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Sermon for Reformation Sunday – October 27, 2024
Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you want to understand what Reformation Sunday is all about, you only need to look at how Martin Luther has been depicted over the centuries. In Lucas Cranach’s Weimar Altarpiece, which was created just a couple of years after Luther’s death, he is depicted pointing to scripture. In the many statues which have popped up over the centuries since, Luther is almost always pointing to scripture. You can find German nutcrackers of Martin Luther, and he is usually either holding a Bible or pointing to scripture. And then there is my Martin Luther bobblehead, which has him…you guessed it – pointing to scripture.
We celebrate Reformation Sunday on the last Sunday in October because it was on All Hallow’s Eve – October 31, 1517 – that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, which is widely regarded as the spark which started the fire of the Reformation. This is fine as far as it goes, as long as we understand what Luther’s purpose was in posting that document. Luther was not filing for divorce from the Catholic church. He was not quitting the Roman church to start something new. Neither was Luther suggesting some radical new ideas he thought the church should adopt. With these theses, Luther was calling the church back to the Bible. After centuries of drifting away from it, Luther was calling the church back to the Word of God. Luther was calling the church back to the treasures he himself had found in the scriptures.
Luther was not a separatist. Some have said that Reformation Sunday feels to them like one of those grossly inappropriate divorce parties people sometimes have when their divorce is final. They’ve said it feels like we’re celebrating a break-up, the fracturing of the Christian church. I get that to a point, but Luther didn’t leave the church. He was kicked out! He didn’t intend to cause a split. He was excommunicated! And so on Reformation Sunday we are not celebrating a break-up or the forming of new denomination.
Neither was Luther an innovator. He wasn’t inventing anything new, as the radical reformers of the past or progressive theologians of the present are want to do.
Luther was neither a separatist nor an innovator. He was more like an archaeologist. Martin Luther was the theological equivalent of Indiana Jones. At great personal risk to his health and safety, Luther excavated the scriptures to recover the true treasure of the church which had been hidden, or lost, or stolen, or forgotten. In thesis number sixty-two Luther wrote, “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” Luther worked to recover this treasure so it could be put on public display for everyone to enjoy!
He did this by delving deeply into the Bible. He did it by sweeping away the cobwebs and the dust the church had let accumulate, and by dodging the boobytraps and the poison arrows certain church leaders would soon shoot at him. He did it by bringing the Word of God out of the darkness in which it had been hidden and out into the light. As Luther himself said later in his life as he reflected on the Reformation, “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philipp and Amsdorf…. the Word did everything.”
Martin Luther was only doing what our Lord Jesus calls all of us to do in the gospel reading for Reformation Sunday. “If you continue in my word,” Jesus says to us, “you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” To be a disciple of Jesus is to continue in his word. It is to be a student of the Bible. It is to gladly hear and learn from the scriptures, holding them as authoritative, as the very word of God.
Scripture is the written word of God, but God doesn’t only give this word to us in book form. God also speaks his word to us as it is preached and proclaimed. God attaches his word to water in Holy Baptism, pouring his grace over us, joining us to Jesus and his saving work. God feeds us his word to us by putting it in bread and wine, the very body and blood of Christ, which we can taste and savor as we are renewed in his forgiveness. These are the treasures of forgiveness, life, and salvation given to us through Jesus Christ! These are the treasures that are to be on display in the church for all to see. These are the treasures that belong to God’s people, the treasures we are called to share with the world. These are the treasures that make people truly free – free from sin, free for a life with God.
Jesus exhorts us to continue in his word because he knows how easy it is for this word to be hidden, or lost, or stolen, or forgotten. This word is sometimes hidden by the church when it starts to focus on other things, particularly when it seeks prestige or popularity or power. It gets lost when the church gets its priorities mixed up, putting the cart before the horse. The word gets stolen when those called to deliver the goods of the gospel instead use their platform to tell you how to become righteous through your works – works which usually bear a striking resemblance to their own projects or agendas.
There has been a buzz on social media in these last frenzied days before the election where some have said, “If your pastor isn’t telling you how to vote in this election, they are cowards.” I don’t actually engage in these debates online, but if I did my response would be that any pastor who sets aside the gospel in order peddle influence or steer people’s votes one way or another is worse than a coward. They have abandoned their post, abused their office, and betrayed Christ.
But it isn’t just church leaders. This word is forgotten when all of us as God’s people forget what the real problem is. The real problem, as St. Paul puts it in our reading from Romans, is that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” I did a word study on the Greek word for all here, and it means ALL! All of us are in the same boat! None of us are righteous before God, and no amount of virtue signaling or moral preening can change this fact! The real problem, as Jesus puts it in our gospel reading, is that we are all slaves to sin.
We admit this just about every Sunday when we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves, but we seem to have a touch of spiritual amnesia from time to time. We are constantly forgetting the real problem! We are like those in the gospel reading who thought they were fine, who thought they didn’t need any help, who thought they didn’t need saving, that they didn’t need to be set free. “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone!” they said. Oh really? What about the time they were slaves to the Egyptians, or the Assyrians, or the Babylonians? Or how about the fact that they were arguably currently living as slaves to the Romans? The human capacity for self-deception, for self-justification, for self-righteousness is deep and pervasive – and we are all guilty of it.
God’s word tells us the truth about us. It relentlessly reminds us of the real problem, which is our bondage to sin. But that’s not the real treasure it contains. The accusation of the law is important. It is indeed God’s word to us. But it isn’t God’s last word, and so it is not the real treasure. The real treasure is the Good News of what God has done for us in Christ. As St. Paul writes in our second reading:
“…since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.”
This is the real treasure. We who have fallen short of the glory of God have been justified – brought into right relationship – by his grace as a gift. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. This is effective through faith, through trust in Christ’s work – not ours.
The real treasure is that the Son has made us free. He has freed us from our bondage to sin. He has freed us from our past regrets and our current brokenness. He has freed us from our fear, from our guilt and our shame and our anxious striving. He has freed us for a new life with him, a life steeped in forgiveness and the mercy of God. He has freed us for a life filled with peace and hope. He has freed us for a future with him that will have no end, a future where we will be freed at last from all suffering and from every lingering sin or struggle.
“If you continue in my word,” Jesus says, “you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” That’s the treasure. “If the Son makes you free,” Jesus promises, “you will be free indeed.” That’s the treasure.
Today we commemorate the posting of the 95 Theses, which sparked the Reformation. Today we give thanks for Martin Luther, the theological Indiana Jones who at great personal risk spelunked into the scriptures to bring back to us these treasures to put on display for all of us to enjoy. Above all, today we celebrate the true treasure of the church that is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God, which is given to you today through scripture, speech, and sacrament, so that you would be free indeed.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church