Yea, this is kind of the birthday for the Protestant Reformation — and here’s my sermon!
John 8:31-36; Romans 3:19-28; Psalm 46; Jeremiah 31:31-34
Today is Reformation Sunday – when we remember how on October 31, 1517 a reasonably obscure German monk and professor named Martin Luther posted 95 discussion points on the church’s bulletin board. Soon his students translate and publish those 95 discussion points and many consider the Protestant Reformation to have begun at that point.
And so, nearly 500 years later, on this day we sing hymns like “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “Thy Strong Word” to remember that we are a Church focused on God’s Word – on that which Paul tells us is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. This is something in the LCMC that we are keenly aware of, as one of the principles of our association is to put God’s Word first above all others.
But what do we mean when we talk about God’s Word? We say it a lot – Read God’s Word, Know God’s Word, Live out God’s Word, Study God’s Word. It seems as though we connect God’s Word with the Bible, the written words inspired by God the Holy Spirit. But I’m not so sure that’s particularly accurate. The introductory words of John’s Gospel say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Doesn’t really sound like a bible does it?
And this still shouldn’t be an odd thing to us either. As Lutherans we often talk about the Word as both Jesus Christ and the Bible, which puts an interesting twist on a lot of things. When we sing “God’s Word is our great heritage”, we remember that our lives are shaped not only by the Bible, but by Jesus – the Word made flesh.
Let me give you a little bit of the history that led up to the Reformation. Hopefully it’s not too much, because it’s important to what happened during the Reformation. From the time of the fall of the Roman Empire in the mid fifth century up to the year 800, there weren’t any really strong secular leaders to fill the void left by the collapse of Roman authority and military strength. As had happened legitimately in the Eastern half of the old Roman empire, the church began to exert more and more authority in secular realms during this time, and no one complained very much because it was the only central authority. In the year 800, a king from what is now France, who had at the time conquered a fairly significant portion of Europe, was crowned Emperor of Rome by Pope Leo III, establishing another somewhat centralized authority in Europe, even though it held little actual power.
This crowning of Charlemagne, while conferring him some added power, also strengthened the power of the Church, as they now realized they had some control over who became the secular authorities of the time. And so over time, the power of the church began to grow. Towns sprang up around monasteries where the Bishop held all the power and was essentially the town magistrate. The church had power over life and death, executing those who taught things that were different from what the church taught.
So over the next 700 or so years, the church continued to acquire more and more secular authority. Curiously enough, as the church acquired more secular authority, the individuals holding that authority became more and more corrupt. By the time Martin Luther found himself in Rome when sent as a courier, he was struck by the corruption and sinful behavior he saw there. But that was only the tip of the iceberg for Luther.
Martin Luther struggled most of his life to feel like he was worthy of God’s love. He was taught that you had to do things to earn God’s favor. That’s part of why he was excited to go to Rome in the first place, he knew there were a lot of things he could do there to get more grace in his life. But then when he was preparing for his assigned course on Romans, he came across several passages that challenged that thought. The idea he stumbled on was, essentially, this: “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Rom 3:22b-23). That is, in a nutshell, the word that comes through the Word of God.
So when Martin Luther started to live out this newfound trust in God’s salvation, he found something that was a big problem. If grace is a free gift, it cannot be sold. Now at this point, a few archbishops in Germany had started, more or less, selling forgiveness in the form of indulgences. Luther could not stand to see someone selling what God offers for free and posted his 95 Theses on the church door.
In doing so, Luther stood in defiance of human authority while holding to the teachings of Jesus. That’s what our Gospel lesson is about today. Jesus says, “If you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31). Because Luther knew the truth of the gospel message, he found himself free of fluff not found in Scripture.
That freedom is what we also have as Christians. Reformation Sunday is not only a celebration of the Word of God coming back to the forefront of Christian thought, but of our freedom from sin and the manipulations of evil. The Word of God – both in the sense of Jesus and the Bible – is the truth which we profess. That God Himself came to earth and, not so that we may be slaves to a new set of requirements, but that we may be free to serve and love him, guided by Scripture and the Holy Spirit.