The Lutheran Service Book (LSB) is a wonderful hymnal and an excellent resource for the Church. Of course, as with every man-made resource, there comes a fair bit of necessary criticism. This is not to say that the hymnal is bad, but it can certainly be better.
One of the fairest criticisms of the LSB is the inclusion of four Divine Service settings. These settings differ from the Lutheran Church’s historic Common Service, from which Divine Service Setting III is derived. The first two settings appeared in Lutheran Worship (LW), which still included the Common Service from The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH). The fourth setting in LSB first appeared in Hymnal Supplement of 1989. The fifth and final setting is a variant of Luther’s Deutsche Messe, Luther’s German translation of the Formula Missae (Latin Mass).
At face value, these settings do not pose an inherent threat to the integrity of the Lutheran Church. By no means do their contents and substance contradict Scripture; they were formally approved by the church bodies that use them. But the inclusion of several service settings may be harmful for liturgical unity and catechesis.
For one, it detracts from the rich history of the Common Service, which first appeared in an official Lutheran hymnal in 1887. This service is a close variant of the ancient Mass used in pre-Reformation times, with the necessary edits Luther made in the Formula Missae.
These settings also disrupt liturgical unity. Churches are inclined to use several different forms of the liturgy. This problem is exacerbated with Creative Worship, a tool published by Concordia Publishing House (CPH) that, though its use in the LCMS has declined in recent years, allows churches to concoct and tailor liturgies. This essentially allows for almost countless different liturgies—one could use an entirely new liturgy every week!
Most existing service settings the Church at large uses are constantly altered, reformed, and reshaped. Many churches have not used a single, stable liturgy for more than a few decades at a time. For example, the official ELCA hymnal includes ten different service settings. Unfortunately, even within our synod, the use of Creative Worship means that we have just as many - if not more - services.
Why is this a problem?
The liturgy teaches through consistency and ritual ceremony. The problem with inventing new settings of the Mass is not that they contradict Scripture—or that doing so breaks a direct command from God to only use the divinely-mandated Setting III! The problem is that it breaks up the flow of using one consistent setting.
It is far easier to teach through consistency. The pastor need not worry about the ever-changing elements of the liturgy. Elements that do change are meant to change. The hymns, readings, and collects generally change based on the Sunday or season to help us focus on a specific topic or to highlight a particular aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. The stability of the liturgy not only makes these changes helpful, but it is also conducive to teaching.
That also sheds light on another important point. Teaching is much easier in a stable environment. When the congregation is anchored by and rooted in one stable liturgy, the pastor may teach with more freedom. Within a single, common liturgy, the sermon broadens the amount of substance on which the pastor may teach, ensuring that there is variation week after week. The hymns and collects reflect the appointed texts. These hymns, along with the liturgy itself, bring attention to a different “theme” and correspond to their respective season. That is to say, many aspects of a single, stable liturgy are meant to change.
Perhaps, then, the argument should not be that using one service setting is a divine mandate, because obviously it is not—and no serious theologian is suggesting that it is—but instead that it creates a practical and liturgical sense of Christian unity. We speak the same liturgy, confess the same Creeds, sing and cherish the same hymns, and hear the same exposition of Law and Gospel that Scripture and the Confessions so wonderfully mandate. This is the truest sense of “liturgical unity.”
Divine Service III is the clearest choice for this. But why is that?
For one, it is the closest variant of the Common Service. It is almost unchanged from the time it was formalized in 1887. It is also the richest theologically and poetically. Even the music of Divine Service III speaks to a theological beauty with which the other settings do not compare. The words of the canticles, collects, and other liturgical elements are more reverent in nature, using slightly elevated language and packing a confessional punch that the other settings at times fail to produce. Lutheran doctrine, in its purest form, is most clearly seen in the historic beauty and ageless benefit that is Setting III.
There is certainly more to say regarding the benefits of Setting III, but for now I have made my point. The practice of using one common service throughout the Lutheran Church was present even in the times of the Reformation. The Formula Missae and Deutsche Messe were both written to be used throughout the Church in Germany. And while Luther did not wish to bind conscience to a single setting of the liturgy, he did make clear the innumerable benefits of liturgical unity throughout the Church. Luther wrote: “It would be good to keep the whole liturgy with its music, omitting only the canon” (Luther, Vol. 54: Luther’s Works, 361).
Finally, the rather lengthy quote below from Martin Chemnitz’s Church Order, speaks to the Reformer’s desire to have a liturgically unified Church:
Whenever the human precepts of the papacy are rebuked, the church of God shall be thoroughly and prudently instructed that, with such free ceremonial adiaphora, the meaning is not that no order in ceremonies is to be observed. For Paul says, "God is not a God of disorder" (1 Corinthians 14 [:331), but He desires that in the assemblies of the church all things shall be done decently, in order, and for building up. But in the pope's doctrine of human regulations, these points are and should be rebuked on the basis of God's Word: that the pope has made many regulations which are directly contrary to God's order and command-such as the sacrifice of the Mass, Communion under one kind, the invocation of saints, etc.—or which cannot be observed without violation of God's command, such as the vow of celibacy by those who do not have the gift, etc.
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By contrast, the people shall be instructed, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 14 1:40, that it is God's will that, when the congregation gathers together for the administration of the Word, Sacraments, and prayers, all things are to be done and observed with good decency, in order, and for building up. And therefore the churches of the Reformation have and retain certain free, adiaphorous ceremonies, not with an understanding like that of the pope, who has forced his precepts upon the church, as mentioned above, but only to the end that in such assemblies everything may be done decently, in order, and for building up: that there may be one certain order where, when, by whom, and in what form and manner the administration of the Word, Sacraments, and prayers will be held, what should come first, what should follow after; and that there may be such ceremonies as give external indication that great, exalted, serious things are happening in the congregation, so that the ceremonies may serve as guidance, incitement, admonition, and stimulus, that the people may concentrate their thoughts and lift up their hearts in all humility, so that with sincere devotion they may dispose themselves to the Word, Sacrament, and prayer in the congregation. For this is what Paul means when he says that, in such assemblies, all things are to be done with good decency, in order, and for building up.
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And though Christians are not everywhere bound to the same specific ceremonies—for Christian freedom has its place in this article, as the ancients say, "Dissonance in rites does not harm consonance in faith"—nevertheless, because there is still all manner of benefit inherent in keeping ceremonies as uniform as possible, and because this also serves to maintain unity in doctrine, also because common, simple, weak consciences are all the less offended and rather the more improved, it is therefore viewed as good that, as much as possible, uniformity in ceremonies with the neighboring Reformation churches should be achieved and maintained.
—Chemnitz, Chemnitz’s Works, Vol. 9: Church Order, selected text from 77-79.
The idea with unifying the Church around one common, unchanging liturgy is not to create a law out of Christian worship, but to create a sense of unity among Christians who worship the same God, share the same faith, and receive the same Sacrament of the Altar. As the body of Christ is one body, perhaps our worship should mirror the oneness of the Christian Church and the beauty, glory, and reverence of heavenly worship, which is mirrored in the historic, orthodox liturgy of the Church.