The Radiating Reformation
Sermon
Uplifting Christ Through Autumn
Sermons for the Fall Season
The assigned lesson reading from Romans for this festival worship includes these comments by Saint Paul, words that strike to the heart of the Reformation.
... The righteousness of God (the final unity for us) has been manifested ... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction among us, since all of us have sinned and all of us fall short of the glory of God, we are justified. We are made whole by God's grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus ... which is received by faith.
-- Romans 3:22-25 cf
And then our reading from the gospel stated it again. In a less complicated form, Jesus said, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free ... (and) ... if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
The Reformation was and is, at its best, a call to all those in the Christian family to center in, to closely examine their own person-hood which includes their own involvement in the greater way of life that helps to form them. To center in and ask oneself, "How do my hopes and fears, my guilt and anxiety and selfishness, and my times of joy and mellowness, and pleasure and my desires, and study, and occupation, and servanthood, and my sense of home and future ... how does all of this, all of me, engage with the will and way of God?" When and why am I a love-bearing being, and when and why am I less than godlike? When does my expressed personhood pull others and me down into moments of darkness and separation -- fragmented? And what offers us grounded hope?
Part of the intent of this service of worship is to be so bold as to attempt to capture the message of the Reformation. It is to celebrate our unity as Christians, and to share the very real presence of Christ offered to us through even the material gifts of our ordinary, shared life together, such as through gifts of water, wine, and bread. All this is merged with the Word and therefore bearing love and future promises.
I thought it would be appropriate to include in these comments a brief historical review of the Reformation events, emphasizing causes and purposes. Rather than conjuring up images of old Wittenberg, Luther, Melanchthon, the 95 Theses, Edward the VI, the 39 Articles, and Cranmer's Bible-based Bible Book of Common Prayer, want to reinforce that the celebration of Reformation is not based on remembrances alone. After all, the Reformation was, and is, a dynamic process and a current challenge.
Rather than attempt to reconstruct the shadow contexts and contents of history, I have decided instead to begin with a review of the origins of the Reformation. Instead of using Luther or Elizabeth's theologians, let's update it all with something more upbeat and contemporary. I have decided to tell you instead about Squat Theater in New York City, which also is reformational.
Squat is a theatrical group from Budapest that has been living and working in New York since 1977. The group still performs its plays in a converted storefront theater on West 23rd Street near Eighth Avenue called The Building.
I am not sure how to describe the style of their drama. I guess you could call it contemporary. One might be tempted to say "realistic," though it avoids conventional "realism" by using definitely unrealistic images. In the play, Mr. Dead and Mrs. Free, there is a twelve-foot papier-mâché baby center stage. It is a colossal baby wearing stereo headphones, its eyes replaced by television screens. The "realism" here is in the play's comments about an acoustically and mass media-stoned youth culture. Here is the sharp tongue of realism. But more!
In artistic terms it is taking a step beyond realism because it attempts to step into your personal space; which, of course, is what the Reformation did.
The theater group's original hope was to mesh art form and real life. They wanted to find a solution to one of the contemporary theater's most vexing dilemmas -- the fear -- that real, authentic, day-to-day modern life itself might be more dramatic and theatrical and certainly more dangerous than anything one might experience in theater. The dilemma becomes how to infuse theatrical drama with a sense of the real energy and experience of the daily drama of life. Or to put it another way -- how to prevent the theater from becoming an escape from the lessons and insights and responsibilities that may spring from the intensity of daily life.
The Reformation, after all, included the call to enter daily the fray of life, seeing Christianity not as an escape from personal responsibility but a call to you personally to live your priesthood, to live your sainthood, to bring God's Word into the middle of things.
Squat works and acts as a collective, sharing profits and debts among the troop. The program credit for its productions read simply, "... written, produced, and directed by Squat Theater." Equality and equity at the heart of our unity is not just revolutional language but also reformational language. Equality and equity is at the heart of our unity.
Being prophetic is part of this call! Squat was prohibited from performing in public after their first performance in their home country. Hungarian government censors considered them to be too explicit and too relevant. They were accused of creating artwork that was, according to the censors, obscene and "likely to be misinterpreted from a political point of view."
The Reformation demanded that the church be explicit and relevant and the powers-that-be tried to close them down.
Is the articulation of the gospel message through our lips and actions today explicit and relevant and faithful? Is it prophetic? The Reformation calls us to be prophetic, which includes challenging the intention of our surrounding organizations and systems if they seem to sway from servanthood and justice, or your church, if it sways from its Christocentric purpose for being.
Squat wants to let the "real world" enter into their productions. So at the 23rd Street theater, a black curtain is yanked open near the beginning of each production revealing a large glass wall and glass door facing the street, so the random, unpredictable ebb and flow of street life enters into the productions. People of all descriptions look through the glass, some pressing their faces up against it, looking not only at the actors but also at the audience who now becomes a part of the drama along with the street people. No elitism or escapism allowed here!
In one play, a jeep drives up to the window and a group of soldiers carrying a bloody, wounded comrade storm into the theater through the door and train their guns on the audience, as the jeep drives back into the street and blends into the real traffic, disappearing into the night lights.
Sometimes it is hard to know what is intended and what is unintended. One night someone passing by the theater mistook a fictional shooting for a real shooting and called the police, who stormed into the theater with guns drawn on the audience -- this time real guns.
This is a drama group trying to be reformational in the sense of bringing truth into the realm of theater. Not quite pulling it off, of course, but attempting again and again with new productions to speak to the needs and questions of the moment. Is that not the call of Reformation to the church and to us?
Squat was attempting to replace the comfortable structure of the theater with the threatening unpredictability of real life. The Reformation was attempting to replace the insulating structure of the church with the will to allow divine love to flow into the unpredictability of real life ... to mend together the Word and the world ... to sew together the context and content of the gospel.
Reformation was and is based, I believe, on God's will that the community of faith is always to be engaged in renewal and reform, attempting in each new moment to drive love into expressions of justice and peace, compassion and unity.
What would we as Christians, individually and in community, offer others? The Reformation said, "Let's begin at the center."
Our expression of faith should be a Christocentric expression of faith, hope, and love. Christ at the core. Therefore, it must be scripturally centered in continuity with Luther's Christ- and gospel-centered "canon within the canon." If one views Jesus Christ as the center point of the manifestation of love, then the old Reformational axiom, "the finite is capable of the infinite," is true and all our sacred personalities hold the possibility and potential, in each moment, of sainthood even in the midst of our less than loving expressions of separation.
But the core is still the promise that nothing can separate us from the offer of eternal love. A promise of Christ present. A word that allows even water, bread, and wine to hold and speak of eternity.
In the light of the Reformation, servanthood, self-giving compassion, sacramental worship, scriptural study, and an analysis of contemporary life through the eyes of faith are the supporting structure of our ministry together as Christians.
But it is not these actions and intentions that form us as the Catholic, Evangelical church -- the Spirit-led, one church that transcends denominational lines. Rather it is only the gift and presence of the Christ given for you.
Now is the time of reformation. Now, when our political structures desperately need skilled peacemakers, when our environment is being abused and needs harmony, when vast sections of our human family are in need of physical healing and the release from hunger. Now, when rich and poor people are crushed by a sense of meaninglessness there is the need for reformation, and for faithful servants through whom the Word of God can work.
There is freedom in this risk and responsibility because the center gift is freely offered. "For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not a result of your own efforts, but God's gift."
One's deeds alone cannot entice or remove God's love. God wills unity and peace and offers the gift of grace. The Easter word is that even death cannot break the unity. The grasp of God's love holds the process of eternity. It is the "Yes" that can only finally transcend all the "Nos" that radiate from our fragile existence.
God's kind grasp is a loving, eternal unity, a divine Easter promise that offers now and always to lead us from darkness into light, from self-destruction into the wholeness of healing servanthood. It is a loving grasp that also will not -- perhaps by nature cannot -- let go.
Paul wrote, "There is no distinction among us, since we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our justification, our being made right with God, is a free gift of divine grace ... offered to us -- observed clearly through the eyes of faith in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."
There are many reformational reminders for us -- but they all radiate from that center promise that is held gently before us in the words and the will of Jesus: "Be not afraid"; be not afraid of any other authority: governmental, educational, societal, ecclesiastical power, or structure. Be not afraid of any emotional or physical or psychological attempt to pull you down to something less than you were intended to be. "Be not afraid" ... "for if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Amen.
... The righteousness of God (the final unity for us) has been manifested ... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction among us, since all of us have sinned and all of us fall short of the glory of God, we are justified. We are made whole by God's grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus ... which is received by faith.
-- Romans 3:22-25 cf
And then our reading from the gospel stated it again. In a less complicated form, Jesus said, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free ... (and) ... if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
The Reformation was and is, at its best, a call to all those in the Christian family to center in, to closely examine their own person-hood which includes their own involvement in the greater way of life that helps to form them. To center in and ask oneself, "How do my hopes and fears, my guilt and anxiety and selfishness, and my times of joy and mellowness, and pleasure and my desires, and study, and occupation, and servanthood, and my sense of home and future ... how does all of this, all of me, engage with the will and way of God?" When and why am I a love-bearing being, and when and why am I less than godlike? When does my expressed personhood pull others and me down into moments of darkness and separation -- fragmented? And what offers us grounded hope?
Part of the intent of this service of worship is to be so bold as to attempt to capture the message of the Reformation. It is to celebrate our unity as Christians, and to share the very real presence of Christ offered to us through even the material gifts of our ordinary, shared life together, such as through gifts of water, wine, and bread. All this is merged with the Word and therefore bearing love and future promises.
I thought it would be appropriate to include in these comments a brief historical review of the Reformation events, emphasizing causes and purposes. Rather than conjuring up images of old Wittenberg, Luther, Melanchthon, the 95 Theses, Edward the VI, the 39 Articles, and Cranmer's Bible-based Bible Book of Common Prayer, want to reinforce that the celebration of Reformation is not based on remembrances alone. After all, the Reformation was, and is, a dynamic process and a current challenge.
Rather than attempt to reconstruct the shadow contexts and contents of history, I have decided instead to begin with a review of the origins of the Reformation. Instead of using Luther or Elizabeth's theologians, let's update it all with something more upbeat and contemporary. I have decided to tell you instead about Squat Theater in New York City, which also is reformational.
Squat is a theatrical group from Budapest that has been living and working in New York since 1977. The group still performs its plays in a converted storefront theater on West 23rd Street near Eighth Avenue called The Building.
I am not sure how to describe the style of their drama. I guess you could call it contemporary. One might be tempted to say "realistic," though it avoids conventional "realism" by using definitely unrealistic images. In the play, Mr. Dead and Mrs. Free, there is a twelve-foot papier-mâché baby center stage. It is a colossal baby wearing stereo headphones, its eyes replaced by television screens. The "realism" here is in the play's comments about an acoustically and mass media-stoned youth culture. Here is the sharp tongue of realism. But more!
In artistic terms it is taking a step beyond realism because it attempts to step into your personal space; which, of course, is what the Reformation did.
The theater group's original hope was to mesh art form and real life. They wanted to find a solution to one of the contemporary theater's most vexing dilemmas -- the fear -- that real, authentic, day-to-day modern life itself might be more dramatic and theatrical and certainly more dangerous than anything one might experience in theater. The dilemma becomes how to infuse theatrical drama with a sense of the real energy and experience of the daily drama of life. Or to put it another way -- how to prevent the theater from becoming an escape from the lessons and insights and responsibilities that may spring from the intensity of daily life.
The Reformation, after all, included the call to enter daily the fray of life, seeing Christianity not as an escape from personal responsibility but a call to you personally to live your priesthood, to live your sainthood, to bring God's Word into the middle of things.
Squat works and acts as a collective, sharing profits and debts among the troop. The program credit for its productions read simply, "... written, produced, and directed by Squat Theater." Equality and equity at the heart of our unity is not just revolutional language but also reformational language. Equality and equity is at the heart of our unity.
Being prophetic is part of this call! Squat was prohibited from performing in public after their first performance in their home country. Hungarian government censors considered them to be too explicit and too relevant. They were accused of creating artwork that was, according to the censors, obscene and "likely to be misinterpreted from a political point of view."
The Reformation demanded that the church be explicit and relevant and the powers-that-be tried to close them down.
Is the articulation of the gospel message through our lips and actions today explicit and relevant and faithful? Is it prophetic? The Reformation calls us to be prophetic, which includes challenging the intention of our surrounding organizations and systems if they seem to sway from servanthood and justice, or your church, if it sways from its Christocentric purpose for being.
Squat wants to let the "real world" enter into their productions. So at the 23rd Street theater, a black curtain is yanked open near the beginning of each production revealing a large glass wall and glass door facing the street, so the random, unpredictable ebb and flow of street life enters into the productions. People of all descriptions look through the glass, some pressing their faces up against it, looking not only at the actors but also at the audience who now becomes a part of the drama along with the street people. No elitism or escapism allowed here!
In one play, a jeep drives up to the window and a group of soldiers carrying a bloody, wounded comrade storm into the theater through the door and train their guns on the audience, as the jeep drives back into the street and blends into the real traffic, disappearing into the night lights.
Sometimes it is hard to know what is intended and what is unintended. One night someone passing by the theater mistook a fictional shooting for a real shooting and called the police, who stormed into the theater with guns drawn on the audience -- this time real guns.
This is a drama group trying to be reformational in the sense of bringing truth into the realm of theater. Not quite pulling it off, of course, but attempting again and again with new productions to speak to the needs and questions of the moment. Is that not the call of Reformation to the church and to us?
Squat was attempting to replace the comfortable structure of the theater with the threatening unpredictability of real life. The Reformation was attempting to replace the insulating structure of the church with the will to allow divine love to flow into the unpredictability of real life ... to mend together the Word and the world ... to sew together the context and content of the gospel.
Reformation was and is based, I believe, on God's will that the community of faith is always to be engaged in renewal and reform, attempting in each new moment to drive love into expressions of justice and peace, compassion and unity.
What would we as Christians, individually and in community, offer others? The Reformation said, "Let's begin at the center."
Our expression of faith should be a Christocentric expression of faith, hope, and love. Christ at the core. Therefore, it must be scripturally centered in continuity with Luther's Christ- and gospel-centered "canon within the canon." If one views Jesus Christ as the center point of the manifestation of love, then the old Reformational axiom, "the finite is capable of the infinite," is true and all our sacred personalities hold the possibility and potential, in each moment, of sainthood even in the midst of our less than loving expressions of separation.
But the core is still the promise that nothing can separate us from the offer of eternal love. A promise of Christ present. A word that allows even water, bread, and wine to hold and speak of eternity.
In the light of the Reformation, servanthood, self-giving compassion, sacramental worship, scriptural study, and an analysis of contemporary life through the eyes of faith are the supporting structure of our ministry together as Christians.
But it is not these actions and intentions that form us as the Catholic, Evangelical church -- the Spirit-led, one church that transcends denominational lines. Rather it is only the gift and presence of the Christ given for you.
Now is the time of reformation. Now, when our political structures desperately need skilled peacemakers, when our environment is being abused and needs harmony, when vast sections of our human family are in need of physical healing and the release from hunger. Now, when rich and poor people are crushed by a sense of meaninglessness there is the need for reformation, and for faithful servants through whom the Word of God can work.
There is freedom in this risk and responsibility because the center gift is freely offered. "For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not a result of your own efforts, but God's gift."
One's deeds alone cannot entice or remove God's love. God wills unity and peace and offers the gift of grace. The Easter word is that even death cannot break the unity. The grasp of God's love holds the process of eternity. It is the "Yes" that can only finally transcend all the "Nos" that radiate from our fragile existence.
God's kind grasp is a loving, eternal unity, a divine Easter promise that offers now and always to lead us from darkness into light, from self-destruction into the wholeness of healing servanthood. It is a loving grasp that also will not -- perhaps by nature cannot -- let go.
Paul wrote, "There is no distinction among us, since we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our justification, our being made right with God, is a free gift of divine grace ... offered to us -- observed clearly through the eyes of faith in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."
There are many reformational reminders for us -- but they all radiate from that center promise that is held gently before us in the words and the will of Jesus: "Be not afraid"; be not afraid of any other authority: governmental, educational, societal, ecclesiastical power, or structure. Be not afraid of any emotional or physical or psychological attempt to pull you down to something less than you were intended to be. "Be not afraid" ... "for if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Amen.
