Reformation 2019

 

October 27, 2019              John 8:31-36       Jeremiah 31:31-34           Romans 3:19-28

                Spirit of Life is in a kind of mini-reformation, don’t you think?  You got your new pastor, you’re getting your new address, and now you’re getting ready to have a discussion about possible new worship times.  In some ways this is small stuff.  No matter who your pastor is, Jesus is Lord.  No matter what you’re address is, you’re going to serve God.  No matter what time you worship, you will praise God.  But they are changes or potential changes, and change can be stressful.  Staying the same can be stressful, too, for that matter. 

When I was informed that folks wanted to decide about worship times, I said, “There’s no rush.  I like to take my time getting to know the congregation before we consider changes.”  However, this topic has been on some minds for a long time, apparently.  I don’t want to hold you back, either.  The benefits of having a conversation now is that I’m looking forward to seeing how you all interact, the way you address each other, the way you influence each other, the way you make decisions.  And you get to see how I guide in decision-making, which I try to steer toward the relational, that people can share and listen to each other, and remember what is most important, that we love God and love our neighbor.

A reformation is more than a few little tweaks.  The protestant reformation came from a growing awareness at the time of the misuse of the power of the Church.  Reformers weren’t looking to break away, but it is rather telling that when they simply asked their questions, instead of having a discussion, the power of the Church was then misused to stop challenging conversations.  Some reformers were burned at the stake, others excommunicated and forced into hiding.  Those in power were deeply invested in the way things were and they didn’t want that changed.  The system benefitted them and they fought changes, even when those changes better reflected the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that God’s grace is a free gift for everyone.  Asking questions and having the challenging conversations are good for accountability, they are good because we get to use the brains God gave us, and they are good because when we treat each other with respect, listen to each other and share a little of ourselves, we build community.  Our bonds are strengthened, as a congregation.

Sometimes when a system is benefitting us, we don’t want to examine it too closely, because we might start to see the cracks in it.  We might see that it doesn’t hold up to the truth that we know in Jesus Christ, that we are all sinners, and that we are all redeemed and loved and adopted by him.  When we consider how something benefits us, we might miss how it disadvantages someone else. 

I recently heard an illustration from Pastor Nadia Boltz-Weber that spoke to me.  She said she was on an jet plane, looking down at farmland in the Midwest and she saw the farms broken down into grids, but in each square of the grid was a circle of green.  That didn’t seem like such an efficient use of farmland, to have a bunch of circles within each square.  After a while she realized, or maybe someone explained, that that’s the way the irrigation sprinklers watered, in a circle.  The land was only green where it was watered.  The crops only grew where it was watered. She related to the farmland in the corner.  She’s kind of an outcast, and she started a church of outcasts, and she felt like much of her life was spent in the corners, not getting the water she needed to grow. 

This image of the sprinkler system really speaks to me.  When Jesus walked this earth, the Romans controlled the sprinkler system.  The Romans were the ones who were watered and thriving, and the Judeans were on the corners.  The more power the Romans had, they made that green circle smaller and smaller, which meant that more people suffered on the edges.  When Jesus appeared in this context, he threw out water to everyone.  He poured water on the widows and orphans and tax collectors, those who were divorced, children, lepers, elderly people, people on crutches, beggars, people who were mentally ill or possessed.  Even dead people were not beyond the range of this sprinkler system that Jesus was telling them was possible, and not just possible, but at hand, breaking in, present, the Kingdom of God, where all the areas get watered.

Martin Luther, too, saw the sprinkler circle getting smaller and smaller.  In the center growing strong was the Roman Catholic church.  People who were hurt by this were poor, regular working people, people who couldn’t read, who didn’t know how expansive God’s love really is, people who were afraid of the hell their priest warned them about constantly, and people who cared about whether their relatives were suffering in purgatory.  So when Luther nailed his conversation points up on the door at Wittenburg Castle Church or when he put some postage on it and mailed it to the Pope (were not sure which one or both that he did) he was exposing the sprinkler controls, that Grace wasn’t controlled by the church, it was controlled by God, and the scriptures show us that “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by God’s grace as a gift.”  Since none of us controls the sprinkler system of grace, and we’re all just seeds laying in the dirt without it, now all are watered with grace as a gift!

I love to imagine Luther having his breakthrough with this scripture.  Was it a sudden ah-ha? Or was a it a long, drawn-out process of realization?  Here he was tormented by his sin and failures, and everything he couldn’t get right, reading this for the 10^th, 50^th, hundredth time, and somehow it breaking through to him.  We all are sinful.  That’s why we need Jesus.  He gave his life as a gift.  You don’t need any piece of paper from the Pope, you don’t need any good works, you don’t have to say any special words, you are justified, made just, brought into relationship with God, as a free gift.  The end.  There is nothing you can do to be right with God.  God is the only one that can make that happen, and God does, for everyone!  There is nothing you can do to get out of relationship with God.  Period.  The end.  Martin Luther went from this condition of fear and anxiety, locked in the confessional, sick and suffering with guilt, to one of absolute freedom. I love to think of this because I am a nerd, but also because I’ve experienced it too.  I’ve lived in fear and anxiety, and I found God’s baptismal waters to be so refreshing and abundant and life-giving.  Maybe you have, too.  And even though he had to go into hiding, leave his beloved congregation for a while, his life in danger, the descriptions of him are like night and day from the tortured soul he had been.  While he was in hiding in Wartburg castle, he would dress up as Junker Jorg and go into town to the pub.  I picture this jolly fellow, traipsing down the hill to eat and drink with friends, sing, and enjoy this world God made, free from fear, free from the feeling the devil was always watching him, alive in God’s grace.

Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses not knowing it would cause such a stir, and it probably would have ended there, but the printing press was brand-new and the points he was making spoke to people, so they made many copies and distributed them, until they even reached our hands. 

Now we are a church that must always be reforming, because when we get settled, we see that the sprinkler system is only watering this circle of people, and Jesus calls us to look to the corners to see who is left out.  Who is laying in the dirt right now?  Who doesn’t know how much God loves them?  Who doesn’t have what they need to live abundantly?  Is the reach of our sprinkler getting smaller or larger?  How would we know?  Do we withhold God’s grace from some?  Jesus says, “Anyone who sins is captive to sin.”  I know I sin.  I know you do, too.  What does that mean to be held captive?  Do we remember when we were captive to the mortgage payment?  Or held captive by someone who said they would leave if we didn’t do things her way?  How can we move from captivity to freedom?  What is Jesus freeing us from?  What is Jesus freeing us for?

On the one hand, we should remember our past, our history.  We should remember that God brought us out of the land of Egypt, from slavery to freedom.  We should remember that on the night that Jesus suffered, he took the bread of new life, of reformation, and broke it and gave it to all.  And then we have to balance all that remembering with what God is giving us right now in this moment.  Sometimes we spend so much time looking back that we forget that God is right here with us.  I have seen congregations miss God right in front of them because they were complaining that attendance at some event wasn’t what it was last year, or some teenager wasn’t dressed the way the adults would have chosen.  Reformation has always been the way God does things.  This world is changing, we are changing, God is making us anew every day.  God is giving us the gift of new life right now.  God is setting us free every moment.  It’s disorienting, but its beautiful, so I hope we will stop and say thank you God, and since we are starting a focus on stewardship, let’s be good stewards of the gift of grace and new life that God is giving us.  Rather than stingy with our praise, let us be joyful in our generosity and recognize that this is always how God has related to God’s people.  This is what new life looks like!

We are being reformed because Jesus is breaking down our slavery to sin and our attempts to be right and win his love.  He is taking all our assumptions apart and remaking us to be his children.  Now that our assumptions are all toast, it is a good time to ask questions.  Who does this ministry serve?  Does it water the corners?  Who participates in it?  Is it because of a sense of duty or is it joy?  Whose gifts are being overlooked?  I get to ask questions because I’m new, but I invite you to ask questions, too.  Join me in wondering and pondering.  I don’t know where it will lead, but I hope it leads us to openness about God’s call to us together in this place, and that God’s vision of abundant flourishing and relationship and new life will take root.