Reformation Day - October 31, 2010 [Romans 3:19-28]

Apparently the thing to do nowadays is to hold a rally. Specifically, if you want to whip up enthusiasm for your cause and restore something to the center of the political or social landscape, just reserve some large public space and rally people. Yesterday, for example, in our nation’s capital, comedians John Stewart and Stephen Colbert held their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or March to Keep Fear Alive. Authorities will likely dispute the number of people who showed up to take part in an event that was both silly mockery of current political discourse as well as serious statement on certain political positions, but suffice it to say the National Mall was crawling with people who were there to rally.  Stewart’s and Colbert’s rally was, of course, a response to the Tea Party’s Rally to Restore Honor—held in late August—which likewise attracted untold thousands to Washington, D.C.

So, if rallies are the thing to have, today, Lutherans the world over—more than 70 million of us!—will hold their Rally to Restore their Lutheran Identity. In Wittenberg, Germany, where the Protestant Reformation unwittingly got kicked-off 493 years ago to this day, townspeople will dress up like Martin Luther and his wife, Katie, and hand out shrink-wrapped copies of his Small Catechism on every street corner. You’d better believe that in Lutheran congregations across the globe, the rousing strains of “A Mighty Fortress is our God” will be belted out, just as you can believe that worshipers will mutter under their breath about how they liked the version in the old red hymnal better.

photo by Meredith Sizemore
(www.wix.com/MSizemore/Meredith-Sizemore-Photography/)

And at our congregation’s outpost here in the middle of Baptist country, you—yes, you!—can rally at our very own Reformation Fest after the service. Enjoy German food and root beer (since we can’t serve the real stuff), and try your hand at the “95 Theses Relay,” where competitors will race against each other in an attempt to nail copies of that epoch-turning document to a door that the property team has set up in the yard. Here we stand: it’s a real rally, folks—an annual event in the midst of a world that seems to know less and less what “Lutheran” is about. It’s all an effort to Restore our Lutheran Identity…a statement to ourselves, if no one else (sigh), that lutefisk-eaters and potluck dinner providers are alive and kicking in the 21st century.

However, when the last chords of the pipe organ fade away today, and the Lutheran-red blouses and vests are hung back in the closet to be worn another time, maybe Pentecost, we still might have failed to grasp the true meaning of this day and the movement of which it reminds us. For this is most certainly true: any celebration of the Reformation or commemoration of Martin Luther’s criticisms of the Roman church in the early 1500’s is really a rally to restore the church. The Protestant Reformation did not occur to establish a particular group’s identity, or to declare theological supremacy, or even to found a denomination named “Lutheran” or “Reformed.” The Reformation happened as a result of an attempt by several church men and women to reiterate a message of God’s grace. They preached it from church pulpits, they discussed it over their family meal tables with their children, they stood in front of fearsome Councils and Diets to defend it, and yes, they even nailed it to church doors, as was common practice in those days for starting a university debate or posting a public notice.

The point of the Reformation was not so much about human identity as it was about the very nature of God and the crux of the news about his Son. As the apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the church in Rome, written roughly fifteen centuries earlier: “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” That was it, in a teeny-tiny nutshell. Essentially it is very church-y, theo-speak that means this: no more working or buying or reasoning or even praying your way to God’s good favor. God gives it to us on his own accord. In fact, God heaps it upon us, undeserved, like a helping of German potato salad. In the loving arms of Jesus Christ, God accepts us freely and transforms us graciously to be his people and nothing this world can throw at us can ever change that. “For there is no distinction,” the apostle also says, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they [who have sinned] are now justified by his grace”—that is, made right, set free from sin, forgiven—“as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.” A reiteration of grace.

These words of Paul can send chills of gratitude and wonder down our spines, but for Martin Luther, they struck across the page and straight into his soul like the bolt of real lightning that had initially sent him from law school to the monastery. Besieged for his whole life by the idea that he would never be able to satisfy a righteous God, and influenced by a religious system that had obscured the message of grace with all kinds of pietistic hoop-jumping and money-making evangelism strategies, Luther had convinced himself that God would never think he was good enough. Yet Luther realized after reading and re-reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, a central message that appeared again and again throughout Scripture: that through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, God had indeed found Luther and declared him good. Christ’s faithfulness to the covenant, even to the point of death, had secured for all people the mercy of God.

Hugo Vogel, 19th c.

Although not at all a new concept, it was revolutionary. You could say it rallied the church, especially when the Pope’s representatives showed up in the towns of northern Germany in the early 1500’s selling indulgences to raise funds for a new cathedral in Rome. Luther and his colleagues didn’t have to work too hard to rally a reform of some of the church’s practices. And just as the Lutheran reformers’ efforts sought to restore God’s grace in Jesus to the center of the church’s life and message, the Reformation also underscored the importance of God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, for faith. As the sole means by which people could come to meet and understand this Christ who died for all, the Bible served as the foundation for church reform. It became a Constitution, of sorts, for those who wanted to judge church doctrine and practice.

Much has been written about the socio-economic and geopolitical forces that enabled Luther’s reforms to go viral and, in the process, transform the western world, but we cannot forget that one of the main reasons that the message of the reformers spread so well and so fast was because one of the dominant questions people more or less seemed to be asking was “How do I find a gracious God?” It was certainly the main question on Luther’s mind, the monkey on his back, so to speak, that led him to those passages of grace: “How do I find a gracious God?” The answer came back, and resounds to us even now—in the Word; in the water of baptism; in the bread and the wine; and in what Luther called the “mutual conversation and consolation among the brethren and sistren”: in Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

I’m not so sure that is the dominant question that people, even fairly religious ones, ask these days. In a culture where more and more people describe themselves as un-churched or even agnostic, where denominational identity even among believers is on its last legs, and, most of all, where rugged individualism rules the day, I’m not so sure that many people ask “How do I find a gracious God?” I hesitate to speak for an entire cultural ethos (especially when I don’t dare speak for my family without first consulting with my wife), but I would venture to say that the dominant question people are asking today concerning faith is, “How is this relevant?” “How does this apply to me and what I’m experiencing?”

As I listen to the voices of both criticism and praise in faith and culture, and as I peruse Bible study curriculum for youth and young adults, that question appears to be the one that is forefront in people’s minds—articulated or not. I would venture to say that most people can find a gracious God, and maybe even recognize there is one to be met in Jesus Christ. But the prevailing sentiment is, “So what?” Like Sally, who upbraids Linus for enticing her out into the pumpkin patch to await the Great Pumpkin, folks these days are wondering “what’s the point?” I know that I, myself, am often bound to pose the same questions and wonder if it’s really worth missing the Hallowe’en party at Violet’s house to be drawn into the life of faith.

To make it worse, basic foundations to Christian faith can often come across like antiquated, superstitious, empty tradition. Bedrocks like the holy sacraments, regular Sunday worship and even the Holy Scriptures become more and more distant to a culture that upgrades and uploads to a faster, flashier, mode of communication every three months. It is so easy, in such a technology-saturated culture, to fall into thinking that the present is superior to everything that came before us, just as we expect, in so many ways, that the next-version-of-whatever will be more advanced than what came out last week. In many ways, it becomes difficult to adhere to the authority of ancient Scripture, despite the fact that it is a living Word.

That, I would suggest, is where our rallying comes in. As those who know they have been claimed by a gracious God, we rally to spread the news that the life of faith is really what keeps us alive. We rally to restore the church—not so much as placing it at the center of world influence but holding it accountable to the gospel. Yearly, weekly, and minute-by-minute this rally will continue as we reach into God’s Word and gather as his people for worship. Will Willimon, former dean of the chapel at Duke Divinity School says that the church “is never-ending training in learning to trust the Bible, learning to take ourselves a little less seriously and the Bible a little more so.” (William H. Willimon, Pastor: the Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry.  Abingdon Press, 2002. pg 125)

As we do that, as we strengthen our trust in the Bible, the body of Christ will need you to reach into your own story to find those theses—those points of meaning where grace has slapped you upside the head—and nail them to the front door of your life, for all to see.

And you will be relevant, if relevance is what the world wants so badly. Rest assured that we will be relevant because we will be introducing them to Jesus. We won’t be introducing them to a program, or an ideology, or even a wonderful congregation. We will be introducing them to Jesus, who is relevant—who dies to be relevant—and always will be in ways in which our sinfulness will often blind us.
“God’s Word forever shall abide, no thanks to foes, who fear it.

For God himself fights by our side, with weapons of the Spirit.”

Sounds like a rally cry, doesn’t it?
“Were they to take our house, goods, honor, child, or spouse…

Though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day.

The kingdom’s ours. For…ev…ER.”


OMG! Forever.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 16C] - August 22, 2010 (Luke 13:10-17)

Chalk lines: this hidden but essential element of roofing became the new arch-nemesis of your hard-working youth group in their task to put a new roof on Mrs. Fife’s home during their servant trip to South Carolina earlier this month. Chalk lines: if they are not observed and obeyed as shingles are nailed down, as we learned in the 90-degree sun, a roof will not look good and will likely not keep out the elements. No matter how many roofs I’ve gazed upon admiringly or lived under throughout my life, I’ve never appreciated just how precise the art of laying down shingles really is until the youth group had to do it. Heeding those pesky chalklines—along with paying attention to those little grooved tabs on the shingles—are the key to getting the job done right.

However, it is very much easier said than done, and we found that our fascination with the neat little contraption that could thwap down the orange lines of chalk with the flick of a wrist was equaled by our frustration at trying to obey them. On more than one occasion, youth group members were ordered to rip up freshly-nailed shingles and put down new ones in their place because they discovered they had drifted ever so slightly from the guiding chalklines that ran the length of the roof. A deviation that seemed very insignificant as we started a line could produce a huge discrepancy if carried out over the course of the whole roof. I must say the youth took it quite well when they had to discard, for example, a whole hour’s worth of work and begin again. I can’t say I would have been quite so patient a student learning the rules of roofing, especially when they seemed so easy to break.

Rules, guidelines, protocols, Vision and Expectations…call them what you will, but everything in life seems to have them. Even religion, for example. Religious devotion, while life-giving, seems to be riddled with all kinds of rules and guidelines, often administrated by a clergy that is rigid and unbending, like a roofing foreman. It turns out that even something relatively straightforward like God’s day of rest comes with a complete set of chalklines to help observe it.

The Sabbath, which is Hebrew for “seven”—since God rested on the seventh day of creation—could be one of the trickiest commandments to observe. There’s no way at this point that I could sketch all of the guidelines and rules for keeping the Third Commandment that existed in Jewish culture, especially by Jesus’ day. In the first five books of the Old Testament alone there are numerous laws about Sabbath-keeping. No fires, for example, were allowed to be kindled in the home on the Sabbath, for building a fire constituted “working.” Oxen and other livestock were also included in the prohibitions from work.

By the time Jesus was preaching in synagogues, many hundred years later, Jewish scribes and religious leaders had defined Sabbath-keeping in such a way that it limited the number of physical steps that could be taken on the Sabbath day. If you or your cow walked over the limit, it could suggest your rest wasn’t ample, and that was forbidden. All in all, restrictions regarding any of God’s Commandments could get very complicated, and as we see from the story in the gospel, it was often much easier to thwap those religious chalklines down than it was to figure out how to follow them.

When Jesus takes the time to heal this bent-over woman on the Sabbath—and in the synagogue, no less—it appears as though Jesus has bent one of the rules. Healing, you see, constitutes work, since clearly a priest or Levite would have to perform the ritual prayers and accompanying sacrifices. Don’t they deserve a day off, too, so as not to break the rules? Fresh off a vacation, myself, I have to be honest and say I can completely understand the Pharisees’ reaction. All they’re trying to do is follow the rules, to obey that chalkline as best they can. After all, it’s not like they’re rejecting the woman outright. In her defense, she doesn’t even ask for healing; she just shows up. Perhaps she knows if healing is what she needs, she can come back tomorrow and receive proper attention then. What’s another day to eighteen years? And rules are rules, aren’t they? Yet Jesus’ seizes the opportunity to heal her. She is let loose from her bondage and lifted up—spiritually and physically—to praise her Creator.

A common misunderstanding of this story is that Jesus flouts the rules in order to show mercy to the woman. He is seen as a hero of some sort, as he “sticks it” not only to the Pharisees but to God’s law in general. Like the Jetblue flight attendant the other week who, having reached his limit with rude passengers and rules for courteous conduct, left his job in dramatic fashion by sliding down the emergency escape chute on the tarmac, Jesus appears here in the synagogue to be a flippant rule-breaker, jettisoning the entire system of religion and what it stands for. Such an understanding of this episode no doubt pleases those who support a view of Christian faith free from any formal structure. Jesus, they claim, doesn’t like rules. He says they just get in the way. So, such people say, better opt for a form of faith or spirituality that doesn’t get encumbered with such things.

Yet it’s important to note that’s not really what’s happening here. Jesus is not, in fact, thumbing his nose to God’s rules, or even putting a new spin on them. It is true he may be breaking the Pharisees’ rules about the Sabbath, but those are just that: the Pharisees’ rules. Jesus is not throwing out the baby of life-giving faith with the bathwater of misused religious structure. What Jesus does do in the synagogue is refocus everyone’s attention on the original intent and purpose of God’s law, particularly the one about the Sabbath. God is about fostering and providing for his people a life free from the power of sin and death. The God of Israel—indeed, the God of the Pharisees—is about lifting up those who are bowed down. The God whom Jesus calls “Father” is abounding in steadfast love, who desires, at his core, to “renew our youth like an eagle’s and provide vindication for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103). God, in fact, has always been about those things most emphatically, and God’s commandments and ordinances have never been given to oppress anyone’s growth or prolong anyone’s undeserved suffering. Rather, they have been given to free God’s people for an abundant life where we enjoy the benefits of God’s creation to their fullest and where we find joy in true communion with our fellow brothers and sisters.

This is what Jesus is illustrating when he lays hands on the woman and raises her up. In doing so, he is not only exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees—who, he notes, would have done less for a beast of burden—but he is showing us all what honoring the Sabbath was always meant to do. It’s not necessarily about following rules merely to prevent us from working (although rules can often be helpful) but it is about fully enjoying life as one of God’s creatures.

True observance of the Sabbath—intentionally taking time for rest and not doing work—reminds us that we cannot save ourselves, that our industriousness, for all its glory, can never give us everything we need. Our hands, our American hands—even collectively employed—are not the source of all that is good and helpful for living. Like the woman in the synagogue, we cannot straighten ourselves out on our own. We must rely on God to provide that power for us, just as we truly rely on God for everything. Sometimes, observing the chalklines helps us remember that. But mainly we receive that when we look to Jesus for mercy and comfort. When we come to him for healing and find him on the cross, arms outstretched in love. There we begin to see how Jesus becomes our real Sabbath—that place so freely given, that person so graciously offered for our benefit. On the cross, he becomes the one who lifts us up and points our lives and our voices in praise to the God of love.

We returned last night from a week of vacation with two other couples with very young children, one of whom was only four months old. All twelve of us were in one house together. We all managed to make it out alive, and we had a great time, but it was intense week of midnight feedings and early risings. Speaking of rest and relaxation, I don’t think any adults got much. Our daughters, ages two and three, who had to share a bed for the first time, were also exhausted from lack of sleep and too much play. As I went to bed last night, I found Clare, our three-year-old, asleep in the hall upstairs.  Apparently she had ventured out at some point to read books by the night light—against our bedtime chalk lines, I might add—and fell asleep there.  Maybe in her head she was still at the beach.

A heartless rules enforcement might have required me to wake her up, get her to put her books away, and march that little lady back to bed. But, instead, I decided just to reach down and pick her up in my arms and carry her back to bed, where she belonged. She was tired, bent over.  She needed to learn a lesson, but maybe, in this instance, grace could teach it better than law.  She never even woke up.  It reminded me of the times in my own childhood when my father would lift me up in his arms in times of my own exhaustion, or out of a screaming fit, and remove me to somewhere safer, somewhere more restful.

That, in fact, is the God we meet in the Sabbath. That is God we meet in Jesus. Say what you will about the usefulness of rules and structures, the heart of Christian faith is always about relationship. It is about the abounding love of a God who bends low to scoop us up in his arms when we are at our weakest, at our most broken—and, yes, at our most defiant. He lifts us up so that we, his beloved daughters and sons, may stand up straight again, sing our praises for all the wonderful things he is doing and, as younger generations have taught me to say, raise the roof!

Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.