A WORD FOR TODAY, October 27, 2021
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, October 27, 2021
Scriptures for October 31, 2015, Reformation Sunday: Revelation 14:6-7; Psalm 46; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36
“We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Romans 3:28, WEB
I an artist. I make a type of painting that includes a painted background with a decoupaged frame. I add a cross in the middle and music pages out of old hymn books for the decoupage. I love to search antique stores for those old books. There are specific things I want in an old hymnal: slightly yellowed pages, attractive type set, song titles at the top of the page. I also look for which songs are found in the book. Unfortunately, I purchased one hymn book that was almost useless; though it looked like a Christian hymnal, it had songs with non-Christian theology. There were very few songs that even mentioned the name Jesus. I was able to pull just enough pages to make one painting, but I recycled the rest. Though I use just bits and pieces of the pages, I am careful to make the hymns I use recognizable by specifically choosing words and lines that we know and love. Those songs in that strange hymnal were not at all familiar.
I look for one hymn very specifically when purchasing those hymnals: “A Mighty Fortress.” This is a beloved hymn for me as a Lutheran, but I’ve discovered that most denominational hymnals include this hymn. Martin Luther wrote this hymn based on Psalm 46; he was a prolific writer and hymnwriter, but of all his work, this song is probably the most well known of his work. It has often been called “The Battle Hymn of the Reformation” but it can be found even in Catholic hymnals. The German hymn has been translated into many languages, including seventy different translations into English.
The text of the hymn follows the message of Psalm 46 very closely. The psalm is a Zion hymn, which were written to praise God for establishing his people and his kingdom. They are a mix of history, culture, tradition and loyalty. They are dedicated to extolling the city of God. No other place on earth warrants this praise, according to the poets. For Luther, Zion was not just a city but was God Himself, our refuge and our strength. We sing “A Mighty Fortress” to praise God for being with us. The psalmist expresses trust in God in the midst of chaos. God is our refuge. Though the world is in turmoil, in our God there is quiet and safety.
We need to be reminded regularly of how great God is. God grows smaller in our eyes when we fail to look at Him and His Word. The more we study and pray, the bigger He is, the more we trust that He will help us, the more we will know He is God. We are to realize, acknowledge, experience, enjoy and appreciate God. He asserts His sovereignty over all. The more we praise Him in the way we live our life, the more He will grow in our eyes and in the eyes of the world. God’s presence on Zion brings protection although we must beware to not think a building is a talisman against defeat: Jesus is the Temple. Jesus is the very presence of God; we can find confidence in Christ’s presence. Jesus Christ is the source of God’s protective strength in our lives. We need not fear because Christ’s kingdom will enjoy a rule of absolute peace.
Sunday is Halloween, which is obvious when you drive around my neighborhood. Some people decorate their yards as much for this holiday as they do for Christmas. I used to love Halloween and scary things. I read horror books and visited haunted houses. I loved the teen slasher films. I’m not against Halloween, but it doesn’t hold the attraction it once did. We’ll put out treats for the children, but it makes me sad how many of them, of all ages, will put on ratty clothes and slap on some zombie paint instead of being creative with their costumes. Death and evil run rampant on the streets of our town, in the decorations of our neighbors. One house has so many tombstones, it looks like a cemetery.
Too much death. As Christians we know that we need not fear death. But death is also not something we should embrace.
I used to love that kind of stuff. I went to all the horror movies and decorated my house with all sorts of spooky things. When asked, I used to talk about how a little fear is healthy; it gets the adrenaline flowing and the heart pumping. A scream or two never hurt. Besides, it wasn’t real. As I got older, particularly after I had children, I stopped going out of my way to be scared. I suppose I realized that there were real reasons to be afraid in the world, and the idea of going out of my way to be afraid to get my adrenaline flowing and heart pumping just wasn’t fun anymore. Sadly, some of my favorite novels have become truer than we ever thought possible
There are very real reasons to be afraid in our world. I’m not so sure that there are more reasons today, although it seems like it sometimes, doesn’t it? We are afraid of the things that will affect the world and our nation. We are afraid of the crime in our neighborhoods. We are afraid of natural disasters that can destroy our homes. We are afraid of more personal things like financial ruin. We have a collective fear of disease. The political conversation is filled with fear. Sometimes we don’t even really know what we fear.
We look to God as a refuge, yet John writes in the text from Revelation, “Fear the Lord.” There are benefits of being afraid because we react to our fear by doing what needs to be done to avoid the bad things that can happen. However, we can be so focused on fear that we miss the blessings of life. So, why would we have to fear the One who has promised to be our source for joy and hope and peace?
Fear of the Lord is not the same kind of fear. It isn’t the fear we experience in the haunted house or the movie theater. It isn’t the fear we experience when we are threatened. Fear of the Lord is a reverence for the Holy One, trusting that He is where we’ll find our joy and hope and peace. Solomon tells us in the book of Proverbs that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Awe in the One who is our salvation will make Him grow in our eyes and in the eyes of the world.
Sunday may be Halloween, but it is also Reformation Day, the day we remember the bold action of Martin Luther, who in 1517 posted ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg Church. The theses were written to open debate between scholars about the abuses in the Church at that time. This began a reform movement that sought to restore the Church that Christ built. Luther was not the only one; the other reformers and those who followed them joined together to work against a body that had lost touch with God’s grace.
Religion in Luther’s day was much like it was in the day of Jesus Christ. The leaders determined to keep or enhance their positions and power. It was a religion that burdened God’s people with Law, losing touch with the center of God’s salvation: Jesus and His cross. They sold indulgences to raise funds to build a massive new church building in Rome and they did this by feeding the fears of hell that were held by the people. They made the people believe that the only way they would make it to heaven was to pay for it. They even offered salvation for those who had already died; indulgences could be used to set free their loved ones who were wallowing in purgatory.
Luther was a priest and a teacher, burdened heavily by his calling. He feared sin and he feared that his own sinfulness was greater than the mercy and grace of God. He did not see how he could be forgiven and spent hours in confession. Luther was at the point of despair when he sought solace from God’s word and his confessor. Johann von Staupitz was tired of Luther’s lengthy confessions, so he reminded Luther of the Gospel of grace. Luther grasped the reality that this grace was won by Jesus Christ who died for our sake. He saw it clearly when he read the epistle lesson we always use for Reformation Sunday. “But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe.” It is by faith we are saved. Jesus completed the work of justification when He died on the cross.
When Martin Luther read the passage from Romans 3, he rediscovered the foundation of the Gospel message: it is not by our works that we are saved, but by the amazing grace of God. It is so much easier for us to do good works than to accept the humbling reality that we can never make ourselves good enough to enter into the presence of God. We don’t want God to see our imperfections and we fear what will happen when He does. It is much, much harder for us to cry out to God in our imperfections because we are truly afraid of what He might say. Yet, the true path, the better path, is to cry out in faith knowing that God is gracious and merciful, full of forgiveness. There is nothing we can do to earn His grace, but in faith we can boldly approach Him with our needs. He will stop and listen. He will heal. In Him and in Him alone, we have joy and hope and peace.
We need not fear, like Martin Luther feared for himself and for his congregation, because God is a very present help in trouble. God is always there. He is a fortress in times of difficulty and a refuge in times of need. When things are looking bad in the world in which we live, as they must have looked to Luther in 1517, we can rest assured that God is present, active and faithful.
The Old Covenant included list of laws that were required for righteousness. Leaders demanded obedience, and they made threats or bribes to keep the people in line. The leaders laid heavy burdens on the people, and the people failed. That’s why God made the New Covenant that gives the believer the faith and freedom to live according to His Word. The New Covenant gives us a new attitude; it changes how we look at God’s Law and God’s Word. In faith we respond to the call of God. The Old Covenant, which comes from outside, is replaced with a covenant that comes from inside. The Law still has a purpose, in that it helps us to see that we are in need of a Savior. When we hear the Gospel, God’s Word is placed in the heart; faith is given so that the believer can act out of love rather than fear or greed. We are no longer burdened by that Law, but we are set free by faith to live out God’s Word in the world.
The brief Gospel lesson for this week took place after an encounter Jesus had with a crowd that was about to stone a woman who had been taken for adultery. We note that there was no man so threatened, but it is suggested that some who would throw the stones were guilty with her. Jesus said, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her,” and they were cut to the heart. One by one they walked away; no one able to cast the first stone because they were sinners, too. The religious leaders then questioned Jesus. “Who are you to do these things?” They wanted to know where He got His authority. “You testify about yourself. Your testimony is not valid.” In that conversation, Jesus revealed that they did not know the Father, but many came to believe in Him.
Jesus told those listening who believed that the truth would set them free, but the Jewish leaders didn’t understand what he was talking about. “We are Abraham’s offspring, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How do you say, ‘You will be made free’?” They relied on their heritage; they relied on Abraham and Moses for their salvation. But since they could not keep the Law perfectly, they would always fail to live up to the expectations of that Law. Jesus said that whenever you sin, no matter how small or insignificant, you are a slave to sin. This is what Martin Luther discovered when he was trying to confess himself into salvation.
Luther seemed to have found the very meaning of today’s Gospel message: that when we are saved we are made free to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world. For him freedom was not to do whatever we wanted to do, it was freedom to be as God created us to be. He never sought division, he sought change. Unfortunately, just like the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, the religious leaders in Luther’s day had no room for God’s word in their lives. And so began the building of walls between Christians that has lasted more than five hundred years. Yet, even as Luther was willing to risk division by speaking forth God’s grace, he longed that the Church would remain whole. We continue to live in the freedom given by God through Jesus Christ so that we can reach out to our brothers and sisters in Christ in the hope that someday the Church will be healed and made whole once again. If not in this life, at least God’s promises will bring us together to share the feast of victory for eternity. It might not seem like much, but Luther’s hymn that is so loved by so many Christians might just be the first step of a very, very slow process.
Martin Luther was bold enough to cry out to God in his imperfection, seeking God’s touch on his life. It is easier for us to keep working toward our goal, to try to make ourselves good enough to come before the Lord. We don’t want God to see our imperfections and we fear what will happen when He does. It is much, much harder for us to cry out to God in our imperfections because we are afraid of what He might say. Yet, the true path, the better path, is to cry out in faith knowing that God is gracious and merciful, full of forgiveness. There is nothing we can do to earn His grace, but in faith we can boldly approach Him with our needs. He will stop and listen. He will heal. In Him, and in Him alone, we have joy and hope and peace. That revelation spurred Luther to reform the church.
Martin Luther had a reputation for being temperamental, coarse and argumentative. Some have suggested he was a chauvinist. He was actually just a grumpy old man living a rather hard life. He suffered from multiple health issues which made it difficult for him to do everything he wanted to do. He was opinionated and did not understand how anyone could reject the grace of God. Though no excuse, that’s why he struggled with the Jews, one of black marks on his life. Luther, like the Apostle Paul before him, knew he was the greatest of sinners. He also learned that God’s grace is greater than his sin. That’s why one of the great mottos of the Reformation is “simul justus et peccator,” which means “simultaneously saint and sinner.”
Luther recognized that we live in two kingdoms, temporal and spiritual, an ideology that encourages justice, so that all people might work for the glory of God even when following earthbound vocations. When we do not have to buy our way to heaven, we are given the freedom to live in God’s grace today, looking forward to the promises of God that will be fulfilled in His time and way. Martin Luther is quoted as saying, “Sin boldly.” He did not mean that we should go out in the world to purposely sin against God and man. He meant that if, as you have to sin as you are living in this sinful and fallen world, do so boldly knowing the grace of God. The whole statement is “Sin boldly but believe more bolder still.” We do not live in a world that is all black and white; sometimes we are faced with shades of gray. Sometimes we have to do things we know are not good but are better than bad. So, if you have to decide to do something that is less than good, do so with the knowledge that forgiveness is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Martin Luther believed in education and insisted that every child should have the opportunity to learn. He took the reformation into the schoolhouse walls, offering classes for both boys and girls. Those schools were available for children all members of society, from the wealthy to the peasants. He encouraged the peasant parents to send their children so that they could learn and rise out of their poverty. As a professor, he changed the structure of his lessons, focusing more on the ancient writings and languages, focusing more on the scriptures than on the traditions and doctrines of the church. Instead of teaching the students how to acquire worldly goods as was prevalent at the time, he wanted to provide training in everything necessary for living a faithful Christian life. Children were treated as more than cattle; they were treated as the future of the Church and the society.
Martin Luther’s goal was not just a reformation in the Church. He wanted the people to be reformed as individuals. There are those who see individualism in Christianity as problematic, but Luther’s understanding is that each person is made new by the Gospel to live and serve God as God has gifted and called them to live. We don’t all have to be ordained to pray and praise God, to read the scriptures, to study and grow in faith. We simply have to love God and seek to draw nearer to Him. Oh, there’s always the problem with people misunderstanding the scriptures or making them mean what they want it to mean, but that is why Luther also encouraged Christian fellowship and community worship. We are individual sons and daughters of our Father with the same access to His grace, but we are also part of a larger body and joined together by the Holy Spirit to glorify God. We are meant to help one another stay on the right path, to live according to God’s Word.
In Luther’s quest to help Christians grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ, he invited them into the conversations of theology and church. Instead of answering his critics with a typical Latin answer, Luther wrote in German, then had the works published and sold to anyone. Though the printing press existed for fifty years, Luther worked to make it a viable form of communication. He encouraged and supported the printers. He helped design a format that was appealing to the masses. His pamphlets and books, often written to respond to the questions of other theologians, were published by dozens of printers in many cities. His work changed the publishing industry in ways that we still use today. Even our morning newspaper today was influenced by the way Luther published his works.
One of the reasons why I am a Lutheran is because we are serious about theology. Following Martin Luther’s example, we think deeply about the things of God. This isn’t to say that others are less interested in theology or that they don’t think deeply about God, but learning and understanding the scriptures is a foundational characteristic of the Lutheran faith. Is every Lutheran a theology geek like me? I have to admit that I am an odd one out. You can probably tell by through this devotional ministry that I spend a lot of time thinking about my faith and studying about God. I challenge myself to dig deeply. I read the Book of Concord one year, Luther’s sermons another, and studied the life and accomplishments of Luther during another. Like all denominations, Lutherans have people who are very serious about learning and others who choose to focus their religious life in other ways. I celebrate Reformation Sunday because I like to be reminded once a year of my heritage and the example Martin Luther set for the intellectual as well as spiritual search for God and His truth.
Luther was certainly not the first in the church to preach the Gospel of grace, nor was he the only one to seek reform in the church. He just happened to do so at a time when all the circumstances were perfectly aligned for a radical change in thought, both politically and spiritually. The nailing of the Ninety-nine Theses was just the beginning and in hindsight we know it is one of the least of his accomplishments. They focused heavily on the law-centered focus of the Church in his day, which insisted that the people of faith do many things to earn their place in the Kingdom of God. So much of his writings focused on the things that put burdens on the people that were impossible to keep, and which benefitted no one but the Church. Luther taught that we can’t buy our way into heaven; we are saved by grace through faith.
This life of grace is what Martin Luther discovered as he searched the scriptures for relief from his burdens. He longed to be freed from the fear, guilt and pain he experienced when he recognized himself as the sinner that he was. He knew there was no way he could be good or enough for the gifts of God. His fears threatened to affect his ministry, because he thought his lifetime of sin would invalidate the work he was called to do in the church.
Then he found the grace of God, that unbelievable truth that the work of salvation is not dependent on man but rather on the mercy of God. When we realize that we are sinners, in need of a Savior, our whole world is turned upside down. We are set free from the burdens of the law so that we might live to the glory of God in His grace no matter who we are. This is what happened to Martin Luther when he read Paul’s words to the Romans; he realized that faith was the key to salvation. Those words changed him, and through his willingness to fight for the Gospel of Jesus Christ the world was changed forever.
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