No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)
I was walking in my local
mall last weekend and I suddenly fell victim to one of those curious fits of
melancholia which even afflict elderly clergymen. I looked at all of the empty
stores—stores I remember as not-so-long-ago being thriving commercial enterprises.
What was happening to this suburban bazaar? Why don’t these places stay in
business? And, for that matter, where are the crowds of people who used to shop
here on a Sunday afternoon? The meandering senior citizens? The screaming
toddlers? The roving hordes of obnoxious teenagers? Could it be, I wondered,
that this communal marketplace had fallen victim to the age of cyberspace? Does
everybody shop online now?
I’m not much into
dystopian sci-fi, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was already living
in a dark and grim futuristic age where nothing is like I remembered it in the
good ol’ days. Perhaps we’ve entered the Zombie Apocalypse where we all just
wander around staring glassy-eyed at our cell phones. Our kids, who have been
brought up on the instant gratification of the touch screen, now have the
attention spans of brain-damaged gnats. We’ve been warned that the high-tech
tools of communication we now can’t ween ourselves from haven’t brought us
closer together. Instead, they make us feel more lonely and isolated. And it
seems the only place that’s emptying out faster than the mall is the church.
If you dwell on this
stuff long enough it’s going to seem pretty dismal. I’ll bet that’s the way
Martin Luther must’ve felt in his day, too. He made a pilgrimage to Rome and
discovered the Eternal City was choking with corruption. There was an
incestuous relationship between religion and politics. Greed and indifference
were rampant, and nobody seemed to know what was in the Bible. He must’ve felt
like the whole world was going to hell on a fast horse.
But Brother Martin wasn’t
about to roll over and play dead in the face of the world’s dysfunction. He had
a vision to reform the church and, by extension, the whole society. You see, he
had a working understanding of God’s grace.
The gospel lesson
assigned for Reformation Sunday (John 8:31-36) comes right after Jesus has done
a radical act of grace—he’s forgiven a woman caught in adultery. Stepping out
on your old man was an offense that got a lady killed back in Jesus’ day, and this
gal wasn’t just accused. No, Sir. They caught her in the act.[i] But Jesus reminds those
who observed this of the truth: everyone
sins and everyone can be forgiven.
Jesus reforms the rule of vengeance with the rule of grace by showing mercy and
granting the woman opportunity to amend her life. That is, after all, what God
truly desires—reformation.
Our Revised Common
Lectionary glues this gospel tale to the preaching of the Old Testament prophet
Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Jeremiah and Luther, had they lived in the same
place and century, might’ve been best buddies. They both had some funky ways of
expressing themselves. Jeremiah liked to use weird object lessons while Luther
preferred outright trash talk, but both were willing to get in the faces of religious
and political leaders who just didn’t seem to get the point. In Jeremiah 31 the
prophet is reminding the doomed Judeans that, even though they’ve screwed up
big time, their gracious and merciful God will still be willing to forgive
them, heal them, and reform them into a people worthy of God’s
blessings. The day can come, should they be willing, when they won’t need to be
people of the Law. God’s love will live in their hearts.
Every Reformation Sunday
I try to imagine what Martin Luther might try to tell us today in our 21st
Century American context. What would he be nailing to the doors of our
churches—churches which are going down like the Titanic? What would
Jeremiah preach to the ELCA? What prophetic word of reformation do we need to
hear and preach to our cloistered, polarized, and cyber-numbed world?
I won’t claim to be a
prophet, but I’ll offer my own theses for a modern reformation:
First, let’s get rid of
our 20th Century church buildings. We no longer need the expensive
upkeep of dull, uninspiring worship spaces which were intended to seat 400
people but are now mostly empty. They are obsolete. Very few of our congregations
need space for a 30-voice choir, and organ music worship is becoming a thing of
the past. Sell the buildings.
Second, since so many of
our church buildings have become community centers, let’s build actual
community centers—centers which house 12-step programs, day care facilities, food
cupboards, etc. Let’s repurpose abandoned strip malls or storefronts and bring
services to the community.
Third, let’s focus our
gospel proclamation on the healing of neighborhoods, the world, the earth, and
lives rather than on individual salvation. It does us no good to be “in the
garden with Jesus” when the rest of the world is suffering. We need to find the
radical Savior who came to change the hearts of people in the here and now.
People who may distrust organizations still wish to be united with a worthwhile
cause.
Fourth, why don’t we put
small chapels in our community centers? Bigger isn’t necessarily better. Our
New Reformation churches will concentrate on both serving communities and creating
communities. Smaller, more intimate congregations can be places where the
cell phones are silenced, people are known, welcomed, and accepted, and
Christians can speak face-to-face with their worshiping family. The Church must
be a place that serves as an antidote to the estrangement our cyber society has
created.
Fifth, a New Reformation
needs new Christians. Let’s encourage our national church to concentrate on
campus ministries and new mission starts. Let’s acknowledge that this isn’t our
parents’ world, so we mustn’t try to recreate our parents’ church. To this end
we’ll have to train a new generation of entrepreneurial mission developers.
Sixth, the New
Reformation will explain old things. We’ll have to re-teach the meaning behind
our liturgical traditions and our faith vocabulary and not simply assume
everyone understands them. As always, we’ll have to find ways to get people to
read the Bible, and we’ll have to teach it in a way that is non-threatening,
understandable, and inspiring. Luther’s vernacular Bible changed the world and
got people reading Scripture. We’ll have to figure out why people aren’t
reading the Bible now.
Seventh—as much as I hate
to think it—the day of the full-time professional pastor might be over. The New
Reformation communities might have to rely on talented lay volunteers. Clergy
may need to be bi-vocational so that the resources of the community can go to
mission other than salaries.
My last thesis is simply
a reminder of God’s amazing grace. Things may look dire, but God is always
merciful and ready to restore us. Hordes of devils may fill the land—cynicism,
secularism, cyber media, economic uncertainty, violence—but our God is a mighty
God. What looks frightening is simply God getting ready to do a new thing.
We tremble not. Unmoved
we stand. Thank you again for reading my post this week. Have a blessed
Reformation Sunday.
[i]
Why they’re not ready to throw rocks at the guy she’s cheating with is one of those mysteries the Bible
chooses not to explain.
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