Welcome to Reformation Sunday. It was on this day, 504 years ago that Martin Luther posted on the church door or maybe posted in the mail, his 95 theses which started the Protestant Reformation. Of course he had no intention of splitting the Roman Catholic Church. He was just starting a conversation with others that had been going on his heart for a long time—a conversation about authority, about accountability, about human sinfulness, and about freedom.
By
now we all know about indulgences, the documents that were sold by the Roman
Catholic Church, which stated that a person’s sentence in purgatory was reduced
and which funded many of the beautiful cathedrals you can still see in Europe
today but also took food from the mouths of poor hungry people. Martin Luther was offended because he saw
people going hungry and depriving their families of necessities, but even more
so because an indulgence was elevated above the status of Jesus himself. If Christ died for our sins, why do we need a
piece of paper, why do we need to give money to get to heaven? Indulgences imply that the rich have greater
access to heaven. If Jesus gave himself
as a free gift for our salvation, isn’t that enough? Isn’t Jesus all we need to be adopted into
God’s family?
Of
course, he was absolutely right that Indulgences were part of the corruption of
the Roman Catholic Church and were interfering with people receiving the
Gospel, the good news of God’s love for all people. Even the Roman Catholic Church outlawed the
sale of indulgences in 1567. However
right Martin Luther was, he challenged authority and threatened the main
fund-raising practice of the day and the church could not let that slide.
Because
of the threat to his life, Martin Luther was hidden in Wartburg castle and
during his time there he translated the New Testament into the language of the
people. I have been to the room where
Martin Luther did that translating. I
found it very inspiring. I had always
thought it would be up in the tower, up many flights of stairs, but it turns
out it is only on the 2nd floor and down a long hallway in a
well-lit room, as it would have had to have been for him to see well enough to
get all that work done. I have been to
the room where as he translated day after day, Dr. Luther came upon these
words, written by Paul in his letter to the Romans, “since
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are
now justified by his grace as a gift.” And “we hold that a person is justified
by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” I love to think of him locked up in those
castle walls for his own safety, at that blocky desk, looking out the leaded
windows, seeing the doves that roosted there, lost in thought with the words of
Paul coming to him through the years, through his experiences of trying to
please his father, of trying to please God and always coming up short. Here he settles on a word of true grace. He’s not alone in his errors, his sins, his
separation from God, his temptations, and neither are we. But what brings us into true relationship
with God is not what we do or don’t do—it is what Jesus does. Jesus makes us just. We don’t use the word “justified” very often. I think of a page that is right
justified. Everything is lined up on the
right hand side. Jesus lines us up with
him, when he adopts us as siblings in the family. And this free gift of God’s grace frees us
from sin and guilt. “If the son makes
you free, you will be free indeed.”
We give
thanks for Martin Luther and the other reformers who allowed the church to be
questioned, because even the church falls short of the glory of God, and needs
brave people to ask questions and tear down injustice, even when it threatens
the church or the religious authorities.
But this wasn’t an original thought to Martin Luther. He is taking the words of Jesus to the
religious authorities seriously. If you
want to be free, continue in my word, my promise—receive the free gift of God’s
grace.
Receiving
the free gift of God’s grace can be challenging. First of all, can we agree that we’re
captive? We live in America, the land of
the free. Would we say, like the
religious authorities of Jesus’ time that we have never been captive, that we
are free? Jesus is speaking to us. We are captive. Again and again we make choices that take
away life. We keep more than we
need. We are afraid that we won’t have
enough. We lock ourselves away from each
other because of our fear of being poor, being sick, being helpless. And we’re afraid to leave the comfort of our
laws and rituals to truly follow Jesus and be free.
God
wants to free us, but I am not sure we want to be free. Think of the Israelites wandering in the
wilderness. They kept crying out to go
back into slavery because it was what they knew. Wandering in the wilderness is what freedom
looks like. It looks messy. It looks dangerous. It looks boring—walking through the desert
for 40 years. It looks frustrating. Yet, that’s the kind of freedom God is
calling us to. Think if we were free of
our attachments to follow Jesus, what would we do differently? If we were free of our attachments and fears,
maybe we’d have conversations with hungry people and welcome them into our
homes. Maybe we’d sell everything we
have and give the money to the poor. Maybe we’d give of our gifts without
questioning the worthiness of the other person.
Maybe we’d sell our church or turn it into a warming center, put tiny
houses in the parking lot, provide storage for the homeless, provide a place
for seniors, offer free daycare, open up the clothes closet and give clean
socks to anyone who asks. Maybe we’d
have service projects every week, cleaning up parks and waterways. Maybe we’d be doing the real work of
reforming, as Jesus put us through boot camp.
Our fear
is that we are never enough, that by our works we can never earn Jesus’
love. But the truth of the reformation
is that Jesus has already done the work and Jesus is enough. We are already justified by God’s grace as a
gift. Now we can respond in joy and hopefulness
by doing the freedom work that he is calling us to.
Reformation
is not just one day. It is isn’t a one
and done. It isn’t a quick fix. It is a process of relationship between us
and God, in which God writes God’s love into our hearts. Reformation is a process of relationships
that demands that we continually evaluate our lives, our congregations, our
societies and ask how we are out of alignment.
Reformation is a process of relationship in which we constantly remove
what idols we have placed at the center and let Jesus take central place
there. Reformation is an ongoing
relationship in which we continually receive Jesus’ grace and in thankfulness
respond with hope and joy, sharing that grace with others.
The kind
of freedom that Jesus was offering was not the pursuit of happiness kind of
freedom that we say we offer in America.
Jesus offers freedom from guilt and freedom from always having to
scramble to do enough to please God. And
Jesus offers freedom not for the
individual to do whatever they want, which is sinful selfishness. Jesus offers freedom to love and serve the
least of these as Jesus did. This is the
reformation we all need today and always.
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