Trinity Sunday

[TERJr]

Below is the benediction from today’s worship at a local ELCA congregation. It smells like Sundays and Seasons but half of me hopes I’m wrong and the other half would be relieved that it wasn’t produced by the new pastor.

“God, the creator, Jesus, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the comforter, bless you and keep you in eternal love.”

To this all were supposed to say “Amen” but I cannot.

[Charles Austin]

Why?
You don’t believe in God, the creator?
You don’t believe in Jesus, the Christ?
You don’t believe in the Holy Spirit?
And if you choose to say that something “smells” like Sundays and seasons, that suggests to me that you are predisposed to dislike what you are reading.
Beloved Spouse and I “attended” worship at the national Cathedral in Washington DC this morning. Terrific music. A wonderful sermon by Bishop Budde that stated clearly the events of the past week and told how God who is creating, loving, and empowering as Father, Son and Holy Spirit can serve us and how we should serve that God known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit by being creative and loving and using our “powers” for good.
Elegant Book of Common Prayer language, too.

[Steven Tibbetts]

Below is the benediction from today’s worship at a local ELCA congregation. It smells like Sundays and Seasons but half of me hopes I’m wrong and the other half would be relieved that it wasn’t produced by the new pastor.

“God, the creator, Jesus, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the comforter, bless you and keep you in eternal love.”

To this all were supposed to say “Amen” but I cannot.

I don't see it in Sundays and Seasons, nor do I find it at sundaysandseasons.com.

Why?

Think about it, Charlie.

Fraternally, Steven+

[Dan Fienen]

The benediction was obviously not the standard Biblical passage for a benediction that is typical for liturgical worship. That in itself should not be big problem in this era of custom written liturgies. Noting God the Father as Creator for this Sunday with Genesis 1 as the OT Lesson could be a nice tie in. Nothing wrong with Jesus, the Christ or the Holy Spirit, the comforter. It does avoid any explicitly male references for God, but is not too obvious, awkward, or obnoxious about it. Not my style of benediction (I prefer straight Biblical benedictions) but as these things go, not bad.

[RDPreus]

I don't understand why people make up benedictions when the Aaronic and Pauline benedictions are so very good.  I don't understand why TLH page 15 (LSB page 184) isn't everyone's favorite setting for the Divine Service.  I don't understand why those who gave us LBW and LW thought that "This is the Feast" is a worthy replacement of the Gloria in Excelsis.  I don't understand why people don't prefer the great Lutheran chorales to schmaltzy 19th century Methodist hymns.  Here I'm planning to retire in a couple of months and there are still so many things I can't understand! 

[RDPreus]

Oh, and I don't understand why everyone doesn't confess the Athanasian Creed every Trinity Sunday.

[Dave Likeness]

This morning I bumped into a live stream worship service of an ELCA parish of 3,500
members in the Midwest.  It was labeled as "The Sunday After Pentecost".  No mention
of the fact that the Christian Church celebrates Trinity Sunday on this day.

The Scripture reading was Psalm 8 from THE MESSAGE paraphrase by Peterson.
The Homily  centered around the fact that we need to repent of racism due to
the Minneapolis murder which has captured our attention in recent days.

[Charles Austin]

What do you bumped into, Dave likeness, Sounds bad, and probably was bad.
But I’m wondering whether one might find, in large numbers of Missouri Synod congregations this morning, a focus totally on the doctrine of the holy Trinity and virtually nothing about what is going on in our country today. That would be bad, too.

[peter_speckhard]

What do you bumped into, Dave likeness, Sounds bad, and probably was bad.
But I’m wondering whether one might find, in large numbers of Missouri Synod congregations this morning, a focus totally on the doctrine of the holy Trinity and virtually nothing about what is going on in our country today. That would be bad, too.

You wonder about things that would be bad if true? Man, this lockdown has left you with way too much time.

[Richard Johnson]

This morning I bumped into a live stream worship service of an ELCA parish of 3,500
members in the Midwest.  It was labeled as "The Sunday After Pentecost".  No mention
of the fact that the Christian Church celebrates Trinity Sunday on this day.

The Scripture reading was Psalm 8 from THE MESSAGE paraphrase by Peterson.
The Homily  centered around the fact that we need to repent of racism due to
the Minneapolis murder which has captured our attention in recent days.

Well, at least the Psalm paraphrase took the lectionary Psalm for the day . . , 

[Richard Johnson]

Quite a while ago, it was announced the Bp. Eaton would record a sermon for Holy Trinity to give pastors a break (and, one would hope, prevent some heresy    ). This, as I say, was several weeks ago. When the sermon came out earlier this week, the ELCA Clergy Facebook universe lit up with outrage that she hadn't addressed the racial situation--no doubt because the video had been done before the current crisis. Ultimately a revised sermon was sent out--which I'm sure Bp. Eaton herself decided to do, without influence from the bloviating bloggers who blast "bloviating bishops."

[TERJr]

Why?
You don’t believe in God, the creator?
You don’t believe in Jesus, the Christ?
You don’t believe in the Holy Spirit?
And if you choose to say that something “smells” like Sundays and seasons, that suggests to me that you are predisposed to dislike what you are reading.
Beloved Spouse and I “attended” worship at the national Cathedral in Washington DC this morning. Terrific music. A wonderful sermon by Bishop Budde that stated clearly the events of the past week and told how God who is creating, loving, and empowering as Father, Son and Holy Spirit can serve us and how we should serve that God known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit by being creative and loving and using our “powers” for good.
Elegant Book of Common Prayer language, too.

Steven, thank you for looking it up.

Charles,
I am happy for you that you had a worship experience that had faithful preaching and a theologically orthodox and beautifully written liturgy. Not everyone is so fortunate.
The triune God in all three persons creates. This is clear from the Genesis reading.
The three persons in their perichoretic relations are God. The proper name of God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Creator” does not name the first person of the Trinity. Reducing the three persons to functions is modalist. The benediction I cited fails to name God properly and should not have used.
In my judgment, Sundays and Seasons is in general a cesspool of poor, if not heterodox theology driven by being in bondage to sin and the Zeitgeist. The writing is at best clumsy and often excruciatingly bad.
If you can restrain your knee jerk reactions to criticism of the ELCA—including by those of us who are still in it—I doubt you would sign off on publishing much of what is in Sundays and Seasons.
Now I’m going fishing...
Tom

[peter_speckhard]

Why?
You don’t believe in God, the creator?
You don’t believe in Jesus, the Christ?
You don’t believe in the Holy Spirit?
And if you choose to say that something “smells” like Sundays and seasons, that suggests to me that you are predisposed to dislike what you are reading.
Beloved Spouse and I “attended” worship at the national Cathedral in Washington DC this morning. Terrific music. A wonderful sermon by Bishop Budde that stated clearly the events of the past week and told how God who is creating, loving, and empowering as Father, Son and Holy Spirit can serve us and how we should serve that God known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit by being creative and loving and using our “powers” for good.
Elegant Book of Common Prayer language, too.

Steven, thank you for looking it up.

Charles,
I am happy for you that you had a worship experience that had faithful preaching and a theologically orthodox and beautifully written liturgy. Not everyone is so fortunate.
The triune God in all three persons creates. This is clear from the Genesis reading.
The three persons in their perichoretic relations are God. The proper name of God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Creator” does not name the first person of the Trinity. Reducing the three persons to functions is modalist. The benediction I cited fails to name God properly and should not have used.
In my judgment, Sundays and Seasons is in general a cesspool of poor, if not heterodox theology driven by being in bondage to sin and the Zeitgeist. The writing is at best clumsy and often excruciatingly bad.
If you can restrain your knee jerk reactions to criticism of the ELCA—including by those of us who are still in it—I doubt you would sign off on publishing much of what is in Sundays and Seasons.
Now I’m going fishing...
Tom

David Hart told me the same thing about the LCMS committal service, where is says, "May God the Father, who created this body, God the Son who by His blood redeemed this body, and God the Holy Spirit who through Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple keep these remains until the day of the resurrection of all flesh." He said the Orthodox would never say that. On the other hand, he said they would say something like , "May God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons, who created this body..." and it would take forever. But it wouldn't mess up the doctrine of the Trinity, or even feint in that direction.

[Charles Austin]

Tom writes:
 The writing (in Sunday’s and Seasons) is at best clumsy and often excruciatingly bad.
If you can restrain your knee jerk reactions to criticism of the ELCA—including by those of us who are still in it—I doubt you would sign off on publishing much of what is in Sundays and Seasons.

I comment:
You probably do not remember the times here when I have been critical of the ELCA and have specifically voiced my not so humble opinion that S&S is often a terrible mess of inelegant,inept language and goofy riffs on theology. I frequently rewrote most of the prayers and usually did not use the tinkering with “traditional” (At least since 1959) liturgical language. If I felt the need for alternatives to the SBH or LBW, I generally went to the Book of Common Prayer.

[James J Eivan]

Below is the benediction from today’s worship at a local ELCA congregation. It smells like Sundays and Seasons but half of me hopes I’m wrong and the other half would be relieved that it wasn’t produced by the new pastor.

“God, the creator, Jesus, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the comforter, bless you and keep you in eternal love.”

To this all were supposed to say “Amen” but I cannot.

I don't see it in Sundays and Seasons, nor do I find it at sundaysandseasons.com.

Why?

Think about it, Charlie.

Fraternally, Steven+

It reminds me of sitting in a pastor's office in outside Pittsburgh the week after Easter in 1986. I flew to Pittsburgh to accompany a classmate and his wife across state to another classmate's wedding.

Sitting there I read a report on the writing of the constitution of the 'new Lutheran church' as it was known at that time ... totally flabbergasted to read that the confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit passed by only 6 or 8 votes.  It is tragic to witness what could not be done in a proper orderly way is being foisted on that church by hook and crook.😨