Reformation Sunday
The
Lutheran Reformation—the story of a man convinced and convinced by the Word of
God.
Luther standing up against the powerful Holy Roman Emperor
and the god-like Pope, and holding his own, and holding onto his faith.
Luther’s brave-trickery, sneaking his wife out of a nunnery
in a barrel of fish oil and Luther dressing as a knight in order to thwart an
attempted kidnapping.
If
you let it, Reformation Sunday can
become more about the man than his message.
So
today, I want to tell you about the central
messages of the Lutheran Reformation:
Grace and Faith,
The Word of God,
& The Mysterious Cross of Christ.
Let us Pray
As
we read in Romans today, We are justified by God’s Grace—his gift through the redemption found in Jesus Christ,
effective through Faith.
Grace and Faith, two enormous touchstones
of the Reformation.
Grace is Central—we, though bound to
sin and unable to free ourselves, are freed by God.
God is always the
one who saves us.
Nothing we do can
bring about God’s saving act.
Even
as we rattle around in our chains we insist
“we have never been slaves to anyone,”
and so it is God alone who comes to us and snaps
Sin’s hold upon us and insists we are free.
It’s
October, which means it’s election season, and we get those pamphlets and
letters from everyone trying to get us to vote for them.
You know the one’s I’m talking about, those post cards with
one side all cheery and pretty and bright, with a color glossy photo of
Candidate X on it. Then on the back is a black and white photo of a tired
haggard opponent surrounded by words like “Dangerous, Wrong, and Scary.”
Well,
the crazy thing about Grace
and how we
relate to it,
is that we spend so much time sending pamphlets like that to
God,
but the wild truth of it is,
God voted in a special election a while back and there is
nothing we can do to change God’s costly vote for us
through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son.
All
we can do is trust that this is
true.
Trust that God
is for us.
Have faith in Jesus’
actions.
To
be confident that while “the soul is
full of sin, death, and condemnation,” “Christ is full of grace, life, and
salvation.”
Have faith in that Great Exchange!
Where Christ takes sin, death, and hell
and in return grace, life,
and salvation is given to you!
And
maybe you’ve heard that all before, but consider the alternative.
Luther
was faced with abuses in which forgiveness was sold and faced with various
schemes that could be summed up as “Jesus
Plus.”
Jesus plus Good Works,
Jesus plus authority,
Jesus plus plunder.
But
what then?
What of Good Works?
Why do good if we don’t
have to strong-arm God into loving you?
Good
Works become responses to this exchange between us and Christ.
Responses to God’s grace.
Responses to God’s unfailing love for us.
When
we are shocked by God’s gracious actions for us, we cannot help but look around us and see our neighbor in need.
When
we ask ourselves “What do we do, when we have nothing we have to do?”
We respond, “I am slave to none, yet servant to all.”
When
we stop trying to storm heaven we see our sisters and brothers beside us now.
This
doctrine of Grace & Faith Alone, came from Luther’s close reading of the
Apostle Paul, and so you could say it came from the second message of the
Reformation, which is that:
“The Word of God is Central
to Faith.”
Scripture
is the norm of our faith and life as Christians.
It is the true standard by which teaching and doctrine is to
be judged.
When
we have questions about meaning,
when we have why questions,
we turn to the Word.
And
in Luther’s day the Word was much neglected.
There were tales of Priests with books of sermons, but no
bibles.
Theologians using ancient books of Aristotelian Zoology to
understand the mind of God.
Luther reports of Pastors who didn’t know the Lord’s Prayer
or the 10 Commandments, let alone were able to read the Gospels in the original
Greek or even in a Latin translation.
And so Luther did the long hard work of translating
scripture into his native tongue, so that it might be turned to again as a
central part of the faith.
And
the Centrality of Scripture—Word Alone—could
easily start to sound like a slippery slope toward Fundamentalism.
But as Lutherans we focus on how we experience scripture—
How we experience it as a
two edged sword.
Scripture
is Central, in so far as it comes to us as Law
and Gospel.
As
Law, Scripture is a Window and a Mirror.
It
is a Window for us to look out of,
to judge if our society is acting justly—it
is a good place to find some basic rules of life.
We
experience it as a Mirror when it
reminds us that we are sinners,
it convicts us and catches us as we are.
When it, like a sheepdog of the soul, chases us sinners to
the foot of the cross and into the arms of a loving God—then Scripture is
acting as Law.
As
Gospel, Scripture reminds us of
God’s grace and strengthens our faith.
It
points to Faith and Grace.
It
points to Christ’s embracing arms from the cross.
Yes,
the Cross, the final Central message
of the Lutheran Reformation.
The Cross, that
strange and scandalous symbol.
Lutherans
are forever astounded by Christ on the Cross.
Think
of it. The Son of God executed by religious people and the political powers
that be.
Jesus
born in lowly a manger, not a castle,
riding on a donkey, not a warhorse.
Finding
God in these places calls us to look for God in the last place we’d expect.
Finding
God there radically re-orients us-sinners away from where we expect to find
wisdom and goodness and God.
It
reminds us that if God is found amongst the suffering and death of the cross,
then perhaps the world is not as we thought.
It
also makes us constantly aware that our “religiosity” can be dangerous and
seeking power can crucify Christ.
It
calls us to a humble faith in a humble savior.
Not
in the pomp of Rome, or the seats of secular power,
Not prosperity, or wisdom
But in the catechesis of a child,
a family at prayer,
the consolation and joy of Christian community,
the washing baptismal waters,
the simple trustworthy words “given and shed for you.”
So
today, yes we celebrate Martin Luther
tacking 95 theses to a church door, but we also celebrate the larger shape
of our faith.
We celebrate with humility that God is with us where we
least expect.
We celebrate the Word of God that both cleaves our sinful
soul and points us to our Savior.
We celebrate that we can trust God’s love for us through
Christ Jesus and share it with our neighbor in many ways. A+A
