly, you still have a couch and you're still saying the same thing in the liturgy. You can have change and still maintain a sense of constancy.

However, in order to maintain that sense of constancy, you cannot rearrange the furniture every day. It's too exhausting, and suddenly you won't know where to find things. You cannot purchase new furniture every day. It's to expensive, and you never get a chance to settle into the furniture and make it your own. You lose that sense of identity.

Occasional changes are good. The beauty of the Lutheran liturgy is that it never goes out of style, and so you have a lot of options to choose from. The important thing is to provide a sense of constancy for the congregation--because as soon as they realize that the new setting is the same thing in a different position, they will quit complaining and embrace it. (Or hypothetically they should, but that is a different topic for a different essay.)

There is an opposite end of the spectrum, however--the people who wish the pastor would STOP using the same old liturgy nine times out of ten. These people have no problem with using the same furniture daily, so I don't see why it's such a tremendous problem to have that same consistency in church services. An occasional change is good. Constant change is unnerving--not just for stodgy, old-school Lutherans but for people in general. In fact, most people don't like changing too much.

Why, then, are so many in the church today so worried about "keeping things interesting" and changing all the time? People come to church for the Word of God, not to be entertained.

Disclaimer: the author in no way, shape or form condones the roasting of faithful servants in the church. If an individual in the congregation has a complaint he or she should take it up with the pastor and not gossip about it when he is not there.