Reformation Day 2022

 Today is a really loaded day for Lutherans so I will begin with a little Reformation day history and go on to talk about some traditions, and then work through the Gospel with you.  Reformation day marks the day that Martin Luther posted on the church door or in the mail his 95 theses or arguments against the selling of indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church.  At that time there was only the Roman Catholic Church in that area of the world which held a lot of authority by keeping people in the dark about what the Bible really said.  They used Latin for worship so people didn’t really know what they were saying.  The Roman Catholic Church had no one to hold it accountable because of it’s power and people’s illiteracy.  Martin Luther traveled (by foot) to Rome as a young monk and there he expected to be inspired.  Instead he was appalled because he saw the church selling relics—pieces of bone or wood related to holy people and their religious experiences.  He saw the church selling indulgences to spring their loved ones from purgatory.  He saw poor people trying to free their dead family members from torment while their living families went hungry.  He saw the church taking from the poor to fund their opulent churches and their comfortable bishops and archbishops.  He had a lot of time to reflect on his response as he walked home from Rome.

Martin Luther did not mean to split from the Roman Catholic Church, but his 95 theses coincided with the invention of the printing press and they went out far and wide.  It was a challenge the pope could not ignore because it hit the church in the pocket book  and so Martin Luther was tried and excommunicated.  He likely would have been burned at the stake as his predecessor Jan Hus was, except he was kidnapped by his friends and taken to Wartburg Castle to hide.  While he was there he translated the New Testament into the common German language so that people could read it for themselves and know what it really said.

At Reformation day Lutherans are usually proud of our denomination which started the reformation bringing into existence many of our mainline denominations.  We often gloss over the shortcomings of Martin Luther.  Let me just say that he did not want the movement to be named after him.  In Germany it is called the Evangelical Church.  Martin Luther suffered physical and mental health issues increasingly as he aged.  He initially preached kindness and grace toward Jews.  Then when they didn’t convert in droves as he expected once he “corrected” the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, he spoke and wrote hate against Jews so much so that his own writings were used to justify the Holocaust.  Martin Luther also preached against artwork in churches and his followers smashed many beautiful works of art, windows, paintings, and sculptures.  Finally, some of the ideas of the reformation helped inspired the peasant revolt and then when the peasants demanded their rights, he abandoned them and encouraged the nables to take them out.  Many peasants lost their lives.  Martin Luther was a brilliant man and he was a troubled man.  He was a man, a sinner, and a child of God and while we appreciate the risks he took and the way he stood up to power, we also regret his actions and the actions of the Lutheran Church which have been hurtful over the years.  We are reminded this day not to boast. We carry a complex history of antisemitism, racism, and homophobia and the destruction of Native People and their culture.  We can learn from both the good and the bad from our history.

One of our traditions these days is to wear red on Reformation Day.  The colors of the paraments change throughout the church year.  There are two red Sundays—one is Pentecost, the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the other is Reformation Day.  Red is the color of fire and of the Holy Spirit, which appeared as tongues of flame upon the heads of the Disciples.  Certainly the Holy Spirit was involved in helping Martin Luther see what was happening in the Roman Catholic Church, and inspiring him to speak up and risk his life to challenge it.

On Reformation Sunday, we always read the same 4 readings.  Normally we are on a 3 year cycle of readings, so you usually won’t hear the same reading again for 3 years.  This is the one day that they are all the same Bible readings every single  year.  This is a new covenant day when God is writing God’s law in our hearts so that we are God’s people.  The Psalm is the one that Martin Luther used to write his hymn, “A Mighty Fortress.”  This was a hymn that comforted him when he was hidden away, and the powers were after him.  We always sing it on Reformation Day, the louder the better.  The Second Lesson is the scripture that Martin Luther read and had his epiphany that it isn’t our works that save us, but the grace of God. 

Finally we come to the Gospel.  In the year 1520 Martin Luther wrote a tract, the last of 3, addressed to the Pope, to try to explain how the theology of the Reformation was consistent with the teaching of the Bible.  This tract is called “On the Freedom of the Christian.”  The tract stated two seemingly contradictory ideas, on that A Christian is an utterly free person, lord of all, subject to none and A Christian is an utterly dutiful person, servant of all, subject to all, which this Gospel touches on.  Martin Luther believed that people, on our own, can only turn away from God.  That is not freedom, but slavery to sin.  He also believed that Christ frees us from sin by his death on the cross.  We are not just freed from sin but we are freed for something, which is for relationship with God and relationship with our neighbor.  We are freed from our turning away from God and God’s love, by the grace of Jesus, to be able to stop just serving our own selfish needs and instead serve our neighbor in need the way Jesus taught us by his life.

The Gospel includes at least two loaded words Truth and Free.  Freedom we have come to believe in our country is the right to do what we want.  That is not how it is seen in the Bible and not how it is seen by Martin Luther.  According to Martin Luther, we are freed by Christ from sinning and being selfish, to turn toward others and serve them which is the truest freedom there is.  We are freed to do the liberating work of releasing the captives and feeding the hungry, working for justice, and risking ridicule and hatred to stand up for what is good for the smallest, most rejected among us, until they too are free. 

The word truth is another loaded word.  Truth has become so twisted around by misinformation and news media trying to divide us that we can no longer distinguish what is true.  But Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  To live selflessly, the way Jesus did, is truth.  To love is truth.  To give up everything for the sake of others is truth. 

The Gospel has a repeated word that we don’t see because it gets translated a different way each time and that word is Meno, which means to abide or dwell or remain.  Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, if you meno in my word, if you abide in my word, remain in my word, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.  To abide and dwell in Jesus’ word is not about his words, this is singular.  Remember that in the Gospel of John, Jesus is the word made flesh.  If you remain in Jesus, responsive and loving, forgiving, remembering the despised, healing and feeding the neglected, you will know the truth of freedom and service and you will be set free.  The word meno is repeated again about the slave remaining in the household, abiding there, dwelling there forever.  If we want to dwell and remain, we want to be free but the son remains there, abides there, dwells there, so if the son Jesus makes you free, you will be free indeed. 

The Reformation was not a one and done.  We are invited to abide in Jesus’ way of life, generous, caring, sacrificing, selfless, loving, justice-oriented, compassionate and to do that means constantly pivoting toward those in need, throwing off old ways that don’t serve, evaluating our traditions to see if they fit our world, holding our leaders accountable, being willing to examine ourselves and be set free from slavery to sin. On Reformation Day we can look to our past to learn where we have been, reform our present day more to resemble God’s Kingdom, and look to a future in which God frees us all with the love and truth of Jesus.