As we continue our study of worship this week at Soup, Song, and Sacrament, we're going to enter a strange period in the development of Christian worship--the reforms of Vatican II. You might think, why do Lutherans care about Vatican II? Wasn't that just a Catholic thing?
It wasn't just a Catholic thing. It was a catholic thing. That means it involved the whole church of Jesus Christ, Protestant, Roman, Orthodox. It was an amazing event, a truly groundbreaking event, in which the Roman church freed itself from the shackling traditionalism, and in its freedom, became an example for the rest of Christianity. Vatican II affected our worship almost as much as it did for the Roman church.
I think it's good to remember that, because it reminds us that we are not truly distinct churches. Our unity is in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ lives in the Roman church, in the Orthodox church, in the Protestant church--everywhere people believe in his name and come to his table and are washed by his Baptism, there the church is unified. A reform such as Vatican II, a change that affects the whole church, reminds us that we are a whole church, that we are brothers and sisters in Christ--not in Luther, not in Peter, not in Paul, not in Gregory or Leo the Great. And that's a reason for thanksgiving.
