The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. (Jeremiah 31:31)
Happy
Reformation Sunday, everybody!
October
is almost over and it’s time again to get out the red paraments and sing a
rousing chorus of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” as we celebrate that most
Lutheran of holy days—the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses
to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany and kicked off one big,
hairy hullabaloo with the Roman Catholic Church.[i]
I
must confess I really love this celebration. It’s not because I’m thinking,
“Ain’t we Lutherans the coolest ever,” but because I really need to be reminded
of God’s loving, faithful grace. Plus, I love knowing that a little defiance
can go a really long way—and a little defiance is in order these days, don’t
you think?
Our
lectionary starts us off with a that defiant, in-your-face-speak-truth-to-power
guy, the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Jeremiah knows his country,
Judah, has really screwed the pooch. He’s tried to warn the leadership that
their neglect of the poor and reliance on military power is about to lead them
to catastrophe. The phrase, “The days are surely coming” pops up about 14 times
in this prophetic book, and it almost always comes before some prognostication
of extremely bad stuff happening. When Jerry uses it in our Reformation Sunday
reading, however, he’s letting his people know that—although really, really
bad stuff is going to happen—on the other side of it will come a time when God
will do something new with God’s repentant people. Things will be bleak for a
while, but God in God’s mercy will surely revive the nation with a new and
sustaining insight.
Martin
Luther and Jeremiah had a lot in common. Both could be pretty strident, and
neither of the two had any trouble calling out the leadership of their
respective societies for incompetence and corruption. Subtlety was not their
strong point. But both of these feisty guys saw possibilities ahead. Luther
looked at a church in which popes and bishops were more concerned with secular
power than they were with the souls and wellbeing of their flocks. He saw
ignorant priests frightening and bribing the peasantry, and ignorant Christians
who hoped their good deeds would make God love and forgive them. Luther
understood we can’t do good works to make God love us. We do good works because
God already loves us.
One
of my favorite mental games is wondering what Luther or Jeremiah would tell us
if they could come back and confront the American church today. We’ve been in a
panic for a while about plummeting church attendance and the increasing number
of “nones” in our society—people who claim to have no religious affiliation at
all. We can always blame the changing times and say it’s the secular media or
the internet or whatever. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t look at our own
contribution to the emptying of the pews. Maybe Dr. Martin would take us to
task for
·
Assuming
Christianity is genetic, and all we have to do is get our kids baptized and
confirmed with no need ever to explain to them our own spiritual path or
relationship with our faith.
·
The
church’s intolerance of the LGBTQ+ community.
·
Covering
up clergy misdeeds instead of confronting them.
·
Christian
nationalism, which is both unconstitutional and unbiblical.
·
Obsessing
over made-up End Times scenarios which have no genuine biblical basis but have
real world consequences for the environment and our foreign policy.
·
Emphasizing
individual salvation or institutional survival but not nurturing discipleship.
Yeah,
the church has to take a good share of the blame for her own demise. We’ve been
guilty of all of this.
BUT!
The days are surely coming when God will do a new thing, and a new church will emerge.
Dr. Martin would remind us, ecclesia semper reformand est—the church is
always reforming. The days are surely coming when we can get along without
huge, money-devouring buildings. The church’s real estate holdings can be used
to start new missions. We can form new, smaller communities led by dedicated
bi-vocational pastors who won’t require expensive salary and benefit packages. We
can place our emphasis on the way these communities work to heal their
neighborhoods, and we can see the Gospel as Christ’s inspiration instead of the
church’s dogma. These changes might sound far-fetched, but they are already
happening[ii].
As
the spirit of God’s love, forgiveness and amazing grace becomes real to us, we’ll
see more and more collaborations between Christian denominations and between
Christians and non-Christians. I believe the days are surely coming when a new,
younger generation of Christians will take the reins and start shaking things
up. I hope they would be inspired by that radical, counter-cultural rabble
rouser, Martin Luther, who was himself inspired by that radical,
counter-cultural rabble rouser, Jesus Christ. Yes, the next few years will be a
little rocky, but the days are surely coming when we will see a new reformation
inspired by scripture, faith, and God’s magnificent grace.
Hang
in there, and let the peace of God which
passes our understanding keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Oh! And
come back and see me again!
[i]
Actually, it is now doubtful that the posting of the 95 Theses was done by
Luther himself. October 31 seems like a good day to post a controversial
announcement in a Catholic Christian community as it’s Halloween—the day before
All Saints Day—and many folks n Wittenburg might’ve gone to the Castle Church
to make confession so they could receive communion at the All Saints mass the
next day. The church door was like the town bulletin board, so folks would be
likely to see Luther’s proposals. Nevertheless, all we know for sure is that it
was around October 31, 1517 that Luther sent a copy of the Theses to Archbishop
Albert of Mainz, possibly not suspecting the archbishop was in on the whole
“get-out-of-Hell-free” indulgence scam himself.
[ii] Check out this cool video about a Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
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