(Note:
This blog entry is based on the text for “Reform School”, originally shared on October
29, 2021. It was the 161st video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of
Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
This coming Sunday is Reformation Day. Today,
we’re going to consider the way we get to heaven, how we live as Christians in
relation to our government, the meaning of work, and things that are just part
of our spiritual environment because of the things God did through Martin
Luther 504 years ago. And, we’re even going to find out why beer tastes the way
is does today.
Reformation
Day is always October 31st, the day in 1517 when Church reformer
Martin Luther began the Reformation by nailing 95 theses, or statements for
academic debate, regarding the corruption of the Church of his day to the door
of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany.
This was not an act of vandalism. The church
door was a public bulletin board and
notices were routinely nailed on it.
Was there
anything significant about October 31st that Luther
chose that day to nail the 95 Theses to the church
door? Why yes, there was.
All Saints Day, or All Hallows Day, is on November 1st. It’s a
day to celebrate all the Saints. A worship service was scheduled for the night
before, or All Hallows
Eve, later shortened to Halloween, and Luther knew that the church would be packed.
When Luther posted the 95 theses, the reaction was way beyond what he
expected. It set into motion events that changed the world.
Reformation Sunday is a celebration of our freedom. We are set free
from sin, death and the power of the devil by God. There won’t be any costumes or lawn decorations, no specially
themed movies or TV shows or
parties.
But, I don’t think
I’m exaggerating or engaging in a bit of Lutheran chauvinism here, when I say that we will celebrate
events that changed our lives. All of us.
A few years ago the History Channel asked its
viewers for their opinions of who
were the most influential
persons of the past 1,000 years. Martin Luther was second. Guttenberg and the invention of the printing press was first, and it’s
interesting that they both happened at about the same time.
Because he protested the abuses of the Roman Catholic church of his day,
Martin Luther was called a “protestant”. It wasn’t a very nice thing to call somebody
then. He was the first protestant. All other protestant churches followed
Luther’s witness.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. was born Michael King, and named his son
Michael King, Jr. But when the Senior Rev. King traveled to Germany for a
Baptist church conference in 1934, he was so impressed with Martin Luther that
he changed his name to Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. and his five year old son’s
to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther had been a
young man on the move. His father wanted him to be a lawyer and be rich, and
that’s where young Martin was heading.
Then, Luther was
walking across a field when he got caught in lightening storm. He prayed to his
saint, Saint Ann, as a good Catholic young man would, and said that if she
saved him from this storm that he would show his gratitude by becoming a monk.
He was not hurt and, much to his father’s
chagrin, he became an Augustinian monk.
The more he studied the scriptures, however,
the more Luther became absolutely convinced that he was
going to hell. Even when he spent an entire day praying, going to Mass and
reading to the Bible and coming to the end of the day and feeling good that at
least he had spent one day without sinning, he realized that he had committed the sin of Pride.
His superiors sent him to teach the Bible at
the University of Wittenberg. And in his preparation, he discovered
a verse where the Latin vulgate had been translated from the original
Greek “metanoia”, “to turn around” or “to repent”, into the Latin
“poenitentia”, or “to do penance”. That is, the Roman Catholic Church,
the Church in the West, was teaching that you could get into heaven by doing
good works, and not by repentance and faith, a change of heart which then
produced good works.
The Church had been
selling indulgences, which Luther believed to be in conflict with the
fundamental teaching of scripture that we are put right with God through faith,
through a gift of God’s grace. The Church
was raising money to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Indulgences
were a promise of time off from purgatory, that the Church had figured was a place for those
who weren’t bad enough for hell, but not good enough
to be in heaven. And, the Church said that the
Church could decide who could get out of purgatory. And the Church had decided
that a contribution to its building fund would be such a good work.
Doing penance meant you could do good stuff in this life to make up for the bad stuff. The Church was
selling indulgences. It promised that it would reward a good deed with time off from purgatory for yourself or a
loved one (‘cause you wouldn’t want Grandma to be in purgatory, would you?) by
buying that time off with a contribution. Luther looked to the witness of scripture
and said the whole idea of indulgences was not Biblical and was ridiculous.
Luther drew his beliefs on the nature of salvation from the Bible and
the Bible alone, from texts like Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, in Romans 1:16-17,
16 For I am not
ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has
faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For
in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is
written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
And Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, in Ephesians
2:8-9,
8 For by grace you
have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift
of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one
may boast.
And the Gospel of John, chapter 8, starting with the 33rd
verse,
33 They answered
him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What
do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34 Jesus answered
them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to
sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place
in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So
if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
On October 31st, he nailed 95 theses (plural
of thesis, as when a Ph.D. Student comes up with an original idea, or thesis,
that he/she must successfully defend in order to qualify
for his/her degree) to the doors of the church to argue against indulgences. He said
that, if the Church was in charge of Purgatory, the pope should let everybody
go to heaven out of pure Christian compassion, not for money.
He didn’t want to leave the Catholic church and he didn’t. He wanted to
reform it. He wanted to debate the idea of indulgences. The Church,
particularly the pope, who Luther saw as unnecessary, did not want to hear it.
Under trial for heresy, the punishment could
have included excommunication, imprisonment, torture, and death.
At the end of one of his trials, in Worms,
Germany, Luther was being tried before the head of the government, the Holy Roman emperor and was accused of being vague in his defense of his written
works. Luther replied,
“Since then your serene Majesty and your Lordships seek a simple
answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed. Unless I am
convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not
trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they
have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I
have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of
God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor
right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."
“My conscience is captive to the Word of God.” “It is neither safe nor
right to go against conscience.” That was Luther’s defense.
This may seem like a mild argument but to
those hearing it, or hearing of it, it was
mind-blowing.
Luther lived when the Church and its
teaching were everything and in everything. One of its teachings, in a time
when the Church and the State were almost indistinguishable, was that both the
pope and the emperor were put in their positions by God. To go against either
one was not to enter into a dialogue over a reasonable disagreement, but to go
against God.
It was seen as a revolutionary act.
I think that we can draw a
straight line from Luther’s idea that the individual is responsible for acting
on his or her own conscience, not the dictates of those in authority, to the
idea of democracy in the West.
Luther was convicted by the Church and declared a heretic
and by the Holy Roman Empire and declared an outlaw and, at one time, the pope declared that
anyone who murdered Luther would not be sinning.
Luther came along at the right time,
however. The German princes were promoting nationalism, a breaking-away from
the Holy Roman Empire, so they protected Luther. They figured that anything
that weakened the Roman church would weaken the Roman empire.
And,
the printing press had just been invented. Luther’s 95 theses were printed in
bulk and in two weeks were being read in Spain! That was viral media in those
days. Luther later published such a mountain
of work that there are now 61 volumes of “Luther’s Works” published in English,
with more releases planned through at least 2026
And, in the course of the Reformation,
Luther brought in revolutions.
Does your congregation sing during worship?
Thank Martin Luther. He brought in congregational singing, which had previously
been done by monks.
He declared the
freedom of priests to marry, something for which I am grateful.
Can you read the Bible? Luther translated the Bible into German, the language of the people, and for
the first time in 1,000 years, people could read the Bible in their own
language, not Latin, the language of the educated which were at the time pretty
much only priests. Principles of translation he invented are still in use
today.
Luther recovered the Biblical good news of salvation by faith alone,
through grace alone (not by our efforts), revealed by the Bible alone and not
by human authority.
Luther taught that God ruled the world through two kingdoms, the kingdom
of this world so that governments are to be measured by what God is calling
them to do, and through the Kingdom of God at work in the Church, to be
measured by w hat God is calling it to do.
Luther taught that every form of legitimate work had value and dignity,
that every person has a vocation, a calling, and that none is holier or more
valued than another.
Luther even reformed beer. The Roman Catholic church taxed the herbs and
botanicals that had been used to brew beer, and some people in Germany had
already been using hops in protest. Luther promoted the use of hops as a
superior alternative and so contributed to the way beer tastes and is preserved
today.
Today we say that the Church is always reforming. It is in no less
need of reformation than it was in 1517. It constantly needs to be called to
scripture alone as the only source of our belief and conduct, to teach
salvation through faith alone through God’s grace alone.
This week, I recommend that we spend some time in “Reform School”. This is
a good week to read a book or do an online search for something about the
Reformation and what has given to us and to the world. Even better, in the
spirit of the Reformation, spend some time reading the Bible. And consider what
in the Church needs reforming today.
Consider what it means
for us to say, “my
conscience is captive to the Word of God” and resolve to live by it.
Jesus has set us free, so we are free indeed!
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