Reformed What?

Text: Romans 3:19-28 Other texts: Jeremiah 31:31-24, John 8:31-36

This Wednesday is Reformation Day. It is the 490th anniversary of the day that a young Catholic priest named Martin Luther was said to have nailed a list of 95 arguments, his 95 Theses, or propositions, to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The event has become the symbol of the start of the the Reformation, a major change in the way the church does business. Lutherans especially celebrate this day and event and movement. And so that’s what we are doing this Sunday.

Lutherans can be pretty pompous when it comes to the Reformation. After all, it’s “Luther-ans,” right? Luther, the father of the Reformation, “Here I stand,” and all that. We are fortunately made humble when we realize that for lots of people, the name Martin Luther brings to mind Martin Luther King, not Martin Luther, priest. Luther was a pretty amazing guy and there is much to admire in him, but he would have hated to have a whole denomination named after him.

On this day we read the scripture passages we just heard. They are kind of the model passages for the theology of the Reformation. If the church were a business, these passages would be attached to every press release. Especially Romans, and especially the last verse, verse 28, “justified by faith apart from works proscribed by the law.” Which is like the theological motto of Protestant churches.

It used to be that Reformation Day was a day to bash the Roman Catholic church. The first sermon I heard from one of my Lutheran minister colleagues about ten years ago was his lament that, since Vatican II opened up the Roman church (for a while anyway), he had nothing bad to say about them, and therefore on Reformation Day he had nothing to say at all.

What he mourned was the chance to celebrate the Reformation by belittling other faiths and other ways of faithful thinking. Valuing the Reformation by devaluing something else. He used the motto “justified by grace” as a weapon, or a badge. It let him claim that this verse was somehow exclusively Protestant and exclusively Christian. He would say that the Roman church embraced justification by good works. And he would say that Jews embraced justification by adherence to the law, that is, the Torah.

But to say either of these things is to create straw men, and it misrepresents other ways that people love and worship God. Rome officially agrees with the Protestants on the theology, having written: “good works ...follow justification and are its fruits.” And the Torah is as much a gift as any other sign of God’s grace. It is arrogance to say that the law became worthless through the action of Christ. Jesus said did not come to dissolve the law, or so he said.

The passage in Jeremiah that we heard is often interpreted to mean that instead of a written code of rules, God will make things nice in our hearts. That instead of being guided by the rules we’ll be guided by our pure hearts, which will draw us to goodness somehow. But that is not what God says here. What God says in the words of Jeremiah is that God puts the law within the people, that God will write the law on their hearts. The law does not go away, its place is changed. Or rather, its place is expanded. The law is not erased, it is additionally written in our hearts. The passage in Jeremiah does not diminish the law. It brings it closer to God’s people.

Likewise Paul’s arguments about grace do not substitute grace for the law. He does not say here in Romans: Ok, all you law-types, you can go home now. The game is over. Forget that old stuff; grace is the new way.

What he says is that now, through Jesus, the whole world may be held accountable to God. Not just Jews, but gentiles, too. Pagans and heathens and Greeks. They are in this, too. Because it is not just Jews who can sin, we are all sinners. And who isn’t? There is no distinction, he says. You gentiles, Paul tells them, are not off the hook, just because you aren’t Jews. The Jews had the law to show them about God, but it now God has been disclosed to you folks, too. You know about God, too.

The good news is that God, the God of the Jews and, it turns out, your god, too, is with you on this. That’s what “justified” means; that God is with you on this. You and God are right with each other, in synch, sort of. Not because of who you are or in what religion you were raised or how good you have been, but because God simply wishes to. It is a gift. That’s what grace means; a gift. God is with you because God likes to give you a gift. Justified—OK with God—through the action of God’s grace, a gift. It is God’s doing.

Both Jesus and Luther were reformers, not replacers. Luther was a Catholic priest who hoped that the church would change. Jesus was a Jew and spoke to Jews about their actions and faith. Neither (though I really can’t speak for Jesus; I’m guessing here)—neither had in mind to create either a new faith or a new church.

When we celebrate Reformation Day, we focus on the theology of the Reformation. The theology is important. It is good to know that God is cheering for you even if you are not doing so well at being good. That God’s love for you is unconditional.

But what Luther was most excited about (and Jesus was excited about it, too), was the freeing of faith from the oppressive and corrupt institutions of faith. Luther made the Bible available to the language of the people, he encouraged priests to marry, he denied their power to be heavenly judges, and he opened the liturgy and the celebration of the Eucharist to all, not just a few special people.

Both Jesus and Luther spoke not for the priests, people in power who in both cases had used the law and works to control and exploit the people. Luther and Jesus spoke for the rest of us, the ordinary people. What marked Jesus and Luther, among other important things, was that they were on the side of the ordinary. Or maybe better to say, they celebrated the extraordinary that was in the ordinary.

Those in power rule by fear. And the most vicious and fierce power they have is the power to make people afraid for their lives. Or the lives of those they love. The fear of sin is the fear of death, the fear that sin leads to death. The notion that if you mess up, you are gone. You are done for. Don’t step out of line, buddy, or else.

People in power were afraid of Jesus. Not because they thought he was God—they didn’t. Jesus frightened those in power because Jesus was not afraid of them, even though he knew the consequences, and that Jesus taught others—us—to not be afraid either.

In the Gospel of John Jesus tells the crowd that they do not have to be slaves to sin. He is telling them, among other things, that they can make mistakes, even according to the rules of God. And that no one, no human being, can tell them otherwise, no priest, no church, no doctrine.

Sin boldly! Luther said. Not because Luther wanted people to sin. It wouldn’t matter—people sin regardless. But because Luther wanted people to act boldly without fear, to be free as Christians can be. To act, we ordinary people, in trust. That is what faith means: to trust. Knowing that we are justified by faith through God’s grace. Trusting Jesus that God is with us, no matter what. And that we are free.

On Praying

Text: Luke 18:1-8

It is not always clear what Jesus means to say when he tells a parable. But it sure is clear in this one that we just heard. This parable is about prayer.

You might hear other things in the parable. It might be about justice, and it might be about persistence in general. But to Luke, who is telling a story about Jesus telling a story, it is about prayer. Jesus told them a parable, it says, about their need to pray always and not lose heart.

And it is a parable, not an allegory (as you’re probably tired of hearing me say). That is, we can’t make the judge to be God and the widow to be us. They are both well-drawn characters: the judge is a sleazy scum-bag and the widow is brave and aggravating. They don’t stand for anyone in particular (in fact, the story starts out: there was some kind of judge in some kind of city).

The story is an example of Bible-logic, reasoning that was common then. It reasons from small to large. From less to more. If the judge, who was a jerk, responded with justice to the entreaties of the woman, how much more will God respond to our pleas for justice? “Listen to what the unjust judge (the lesser) says, and will not God (the greater) grant justice?” So it is a parable about prayer that contains an argument.

It is about prayer, but a particular kind (probably the most common kind). It is about prayer that asks for things, which in church jargon is called petitionary prayer (because we are bringing petitions to God). There are other kinds of prayer. A friend says there are three kinds of prayer: wow, thanks, and help. Petitionary prayer is the “help” kind. There are other kinds, too, especially the kind where we don’t yap away at all but try to stay quiet, listening for God to speak. So this parable is about praying for something we want. Which today I’ll call just “prayer.”

Prayer is a kind of conversation. In the parable, the widow and the judge have a conversation. They have a relationship, they engage one another and what one does is influenced by the other. Not all conversations (or relationships for that matter) go very far. They need to be powered. Three things power the conversation between the judge and the widow, and the same things power our prayers. They are hunger, humility, and hope. And I want to talk about each of these today.

First, hunger. The woman is hungry for justice to be done. There is no prayer (we are talking about petitionary prayer, remember)—there is no prayer of this kind without hunger. We come to prayer needing something. Something big and meaningful like reconciliation of a broken marriage or healing from disease or something small like finding a parking space or getting a paper in on time. Something in us wants something. Even something that is not for us: the end to war and violence, the eradication of poverty, a joy-filled life for a new-born child. We pray to God with the same motivating ache and longing that makes us turn to the pantry when we are hungry. When we pray, we admit we are hungry. There is no point in praying if all of our life is satisfactory and satisfying. If all is totally complete. When we pray, we admit we have longings, desires, and needs. All of us, of course, have those needs. Praying, we acknowledge that to be so.

Second, humility. The woman comes to the judge for justice. She cannot make things right by herself. She is powerless in the face of her adversary’s privilege. Powerless by herself. When we pray, we acknowledge that we are powerless by ourselves to deliver whatever it is we hunger for. We cannot fix what is broken, or feed what is starving, or set right what is out of kilter, by ourselves. When we pray, we admit that we need something, which is tough enough to admit. And then we pray that we cannot meet that need without some assistance from God. Just as there is no reason to pray if we are completely satisfied, there is no reason to pray if we are on top of things. If everything is pretty much under control, if we think all it needs is a tweak here or there, or if we think all it needs is for us to be a little smarter, more energetic, more focussed, better. Why pray if we are going to take care of things by ourselves sooner or later. But experience, if nothing else, teaches us that there is not much, if anything, we can control. Praying, we humble ourselves to say so.

Third, hope. The widow comes to the judge assuming that he is able to hand her justice. She comes in need, she comes asking for help. And she comes with hope that her petition can be granted. Prayer is the concrete expression of our conviction that things do not need to be as they are. When we pray for peace, we are declaring that war is not everlasting. When we pray for health, we are declaring that illness is reversible. When we pray for rescue, we are declaring that we can be freed. We do not pray for the impossible. They is no point. We do not pray out of hopelessness, there is no inspiration. (When we are nearly consumed by hopelessness, we pray for hope, a self-fulfilling prayer.) Prayer is refusing to concede that tomorrow is just today over and over again, that the way things are has to be the way they always will be. In that sense prayer is powerful imagination coupled with trust that through God the future is still open.

Prayer therefore is not so much an action as a stance. It is not some exercise or chore or transaction or duty. It is the way. It is the way we approach God and life. Though we from time to time find ourselves to be self-satisfied, self-important, or hopeless, we know that in those times we are off-center. Our center is hunger, humility, and hope.

In the parable, Luke says that Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray always. And one of the mottos or slogans of the New England Synod is “pray without ceasing.” These might mean to mutter prayers under your breath in every waking moment (people have even tried that). But praying always is not some kind of super-piety. To pray always, without ceasing, is to remain mindful of our center. We pray with God who feeds our hunger, who holds our lives better than we can, who creates our new future.

All Were Healed

Text: Luke 17:11-19

Martin Luther was a young catholic priest. He worked hard at being good. But he was tormented by his conviction that he would never be worthy of God. He was, after all, only human, just a sinner, an imperfect being. Yet he felt that scripture was calling him to be better, better even than anyone could ever be. He felt that scripture was condemning him.

He wrote at the time: I hated that word, “justice of God,” which, I had been taught to understand [as] that justice by which God punishes sinners and the unjust.

“I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my [efforts]. I hated the just God who punishes sinners. I said, “Isn't it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow and threaten us with his justice and his wrath?”

He felt that way especially about the writings of the apostle Paul. Paul was a thorn in the side of Luther, and Paul’s writings made Luther miserable.

Looking back at Luther from a platform 500 years later, you might find Luther’s agony a little excessive. You might think: He is a little too riled up about this. Or maybe you might not. Maybe you feel condemned by the Bible, too. Maybe when you hear in some Bible story about someone messing up, you think that passage is about you. Maybe you hear a lot of “shoulds’ in the Bible.

Maybe when you hear today’s Gospel story about the lepers being cured, you think: Those ungrateful lepers (the nine who just walked away without a word of thanks to Jesus). Maybe you think: This passage is telling us that we should be grateful for God’s gifts. It is telling us that we should realize who it is who provides our lives and health. Maybe is telling us that we should be more faithful. Maybe it is telling us that faith rewards us by making us well, or worse, that if we are not well it is because we lack sufficient faith.

If you thought that, you would not be alone. Many readers have seen in this passage praise for the one Samaritan (who even more amazingly was an enemy of the Jews, Jesus’ people)—the Samaritan who turns back to Jesus in thanksgiving and condemnation for those who leave without so much as a howdy-do.

Luther, after much violent thought (“I was raging with a wild and disturbed conscience,” he later wrote), came to see things differently. “I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. The work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which he makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.” So maybe you are like the second Luther, and see in the story of the lepers not what the lepers do and do not do, but what God is doing.

Ten people went to Jesus looking to be transformed. They had leprosy. They were considered unclean, disgusting. They were forced to live at the edge of the village, not in it. And by law they had to cry out to all who passed near: Unclean, unclean. They cry out to Jesus, “have mercy on us.” Help us. They cry out to be transformed. To have a new life.

Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priest. To let the priest see them. It is not that the priest has any healing powers. But the priest is the judge of who is clean and unclean. It would be the job of the priest not to make them clean, but to announce that they were.

Somewhere on the way between Jesus and the priest they were healed, made clean the text says. It is not clear where exactly all this happened. It was not clear, it seems, how this happened.

There were ten people cured, but only one man who seemed to notice. The Samaritan. That man’s life was transformed. When the text says he was made clean, it uses a word that is like the modern word “cathartic.” Some major thing had happened, some definitive break with the sorry past. Some refreshing view of a hopeful future. Recognizing his new life, he praises God and runs back to Jesus to thank him.

What of the others? We don’t have to think them to be particularly dense. There are lots of reasons to deny what’s in front of your own eyes. There are lots of reasons to deny transformation. You might not think that you are worthy enough. You might not think you are ready enough. You might think it unlikely and you don’t want to get your hopes up (what if they had come to the priest and he said, “nope, not quite, not really, not enough”). You might not welcome it, for transformation can be disruptive. Even though they asked to be healed, perhaps they held a stake in the familiar.

But the man sees. And his sight leads him to gratitude. And his gratitude leads him to faith. He has been healed, made well, says Jesus. He has a new life.

God gives the man three gifts. The gift of sight, the gift of gratitude, and the gift of faith. Unearned and unearnable gifts. To see God’s hand in our life. To be thankful for what God has given us and showed us. To trust God.

This man is the more fortunate of the ten others on account of these gifts. But he is not the better of them. They all are healed, grateful at the time or not. They all receive something for nothing. They all are transformed, like it or not. Or maybe: like it and not.

We who like to see people get what they deserve, we who respond well to “should” (you should, they should, I should), we who know there are no gains without pains, we hear in the story that Jesus is a little put out. Like, I cured all ten of you. I mean, nice to see you here, Mr. Foreign Samaritan, but where’s the other nine? What’s up with that?

But this story is not about us so much as it is about God. Not so much about how we mess up but about how much God gives us even so. If we think of the ungrateful nine, we imagine all that they might have done better. If we think of the grateful one, we think he might be a model for us doing better. But if we think of the gracious one, the healer, Jesus, we think only of our generous God. I don’t think Jesus is annoyed at the nine who walk away. I think he is amused. I think he looks on them with affection and understanding.

Jesus does not heal these lepers because Jesus wants something back. The Samaritan is not the model; he’s the gravy (if I can mix metaphors here). It is great that he comes back to thank Jesus, and I’m sure Jesus appreciates it, but his gratitude is not the point. It is a little extra (it is an extra gift for the man). The point is that Jesus heals all the ten who cry out to him from the side of the road.

Many people live their lives seeking ways to be criticized. It is weird but true. We look for “shoulds” and we respond to them. But of course as Luther knew, we never can do all we “should” do, so we are always a bit—or a lot—behind in time and results. But there is no need to walk in shame. As Luther realized and then publicized, there is one who does not expect accomplishment and gratitude, but gives them to us as gifts. One who prefers healing to judgment. One who, as Luther saw, judges us with more generosity than we judge ourselves.

Come All You People

Text: 2 Timothy 1:1-14 Other texts: Luke 17:5

Note: This is a short homily introducing a special combined worship of three churches that make up the Faith community.

I am grateful, my brothers and sisters, when I think of you.

So writes the author of the 2nd Letter to Timothy. Grateful for all the new followers of Jesus, grateful for the churches in different parts of the land, grateful that God had gathered them together, people of all different sorts.

Don’t you feel the same way? Aren’t you grateful that God has gathered us all together today, and has gathered these three congregations, these three communities of faith, into this church home?

Who would have thought it? In a time when Christians are as known for their bickering as their solidarity, known for exaggerating differences, known for even praying that their Christian enemies might be cursed, who would have thought we would gather here in common worship and affection for God and for one another, brothers and sisters?

Each of us comes here for reasons of his or her own, but all the reasons seem to amount in the end to “God brought me here.” We are called, the letter to Timothy says, not by our own works—that is, our own schemes of one thing or another—but according to God’s own purpose and grace. God’s grace, which either means God’s charisma, or God’s gift. You can think of it either way (or both), whichever feels true to you.

We have come to be fed by the word of God, by the sacraments, by prayer and song and silence. We have come, in the words of this epistle, to rekindle the gift of God that is within us. To feed that fire, that metabolism that keeps us moving toward God and to care for each other. God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, it says, but a spirit of power and of love and of steady mind.

We come, some of us, because we were raised in a certain tradition. We are here because, as the letter says, we are reminded of the faith of our grandmothers and mothers, who invited us to come to church with them, or made us come. But others come because once a friend invited us to a church, or someone we were courting. Or we passed by in front of the church and saw the sign and felt that this was the right time to check things out. Or we were alone or frightened and the church seemed safe, or safe enough.

No matter though. We are bound together now. What binds us together is a search to know God, to be with God and God with us. There is no reason why you or anyone has to be here. No one is making you come. (Maybe the Holy Spirit is). We are bound together by the seriousness of a quest, and in that quest there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, woman or man; we are all one in Chris Jesus. So says Paul. We want to be able to say, as the writer of this letter to Timothy says, that we know the one in whom we put our trust.

The gospel reading for today (from Luke, chapter 17) says this:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had the faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

It doesn’t take too much to be started off on the quest. Just a tiny amount of trust (which is another way to translate the word “faith”) just enough to get us going. And then we are off.

This epistle to Timothy is one of the three letters in the Bible called the Pastoral Epistles. That’s because they were written concerning pastors. But except for these few introductory remarks and a few prayers, you won’t hear too much from the pastors here today. The church is the people who show up. That means you. Today persons from each congregation will speak to us about their own experience with God, perhaps about their own quest. And perhaps how it is that of all the places they might be today, they are here, now, gathered into one community of faith.