Trust and Lug Nuts
A repeated lament in LCMS circles - usually coming from the non-liturgical contingent - is that “we don’t trust one another in the LCMS.” And it is lamentable. But it should be understandable. The solution proposed is typically that we “talk to each other” and “lean in to conversations.” But no amount of calling each other “guy, man, dude, bruh” takes the place of earning trust through expressing a shared commitment to the Bible and the Confessions - and simple competency.
An analogy is bringing your car in for a tire rotation.
This is a simple operation, but it is also crucial. Lives depend on it. The car owner is placing his life, and the lives of his family members and anyone else who will be passengers in the car - in the trust of the mechanic. When the tires have been rotated, the mechanic has one crucial job: tighten the lug nuts. If I get home to discover that this one job has not been performed, or has been done poorly - lives are at stake. It is only natural that I’m not going to trust that mechanic - and possibly even that shop - again. And that’s assuming I make it home.
To be sure, things happen in this fallen world. Maybe one lug nut was loose. It could well have been an honest oversight. Maybe the mechanic suddenly had chest pains. Maybe he got a crucial phone call that his wife had gone into labor. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. But if you found that all of the lug nuts were loose, that the job was done recklessly or carelessly - that would be enough to break trust.
It’s unlikely (though not impossible) that the mechanic is trying to kill the auto-owner. Maybe he has an old grudge. Maybe he is a sociopath. More likely, the mechanic was not well-trained, the shop has shoddy checklists, procedures, and oversight, and/or the mechanic is just not competent. Whatever the reason, it makes sense to mark and avoid that mechanic and that shop - and not to trust him, or them, in the future. You might even warn others not to go there.
Scripture warns us not to blindly trust anyone - not even princes. We are instructed: “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” We are to be cautious, even with pastors, even with apostles - crosschecking them against Holy Scripture. We would be naïve indeed to think that simply being on the clergy roster exempts us from this scrutiny, and from our own responsibility to be cautious. But this is exactly the guilt-trip that is laid on us, not only by the anti-liturgical element of the LCMS, but sometimes also by our leadership.
And think about it. Everyone says, “Trust me,” - including scammers, including con men (which is how they operate as “confidence tricksters,”). Even the serpentine Satan himself demanded blind trust - not to mention the beguiling Kaa in The Jungle Book.
As Lutherans, we have another tool besides Scripture to help us trust in those who claim to be yoked to us: the Book of Concord.
Think about what it was like to be in Germany in the 1530s. It was a time of chaos. Your prince might have been loyal to the pope, or he might have been a faithful Evangelical. Your local parish and pastor may likewise be going in one direction or another. So how could a faithful Lutheran be assured that he could trust what he saw and heard at altar and pulpit? Subscription to the Augsburg Confession (and the Apology, and later the other confessions) provided a basis of mutual interpretation of Scripture and of the confession of the pure Gospel. And decades later, as it became hard to discern between the genuine faith and some kind of crypto-Calvinism - and even later on after that, as feckless princes sought to compel Lutherans and Reformed into one “super-church” for their own convenience (or even as part of a conspiracy to crush the Lutheran confession under the heels of the Reformed) - the Formula of Concord was added to our basis of trust. This is why our confessions are also called “symbols” - just as the creeds are. They identify which confession one belongs to. The Nicene Christians were not in fellowship with the Arians. The Nicene Creed was (and is) a “symbol,” like the flag worn on the shoulder of a soldier’s uniform. Our Lutheran confessions are likewise symbols.
Today, we still place our trust in the “norming norm” of Holy Scripture as seen through the lens of the “normed norm” of the Book of Concord. When I find Lutheran pastors who never mention our Confessions in sermons, in their public articulation of the faith, in their Bible classes, podcasts, and writings, and in their discourse with other clergy, when their doctrine and practice is out of kilter with the Book of Concord (or even mocking it as a “door stop” as I heard years ago) - this is a huge red flag that impedes trust - as well it should.
Another thing that destroys trust is when the lug nuts are not tightened, and it is on display before the whole world online.
Pastors certainly have many different duties and various gifts and talents. No two pastoral situations are identical. No two parishes are in the same situation. But that said, there are still lug nuts to be tightened. There are still situations in which the pastor “has one job.” Pastors are ordained specifically for Word and Sacrament ministry. They are put into office - especially when they are parish pastors - primarily to preach, baptize, absolve, and administer the Lord’s Supper. Word and Sacrament is our “one job” on Sunday morning and when we practice private pastoral care. The other stuff that we might do (such as overseeing meetings, assisting with decisions about the physical property, helping to set budgets, strategizing) - as important as those tasks may be - are of secondary importance. None of those things require ordination. But for us who are “called and ordained servants of the Word,” our “one job” on a typical Sunday is to preach and consecrate: Word and Sacrament. For that is how we deliver Jesus. That which is delivered in the Gottesdienst, the Divine Service, is the means of grace by which people avoid hell, and have the hope of eternal life in Christ.
Laying aside preaching for now (as there are many reasons why preaching can be good or bad), let’s just consider consecration of the elements of Holy Communion. Like tightening lug nuts, this is a simple, but important, task. It is arguably more important than tightening lug nuts, as this involves eternal life. But like tightening lug nuts, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel, to be innovative or experimental, or to go in your own direction. It’s a simple task that our confessions, citing Augustine, describe as words meeting elements.
So here is your one job of consecration, pastors. Here’s your checklist.
Have real bread and real wine.
Separate that bread and wine from other bread and wine.
Speak or sing not your own words, but the sacred Verba Christi, the Words of Christ (the Words of Institution), clearly and unambiguously, over the elements, and
Reverently distribute those consecrated elements (that are truly and miraculously the body and blood of Christ) to the faithful for them to eat and to drink in your presence.
It is not rocket science. You have one job.
And yes, we can flub the words. This is why the ancient practice developed long before the Reformation of having the Words of Institution on an altar card (we have the Verba in the hymnal and altar book). There is also the ancient and wise caveat that if the very human pastor messes up the consecration, he can simply start over. This eliminates all doubt. This tightens the lug nuts. This is also why we place the specific elements that we are consecrating on a small cloth called the “corporal,” why we speak or sing the Verba over the elements, and why we make the sign of the cross over those specific elements that we are consecrating. These are all checklist items to make sure that we don’t leave a lug nut untightened. And who among us would accuse our mechanic of being a “legalist” for having a checklist and following it?
But we do find creative and entrepreneurial ways to ditch the checklist and be innovative, don’t we?
As a layman, I had a pastor who officiated over one of those wretched and stupid “seder meals.” We met in the sanctuary - that was rearranged like a restaurant with chairs and tables (we had chairs instead of pews, and the altar was portable). We ate a meal and drank copious amounts of wine - in the sanctuary, mind you. During the meal, the pastor suddenly said the Words of Institution, and we were instructed to drink up. Even as a young layman, I was confused. Were the full carafes of wine now filled with the blood of Christ? What about the uneaten (and partially eaten) bread on our tables? Was that the body of Christ? What of the half-drunk glasses of wine that we laying around during the clean-up?
The lug nuts were left loose.
I can’t trust pastors who mess up their “one job” in this way. And why should I? Why would I tell my family or parishioners to place themselves under the spiritual and pastoral care of such an innovator who bypasses the tried and true lug nut checklist. And for what? To be trendy? To have fun? For some “off the chain” experience? And if a pastor can’t even do that right, what about his soul-care?
Some argue that practice doesn’t matter so long as we agree on doctrine - usually while rattling off one or two Lutherany slogans. But our confessions beg to differ, citing both doctrine and ceremonies - operating in conjunction and together - as a guardrail against heresy:
In doctrine and ceremonies nothing has been received on our part against Scripture or the Church Catholic. For it is manifest that we have taken most diligent care that no new and ungodly doctrine should creep into our churches (AC Conclusion 5).
And as the old saying goes: lex orandi, lex credendi: the law of prayer is the law of belief. In other words, practice both reflects, and shapes, doctrine. The insistence upon using the unaltered Words of Institution stems from what we believe about Christ and His institution of the Supper. Sacramentology is a branch of Theology. And we Lutherans are sacramental Christians. We believe that there has been one consecration: that of Jesus in the Upper Room. And we have authority from Jesus to repeat His Words, so that through us, He continues to consecrate elements and bring Himself to us. This is no time for creativity and just winging it. It’s the Lord’s Supper, not your supper. So use the Lord’s words. Churches that don’t believe in the Real Presence aren’t as fastidious because they confess the Supper as only symbolic (not in the sense of a flag on a soldier’s uniform in this context, but rather as a representation only, that is, a metaphor).
As Dr. Eckardt reported more than a year ago, we have a church in the LCMS that not only has unordained men sometimes “consecrating,” but in one case, a female vocalist singing a paraphrase of the Verba, while the pastor stood by on the stage with a prop loaf of bread and a prop chalice on a little prop table, but was actually eating and drinking the contents of a prepacked pop-top thingy (even before the pseudo-consecration was completed) - while people in the audience likewise ate and drank their own pop-top whatevers (Cracker? Grape juice? Wine?). There was no accountability as to which elements were being non-consecrated by the lady layman. And when the pastor does actually say the words himself at other services, what is that loaf of bread that he is using as a prop? Is it the body of Christ? What if someone accidentally slipped an extra pop-top thingy in his coat pocket and brought it home. Is that Jesus? And what does the prop of the seemingly empty chalice confess when combined with the words: “this cup is the New Testament in My blood”? The whole thing was a tragedy of errors. There is nothing comical about such things.
The lug nuts are loose, and the tires are falling off.
We can quickly see the wisdom of our ancestors and the folly of tearing down Chesterton’s Fence - although we always think we know better, that we’re being edgy and fresh, entrepreneurial and risk-taking. For whatever reason, the entrepreneurial types in the pre-Reformation era decided to break with tradition and mandate that the celebrant say the Words of Institution silently, intentionally making it impossible for the congregation to hear. Luther restored the older tradition of ensuring that the Verba were spoken clearly, distinctly, and audibly - so as to eliminate doubt, and tighten the lug nuts. In fact, his very Gospel-based chant tone is what we find in LSB Divine Service 3. When the words are thus sung by the called and ordained celebrant, they 1) are clear, 2) are not rushed, 3) carry, and are more audible, 4) have more gravitas than if they were merely spoken (does anyone ever speak the words of “Happy Birthday to You” or “The Star-Spangled Banner”?), 5) provide continuity within our 500 year-old Lutheran tradition, and 6) aid in memorization of the Words of Institution for both clergy and laity.
But yes, we know better, don’t we? We always know better than our fathers. We’re entrepreneurs and risk-takers, after all.
Just tighten the lug nuts. Just say the black and do the red. Do your one job competently. It’s really not too much to ask. And if you can’t do that, don’t act surprised when people don’t trust you.