Reformation For These Days
Preaching
The Preacher's Edge
Sermon move: Build A Fire
In these hands I held the very Bible Martin Luther used years ago to prepare his sermons. On the page which contained John 8, which I just read to you, he had scrawled the German words for "free indeed!"
Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany, and never returned to the little village until he went back to settle an argument between two dukes and died there. I have often travelled to Eisleben to escort tour groups and to see the actual Reformation places. On one of those trips, the sexton of the church across the street from where Luther preached his last sermon offered to take me to the bell tower. We climbed up those steps and I was surprised to discover that the Lutherans from Wittenberg had moved the personal library of Martin Luther and some of the furniture from his study into a room high in that bell tower of the church. They kept it a secret it was there because they did not want the Communist regime which ran the country at the time to know about it.
In that room I was able to pick up with these hands the very Bible from which Luther prepared his sermons in the later years of his ministry. I read with my own eyes those German words scrawled in the margin of John 8, "free indeed!"
Sermon move: Build A Bridge
You have come to church today - and it's Reformation Sunday. It is the Sunday before All Saints' Day and October31, when Luther nailed his thesis on the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg,
Germany, which began the Protestant Reformation. But that was so far from here and it was so long ago.
You are probably wondering what the Reformation of the sixteenth century can say to you which is important to your life at the dawning of the twenty-first century here in Worthington, Ohio, in this year of 1994? In a day of information highways, satellite uplink and downlinks, compressed digital signals, and other advanced technology, perhaps you're wondering if anything would apply from back then right now for you.
Besides, we Lutherans don't hate Catholics anymore, our Bibles haven't been chained to the wall for a long time, pastors can and do marry, and I don't think indulgences are being sold in any of our congregations.
But if you're struggling today with a weighty problem that hangs heavy on your heart, if you're fighting an addiction, if you're eager for something deeper spiritually, if you need some of God's shalom in your hectic and frantic life, if you're desperate for forgiveness, if you would like to see more significance in your job, perhaps Reformation Sunday is just what you're looking for.
Sermon move: The Point
You see, this day of Reformation has a lot to say to us who have gathered here to celebrate our heritage: In Christ, there is freedom for us.
Sermon move: The Example
Martin Luther's strong emphasis on the value of the scripture still equips us for life in the 1990s - for therein is truth and ... "truth sets us free."
Listen to what the Gospel of John reports Jesus saying: "To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said: 'If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free' " (John 8:31-32 TJB).
So from the scripture we have a promise we can count on: "If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; and you will come to know the truth."
For a day when we talk a lot about getting even - Jesus says to turn the other cheek ... that's the truth of it!
For a day when we are taught to get what's coming to us, stake out our own turf, demand our rights - Jesus teaches us that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive ... that's the truth of it!
For a time when we are advised to ignore the misfits, immigrants, welfare recipients, the freeloaders - Jesus teaches us to love those who will never love us or thank us back and that's the truth of it.
In a time when we are in serious danger of being a slave to wealth addiction, our sexual desires, self-centeredness, our own ego needs, power over others, Jesus says the truth is that there is a life of discipleship which frees us to be a different kind of human being. No longer are we paralyzed by guilt and shame, no longer are we afraid of being alone or of facing a terminal illness or even death, no longer need we doubt that we have God's forgiveness because we have not lived a good enough life. We are set free. We can have God's love even though we don't deserve it.
Luther didn't invent a new church. What he did was point us again to a church of the New Testament and Pentecost when humans were just as sinful and the church as imperfect as it is right now. Whenever we lose the marks of the church of Pentecost: an experience of the alive Christ, a passion to witness to our faith, an unbreakable fellowship with the changed group, a love of people, an inward security or peace, and a deep sense of joy, we need Martin Luthers. They must point us once more to the wonderful undeserved grace of God which sets us free to be God's people called the church.
Luther also took the idea of ministry away from a few ordained clergy and placed it right in the laps of every baptized person. One of the slogans of our foremothers and forefathers who fought that sixteenth century Reformation was "the priesthood of all believers." That's the truth of it!
This was, and is, radical stuff! In our baptism we believe we are called to be ministers and do ministry every day where we work, live, and play. That's the meaning of Christian vocation. We identify our gifts, skills, and abilities and then find ways to use them to do ministry every day of the week.
Look how that changes our attitude toward worship. Now it becomes the time when all the ministers report in and get a word of advice, encouragement, and help from each other.
Look how that changes our attitude toward our job. Now we don't see it as just a way to earn a certain amount of money. We see it as an opportunity to witness to our faith and to minister to the other people we work beside.
Look how that changes our attitude toward marriage and parenting. We begin to see our children as a treasure over which we are stewards for a brief period of time. We begin to see our spouse not as someone who needs to satisfy us but rather as a person who has forgiveness and the opportunity to start over again and again, too.
Students going to school see their opportunities to learn more than a drudgery. It becomes the possibility of reaching their full creative potential that God would have them reach.
Think how that changes our attitude toward our retirement years. Rather than seen as a time when we withdraw and say let the younger generation do it, we see it as a time when we can carry out a special ministry of love and compassion to others. We can see these all as opportunities to which God has called us to be ministers. So we can see Reformation has a lot to say to us today about how and when and where we live.
Sermon move: Preacher's Witness
It really means a lot to me to be Lutheran and Christian and part of a reforming church. I grew up in St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Greenville, Ohio, not too many miles west of here. Oh, how I learned from Reverend Wessel, my pastor, about the free gift of God's grace in that little German congregation. On the day I was examined for confirmation in front of the congregation I had memorized the answer to every seventh question that we knew Reverend Wessel was going to address to us. But one of the confirmands did not show up! That threw the rotation off after the first question. Nevertheless, that sainted pastor said yes to my answers even though they didn't fit the question at all. What grace I learned from him that day!
I see all around me where I live in California, in my family, among my friends, on my travels around the world, a hunger still to know that wonderful, radical amazing grace of God which wants so much to bring healing to relationships. It's a grace which wants forgiveness for transgressions and wants the possibility for us to start anew every day.
I see that promise to lighten the load as needed now as much as it was when Jesus first promised it and Luther called attention to it again.
I also need the joy which is available from being one of God's disciples. It's a joy that's more than the opposite of unhappy; it's ajoy that's the opposite of unbelief. It's a joy that comes not from the absence of trouble in my life, but rather the presence of God.
I'm absolutely certain there is a message today, Reformation Sunday, for me. I'm delighted to be a Lutheran and a son of the Reformation, with a strong belief about a God who forgives when we don't deserve it; a God who calls us through our baptisms to do ministry in the world; a God who gives to us the Bible that life might be better directed, easier, fuller, wiser and of great joy.
Sermon move: So What? Action Steps
Let me challenge you this Sunday of Reformation to a Reformation of your own religious life as well. Try this:
1. Start a daily reading of the Bible. If only for ten minutes, get started on it. Begin with the gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and then move from there to the Acts of the Apostles.
2. Take a new look at your vocation, your job. Do something this week that ministers to someone else at work and try it in your own home as well. See yourself as servant rather than demanding what's coming to you.
3. Tell someone quietly what your faith means to you. Tell them how God's grace is for them also. The wonderful thing about witnessing to your faith is each time you tell it to someone else you own it more yourself. And the more you own it the better you tell it. What a wonderful way it works for us in our faith.
Sermon move: Finish Up/Frame
It was a thrill to hold Luther's Bible in my own hands there in the bell tower of the old church in Eisleben, Germany, across the street from where Luther died. "Free indeed" he wrote across the page of John 8. But even greater than that thrill is the fact that we now hold in our heart what Luther underlined in John's gospel: "If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32).
Free indeed!
Amen.
In these hands I held the very Bible Martin Luther used years ago to prepare his sermons. On the page which contained John 8, which I just read to you, he had scrawled the German words for "free indeed!"
Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany, and never returned to the little village until he went back to settle an argument between two dukes and died there. I have often travelled to Eisleben to escort tour groups and to see the actual Reformation places. On one of those trips, the sexton of the church across the street from where Luther preached his last sermon offered to take me to the bell tower. We climbed up those steps and I was surprised to discover that the Lutherans from Wittenberg had moved the personal library of Martin Luther and some of the furniture from his study into a room high in that bell tower of the church. They kept it a secret it was there because they did not want the Communist regime which ran the country at the time to know about it.
In that room I was able to pick up with these hands the very Bible from which Luther prepared his sermons in the later years of his ministry. I read with my own eyes those German words scrawled in the margin of John 8, "free indeed!"
Sermon move: Build A Bridge
You have come to church today - and it's Reformation Sunday. It is the Sunday before All Saints' Day and October31, when Luther nailed his thesis on the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg,
Germany, which began the Protestant Reformation. But that was so far from here and it was so long ago.
You are probably wondering what the Reformation of the sixteenth century can say to you which is important to your life at the dawning of the twenty-first century here in Worthington, Ohio, in this year of 1994? In a day of information highways, satellite uplink and downlinks, compressed digital signals, and other advanced technology, perhaps you're wondering if anything would apply from back then right now for you.
Besides, we Lutherans don't hate Catholics anymore, our Bibles haven't been chained to the wall for a long time, pastors can and do marry, and I don't think indulgences are being sold in any of our congregations.
But if you're struggling today with a weighty problem that hangs heavy on your heart, if you're fighting an addiction, if you're eager for something deeper spiritually, if you need some of God's shalom in your hectic and frantic life, if you're desperate for forgiveness, if you would like to see more significance in your job, perhaps Reformation Sunday is just what you're looking for.
Sermon move: The Point
You see, this day of Reformation has a lot to say to us who have gathered here to celebrate our heritage: In Christ, there is freedom for us.
Sermon move: The Example
Martin Luther's strong emphasis on the value of the scripture still equips us for life in the 1990s - for therein is truth and ... "truth sets us free."
Listen to what the Gospel of John reports Jesus saying: "To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said: 'If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free' " (John 8:31-32 TJB).
So from the scripture we have a promise we can count on: "If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; and you will come to know the truth."
For a day when we talk a lot about getting even - Jesus says to turn the other cheek ... that's the truth of it!
For a day when we are taught to get what's coming to us, stake out our own turf, demand our rights - Jesus teaches us that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive ... that's the truth of it!
For a time when we are advised to ignore the misfits, immigrants, welfare recipients, the freeloaders - Jesus teaches us to love those who will never love us or thank us back and that's the truth of it.
In a time when we are in serious danger of being a slave to wealth addiction, our sexual desires, self-centeredness, our own ego needs, power over others, Jesus says the truth is that there is a life of discipleship which frees us to be a different kind of human being. No longer are we paralyzed by guilt and shame, no longer are we afraid of being alone or of facing a terminal illness or even death, no longer need we doubt that we have God's forgiveness because we have not lived a good enough life. We are set free. We can have God's love even though we don't deserve it.
Luther didn't invent a new church. What he did was point us again to a church of the New Testament and Pentecost when humans were just as sinful and the church as imperfect as it is right now. Whenever we lose the marks of the church of Pentecost: an experience of the alive Christ, a passion to witness to our faith, an unbreakable fellowship with the changed group, a love of people, an inward security or peace, and a deep sense of joy, we need Martin Luthers. They must point us once more to the wonderful undeserved grace of God which sets us free to be God's people called the church.
Luther also took the idea of ministry away from a few ordained clergy and placed it right in the laps of every baptized person. One of the slogans of our foremothers and forefathers who fought that sixteenth century Reformation was "the priesthood of all believers." That's the truth of it!
This was, and is, radical stuff! In our baptism we believe we are called to be ministers and do ministry every day where we work, live, and play. That's the meaning of Christian vocation. We identify our gifts, skills, and abilities and then find ways to use them to do ministry every day of the week.
Look how that changes our attitude toward worship. Now it becomes the time when all the ministers report in and get a word of advice, encouragement, and help from each other.
Look how that changes our attitude toward our job. Now we don't see it as just a way to earn a certain amount of money. We see it as an opportunity to witness to our faith and to minister to the other people we work beside.
Look how that changes our attitude toward marriage and parenting. We begin to see our children as a treasure over which we are stewards for a brief period of time. We begin to see our spouse not as someone who needs to satisfy us but rather as a person who has forgiveness and the opportunity to start over again and again, too.
Students going to school see their opportunities to learn more than a drudgery. It becomes the possibility of reaching their full creative potential that God would have them reach.
Think how that changes our attitude toward our retirement years. Rather than seen as a time when we withdraw and say let the younger generation do it, we see it as a time when we can carry out a special ministry of love and compassion to others. We can see these all as opportunities to which God has called us to be ministers. So we can see Reformation has a lot to say to us today about how and when and where we live.
Sermon move: Preacher's Witness
It really means a lot to me to be Lutheran and Christian and part of a reforming church. I grew up in St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Greenville, Ohio, not too many miles west of here. Oh, how I learned from Reverend Wessel, my pastor, about the free gift of God's grace in that little German congregation. On the day I was examined for confirmation in front of the congregation I had memorized the answer to every seventh question that we knew Reverend Wessel was going to address to us. But one of the confirmands did not show up! That threw the rotation off after the first question. Nevertheless, that sainted pastor said yes to my answers even though they didn't fit the question at all. What grace I learned from him that day!
I see all around me where I live in California, in my family, among my friends, on my travels around the world, a hunger still to know that wonderful, radical amazing grace of God which wants so much to bring healing to relationships. It's a grace which wants forgiveness for transgressions and wants the possibility for us to start anew every day.
I see that promise to lighten the load as needed now as much as it was when Jesus first promised it and Luther called attention to it again.
I also need the joy which is available from being one of God's disciples. It's a joy that's more than the opposite of unhappy; it's ajoy that's the opposite of unbelief. It's a joy that comes not from the absence of trouble in my life, but rather the presence of God.
I'm absolutely certain there is a message today, Reformation Sunday, for me. I'm delighted to be a Lutheran and a son of the Reformation, with a strong belief about a God who forgives when we don't deserve it; a God who calls us through our baptisms to do ministry in the world; a God who gives to us the Bible that life might be better directed, easier, fuller, wiser and of great joy.
Sermon move: So What? Action Steps
Let me challenge you this Sunday of Reformation to a Reformation of your own religious life as well. Try this:
1. Start a daily reading of the Bible. If only for ten minutes, get started on it. Begin with the gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and then move from there to the Acts of the Apostles.
2. Take a new look at your vocation, your job. Do something this week that ministers to someone else at work and try it in your own home as well. See yourself as servant rather than demanding what's coming to you.
3. Tell someone quietly what your faith means to you. Tell them how God's grace is for them also. The wonderful thing about witnessing to your faith is each time you tell it to someone else you own it more yourself. And the more you own it the better you tell it. What a wonderful way it works for us in our faith.
Sermon move: Finish Up/Frame
It was a thrill to hold Luther's Bible in my own hands there in the bell tower of the old church in Eisleben, Germany, across the street from where Luther died. "Free indeed" he wrote across the page of John 8. But even greater than that thrill is the fact that we now hold in our heart what Luther underlined in John's gospel: "If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32).
Free indeed!
Amen.
