Friday after Trinity Sunday
June 8, 2012
The Lord be with you
Most of the congregations in the LC-MS follow a three-year
lectionary cycle and a liturgical calendar that designates our current season
as the Pentecost Season. A small, but significant, minority follow a one-year
lectionary cycle and a liturgical calendar that designates our current season
as the Trinity Season. Both lectionary cycles and liturgical calendars have
been approved by the Synod so no one is “wrong” by choosing one system over the
other. [For those who are not part of the LC-MS, I should point out that we are
not mandated to use either of these systems. A church and its pastor may decide
to use a different lectionary system (such as the Revised Common Lectionary) or
even abandon lectionary systems entirely. If a church should do this, once
again, they are not “wrong.” Each local church and pastor determines what is
best for them in their local setting.] So, depending on your local church’s
practice, we are either in the Pentecost season or the Trinity season. Many people
travel during the summer. They, therefore, might attend a church using a
different name for the season than their home church. This could be a little confusing.
So I thought I’d post something about how this duel name came about.
The Church/Liturgical Year did not spring into existence
fully fleshed out, but developed over the centuries. The first element was the
celebration of Easter, then the Easter Season including the season of Lent and
ending with Pentecost Sunday. Easter, celebrated beginning at sundown on Maundy
Thursday and concluding at sundown Easter Sunday, was (and is) the most
important celebration of the Church Year. Pentecost Sunday was the second most
important celebration. The Church Year continued to develop, adding first Epiphany
and its season and then the celebration of Christmas with the twelve days of
Christmas (which begins Christmas Eve), and its season of preparation called
Advent. It is easy enough to see that these seasons focus on Jesus, who he is
and what he accomplished.
There was a huge chunk of time that did not fall into these
seasons. This was called “ordinary time.” There are two prevailing thoughts
about why this name came about. The dominate thought is that “Ordinary Time”
gets its name from the word ordinal, meaning “numbered,” since the Sundays of
Ordinary Time are expressed numerically (Pentecost/Trinity 3, etc.). Of course,
this is also done in the other seasons (twelve days of Christmas, Advent 2,
etc.). Others suggest the etymology of “Ordinary Time” is related to our word
“ordinary” (which itself has a connotation of time and order, derived from the
Latin word ordo). The fact that we
don’t know for sure about the origin of the name “Ordinary Time” indicates just
how old the name and practice is.
The long expanse of time between Pentecost and Advent came
to be numbered as Sundays after Pentecost.
During the early 300s a presbyter named Arius from Alexandria
in Egypt began
teaching false doctrine concerning the nature of God. In other words, he denied
the Trinity. His body of thought is called Arianism and his followers Arians. [Arianism
should be clearly distinguished from “Aryanism,” which formed the core of Nazi
racial ideology during the twentieth century, and which had nothing whatsoever
to do with Arius or his teachings.] While it took most of the century to
completely stop the spread of Arius’ poisonous teaching inside the Roman
Empire, it remained alive much longer outside the empire. This
included “barbarian” tribes, like the Goths and the Vandals, which conquered
much of the Western Roman Empire.
Probably in response to Arianism, many regions began to
celebrate “Trinity Sunday.” The day of the celebration during the year varied
from region to region, but most selected either the Sunday before Advent or the
Sunday following Pentecost.
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| The Islamic Umayyad Empire at its peak |
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| Charles Martel at Tours |
A new challenge to the biblical understanding of God as
Triune arose on the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad (c. April 26, 570 – June 8. 632) claimed
to have visions from God that utterly rejected the Trinity and the biblical
understanding of the person and work of Jesus. Through conquest, he united the Arabian
Peninsula, demanding that everyone either convert to his new
religion (Islam) or die. After his death, his successors made war on any and
all in an effort to spread their new religion. To say they were successful
would be an understatement. Within a hundred years the Persian
Empire was conquered and most of the Byzantine Empire.
They had also jumped the Mediterranean Sea and conquered
most of the Iberian Peninsula (where modern day Spain
and Portugal
are). Many of the areas in Europe that were conquered by
the Moslems were Arian, so converting to Islam (which had a similar view of
God) was not too big a jump. 100 years after the death of Muhammad, and with a
century of nothing but military success behind them, the Moslems crossed the Pyrenees
into “Gaul” (modern France),
and were stopped cold by the king of the Franks, Charles, henceforth known as
Martel—the Hammer. The battle of Tours,
on October 11, 732, was a
major turning point in history. The Franks were “orthodox” or “catholic”
Christians who held to the biblical understanding of God as Triune. Slowly the
Moslem invaders were driven out of Europe, with the last
area re-conquered in 1492. What this means, for our discussion, is that for
over 700 years there was a strong anti-Christian, anti-Trinitarian voice in Europe,
the followers of Muhammad.
This Moslem voice would certainly be one of the reasons
Trinity Sunday continued to be celebrated, and slowly it became customary to
celebrate it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. This was made official in
1334 by Pope John XXII. In doing so, John made it clear that the orthodox
understanding of the Trinity was under attack and having a special day to
celebrate the Trinity, and a season numbered from it, was to strengthen the
faith of the people in this biblical understanding of God. Therefore, the days
following Trinity Sunday became known as Sundays after Trinity and the time
period was now called the season of Trinity.
We skip forward now to the 16th century and the
Protestant Reformation. The Christians who broke from the Roman Church can be
divided many ways. One way is in reference to their attitude towards Church
Tradition. Some rejected almost all of it while others retained that which
could be used with profit once they eliminated elements believed to be
objectionable. Members of the first group went so far as to reject the
celebration of Christmas because it has the word “mass” in it. They also
rejected the Liturgical/Church Year, traditional worship practices, and much
more. Lutherans, however, felt from the very beginning that much of the
tradition had great value, and set about removing late additions and returning
it to an earlier form, which was then used. This included the Church/Liturgical
Year. As already said, the practice at this time was to number the “Ordinary
Time” following Trinity Sunday as Sundays after Trinity. The Lutherans retained
this practice in their Liturgical/Church calendars.
Skip forward again to the 1960s. There was a growing
interest in what is called “Liturgical Renewal.” This interest continues to
this day. Many new and valuable resources were, and are, being produced. This
movement focuses on all aspects of the liturgical life of the Church and
Christians, including the Church Year. In 1970 the Roman Catholic Church
returned to the older name Pentecost Season and Sundays after Pentecost. Part
of the reasoning for returning to the older name was that the threat, posed by
Arianism and the Moslems to Christians understanding God as Triune, was past.
(This was not the only argument.) Most liturgical protestant churches followed
the lead of the Roman Catholic Church. The LC-MS did so with the introduction of
the hymnal Lutheran Worship in 1982.
Another aspect of the Liturgical Renewal Movement was
changes in the lectionary. For centuries the Church had used a one-year
lectionary. Rome, and the
Protestants that followed their example, introduced a three-year lectionary.
The old one-year lectionary had only two readings assigned to each Sunday
(usually a Gospel and an Epistle lesson) and a Psalm (or Introit based on the
Psalm of the Day). The changes introduced in the later part of the twentieth
century included a third reading from the Old Testament.
Both systems have much to commend them. In recognition of
this, in the LC-MS, both options are made available. This is why some of our
churches have Sundays after Trinity while others have Sundays after Pentecost.
You can see, and even download, a three-year and/or a
one-year LC-MS calendar by going to the following link: http://www.lcms.org/page.aspx?pid=1064
Another happy result of the Liturgical Renewal Movement is
that many churches, who once rejected such things as a Liturgical Calendar, are
now embracing the Church Year. Many Baptist congregations gladly celebrate
Christmas (or at least Christmas Eve) even though 100 years ago most Baptist
thought it was too “Catholic.” There are “non-liturgical” churches that
celebrate Advent, Lent, and Holy Week. Many “non-liturgical” pastors now
gratefully use lectionaries. This is just the “tip of the iceberg.” It would
certainly be interesting, if possible, to come back in a hundred years and see
where this all is going. Right now, I’m just glad to see large portions of
Protestantism accepting practices that have for century after century nourished
the spiritual life of believers.
One final thought. Those who use the one-year lectionary get
to keep those cool old Latin names like Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and
Quinquagesima. That is because those names are based on the first words in the
old Introits. The three-year lectionary introduced different Introits, so the
old names no longer fit.
Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John Rickert
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