As for your question about what's going on in the Lutheran Church with the 20s and 30s crowd, I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer that. I see very little of my own crowd in the Lutheran churches I've visited or joined. I get the impression that my demographic is represented better in the Lutheran church in other geographical locations. I'm stuck in the Southeast US and most Lutheran churches I find here are small, old, and pretty traditional… a deathknell to reaching most 20-30 somethings that I know.

You make a good point about the Word being subservient to the message of the pastor. It's my personal feeling that there are risks to both approaches. I've read the Bible both ways in my personal reading. I've opened up to a passage randomly and asked myself "where is God?" and "where am I?" and prayed for God to speak through what I'm reading. This can create powerful and unexpected applications. Likewise, I've sought out passages specifically to support a particular problem or concern that I have and have indeed drawn from "various passages from books all over the Bible" in order to support my research (if you can call it that). I personally feel that both approaches are valuable, and Biblical. Writers of the New Testament often quote Old Testament passages because the content of those passages is contextually relevant to the topic the writer is addressing at that time. Are these writers using the Word in a subservient manner? Am I doing so when I seek out scriptures to address a topic that is on my heart? I've found myself "browsing" the Bible even during Lutheran sermons. A few weeks back when the pastor was preaching on the unclean woman touching the hem of Christ's robe for healing, I found myself reaching back to Old Testament passages to read about the laws of cleanliness to better understand the torment this woman had most likely endured during her life. I searched for other examples of power "leaving" Christ without any apparent effort on His part because I'm intrigued by this particular aspect of the passage.

Perhaps both types of Bible study and preaching could learn from and support the other. I love the idea of generating discipline among pastors by recommending texts through the lectionary, I just fear that it stifles creativity and has the potential to function like blinders when pastors are writing their sermons. Likewise, pastors who tend to use the Word in a subservient manner could learn a lot by disciplining themselves to some degree and learning a bit of restraint.

This also depends on a view of relevance – i.e. what really is relevant?

For Lutherans, that answer has always been the proposition that you are justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Really – that's it. The liturgy contains the three main parts that reflect this concept of the Gospel:

1) The Confession and Absolution – the pronouncement that "if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just"… thats' it. Whatever you confess is forgiven in the eyes of God – even though we are "in bondage to sin"; only God can free us from that burden. The reminder that you have been baptized – claimed as a child of God and forgiven for your sins.

2) The Proclamation of the Word, in both readings and preaching. A Lutheran sermon is rarely considered to be more than that; no advice on how to balance the checkbook, no advice on 'living a godly life', etc. – just the proclamation that all of your efforts, strivings and attempts at being 'Godly' have fallen short; the Law has condemned you to the grave you have earned. The Gospel, however, opens the door to new life – not one you created or earned, but one that has been created *for you*.

(Lutherans also hold that this distinction between Law and Gospel is also the key to reading all of the Scriptures.)

3) The Sacrament – the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you.

The Liturgy is used to preserve these three elements; not out of a requirement, but more out of the experience that the things we do in the liturgy are things that if you wish your service to be "Lutheran" (i.e. covering the three points) you'll end up doing anyway. Particularly because the words spoken during the liturgy are almost entirely Scriptural. The ELW did a rather poor job of pointing that out, where the LC-MS 'Lutheran Service Book' actually publishes the scriptural references next to every point in the liturgy.

And agreeing upstream – the use of a lectionary also enforces a bit of discipline in preaching. Preaching must always accompany the Word, which can be a bit different that some of the evangelical (mostly E-Free, independent) sermons I've sat through where the "Word" was subservient to the message of the pastor – particularly when the proof-texting comes out and the pastor's point is backed up by various passages from books all over the Bible. The Lutheran interpretation depends on the concept that "Scripture interprets Scripture", which leads to a much different form of presenting and preaching.

This notion actually struck me a few Sundays back during Trinity Sunday. The Pastor mentioned that if he could choose a Sunday to have off every year, it would be that one. He doesn't like preaching on the Trinity because it can be a difficult concept to grasp. He went through the Athanasian Creed. It was my first time hearing it, and I can understand why he'd want to avoid it. Frankly, I thought I understood the concept of the Holy Trinity pretty well before he read through that creed. I think I may actually be more confused now.

I do see that churches without a lectionary may water-down their teaching by evading difficult subjects or scriptures. I've visited a few churches that seemed to hit the congregation with "kid gloves" and never challenge the church body. I guess it could be pretty easy to preach on love and hope every week.

As I mentioned earlier, I understand the lectionary to be a "tool" to aid and assist me in recognizing some of the major themes that run through the Old Testament and New Testament. This doesn't mean, however, that other texts can not also be used. Just because the lectionary presents a series of readings for a given Sunday is no reason that other scripture cannot also support the same theme. Often when I preach, I will draw in a host of other texts (not a part of the lectionary) that can contextually support the same biblical theme.

Even the story about the beheading of John the Baptist can draw in a number of possible sermon images, such as "how do we deal with the violent death of someone close to us" (John was Jesus' cousin) or "how can political power lead to political corruption" (Herod's desire to silence his critics) or "how do we respond to God's prophetic message, especially if that message is contrary to our own will or desires."

Certainly one can make a case that a restrictive use of the lectionary might give some pastor's an "easy way out." But an equally valid argument can be made for those who choose not to deal with some of the "harder" passages of scripture (which can and often do come up in the lectionary cycle).

Is it possible that having this "tool" might create a risk of Holy Spirit laziness? What I mean is, if you can easily narrow your search for sermon topics by using the lectionary, isn't it easier to close yourself off to other scriptures or themes the Holy Spirit may be trying to communicate to your congregation?

I only ask because I found this happening to myself as a youth leader at one of my previous churches. I basically got tired and a little burned out serving as both worship leader for the contemporary service as well as youth leader for the high school youth group. When I got tired, I leaned on books that mapped out week after week of content for me. I made adjustments and tried to fit the material into the context of the group's needs, but found myself trying to force the material to conform to what I felt the Holy Spirit was wanting to communicate to them. Sometimes it worked well. I managed to turn "Duct Tape Night" into a pretty heated discussion about fulfilling God's purposes (I could write a whole post just on that). Sometimes it worked horribly, and I'm sure the youth picked up on it. If I hadn't had such "tools" at my disposal, I would have been "forced" to search the scriptures myself to address the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I wonder if this dynamic occurs on Sunday mornings.

Do pastors ever use the lectionary as an "easy way out"?