Nagel as Preacher and Presider

A Personal Reflection

Two men have shaped my liturgical and homiletical theology more than any others - Dr. Norman Nagel and Dr. Kenneth Korby. I have working closely under Dr. Nagel as a reader, grader, and graduate student for 3 privileged years, and I consider Dr. Korby to be one of my spiritual fathers in the faith. I still keep contact with his widow, Jeanne, a godly woman in the way of Proverbs 31 if ever there was one.

Dr. Nagel as presider was always a sight to behold, and great fun, as he quite innocently ran roughshod over all the fastidious precision of the “liturgiologists.” He would come to the seminary chapel with cassock and surplice rolled under his arm, making it look as though he had just slept in it. A frock of hair would be dangling down over his glasses and a typewritten manuscript with some handwritten “clincher” scrawled on it, likely conceived on his way to the chapel. His disheveled appearance stood in sharp contrast to the “spit and polish” taught in worship classes.

In the pulpit, Norman read his sermon with face buried in the manuscript, occasionally looking up over glasses that were slowly creeping down his nose. These were some of the finest sermons every preached in the St. Louis seminary chapel. So much for modern communication theory. Dr. Nagel’s sermons were intricately woven narratives, often retelling the text in a colorfully embellished way, interweaving the Law and the Gospel in a taut dynamic tension that was the trademark of his preaching.

I recall a lengthy discussion in Dr. Nagel’s office once after a lecture by the sainted Gerhard Forde over the proper distinction of the Law and the Gospel. Forde seemed to run these as static categories, and Dr. Nagel appeared somewhat displeased by it all. I asked him, “How would you distinguish the Law and the Gospel in a text?” Dr. Nagel replied, “First, one must look for what of Jesus the text is trying to deliver; then one must look for what gets in the way of the delivery.” I’ve carried that insight with me into the pulpit to this day.

At the altar, Dr. Nagel was unpretentious. He despised excessive pomp and ceremony. For Dr. Nagel, the Office was causa instrumentalis, the instrumental means, by which the Gospel and Sacraments delivered Christ to the people. He was adamant that the instrument never overshadow the gift. Liturgics that drew attention to the celebrant and away from the gifts of Christ would draw a furrowed frown from the good doctor. One sacristan tells the story of being literally thrown out of Dr. Nagel’s office for asking him to impose ashes on Ash Wednesday. Far be it from Dr. Nagel to soil a man’s forehead with the Law.

I recall but one amusing attempt by Dr. Nagel to wear a chasubile. It was in the old chapel/auditorium at St. Louis, prior to the building of the magnificent Chapel of Saints Timothy and Titus. Dr. Nagel abruptly exited to the sacristy after the prayers, and returned wearing a rumpled chasubile, slightly askew, glasses crooked and hair displaced even more than usual from the vesting experience. He never attempted it again, at least while I was at the seminary.

What I learned from Dr. Nagel is to hold the holy things with a rather loose, even dead hand of faith, trusting in the efficacy of the Word to do its killing and making alive work. What matters is Christ and the delivery of His gifts - that the words of Christ go into ear holes and the Body and Blood of Christ go into mouths. These treasures are delivered in weak, earthen vessels, and we can, if we are not careful, get in the way and become a distraction. Dr. Nagel was unpretentiously and transparently himself in the pulpit and at the altar. His eccentricities were natural - to him - and he taught by example that free men in Christ are not afraid to be themselves as they conduct the stewardship of their Office.

At the same time, I acquired a deep and abiding respect for the liturgy as a holy tradition, a trust handed down from our fathers who have come before us. Every paper written for Dr. Nagel was an exercise in liturgical theology, as he demanded from us that we examine how the worship of the past handled the holy things and whether they got it “Gospel right.” I would never have known of the ancient liturgies, both East and West, were it not for all my Nagel classes. Liturgy is doctrine put into practice, as the gifts of life and salvation won at Calvary are delivered in the present time and place.

Dr. Nagel’s oft-quoted introduction to Lutheran Worship (1982) summarizes well this way of faith’s receiving that which is handed down, and handing it on to the rising generation:

“We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own, adds what best may serve in its own day - the living heritage and something new.”

In short, Dr. Nagel taught and celebrated and lived the liturgy “in the way of the Gospel.”

Next, Dr. Kenneth Korby and why I wear boots in the chancel.

wmc