Reformation 2020

 Happy Reformation Day!  This day has been one of celebrating Lutheran pride.  We sing A Mighty Fortress, written by Martin Luther, himself.  We talk about Luther nailing the 95 theses to the church door and his outrage against Indulgences—those pieces of paper sold by the Roman Catholic Church of his time which declared a person freed from purgatory because of a financial donation made to build a church.  We remember Smorgasbords and potlucks, picnics and softball teams, quilts and support of refugees. 

In our celebration, sometimes we forget what tumultuous times those were during the Reformation, and that reformation is painful, chaotic, and messy.  The times Martin Luther was living in are very similar to our situation, today.  There was a pandemic, the Bubonic Plague.  It came in waves.  It wiped out 1/3 of Europe’s population in 5 years.  There was a huge disparity between the rich and poor.  There was political unrest and division.  There was misinformation everywhere—especially from the Roman Catholic Church which had the sole authority to interpret the Bible since it was in a language regular people couldn’t read.  The religious authorities excommunicated and pursued the reformers that had worked for a long time—50 years before Martin Luther, Jan Hus was burned at the stake by the church for his opposition to certain aspects of the Roman Catholic Church including the sale of religious objects.

People were having a rough time, as the Reformation approached.  They were divided, afraid, sick, and hungry.  If it hadn’t been uncomfortable, there would have been no reason to reform.  Martin Luther’s discomfort had to do with compassion for his congregation, kept poor and ignorant by the church, and he felt uncomfortable because he knew he was accountable to God for his actions and inactions.  

We call these Unprecedented Times, but they are not.  They may be to us, but we carry with us a history of people in Unprecedented Times of their own, of disaster, of pain, of hunger, of illness, of grief, of oppression.  Over the centuries people living in unprecedented times were encouraged and challenged by the presence of God, the word of God, and unity with the faithful, much as we are today.

When Martin Luther wrote A Mighty Fortress, he was 10-12 years into the Reformation, excommunicated and pursued by the Roman Catholic Church slated for execution.  He had no income, although he was given a very large house to live in, which his wife used to make a living for them, brewing beer, taking in boarders, and even running a hospital there.  At the time Luther wrote this hymn, he was a young father.  He had a toddler and his 8 month old child, Elizabeth, had recently died.  Luther was a devoted father and the death of this child was devastating for him.  In his grief, he turned to Psalm 46 that we read this morning and he found comfort.

This Psalm is attributed to King David.  King David lived in his own unprecedented times.  He was often pursued by political rivals into caves.  He had a lot of time to ponder God’s challenge and presence and word.  In those caves, he wrote a lot of Psalms about the refuge God provides—the same refuge that Luther translates as fortress.  David also suffered the loss of a child.  During those times, certainly his Psalms comforted him and gave him the strength to go on. 

As Jews were rounded up in Germany and Poland and Russia, their synagogues burned and their businesses vandalized, they turned to this Psalm and knew they were not alone.  During hundreds of years of slavery, people stolen and abused for economic gain, found comfort in this Psalm.  As we ponder the destruction of our earth from pollution and fire, we turn to this Psalm and we find strength.  As our gay, lesbian, and transgender siblings face hatred and violence, they turn to these scriptures and remember that God is with them and will never forsake them. 

This Psalm, this hymn speak to the troubles of every age, the natural disasters and tragedies, the forces that seek to destroy.  In the face of these troubles, we could just keep trudging along.  We could say it has always been this way and it will always be this way.  We might wonder what difference we could possibly make, but with God’s help this world will be transformed.

This Psalm isn’t just for comfort but it is for challenge.  We are both saints and sinners.  We are both oppressed and oppressors.  We hurt people and this planet constantly.  This Psalm is a challenge to us sinners.  God is on the side of the suffering.  God will put an end to war and the weapons we use to hurt each other, weather that be bows and swords or laws or racism or homophobia.  To us sinners says, stop.  “Be still and know that I am God.”  God says to stop and look to God rather than putting ourselves at the center.  Be still and know that I am God is a statement for both saints and sinners.  For saints it means to stop and know that God is putting an end to this suffering.  God is intervening for the weak one against the strong one so that all may have abundant life.

God is unsettled, God is moved by pain and suffering and draws near, or makes God’s presence known, and calls for a reformation, a recentering of God and God’s love.  In Jeremiah that reformation is a recommitment, a new covenant, a new promise to be God for us and to make us God’s people.  God offers an alternative vision to what is happening, that people went astray and cheated on God and hurt each other.  God’s new vision is that our bond with God will someday be automatic.  No one will have to tell us, but God’s love will be ingrained in us, part of who we are.

The reading from Romans focuses on that idea that we can earn God’s love by our actions.  The idea that we could, was torture to people, because they could never do enough to earn God’s love.  We are always messing it up, or sinning as it says here.  Paul says something that 1500 years later sparks the Protestant Reformation, and that is that God’s love is a free gift, that we cannot earn or lose.  We are justified, or made right with God, because of faith, not because of anything we do.  Those were the most freeing words to the monk Martin Luther, who never felt he could be good enough.  They were more than words, they were a promise, a new covenant in which God is the faithful one building the relationship with us, and us just trying to be open to it and respond to it.

So reformation is not one day.  It is God’s ongoing project to disrupt our pain and trouble with hope and life, with a promise, with love.  Reformation is hard because it is a disruption.  Sometimes we’d rather have the pain and trouble we know than the new that is unknown.  We get settled in our ways, used to a certain way of life, used to navigating the usual twists and turns.  Reformation is challenging what is unjust even if it isn’t personally hurting us.  It is the work of the building of the Kingdom toward the vision that God offers.

What this Psalm tells us and what God’s word in the Bible tells us is that these troubles heartaches are temporary, they do not have the last word, they are not the end of the story.  Earthquakes and floods are temporary, earthly leaders are temporary, our divisions are an illusion and temporary, our rebellion is temporary.  Our troubles are not our god, they do not dictate what our world will be, they do not have a say in how this all turns out.  God’s Kingdom is breaking into our world, disrupting this mess with the light of truth, revealing our leaders for who they are, freeing those captive to poverty and prejudice.  That is the reformation taking place this moment.  We have an opportunity to take part in it, an invitation to let God’s word be engraved in our hearts to live in a new way, for God to work through us to make a new heaven and a new earth.