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.