Introduction

Rev. Prof. Dr. Dirk G. Lange

Assistant General Secretary for Ecumenical Relations

 

The 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Achtliederbuch (Book of Eight Songs) is great reason to celebrate! Through these first eight hymns, Luther and his friends were reforming worship and proclaiming the gospel of justification by faith alone – liberated by God’s grace. Through music, through melody, rhythms, and sounds all the senses resonate and the heart of the believers is touched.

The Global Lutheran Songbook proposes the same today, defining a confessional identity through song and singing together. Lutheran identity comes to expression in many ways but, as we look ahead to 2030 and the 500th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, we ac- knowledge that a major gift of the Reformation is expressed through a particular act, through the act of confessing the gospel in a particular time and for a particular context.

 

When we look at the hymns in the Achtliederbuch, we make a surprising discovery: in a certain sense, they were composed for a moment, for a particular time of confessing. They weren’t meant to be fossilized or set in stone. Of course, some hymns take on a life of their own. They are arranged in a particular way and sung in a particular manner and become identified with what it means to be Lutheran. But such a development does not lie at the heart of those first eight songs. Luther takes a different approach. For example, we might ask why it took Luther so long to write the Ger- man Mass (1526), which came almost nine years after the publication of the Ninety-Five Theses? I believe Luther had an “evangelical hesitation.” He knew that if he penned down a liturgy, everyone would immediately claim it (or reclaim it) as the “true” Reformation liturgy! But liturgy is to be contextual. The gospel needs to be continually translated anew. Yes, there is a pattern but the actualization of the pat- tern is always in dialogue with time and place. Therefore, Luther’s Preface to the German Mass begins with this sentence, “Before anything else, I would kindly request, also for God’s sake, that all those who see this order of service or desire to follow it: do not make it a rigid law or bind or entangle anyone’s conscience, but use it in Christian liberty as long, when, where, and how you find it to be practical and useful.” (Martin Luther, German Mass in The Annotated Luther: Church and Sacraments, vol 3, trans. D. G. Lange (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2016). 


 

The LWF Nairobi Statement (1996)2 argues that worship is transcultural, contextual, crosscultural, and counter- cultural. Too often a certain cultural interpretation of the liturgy (usually from Lutheran churches in Europe or North America) was imposed as if it were the universal liturgy. The liturgies of many churches around the globe have suffered under a sort of colonialism: whatever the missionaries pro- posed as worship was the only way to worship, ignoring local symbols and instruments and rituals. But, as we just saw, Luther’s proposal is radically different.

 

The transcultural element of worship seeks contextualization and today welcomes also the cross-cultural influences that open the worshipping community to the beautiful diversity of worship across a global communion. But the liturgy must also never forget the counter-cultural: our rituals and songs translate, first and foremost, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and confess the gospel – justification by faith alone. It confronts all values and ideologies, patterns and rituals that societies create that may op- pose or contradict the gospel of liberation. The liturgy can form us to resist oppressive cultural and even global norms.

 

Worship is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is a common, transcultural, confession: that Jesus Christ is God who was born, lived among us, suffered, was killed, and rose again. There is a common book – Scripture – that shapes our relationship to God through common reading and preaching. In Scripture, God gives baptism and the Eucharist to the whole world and these are both celebrated across cultures. This gives rise to a basic pat- tern of worship in Word and sacrament.

People come together to form a worshiping assembly. They gather. They come all with different questions and worries and states of mind or emotions. Then they listen. They listen to God’s Word in Scripture. The presider then helps them understand what they just heard in those Scripture readings. They are invited into the pattern of the good things they just heard (Justin Martyr, Apologia). The sermon leads them into prayer, prayer for the world, for the neighbor, for their neighbors and especially for those not part of the community. Then bread and wine are brought forward. The presider gives thanks and these gifts are shared. But prayer always leads to action. Those who are able offer their resources so that all those in need can be helped.

 

This dynamic pattern of worship is continually accompanied by song. The first songs are the psalms that teach us to pray (Bonhoeffer, Prayerbook of the Bible). We can sing the psalms in many forms, some of which are proposed in this global songbook and in other resources. Song also helps us gather, listen, respond, pray, commune, and send us out into the world. In this collection you will find songs adapted to these stages of the liturgy from Gathering to Word and Prayer to Meal to Sending.

The Global Lutheran Songbook proposes hymns and songs from around the world, from our global communion, to help us translate the gospel of Jesus Christ for the world today. We are invited on a journey, free to explore, anchored in faith. Musically this might be translated in this way:

 

Pilgrimage: every hymn, every melody is a pilgrimage. It takes us on a journey in sound, rhythm, and text.

Freedom: every melody invites us to explore new horizons.

Belonging: every melody, a song is rooted in a musical form and in a tradition. We receive it and share it.

 

For Martin Luther, liturgical worship exercises faith. May the Global Lutheran Songbook guide us into this adventure of confessing the Gospel in our present time.

The Nairobi Statement https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource- library/nairobi-statement-on-worship-and-culture- full-text. See also Worship and Culture in Dialogue, Department for Theology and Studies, LWF, Geneva 1994.