Have you ever considered that the Offering and prayer are inextricably bound together?  Both in prayer and during the offering, we as a congregation lift up our thanks to God for His gracious provision, and we confess our trust in Him to respond to our needs.  As we pray, we confess that we are unable to provide for ourselves (all that we have is from God!), and we acknowledge God’s goodness as He gives good gifts to His children.  James 1:17 – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  Remember when we pray the prayer our Father taught us – “Give us this day our daily bread”  that “daily bread” is a metaphor not only for physical bread or food, but every need, whether physical or spiritual.  For me, when I pray in the mornings, I ask the Father for daily strength as part of what I think of as “daily bread”, as I have challenges with having the energy to do what God would have me do throughout the day. 

Both prayer and offering are also acts of thanksgiving, where we offer ourselves, our time and our resources as a thank-offering to the God who has blessed us so abundantly. 

There is also a very practical aspect to the giving of our resources, which includes money.  From the earliest accounts of the early church in the Book of Acts, all goods were shared among believers such that the needs of everyone in the community might be met (Acts 2:44-45).  Congregations were encouraged to financially support other Christian congregations who might be struggling.  Without money, our churches would cease to function, and to carry out the work of the kingdom. 

Another aspect of the finances of the church is the support of our pastors who devote themselves to the pastoral ministry.  In Acts 6, more and more demands were being placed on the apostles from the fledgling Christian communities, so that they began to spend more time on serving the needy and less time on study and prayer.  They made the decision to appoint deacons, who could do the practical work of the church while the leaders/pastors could spend more time in prayer and study of the Scriptures.  That makes perfect sense – you do not need to be ordained to perform other critical, valuable functions of the church.  Delegate! 

But it seems many of our smaller churches are struggling with enough resources to allow our pastors to devote the majority of their time in prayer and study, and are instead, doing other administrative tasks that could be done by others.  In my opinion, in some cases congregants actually expect their pastor do handle the running of the church as well as take care of the spiritual needs of the congregation.  Perhaps we must compromise with lack of resources, but we should definitely reset our expectations of what our pastors should be spending their time on.  If we had the right expectations of what our pastors should be doing with their time, maybe we could find people willing to step up and take care of those other tasks!

That gives me a nice segue into what kind of offering each of us should be giving to the church; it’s not just financial.  I remember with fondness the prayer after the offering from the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW):  “Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us – our selves, our time, and our possessions, signs of your gracious love.  Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.”  This prayer reminds me that I’m not “all good” as long as I put a check in the offering plate, or nowadays, schedule my offering online.  There is more expected of me–to be an active member of my church community, to spend some of the precious time the Lord has given me to the work of the church, and to use the gifts He has given me to further the work of His kingdom.  In my later years, I’ve also come to realize that time is more precious than possessions, since there is a finite amount of time I have left, as with all of us. 

Our offering is an act of thanksgiving in response to God’s grace.  Like the rest of the service this aspect of worship continues the pattern of God’s giving and as a response, the congregation’s lifting up praises to God.  The offering is an act of praise and worship as we acknowledge that these gifts are given by God.  And remember, “we offer with joy”, our giving should be free and cheerful, not motivated by guilt or coercion. 

As we collect the offering, the pastor uses this time to prepare for Holy Communion.  The offering serves as a bridge between hearing God’s Word and sharing God’s Meal.  In some churches, the elements of bread and wine are also brought up with the collection plates as part of the thank-offering portion of the service.

I hope that meditating on the Offering portion of the service and what it truly means to you, enhances this part of the service beyond enjoying the lovely offertory music while the offerings are collected!  How can you use your gifts of self, time and possessions?  May grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.  Amen.

During the Invocation mentioned in last week’s blog, the pastor will make the sign of the cross over herself.  There are a couple of common misconceptions about this action:

• This is something only the pastor does;
• This is a holdover from Roman Catholic worship, and Protestants don’t do that.

The fact is, Christians have been making the sign of the cross since the church’s earliest days.  In the first few centuries, worshipers used their thumb on their forehead to make the sign of the cross.  This was a way for God’s people to mark themselves as believers in Christ, a way to identify followers of Jesus in the early church.  Luther and other reformers saw it as a beneficial practice for corporate worship and individual prayer, that it wasn’t meant just for Roman Catholics. 

Eventually, Christians made the cross over their whole body as we do today, using their whole hand instead of just the thumb, two, or three fingers. 

The sign of the cross is not a superstition, nor empty ritual, but it reminds us, as it did the early Christians, of our own identity in Christ.  We often perform this gesture when the words “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” are spoken, because of the connection between the Triune God and the cross.  The pastor uses these same words when baptizing someone, or when we receive communion.  When we make the sign of the cross, we are remembering our own baptism.  We are baptized in the name of the Triune God, and belong to Him, and we stand in community with other baptized believers in worship.

Some congregations have a tradition of stopping at the baptismal font, dipping their hand in the water and making the sign of the cross when entering the sanctuary. 

Making the sign of the cross is not by any means mandatory for the members of the congregation.  But we should also not feel any trepidation about making this very meaningful gesture, to identify ourselves as children of God.  I feel it is both a blessing and a gift to be able to do so, especially in the company of our fellow believers in worship! 

May grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love!  Amen.

We begin the Service of Holy Communion by hearing the pastor give the Invocation “Blessed be the holy Trinity, one God, the Word made Flesh, our life and our salvation”, to which the congregation responds “Amen”.   Unlike some pagan religions, who may recite a specific incantation or prayer to invoke their deity to appear, we do not need to entice God to be present with us in our worship.  In fact, there is nothing that we humans can do to bring God to us – He comes freely, in our midst, because He loves us. 

The Invocation reminds us that it is the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – who brings us together and unites us, His children, in one body.  We are now in the presence of His holiness.

Now that we are in His presence, let’s take a look at what Scripture has to say when Isaiah has a vision about being in the presence of God:

Isaiah 6:1-5

1  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Imagine seeing what Isaiah saw in his vision – the Lord seated on his throne, the splendor of his robe, and heavenly creatures praising him, shaking the doorposts, the smoke . . . and then Isaiah recognizes his sinfulness in the company of heaven.  He cannot help but cry out his confession, not only for himself, but for his people as well. 

In our Invocation, heaven and earth are joined together, we are in God’s throne room and we too are unholy in the presence of God, individually and corporately. 

We confess that our sins encompass all aspects of our daily lives; not just outward actions, or the words we speak.  We sin by doing things we shouldn’t have, or neglect things we should do (like loving our neighbor at every opportunity), or by the thoughts we have that do not glorify God in many and various ways.  And without the saving grace of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, our sins would condemn us to eternal death.  And we repent of our sins.  Think of repentance as turning 180 degrees away from our sin.  It is not merely regret, or remorse, or feeling bad because of our sin.  The Holy Spirit changes our hearts so that we no longer want to sin, our hearts are renewed and turned towards God. 

In the words of Paul in Romans 8:1-2: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death, as believers we are forgiven for all our sin, in the past, present and future!  Christ’s sacrifice was a once-and-for-all-forever sacrifice.  God’s response to our sins is not to punish us, but to “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” in the words of the absolution, or forgiveness. 

When the pastor forgives our sins, she does so not because of her indelible character within herself.  The power to forgive sins is given to the entire church.  The pastor does not speak on his own authority, but through Christ and through the authority of the church. 

What a precious gift to be forgiven, to have our hearts turned towards the Lord!  May grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love!  Amen.

The season of Epiphany begins on January 6^th and concludes before the Transfiguration of Our Lord Sunday, which is the Sunday immediately preceding Ash Wednesday.  Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. 

Because Ash Wednesday is based on the date for Easter, the season of Epiphany can be shorter or longer accordingly.  This year, 2023,  we end the Epiphany season on February 12, the sixth Sunday of Epiphany.  The maximum number of Sundays in the Epiphany season is eight. 

During the season of Epiphany, the paraments are changed to green.  The Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) book and the supplement “All Creation Sings” (ACS), published in 2020, offers a generous number of settings for Holy Communion (10 in the ELW, 3 in the ACS), so Lutheran churches may choose to change the setting used in the Advent/Christmas season.  It is important to note that choosing which setting to use when is not prescribed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) – it is at the discretion of whoever is responsible for making worship decisions (usually the pastor and one of the music staff or a worship committee, as the music within each setting changes as well).  Coordinating this change with the music staff is important, as they may need to prepare the choir, the accompanist, or any other musicians involved in providing the worship service music.  Now that I’ve introduced the topic of the worship service itself, let’s explore a little about Holy Communion in our worship.

Holy Communion cadence

How often does your church celebrate Holy Communion?  Some churches offer Holy Communion multiple times a week, some weekly on Sunday, some once a month, some others quarterly . . . In Scripture, there are no strict guidelines as to how often a community of Christians should share the bread and body of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ shared many, many meals with his disciples, and shared the Passover meal with his disciples the night before He was crucified.  Early Christian churches met in people’s homes, and Scripture mentions them sharing meals and praying together often, more than once a week—sometimes every day!  But the cadence of when we share a meal today during worship is up to the discretion of the pastor and the congregation. 

Interestingly, there have been cycles in the history of the Lutheran Church where Holy Communion wasn’t celebrated weekly.  Forty years ago, when I first joined an ELCA church, it was customary for my congregation to celebrate Holy Communion every second Sunday, alternating with the Service of the Word.  The Service of the Word contains most of the same liturgical elements as the Service of Holy Communion, but without the communion part.  However, there was a movement/renewal in the ELCA towards celebrating Holy Communion weekly, and more and more ELCA churches have joined that movement.  The church I attend today does choose to celebrate Holy Communion weekly, unless we do not have an ordained pastor to officiate during the blessing and distribution of the communion elements. 

Here’s what Martin Luther said about the sacrament of Holy Communion: “…Now that we have the right interpretation and teaching concerning the sacrament, there is also great need to admonish and encourage us so that we do not let this great a treasure, which is daily administered and distributed among Christians, pass by to no purpose. What I mean is that those who want to be Christians should prepare themselves to receive this blessed sacrament frequently” (Martin Luther, Large Catechism).

I feel very blessed that we are able to commune in community with one another every Sunday at our church, especially since the pandemic!  It was one of the things I missed most about being unable to worship in person. 

Next week, we will start to explore the parts that make up the Service of Holy Communion.  May grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love!  Amen.

The first time I was introduced to the Lutheran liturgy, was when I was hired as the organist at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, Granada Hills, in September 1983.  My husband Jim and I had just gotten married in August in Edmonton, Alberta, our home city, and the next day we hitched a trailer full of mostly music and books about music to move to the San Fernando Valley.  Jim studied voice at CalArts, and I had been accepted into the doctoral program in organ performance at USC.

Being poor students, we immediately sought out church positions to supplement our non-existent income stream when we arrived.  I was/am terrible at directions and faced with an over-whelming jumble of freeways, and I completely messed up my first audition at a church on Reseda Boulevard by being a full 90 minutes late for choir practice, arriving just in time to say goodbye to the choir as they left.  Needless to say, they weren’t interested in somebody who couldn’t even find the church.  I regrouped and said to Jim, “I need to find a church that I can WALK to.”  And the Lord promptly guided me to St. Stephen’s, where I met a wonderful pastor who tutored me in the Lutheran liturgy and encouraged the growth of my love for the liturgy.  That man was Pastor Natwick. 

Forty years later, I’m still in love with liturgy.  I find the seasons of the church give me a scaffolding for my faith and my Christian journey.  I love how the 3-year Church Calendar lesson plan ensures that I am grounded in all parts of the Bible, and feeds my curiosity to explore the rest of Scripture that is not part of the 3-year lesson plan.  Most of all, I love that we are privileged to sing our faith and Scripture every Sunday.

If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, you may want to consider following my blog as I explore the various facets of our Lutheran liturgy.  And if you do know what I’m talking about, I hope you will also join me in my exploration so that we might grow in faith together and in further appreciation for our liturgy tradition. 

If you haven’t heard, I will be facilitating a Zoom class on Wednesday evenings on Lutheran liturgy, starting next Wednesday, 1/25/2023 at 6:30 pm!

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