The Aspen Grove

Introduction to Thematic Liturgies Project

Note Planted: 2024-06-27
Last Tended: 2024-07-18
26 min read

🌿Sapling 😁Strongly-Agree 📊Project 📝Essay

Importance: 70%

The

This project hopes to be a resource as well as a place to collaborate and learn the art of crafting thematic liturgical forms.

Initial Goal 

To write an initial set of 55 liturgical settings to cover a little over a year.  Each service will be organized around either a psalm or narrative from Scripture.  The elements of the service will be written and organized using traditional worship forms as models.

Assumptions and Underlying Intentions

Our Heart Language

The Psalms can be thought of as the Christian’s handbook for navigating life.1  In it God’s people of old have expressed their joys and woes, struggles and convictions.  They speak the language of a godly life in all it’s rich beauty and pain.  A language we as God’s people should learn to speak ourselves.  However, “we are often guilty of speaking the strange words of a lament or enthronement Psalm without serious attempts to help worshipers understand what they are saying.”2

Out of this conviction, the Psalms should be an integral part of weekly worship.  Their language and timber should shape our worship from week to week.  This means that every element of the liturgical order should express the full range of emotion, struggle, but ultimately hope and assurance taught by the Psalms.  

Connection to the Story of Everything

The common language of the Psalms should shape our stories.  Yet more importantly they should connect us to the grand narrative found in Scripture’s story of everything.3  It is by this story of God’s salvation, and coming recreation, that we seek to pattern our lives.  Our lives have meaning and purpose because we are a part of this story and are heading toward this wonderful and beautiful recreation.  This story connects us to each other and, most importantly, to God and His continued work in our lives.  Sunday morning is a unique opportunity to realize this identity by bringing the all powerful Word of the Word made flesh to our people in engaging and meaningful ways.  Liturgy is a pattern for life into which we seek to habituate our people.4  In other words, the way we live and worship should be shaped and connected to the narrative of salvation history. 

Centrality of the Gospel

At its core, all liturgy should pivot on the delivery of the Gospel: the pinnacle of the story of everything.  The good news of Christ’s death and resurrection is quite literally the life blood of God’s people.  It is a gift and work wrought exclusively by the power of the Trinity apart from human will or works.  It is the ultimate salvation onto which we cling while we wait for its final consummation.

Dealing in Reality

The centrality of the Gospel, however, is no excuse to foster lazy unengaged believers.  Life is for more than sitting and waiting for the end.  It is also about caring for neighbors as Christ has cared for us.  Yet this deceptively simple purpose for life is fraught with difficulty.  Because of this, the current endeavor seeks to acknowledge and live in the dualities of Sinner-Saint and the-now-and-not-yet.  Real life deals in these dualities constantly.  Therefore, it is only right that our Sunday worship offers life rhythms and patterns that are useful for every day of the week.  Primary emphasis in this regard will be given to the equipping of believers in their vocations to creation, neighbor, and family. 

For this to be successful, these abstract concepts must reach our people.  The Israelites passed on the faith through deeply experiential festivals, rituals and sacrifices.  The Word became flesh to bring salvation.  God promises to be found in the physical means of grace.   Liturgy, in a very real sense, enfleshes the deep things of God for us today.  The shape of our life can be changed dramatically through the practices in which we engage.  In other words, the things we do show, and form within us, what we believe and value.  As such, we misuse these gifts of God when we truncate their expression to rational reasoning or rote meaningless ritual.  

Biblical Ways to Engage Worship

 In order to avoid dismembering our expression of liturgy, we must be clear about what worship encompasses.  We do not worship for the sake of God - He needs nothing from us - but because He has created us as worshiping creatures.  Worship is for the sake of God’s people: it is a gift from God in which we participate.  

This participation in worship takes on two main aspects throughout the pages of Scripture.  One is remembrance and connection to story; the second is the creative worship response.  Connection to story is important because we come into God’s story.  He has defined and laid out the course of the salvation narrative.  Therefore, we should not be trying to fit Him into our lives, but humbly entering His.  His story started long before our birth and encompasses many more lives than our own.  Being connected to God’s story is to be connected with His community: the Church.  We read words that are not our words, but become ours.  We sing songs that are not our songs, but become ours.  We do and say and think and act in ways that are not ours, but become ours as we are connected to the heritage of our faith.  Communal worship is a space to encounter, learn, connect, and participate in this grand old story.  

The creative worship response is a related yet distinct way the body of Christ participates in worship.  Whenever God’s people have encountered Him the natural response has always been creative.  After crossing through the Red Sea the Isralites sang a new song.  After Mary encountered the angel and the wonders of the Christmas story she sang a new song.  The giving of the covenant on mount Siani was followed by the outpouring of God given creative power to build and decorate the tabernacle and its instruments.  Encountering God is an occasion to bring forth the creative expression of praise and wonder.  Not only this, but times of darkness and despair are also times for creative response in lament.  God’s people have always responded to God creatively, whether He feels close or far, this creative impulse should by no means be neglect.  

Engaging Worship from Our Place in the Story

Our place in God’s story sits uniquely after His crucifixion and resurrection, yet before His triumphal return.  This position places the church at an interesting cross road between the worship and devotion which has come before and our current worship in the present.  In this place, we would do well to hold to the tension between tradition and translation.  On the one hand, we have traditions passed down to us in the form of art, songs, prayers, and liturgical orders.  These are valuable gifts from our ancestors in the faith.  They are a great treasury from which we can be challenged and consoled by the voices and praise of our ancestors.  

Yet we need to be careful to also hold on to translation.  Our people are a product of their time.  The things of beauty and meaning from tradition do not always land the same way they used to among Christians in a different time dealing with different struggles and life experiences.  Consequently, it is of utmost importance that liturgy be translated into forms that reach our people so that they can actually be formed by it.  This is a pull in two directions.  Striving to proclaim the alien ideas and power of God’s Gospel in its fullness, while also being sensitive to the hearer.   

Ritual Efficacy versus Sacramental Efficacy

Keeping in mind the tension of tradition and translation, we come to the need to differentiate between ritual efficacy and sacramental efficacy.5   On the one hand, the word of God is always efficacious.  For example, a sermon can be given in the most monotone and dull method, written in the most cliche and boring style, yet it is still God’s living and active word at work among His people.  The word of God will do what the world of God will do by the power of the Holy Spirit apart from, and often in spite of, our human efforts.  The deep reality of the words sacramental efficacy is somewhat at odds, however, with our experience of ritual efficacy.  The sermon described above will be met with eye rolls and sighs as even willing listeners struggle to not fall asleep.  This same idea can be fleshed out in many other examples that all lead to the need to evaluate and work toward ritually effective forms of liturgy.  

To state this distinction another way, all liturgy grounded in the true word of God and the right celebration of God’s gifts (sacramental and other) are without question efficacious (sacramental efficacy).  It makes no difference how engaging, interesting or personally compelling an individual finds it.  Liturgy delivers the goods of God’s promises with 100% assurance.  Ritual efficacy, on the other hand, deals in our human experience of a particular liturgical form’s ability to engage us.  It is no secret that almost every person finds different styles of worship music more or less effective for their personal engagement in meaningful worship.  Not only this but fields such as neuroscience point out the benefits of multisensory engagement for memory and retention of material in sermons and bible reading.  By maintaining the distinction between sacramental efficacy and ritual efficacy we can critically engage our practice of liturgy affirming the value and place for all faithful forms, while also acknowledging the nuances of human engagement.       

Variety versus Reguarity 

A practice done regularly makes a habit, and a habit has a way of sticking within a person.  This basic human truth is an important consideration as we seek to grow our people using liturgical forms.  There needs to be a sense of continuity and repetition for things to sink into people.  However, this need to habituate people into a regular pattern of worship and practice, should not exclude the legitimacy and importance of variety.  Scripture alone brings to light a huge variety in musical and ritual expression.  We should seek to bring our people into this fullness not at the expense of regularity but in concert with it.  One noteworthy example of this is the practice of lament.  Lament comes directly out of the pages of Scripture but is something the church rarely practices.  We possess this very powerful practice to wrestle and deal with grief and brokenness.  Yet we often leave it on the shelf and rob our people of it.   

Real Loss

No matter how well intentioned or effective.  All translation and change brings loss.6  This is most easily seen in the psalms themselves.  No amount of skill can preserve the full poetic quality of each psalm as it is translated into english or any other language.  Things are lost in translation.  Whether these losses are significant or not, it is important that they be carefully ascertained.  This is true on a broader scale with liturgy as well.  Any change, no matter how small, will lose something.

This conviction makes it clear that changing and/or generating liturgical forms is not something to be taken lightly.   In fact, many argue that the risk of loss is too great to allow for variety in liturgical forms.  This project, however, does not agree with this assessment.  While loss is real and needs to be appreciated and acknowledged, it should not bind the church from worshiping God with all the skill and talent He has placed within His body.  

Rather than dismissing loss, or turning it into a crippling fear, this project seeks to engage tradition thoughtfully to bring to life liturgical forms that help pull people into the depths of Christ’s richness and unlock interaction with our scriptural and churchly heritage.

Living Word, Living Worship

All this to say that if this attempt to write meaningful liturgical settings for God’s people today is to hit its mark, it must bring the Word and Sacrament to bear on the whole human person.  Each element, from prayer to confession, should live and breath with our people just as the Risen Savior does this very moment.  The grand story is our story.  The language of the Psalms should be our language.  We seek to see, hear, taste and touch the realities of God.  For they are realities at work in God’s people even when they stand veiled in the not-yet.  

 “May He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:21).

Liturgical Order

Authors: Brenden Harrell 

Editors: 

The following orders are meant to be as style agnostic as possible.  Appropriate music can be woven into each order fitting with congregational context.  They are also written following a more traditional liturgical order.  This is not meant to be a constraint but an opportunity to use them in more traditional settings as well as easily converted into more conversational styles.   

Liturgies in this collection can be broken into two main types.  Those organized around the tone and imagery of a particular Psalm or Canticle, and those organized around a telling of the grand salvation narrative (or smaller episodes and themes).  These will be used as the backbone to tie each element of the service into a continuous unit.  The push will be to immerse the congregation in a particular story, or set of metaphors, that bring the Gospel to life using the full counsel of Scripture. 

Liturgies Focused on the Prayers and Cries of God’s People

Psalms and canticles are a unique meeting of art and doctrine found in Scripture.  They are the record prayers and cries of God’s people who lived in many different circumstances.  They carry emotion and thought in ways other genres of Scripture cannot (not to mention music aids memory and engagement).  Psalms and canticles give us a unique window into the thoughts and struggles of prominent biblical figures as well as unnamed ancestors of the faith.  Not only this, but they offer an authoritative and inspired pattern of devotional life in the midst of all life’s ups and downs.  They help form our expectations and experience of life’s rhythms and the cycle of lament to hope. 7 On top of all of this, they also bring us into holy conversation with God.8  Because psalms and canticles are so deep and multifaceted no single liturgy can hope to cover the vast ground contained inside each.  This alone seems to be ample justification for a multiplicity of liturgical forms to express and expound these deep truths to our people.  Therefore, liturgies written focusing on the prayers and cries of God’s people seek to model and practice deep meaningful engagement with the joy and pain of life.  This is accomplished through learning and understanding the story of our ancestors and learning to pray and cry out to God along with them over the joy and pain in our lives.    

“History teaches, the Law instructs, prophecy proclaims, reproach chastens and moralizing persuades; in the Book of the Psalms there is the successful accomplishment of all this along with a kind of balm of human salvation” (St. Ambrose).9

Liturgies of Biblical Narrative

  Biblical illiteracy is a deep problem in many churches.  So many other stories shape the way our people think about themselves and the world in which we live.  Consequently, it is more important than ever that Sunday worship inculcates the full story of God’s salvation into our people.  One way to accomplish this in liturgy is to bend the full force of the worship service from invocation to benediction toward telling, explaining, dwelling, and experiencing specific narratives and themes from Scripture.  The main goal of this type of service should be to connect the people to the Story of Everything in deep and meaningful ways.  

Vital Things to have in Worship

No matter the order, style, music, etc. there are certain foci that should be in every service.  These include:

Focus on the Trinity.10

  • Every service should be careful to speak and worship God in His trinitarian fullness as understood from the creeds.   

Focus on Christ.11 

  • Jesus is everything.  Consequently, every service should teach and confirm our Christo centricity.  

Focus on Word and Sacramental.12

  • Word and Sacrament are our God given delivery system for the grace and salvation of Christ.  It is essential that these means of grace be put in their proper place in every service.

Focus on the Gospel. 13

  • Every service should proclaim our dependence and faith in the person and work of Christ for our salvation.

Focus on our Creedal Faith.14 

  • We have been entrusted with the confession of our common faith as passed down in the creeds.  We should not lose sight of the importance of teaching and regularly confessing these core aspects of our faith. 

Focus on our connection to the Story of Everything. 

  • As God’s people we habitate a unique place in God’s grand story of salvation.  It is vital that we teach and experience where we came from, who we are, and where we are going in its fullness as expressed in the narrative of Scripture. 

Focus on the two kinds of righteousness that order our lives.15

  • Expressing the uniqueness of our relationship with/before God is vital for understanding the wonderful free gift of salvation.  In addition, clearly articulating our role and responsibility as neighbors in relationship with other humans is important in order to avoid lazy, or extreme, forms of Chrsitian living.

Choice of Order

A great cloud of witnesses from many peoples, tongues, and nations have worshiped God while on this earth.  The traditions and practices that have been passed on to us, or preserved in the writings of our ancestors, compose a rich and varied history.  These historical liturgical forms are a useful guide and grounding as we think of and practice our expression of worship today.  Rather than desperately grasping at this heritage, or rejecting it out of hand, this project seeks to honor it.   

In light of this varied and broad heritage, not every service needs to be, or should be, locked in the same liturgical order.  For example, a service focused on lament should look and sound different than a service focused on the resurrection of Christ.  Therefore, the task of composing worship orders is threefold.  First, any creation and practice of liturgy should take into account the liturgical tradition.  Novelty and consumer attraction are shallow goals at best, and a complete debasement of the Gospel at worse.  Second, worship order should reflect and reinforce the subject and theological material encountered in a particular service (similar to many current Good Friday practices).  Finally, worship is a unique living part of the Christian community.  As such worship order should allow and encourage the use, engagement, and development of artists within the community.

Immediate Liturgical Tradition

As a project aimed to be carried out within the Missouri Synod ecosystem, the most native liturgical tradition to pay attention to are the various Lutheran Hymnals and their attendant practices.  The most recent being the Lutheran Service Book (LSB).   Our Liturgical heritage is much broader than these hymnals.  They themselves being distillations of the many strands of Lutheran practice emerging even since the Reformation.  However, for the sake of workability and brevity the LSB serves as a useful foundation and starting point for creative worship endeavors.  These historical elements and practices can be thought of as colors, or functional units, that help us paint and build faithful expressions of corporate worship for today.  What follows is a short description of the various elements of the divine services as they stand in the LSB.  This by no means scratches the surface of our liturgical heritage, but serves as an entry point to critically interact with the tradition most closely associated with our congregations today.  The overall goal or function of each element will also be noted for use as a reference moving forward.

Service of the Word

The first half of the divine service is the service of the word which focuses on the proclamation of the written word.  

The Invocation - Begins the service by “calling in” or invoking the reality that the triune God is with us as his church.  He is truly present where two or three are gathered in His name.  It also serves as a reminder of who’s name we were baptized into.16

  • Goal/Function: To open the service focused on the reality of God’s presence and our communion as His Church.

Opening Litany - Quite simply, a set of call and response prayers.  Sometimes inserted to expand on the invocation’s confession of who God is and what we believe He is doing among us.

  • Goal/Function: To confess and dwell on the realities of the invocation and themes for the day.

Confession and Absolution - We lay bare our sins before God and humbly ask for forgiveness. Then the pastor as God’s spokesman in that place, declares God’s forgiveness and love as a sure reality.17

  • Goal/Function: To deliver the goods of God’s forgiveness and love.

Introit (LSB 186) or Entrance Hymn - Musical transition often used with processions. Introit is a Psalm that is normally sung/chanted.  Traditionally marks the end of preparation and beginning of the service of the word.18

  • Goal/Function: To Musically set the tone for the worship service.

Litany (LSB 249-251)/Kyrie (LSB 152-153, 168-169, 186, 204, 227, 233, 944) - We cry for mercy and peace to God in the midst of a sinful and broken world. We seek His help and highlight our reliance on Him.19

  • Goal/Function: To come before God humbly and acknowledge our dependence on Him.

Hymn of Praise - Also usually after absolution to express our thankfulness for God’s strong forgiveness. Traditionally the Gloria in Excelsis or This is the Feast.20

  • Goal/Function: To praise God musically.

Salutation/Apostolic Greeting - A short blessing and response. Traditionally pulled from the words written by Paul in 2 Cor 13:14.21

  • Goal/Function: To establish the relationship between Pastor and Flock in mutual blessing.

Collect (LSB 228) or Prayer of the Day - This prayer collects what we seek to receive from God in this service. What we seek is based on who He is and our trust in His promises drawn from the readings for the day, as well as the overall theme of the service.22

  • Goal/Function: To come before God prayerfully seeking Him in His promises.

Readings - This is time to publicly read the Scriptures as a community.23

  • Goal/Function: To spend intentional time in God’s written word.

Reading Response - Intentionally states whose words have just been read and seeks the congregation’s faith filled response.24 

  • Goal/Function: To highlight the importance and value of God’s written word.

Gradual of the Season - This is usually a part of a psalm or anthem sung as a prayerful pause.  It links to the theme of the service for the day/church season.  Usually inserted after the first lesson or Old Testament lesson.25

  • Goal/Function: To musically meditate on the themes of the service.

Alleluia Verse and Gospel Acclamation (LSB 157, 173, 190, 205) - Usually a short verse/set of verses that are said or sung before the gospel reading.26 

  • Goal/Function: To highlight the importance of the Gospel and the reality of Jesus’ presence in His word now read.

Hymn of the Day - Traditionally this is the hymn that connects the most directly to the scriptures and theme for the day.27  

  • Goal/Function: To summarize and contemplate the themes and truths for the day musically.

Sermon - The spoken word is delivered to the people.  The Gospel is proclaimed and truths of Scripture are explained and applied to daily life.28

  • Goal/Function: To deliver the goods of the Gospel as well as guidance for daily living.

Creed - We with all the saints across time and space confess our common faith in Jesus and His work of salvation.29

  • Goal/Function: To summarize and confess the core of our faith publicly.

Prayers of the Church - We bring our thanksgivings as well as the needs of creation, our neighbors, our congregation, and those we love.30

  • Types: responsive, collect form, etc.
  • Goal/Function: To bring everything before God in prayer as a community.

Offering/Offertory (LSB 159, 176, 192) - The people of God respond to Him in thankful giving.  This usually involves a song and/or prayer during or after the collection of the offering.  It is meant to acknowledge our thankfulness to God expressed in the offerings.31

  • Goal/Function: To frame the environment and intentions we should have while giving offerings to God.

Service of Holy Communion

The Second half of the Divine service focuses on the celebration of communion and the physical participation in Jesus’ active word in the elements.  

Preface (LSB 160, 177, 194) - An exchange between the presider and congregation that transitions into the service of communion.  It marks this as a special part of the service that is different than what came before.32

  • Goal/Function: To highlight the importance and weight of the sacrament that will be taken shortly. 

Salutation - The second short blessing and response.33

  • Goal/Function: To continue and encourage the relationship between Pastor and Flock in mutual blessing.

Sursum Corda - “Lift up your hearts,” comes from Lamentations 3:41 and Psalm 86:4.  Short time to reflect on the holy moment that is happening.34

  • Goal/Function: To continue the approach to the sacrament with awe and reverence. 

Eucharist - Thanksgiving for the gift of Christ Himself in the coming sacrament.35

  • Goal/Function: To remember the deep thanksgiving we should have for the sacrament.

Proper Preface (LSB Altar Book, p. 161, 200, 241) - Traditionally changes with the church season and focuses on a particular part of the salvation narrative.  Early forms also started with creation and moved through the whole salvation story.  Ends with acknowledgment of the congregation joining with the whole church across time and space in communion.36

  • Goal/Function:  To set the stage for the words of institution and place the congregation in our place in the story.

Sanctus and Benedictus  (LSB 161, 178, 208, 961) - The sanctus echoes the praises of the angels from Isaiah’s vision of God (Is 6:1-3).  This is often paired with the biblical canticle of Zechariah.  Together they encompass the praises of the whole heavenly host and communion of saints for this holy meal.37

  • Goal/Function: To join with the whole creation in praising God for his gifts given in the sacrament.

Lord’s Prayer - The foundational prayer Jesus taught his disciples that has been passed on to us.  There are two usual places for the Lord’s prayer in the service.  One is after the prayers of the church as a summary and grounding in Jesus’ divinely given prayer.  The second is right before the words of institution to remember how it is fulfilled in this sacrament.38  

  • Goal/Function: To join as one body in the prayer Jesus taught us.

Words of Institution/the Words of our Lord - The words Jesus spoke during his last supper instituting communion.  These same words are God’s active ingredient in the elements we receive.  He spoke them once for all at that last supper and we enter into that same reality now as the pastor speaks them afresh.39

  • Goal/Function: To officially enter into the sacrament of communion.

Sharing of the Peace - This is a time for the community of believers to share the peace of absolution horizontally among their relationships with each other.  It is meant to be a time of setting aside differences and disagreements.  Usually placed after absolution or right before distribution.40

  • Goal/Function: To promote Christian love and unity among the believers present.

Pax Domini (LSB 163, 180, 197-198) and Agnus Dei (LSB 163, 180, 197-198, 210, 962, 963) - In song the peace of the Lord and Lamb of God is proclaimed and confessed.  Often sung right before distribution.41

  • Goal/Function: To continue thanking, praising and contemplating on the goodness of God in this sacrament.  

Te Deum (LSB 223-225) - 5th century hymn that proclaims the majesty and glory of God with thanksgiving and joy. Usually after distribution.42

  • Goal/Function: To respond with thankfulness for the gift just received in communion.  

Post-Communion Collect - Wraps up the service of the sacrament pointing the congregation toward the realities they have just received and the strength and forgiveness they have just been given.43

  • Goal/Function: To wind down the service of the sacrament in prayer and thanksgiving.

Benediction (LSB 166, 183, 200-202, 228, 234, 258-259) - Final blessing coming from God’s promises found particularly in the Aaronic benediction of Numbers 6:22-27.  This final proclamation of God’s name over the people is a way to end the service in God’s name just like it began.44

  • Goal/Function:  To leave God’s people in the peace and blessing of Christ.

Miscellaneous Elements

Canticles - Songs taken directly out of the Scriptural narrative. Used various places in the liturgy. 

  • Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55; LSB 231, 248-249).

  • Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29-32; LSB 165, 182, 199-200, 211, 258-259; LW 230, #11).

  • Zechariah’s Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79; LW 217).

  • Miriam’s song (Exod. 15:1-18).

  • Deborah’s song (Judges 5).

  • Hannah’s song (1Sam. 2:1-10).

  • David’s songs (2 Sam. 22:2-51, 1 Chronicles 16:8-36).

  • Songs in Isaiah (Example Isaiah 12, 25).

  • The whole book of Lamentations. 

  • Goal/Function: To enter the Scriptural narrative as our narrative.  Singing the songs of God’s people of old as our own.

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. Athanasius Patriarch of Alexandria, Life of Antony and Letter to Marcellinus (New York, Paulist Press, 1980), 101-14, ESP. 112. ↩

  2. John Witvliet, The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship: A Brief Introduction & Guide to Resources (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 4. ↩

  3. Joel Okamoto,”The Word of the Cross and the Story of Everything” Concordia Journal Summer 2019 Volume number, Issue number (Year): page number(s).Concordia Journal Summer 2019 54. ↩

  4.  James Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 75-88. ↩

  5. Marriot, Article on Liturgy and discipleship, 10. link ↩

  6. Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory (Downer Grove:IVP Books, 2015), 120-122. ↩

  7. James Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 155-59. ↩

  8.  John Witvliet, The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship, 11-15. ↩

  9.  Ibid., 4. ↩

  10. Timothy Maschke, Gathering Guests: A Guide to Worship in the Lutheran Church (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2003), 111. ↩

  11. Ibid., 111. ↩

  12. Ibid., 109. ↩

  13. Ibid., 112.  Also see Variety in Gospel Metaphors). ↩

  14. Ibid., 113. ↩

  15. Joel Biermann, A Case for Character: Towards a Lutheran Virtue Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 118-133. ↩

  16. Maschke, Gathering Guests, 117-8. ↩

  17. Ibid., 119-21. ↩

  18. Ibid., 121-2. ↩

  19.  Ibid., 123-4. ↩

  20.  Ibid., 124. ↩

  21. Ibid., 125. ↩

  22. Ibid., 125. ↩

  23. Ibid., 126-30. ↩

  24. Ibid., 126. ↩

  25. Ibid., 126-7. ↩

  26. Ibid., 128-30. ↩

  27. Ibid., 130. ↩

  28.  Ibid., 130-31. ↩

  29.  Ibid., 132-34. ↩

  30. Ibid., 134-35. ↩

  31. Ibid., 135-37. ↩

  32. Ibid., 141-42. ↩

  33. Ibid., 142. ↩

  34. Ibid., 142. ↩

  35. Ibid., 142. ↩

  36.  Ibid., 142-43. ↩

  37.  Ibid., 143-44. ↩

  38.  Ibid., 145. ↩

  39. Ibid., 145-46. ↩

  40. Ibid., 146. ↩

  41. Ibid., 146-47. ↩

  42. Ibid., 150. ↩

  43. Ibid., 150. ↩

  44. Ibid., 150-51. ↩

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