Reformation Sunday
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Gospel: John 8:31–36
Jesus speaks of truth and freedom as spiritual realities known through his word. He reveals the truth that sets people free from sin.
31Then Jesus said to the [Judeans] who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
31Ἔλεγεν οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς πρὸς τοὺς πεπιστευκότας αὐτῷ Ἰουδαίους, Ἐὰν ὑμεῖς μείνητε ἐν τῷ λόγῳ τῷ ἐμῷ, ἀληθῶς μαθηταί μού ἐστε, 32καὶ γνώσεσθε τὴν ἀλήθειαν, καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐλευθερώσει ὑμᾶς. 33ἀπεκρίθησαν πρὸς αὐτόν, Σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ ἐσμεν καὶ οὐδενὶ δεδουλεύκαμεν πώποτε: πῶς σὺ λέγεις ὅτι Ἐλεύθεροι γενήσεσθε; 34ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν δοῦλός ἐστιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας. 35ὁ δὲ δοῦλος οὐ μένει ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα: ὁ υἱὸς μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. 36ἐὰν οὖν ὁ υἱὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλευθερώσῃ, ὄντως ἐλεύθεροι ἔσεσθε.
“Free Indeed, Free In Deed”
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
The Ghost of Reformation Past came to haunt me last week. Replete as I was with full determination to come up with something so different about the meaning of the Reformation, something so remarkable, so memorable such that all of you would say for years to come, “Now that was a Reformation Sermon!” … it didn’t happen that way, and the Ghost of Reformation Past kept finding his way into my head.
It all began when he sang that Lutheran Sunday School ditty that people in my generation learned on those glorious late autumn Sundays in October when the air was crisp and we had Halloween on our minds more than anything else. On those Reformation Sundays of the Past, one of the Senior High Girls would take her place at the old piano that always sat at the front of the Sunday School Room and begin to play while we all joined in with:
Good ol’ Marty Luther,
Good ol’ Marty Luther,
Played by the Reformation Band.
His five-and-ninety Theses,
Just tore the Pope to pieces,
We think the Reformation’s gr-an-de,
O Marty Luther,
O Marty Luther,
Played by the Reformation Band.
O Marty Luther,
O Marty Luther,
We think the Reformation’s gr-an-de!
I have to say that given all the hard work that was accomplished at the turn of the last Century (1999) ecumenically between Roman Catholics and Lutherans[1] that resulted in the glorious Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification[2] … all 15 pages of which you can see on the Table in the Zaguan this morning … given the years of rebuilding the broken wall of the 16th Century breach between Roman Catholics and the Evangelical Churches of the Reformation that became known as Lutherans … somehow that ditty seems a bit outdated.
And yet, the Ghost of Reformation Past kept that music coming into my head like a bad tune of a TV commercial … “We think the Reformation’s gr-an-de!”
Well, let’s admit it, we do think the Reformation is grand! Not because we have in front of our imaginations the Legend of that Augustinian Monk Become Priest Martin Luther nailing to the double wooden door of the Castle Church (Schlosskirche) in Wittenberg, Germany his 95 Articles for Debate about the Sale of Indulgences in the Church … that icon of Lutheranism will not go away … even though it’s most likely that the eminent Reverend Doctor Martin Luther had one of his students from the University just walk down the street to perform the deed … Oh, we will forever see that image of Luther clutching a hammer and a six-penny medieval nail, tacking up the parchment …
… but, really, that’s not why we think the Reformation is grand … no, we find the meaning of the Reformation where Luther himself searched … within the pages of Holy Scripture … the Bible … the Sacred Story.
Yes, the Medieval Church of Luther’s time and much before was a Church Gone Wild with power, amassing land, impoverishing people, promulgating fear and obedience.
But Luther was not the first to address the abuses of that Church … John Wycliffe in England around 1381 (long before the 95 Theses were tacked to the church door in Germany in 1517) had done so, opposing papal authority being used to influence secular power, insisting on the Bible being translated into the common language of the people … and then there was Jan Hus around the year 1412 at the University in Prague who publicly condemned the sale of Indulgences, quoting directly from Wycliffe’s writings, adding that for the church to take up the sword (as in Crusade) was to violate the whole meaning of the Gospel … Hus condemned at the Council of Constance in 1414 was burned at the stake for his “heresy.”
No, Luther was certainly not the first to propose a reshaping, a reforming of the Church around the body of Christ, and for his own actions and words he also was excommunicated by his Pope (Leo X, one of the Medicis) in 1520, saved from execution only by the intervention of Luther’s prince, Frederich the Wise back in Wittenberg.
But all that is a long other story …
The Reformation was a movement that came from the thinking and reasoning population of clergy and laypersons seeking to make the Church look and act like the one it claimed to follow, Jesus from Nazareth.
Luther’s genius – if we may call it that – was to search for the meaning, not within the doctrines of assembled Councils of the Church, not within the proclamations of Popes and the ruling of Bishops … but to look within the Story itself.
And in the Story itself, he found the answer. It was the Story of grace, of renewal, of forgiveness, of hope, of the manifest love of God … nothing more and nothing less.
Which is why on Reformation Sunday we read those three selections every year:
From Jeremiah, where God is more interested in forgiving and forgetting, the renewal of the Covenant always in the center of things, the loving of neighbor always in the result of the renewal of the Covenant.
From Paul’s Letter to the Romans, that God’s grace is generous permitting forgiveness and reconciliation, even for those of us who do not merit such grace.
And from the Gospel of John, where Jesus makes the greatest declaration of Freedom, that the Story of God’s love is always a Story that frees the individual, the community, the nation, the church … to be free indeed, and to be free in … deed. That forgiving freedom from God means that those so forgiven will go and forgive others and make a new creation upon the earth.
Reformation Sunday does NOT mean that we try harder to be more Lutheran, although singing these wonderful hymns is rather fun, and we love drinking Coffee, and wearing Red is nice …
By the way, my stole this morning comes from my past. It is one of four that was especially made by a weaver local to the community near St. Luke’s in Dublin, Pennsylvania … commissioned by The Rev. Paul J. Kidd (may he rest in peace). I saw this stole every Reformation Sunday and every Saint’s Day when I grew up in that congregation … and when that congregation died this past Spring, those four stoles were given away to four of the six pastors who came out of that congregation, we are known fondly as the Sons of St. Luke, and I was fortunate enough to receive this one I am wearing today.
In a visible way, I feel united to that past where I learned the Story not of God’s anger and wrath, but of God’s free love and gentleness that for me comes in the Story of Jesus, who leads me and you into a continual reshaping and reforming of the Church to look like his loving body and act like his loving body in the world.
If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed … and free in … deed.
Now, let us rise and together confess our faith as we say together that ancient Creed of our Baptism, the Creed which tells us the Story of God the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sanctifier, who loves and forgives us and sets us free to love each other and our neighbor and reshape and reform not only our Church, but our world.
APOSTLES CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Deo Gratias (+)
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church
Santa Fe, NM
[1] The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF now has 145 member churches in 79 countries all over the world representing over 70 million Christians.
