Reformation Sunday, October 28, 2007
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, you have, through the ages, revealed your word to us through the Scriptures. You sent your Son among us, as your incarnate Word, who not only revealed your will for our lives, but also gave his life for our redemption. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, empower us to hear your Word for our lives, and give us the power and courage to embrace it as own, that we might continue to proclaim the truth of your law and Gospel to those around us. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
As Lutherans, we have regarded the Reformation of the Church as being of such significance, that we have included a day in the liturgical calendar of the church for its commemoration. Traditionally, it was celebrated on the anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg chapel, on October 31, 1517, inviting debate on the practice of selling indulgences. In recent years, however, this celebration has been moved to the Sunday proceeding this date, so that more persons could attend this commemoration.
And for many years, this day has been a time for us Lutherans, to celebrate our heritage, sing “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” one of Luther’s hymns, and to give thanks for the fact that the Reformers had the courage to challenge the false and misleading theology of the church at that time, based on the message of the Scriptures.
But this morning, I don’t feel much like celebrating that historical moment in the life of the Church. In fact, I believe that our own Lutheran church is in need of another Reformation. Two weeks ago, I had read all of my old sermons that I had preached on the Reformation, and I was so unimpressed with them, that I wanted to scream. I felt this void in my heart that was so strong, that I prayed that God would give me some clue to how I might address it.
And then, Pastor Blair, after my sermon last week, positioned himself at the end of the line, which usually means that I said something that could have been improved. But that wasn’t the case. This time he handed me an envelope with several articles in it, in which he said, “Next Sunday is Reformation Sunday, and I think this info might be helpful to you.” It is always amazing to me, how God’s Spirit is able to answer our prayers.
I think you know that our Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, along with most other Protestant denominations, has been deeply divided on the issue of human sexuality. And the division never seems to end. Just two months ago, I received a copy of a study on sexuality to be conducted with our youth.
In this study, through music, movie clips and other stories our teens were to decide when it would be OK to begin sexual relationships, or to explore a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex. Even though Pat and I teach a one-hour class on human sexuality at confer-camp, I was uncomfortable with the direction that this study was leading. Yet the instructions for the study indicated that if I, as a pastor, was uncomfortable with presenting this study, I should pass it off to someone else.
I then asked Jodi if she would like to have Tyler consider some of the stories included in this study, and her response was, “Only if you lead it. I don’t want him getting the idea that it is up to him when and what kind of sexual encounters he wishes to engage in, as if it were simply a matter for him and his peers to decide. Doesn’t Scripture have something to say about our sexuality?” And just this past Tuesday she added “If you aren’t comfortable with leading this study, why would you pass it on to someone else?”
But in the material that Pastor Blair gave me last week, there was an article that set this whole division about human sexuality within our church into perspective. In an article, written by Pastor Scott Grorud, Published in Network News, he states that “It became clear to me that the sexuality issue is not the source of the division in the ELCA, but only a symptom of the real issue that divides our church… “
He then goes on to say that “the real division with the church stems from an entirely different gospel that entered the E.L.C.A. as it was formed 20 years ago, and although it has been couched in traditional Christian language, it bears little resemblance to the Gospel as it has been handed down through the ages. And because of this, the two sides on this debate can not find common ground and can not agree to get along because they are proclaiming two different Gospels. In fact, it has afflicted much of the theology of mainline Protestantism.
Pastor Grorud cites an article published by Dr. Philip Turner, the former dean of Berkley Divinity School at Yale University, as saying that there were two gospels at work in his own denomination, the Episcopal Church, in the U.S.A. He describes these two gospels as “the theology of divine redemption,” and a “theology of divine acceptance.”
The theology of divine redemption is what we Lutherans celebrate this day. It is a theology long understood by the Christian Church, since the Reformation. It is a theology that declares that the basic problem in our relationship with God, is that we human beings are by nature sinful, that we have failed to live according to the Word of God for our lives. It declares that the primary function of the law of God is to convict of us our sinfulness, that we might come to embrace the grace of God, poured out for us in the cross, which Christ endured for our redemption.
This was the message of the Reformation: that we, while living in this world, are at the same time sinners and saints – that is, we fail to live up to the law of God for our lives. At the same time, through our baptism and faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, God’s grace redeems us and embraces us children of God – his saints.
In other words, as we read the Scriptures, the theology of divine redemption is the Gospel as it has long been understood in the Christian Church. It declares that the basic problem in creation is human sin, and that Jesus’ death on the cross is God’s solution, to bring us into a right relationship with himself. It focuses on God’s forgiveness, as revealed in the sacrament of baptism, in which we die to sin, and rise to new life, which Luther admonished us to remember every day of our lives, because of our propensity to sin. It calls upon us to be repentant as we embrace God’s redeeming grace.
Turner then goes on to state that the Gospel that our church has now begun to proclaim, is a theology of acceptance. It is a theology, which locates sin outside of our human existence, as some kind of social norm that inflicts its restriction upon what is believed to be normal human behavior. It is a theology that defines sin in terms of excluding people from the life of the church, regardless of their behavior, because, in all people, God has created goodness!
Proponents of this new theology, this new Gospel, point out that Jesus consistently reached out to the marginalized and excluded people of his society to welcome them into his kingdom. What they fail to point out is that when Jesus healed them or forgave them, he usually added, “Go and sin no more.” In addition, when Jesus spoke about our need to forgive, as many as seventy times seven, he also said “as often as your brother or sister turns to you and says, ‘I repent, you must forgive.’” Clearly his message was not a message that denied the existence of sin.
Despite its completely foreign nature, this new gospel has made massive inroads in the ELCA in the past 20 years. It is as if the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who bore the cross for our sins, is meaningless, if we are, by nature, totally accepted by God as we have been created. This theology of acceptance does not see the world as a broken and fallen world, in which God had to act by sending his Son into our midst for our redemption.
As Turner wrote, “This isn’t an ethical divide about the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality or same sex marriage. It’s a theological chasm – one that separates those who hold a theology of divine acceptance from those who hold a theology of divine redemption.
Pastor Grorud concluded his article by giving a number of new trends in the modern Protestant Church, that have been driven by this new Gospel. They are:
“The claim that the Holy Spirit is doing new things today, apart from, or even against the Scriptures.”
An understanding of worship as “our sacrifice of praise” to God, rather than God’s justifying Word that convicts us of our sin and redeems us for new life.
A denial of the ongoing presence and power of sin in the lives of believers.
An assumption the that Gospel eradicates the law, rather than the law being God’s Word that convicts us of our sin in order to raise us to new life in Christ.
An obsessive focus on baptism, not as dying and rising with Christ, but as an initiation rite that guarantees our complete and eternal acceptance by God.
A theology of universal salvation that declares that God unconditionally accepts all people, and that Jesus is but one way to discover God’s acceptance.
Pastor care and preaching that urges people to affirm themselves as they are, rather than pointing them to the cross of Christ, which declares the forgiveness of sin and the need to strive to live according to God’s will for their lives.
Pastor Grorud concludes his article by saying, “These innovations are so strikingly different from the Christian Gospel as we have long known it. On the surface, it sounds so good. It has been warm and welcoming. It has wanted to right wrongs. It has used familiar Christian and Lutheran language. Its only shortcoming is, it’s untrue to the Scriptures.
Can there be unity; indeed, should there be unity in a church where two contrary gospels are being proclaimed? Paul left no doubt in his letter to the Galatians: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” As long as the ELCA tries to accommodate two different gospels, it will never be united, it will never be at peace, and it will never settle the issues that surround human sexuality.
Even though I do differ with Pastor Blair on certain issues, I totally have come to appreciate his support of our ministry here at St. John’s, and the inspiration he has given me as a pastor. And I, like him, have come to the realization that the church I now serve, is not the church to which I have been called to serve. And even though there are members of our congregation who may be divided on the issues of human sexuality, I am, and hope that I always will be, a pastor who embraces this Reformation Sunday, as embracing the truth of the Gospel and theology of Redemption. For in the words of Luther, “Here I stand. I will not recant.”
Amen.
Note: many parts and direct quotations for this sermon have been drawn from Pastor Scott Grorud’s article, published in Network News, September-October, 2007, and from his quotes of Dr. Philip Turner, Dean of the Berkley Divinity School, at Yale University. Although I have taken rather liberal editorial cuts and additions, in creating this sermon, I wish that they receive the credit.
