Miscellaneous Questions

[acs]

Isn't today now called "The Reign of Christ" Sunday in the ELCA?

No doubt by some, but not in the ELW and not in Sundays and Seasons.

In my former life among the Methodists, they divided the season after Pentecost into two sections, one called "Pentecost" and one called "Kingdomtide." Not sure where they got that quirky practice.

It goes back to the Federal Council of Churches, 1937. (FCC was the predecessor body of the NCC.) Both Methodists and Presbyterians split the season of Pentecost in half, focusing on all things "spiritual" in the 1st half and things "charitable" the second. Since the Festival of Christ the King was barely a decade old at that point, its could be an interesting study of both pietistic and social gospel hermeutics with regard to the church year.

[James_Gale]

Christ the King seems to me to be a good day to borrow from the Swedish liturgy used in the Augustana Church until it replaced its 1925 Hymnal and Order of Service with the SBH.

After the opening hymn, the congregation sang, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts!  The whole earth is full of His glory."  The pastor then said, "The Lord is in His holy temple; His throne is in heaven.  The Lord is nigh unto them that are of an humble and contrite spirit.  He heareth the supplications of the penitent and inclineth to their prayers.  Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto His throne of grace and confess our sins."

In the confession of sins, the congregation acknowledged that we "are worthy . . . to be cast away from Thy presence if Thou shouldst judge us according to our sins."

There is a place for contemplating both the imminence and the transcendence of God.  I think that in modern times, we have neglected the transcendent.  Our current order for confession and forgiveness eliminates any sense of the horrors of the judgment that we ought to face, but that Christ faces for us.  Instead, Jesus is generally our meek and mild brother.

Perhaps Christ the King Sunday is a good time to rebalance things a bit.

[Charles_Austin]

It is, in a way, a fitting end to the liturgical year, which is the way I usually preach it.

[racin_jason]

I'm ambivilent about Christ the King...it has its pros and cons.

But what about the prayers from today? Was it a vast left wing conspiracy? Some beloved Liberals have sought to replace "kingdom" with "kin-dom".

Any of you ELW'ers out there notice any shift in the lyrics to classic king-related hymns?  

[Bergs]

The "festival" is a relatively new institution, growing out of Roman Catholic Germany at a time when nationalism was on the rise and the Pope wanted to assert Christ's rule over that of the state. We could do without it. It was not in the Service Book and Hymnal.

I, for one, don't wish to do without it. I think it is a fabulous way to conclude the church year, and an almost seamless transition into the theme of Advent. We've taken to having the rite of confirmation on Christ the King, giving opportunity for all kinds of reflections on what it means--for these young people, for all of us--to acknowledge the reign of Christ in our lives and in the world.

Not to mention that it gives a regular liturgical occasion to sing "Crown Him with Many Crowns," the only hymn I know of that includes the word "potentate." 

Adiophora (sp?)

Yes, we can live without it if it is a divisive thing especially.  Like Rev. Johnson I agree that it is a fabulous way to end the church year ending up with a reminder that Christ is King having won that final victory.  Then we start again with Advent.  Very nice.  But I can live without it if it were splitting the synod.

Of course at my former little south Minneapolis ELCA congregation they do not celebrate "Christ the King Sunday" anymore, they celebrate "Living Christ Sunday."  Given all traditionalists have left, I am sure there was no opposition to that particular change.  Maybe some of the rest of you have heard of this "Living Christ Sunday" (formerly known as "Christ the King Sunday."  Anyway it may be interesting to all of you to see this particular change.

Grace & Peace
Brian J Bergs
Minneapolis, MN

[Richard Johnson]

I'm ambivilent about Christ the King...it has its pros and cons.

But what about the prayers from today? Was it a vast left wing conspiracy? Some beloved Liberals have sought to replace "kingdom" with "kin-dom".

Any of you ELW'ers out there notice any shift in the lyrics to classic king-related hymns?  

I note there are 140 hymns in LBW that include the word "king" or "kingdom"; there are 124 such in ELW.

Of course some of those may not actually count as "classic king-related hymns"--for example, with my search criteria, "Onward Christian Soldiers" might be counted because of the line about "kingdoms wax and wane." So who knows?

[JoshuaEM]

We're using ELW for hymns  and today seemed pretty 'king' filled to me. One joy has been using the Te Deum, which ELW has but I know from TLH, during November as the canticle - it worked out excellently as we sang it for Christ the King today. Our choir sang "At the Name of Jesus" arranged by Vaugn Williams, which has this great line in the last verse:

For all wreaths of empire meet upon His brow,
And our hearts confess Him King of glory now.

Just wonderful, but hardly pc!

Josh EM

[Brian Stoffregen]

I'm ambivilent about Christ the King...it has its pros and cons.

But what about the prayers from today? Was it a vast left wing conspiracy? Some beloved Liberals have sought to replace "kingdom" with "kin-dom".

Any of you ELW'ers out there notice any shift in the lyrics to classic king-related hymns?  

I note there are 140 hymns in LBW that include the word "king" or "kingdom"; there are 124 such in ELW.

My search of the ELW lyrics came up with 157 instances of "king" and 43 of "kingdom". Certainly some of those occur more than once in a hymn.

Besides "Crown Him with Many Crowns," we also sang, "O Christ What Can It Mean for Us" where verses 2-4 end with "a diff'rent kind of king" in reference to Jesus.

[MSchimmel]

 I have a copy of the Concordance to Hymn Texts to the LBW - between King, Kingdom, Kingdoms, Kingly, Kings, and Kingships there are 240 instances in the LBW (approximately - it's tough counting the lines at about 6pt type    ).

[peter_speckhard]

We celebrated Patriarchy Sunday. As usual.

[Brian Stoffregen]

I have a copy of the Concordance to Hymn Texts to the LBW - between King, Kingdom, Kingdoms, Kingly, Kings, and Kingships there are 240 instances in the LBW (approximately - it's tough counting the lines at about 6pt type    ).

Using the pdf file of ELW lyrics and a search function, I found 215 occurrences of those six words.

[J. Eriksson]

IMO the prior pre Christ the King naming packed more punch and the old ULCA among others Propers were appropriate especially so for those of us who are Northern Hemisphere people.
briefly: 
1. The Alpha and the Omega.  in some traditions parishes read off the names of parishioners who died in the last Church year.  Parishioners who moved from 'geographical' parishes without letters of transfer or hadn't come to Communion in the last year.
2.  It  marks the beginning of winter
3.  For those who lived without central heating, electric light, fresh food vitamins and antibiotics 'winter' was the season of pneumonia and  death for lots of people.   It might even be good to ask today  "have you ever lived without electric light, antibiotics, central heating, fresh food vitamins?  What was it like?  Have you ever lived with an old person in the above conditions what was it like for them?
4. It thus is good to remind people(especially those who feared winter) of the question,  or let them think about  the question "If you were to die tomorrow or over this winter would you go to heaven or to hell?  and also to provide the answer that it is Christ who saves us out of love, by his death and resurrection, through faith.
5. It would allow us to compare The Last Sunday after Trinity with the end of the Jewish liturgical year and Simchat Torah when pious Jews would dance with the Torah scrolls and maybe even sing gypsy love songs to them 'as the symbolical center of their faith'.
Ask ourselves do we/ would we dance with our Bibles? or if not what would we dance with as 'the symbolic center of our faith'?
6.  It allowed Bach to write that 'hot-dog' wonderful Cantata BWV 140 'Wachet Auf' for the 27th Sunday after Trinity Nov 25th 1731. With those centerpiece duet arias "Wenn kommst du,  mein Heil"...."Mein freund ist mein, und ich bin sein" .  Check it out people.

So I,  submit we as Lutherans lost more than we gained when the LBW adopted "Christ the King Sunday"

Blessings
James in Japan