Sermon—Oct. 30, 2022 (Epiphany Lutheran Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba)
John 8:31-36; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Romans 3:19-28
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
When was the last time you got to answer the question “how did you get here?” If you’ve moved to a new city, house or country, you probably have experience with answering this question. Maybe your family reflected on this question at significant milestones like birthdays or anniversaries? My parents have this tradition of taking time at birthdays to reflect on the decades—which is meaningful now but as a kid was a tad embarrassing. How did you get here? It’s a question that can be an invitation to reflection and celebration as you name the struggles and obstacles that you overcame. It can also be a way to refocus and recalibrate as you think about the future. It’s a question we’ve been asking a lot over the last two years as we navigate the pandemic, reflect on social realities, and try to figure out a way forward. The gift in taking time for the conversations that come from asking this question is often the beauty of experiences, encounters and opportunities that impact and influence who we understand ourselves to be, what is important to us, and how we make sense of the big questions of life, love, and meaning.
Today is a day we ask that question together as Lutherans. On Reformation Sunday, we particularly remember and retell our story of formation—how we came to claim this particular lens on God, faith, love and community. Reformation Sunday is a way we tell the story of how we got here.
And it’s a great story! It’s a story of a man who wrestled with God and how he experienced the systems and structures of the church of his time. It’s the story of this man, Martin Luther, who felt deeply compelled that relationship with God didn’t need to be mediated by rules and regulations, but was a gift given out of God’s love and abundance through the Word of God combined with the physical stuff of water, wine, bread, and other people gathered in community. It’s the story of how that conviction shifted the church and sparked a movement that continues to form and inform communities like this one gathered all around the world. It’s the story of how we continue to wrestle with God and with the systems and structures of our time. And it’s a story of how we seek to make God’s word known and real through the physical stuff of water, wine, bread and community as we seek to accompany others towards healing and wholeness. It’s the story about how, in Jesus, God meets us in the darkness of death–but doesn’t leave us there. Instead, God overcomes death so that we might experience the fullness of life forever. It’s a great story!
But it’s not just a story about Martin Luther in 1517 who did some things, said some things, and wrote some things that we still think are important. And it’s not just a story about the traditions, rituals, and convictions that define us and run through our history, heritage, celebrations, and love of coffee and lefse. Today we wear red and hang red paraments to remember that the story of who we are, how we are formed, and how we are called into community and service is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit. We use red in the liturgical calendar to especially mark the work and role of the Holy Spirit in our faith and life. I didn’t grow up in a Lutheran context and so didn’t go through traditional confirmation. But my mom is Lutheran and regularly recited what she had to memorize in Confirmation regarding the third article of the creed: I cannot by my own understanding or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the part she referred to a lot. It’s the foundation of the Holy Spirit who we remind ourselves today is the one who continues to RE-FORM us in our own journeys of faith, both individually and together as a community.
Jesus knew about the tendency for people to forget that their story was about something deeper and more profound than the rules and structures of their tradition and practices. Throughout the gospels, Jesus is pointing people backward to the foundations of what those who have gone before them have said and done, inward to their own belovedness and worth as God’s children, outward to their care and love of neighbour, and forward to the new thing that God is doing and promises to keep doing into the future
But it’s easy to forget, and make our story about the external practices and procedures that have shaped us. It’s easy to become rigid in the way we do things, and to expect others to do things our way. It’s easy to become resistant to reformation in an effort to hold on too tightly and not lose those things that are important to us. I think Jesus knew about the tendency for people to forget that their story was about something deeper and more profound than the rules and structures of their tradition and practices. Throughout the gospels, Jesus is pointing people backward to the foundations of what those who have gone before them have said and done, inward to their own belovedness and worth as God’s children, outward to their care and love of neighbour, and forward to the new thing that God is doing and promises to keep doing into the future. In our gospel reading today, Jesus is reflecting on the story his listeners have been telling themselves, and he invites them to reframe it slightly to experience the freedom that he desires for all people—both physical freedom and spiritual freedom. I just have to say that while we cling to these verses about freedom because of our particular theological tradition, Jesus’ listeners didn’t initially love it or respond well to it. This chapter in John begins with a woman condemned by the crowd and on the verge of being stoned, and ends with Jesus himself being threatened and on the verge of being stoned. Because we don’t love it when a story we’ve told or been told is challenged. We don’t respond well when we perceive that our traditions and ways of understanding God, life and community are stretched and pushed a bit.
But that’s kind of what Jesus does. He calls folks beyond the external forces and systems that are keeping them bound up in different ways, and invites them into the freedom of a deeper identity rooted in faith, relationship and discipleship. He invites them beyond those ways they’ve become rigid, and invites them to be open to reformation. “You will know the truth,” Jesus says, “and the truth will set you free.” What is this truth that Jesus is referring to? I think it goes back to what we read in Jeremiah, where the writer reflects on the ‘new covenant’ that God is making with God’s people—not a covenant that’s written externally on tablets of stone and a list of laws that must be followed to guarantee God’s approval, but a covenant that is etched on the deepest parts of who we are…written on our hearts. The truth is that your lineage, cultural background or good works is not the thing that connects you to God. The truth is that holding ourselves and one another up to a preconceived notion of ‘righteous’ or ‘worthy’ limits us from encountering the fullness of who we each are as image-bearers of God in the world.
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,” Jesus said to those who were believing in him. Today on Reformation Sunday we reflect on the insights that Martin Luther had about what it means to continue in that word, and how that continues to shape our tradition and practice today. For many Lutheran congregations, including some in our synod, Reformation Sunday is when those who have been receiving instruction publicly affirm their faith through the Rite of affirmation of baptism, or Confirmation. After a season of reflection and learning, these folk stand before their community and affirm the promises made at their baptism. One of the things I love about the Lutheran approach to discipleship is that discipleship happens IN COMMUNITY. The community stands in witness at baptism and says, “we are in this with you.” The community stands in witness at confirmation and says, “we are in this with you.” The many ways we continue in the word and respond to Jesus’ invitation to discipleship is through community.
And that is good news, because if your story is anything like mine, you might scratch your head sometimes and say, “there’s no way I would be where I am if it wasn’t for the role, support or influence of a community.” It’s good news because there are days when we cannot muster either belief or obedience. But our community carries us and supports us through those seasons, and graciously reminds us that God’s love for us isn’t dependent on our belief and obedience.
So, what if Reformation Sunday isn’t just an opportunity to sing all the verses of A Mighty Fortress and to wear our one red sweater, but is an opportunity for us to remember together the many ways God got us here…and God continues to re-form us…every day…each time we get a little bit twisted out of shape and each time we realize that we don’t have what it takes to do it right all the time. Every day we are invited to remember our baptism, to receive the gifts of love and forgiveness, and to respond to the call to serve our neighbour. Each day God continues to re-form us.
what if Reformation Sunday isn’t just an opportunity to sing all the verses of A Mighty Fortress and to wear our one red sweater, but is an opportunity for us to remember together the many ways God got us here…and God continues to re-form us…every day…each time we get a little bit twisted out of shape and each time we realize that we don’t have what it takes to do it right all the time. Every day we are invited to remember our baptism, to receive the gifts of love and forgiveness, and to respond to the call to serve our neighbour. Each day God continues to re-form us.
What that looks like today probably looks different than what it looked like for Martin Luther, or what it looked like for those who were part of forming this congregation, or what it looked like for those whose faith and witness impacted each of us at different times in our own stories. But that’s what reformation is about…it’s not a one-time static experience, it’s an ongoing process.
A handful of people from this congregation were at the Renewal Conference held at Faith last week. At that conference, we were reminded to name and claim our gifts through a mindset of abundance as we listen to God, each other and our community. Much like we do when someone is baptized in our midst, and much like we do when someone affirms that baptism, listening to our community is a way we can come alongside others and say: “you are beloved no matter what, and we are in the messiness of life with you as God’s story, your story and our story get a bit tangled up together.” We all have different stories about how we got here and what it means for us to be here in this moment. As we listen to one another and experience the rich web of support and connection we experience as we share our stories together, we remember together who and whose we are, and we experience freedom and invitation that continues to re-form us as the beloved community God has created us to be.