REFORMATION SUNDAY Study
REFORMATION SUNDAY 10-25-2020
FIRST READING: Jeremiah 31:31-34
He was God’s reluctant messenger. He often felt frightened and insecure. He sometimes thought that God had deceived him, he even regretted that God had allowed him to be born. And it was so difficult to speak God’s word of judgment to people that didn’t want to hear it. But Jeremiah burned with a message and couldn’t stop himself from preaching it even when he tried. His message for most of his ministry? With God’s approval, the savage Babylonians would come and conquer the Jewish nation of Judah. Alliances with other nations would not help. And neither would half-hearted religion. Judah’s only hope would be in renewing its covenant relationship with the living God. But they wouldn’t willingly choose that.
In today’s reading Jeremiah speaks of a “NEW” covenant that will be enacted in the future that will follow punishment and exile at God’s hands. It will be an earthly, not a heavenly, phenomenon. It will include both the “northern” (Israel) and the “southern” (Judah) kingdoms of God’s people, a repopulation of the land, a rebuilding of Jerusalem, a promise given to a defeated and dispirited people in exile. In this “NEW” covenant, the law (God’s nature, God’s will) remains as the foundation of the relationship. But it will be written upon the heart of every person, no longer a written Torah to be read and studied and memorized. They will all have an inner knowledge of the Lord, and the Lord will make forgiveness and forgetfulness – “remember their sin no more” – the ground of this “NEW” covenant.
The book of Hebrews (see 8:8-12) quotes this passage in explaining why Christians no longer live by Old Testament regulations. The written law was useful and God-given. But, as the history of biblical Israel proved, it didn’t have the power to change inner attitudes. Something more was needed. God would have to change the people from the inside out, putting his law into their hearts through the Holy Spirit. Christians often speak of themselves as “new covenant” people of faith.
But, then again, we might wonder if this promise has ever been fully fulfilled, either from a Jewish or a Christian perspective. Wouldn’t it be a joyous blessing if everyone – “from the least to the greatest”, whatever class or status or age or any other distinction – knew the Lord in a personal, intimate way… lived humble and grateful and loving?
Which covenant are you living under: Law or grace? What would it take… and what would it mean… for your life to be shaped by God’s love? God’s new covenant is abiding love written on the hearts of the people.
SECOND READING: Romans 3:19-28
Paul’s words stand at the heart of the preaching of Martin Luther and other leaders of the Reformation. Two great truths are highlighted in this scripture and remembered today.
Truth #1: All of us are caught in sin, all of us experience the effects of sin, both our own sin and this fallen and broken world. Make excuses, pretend all you want, try to be as good as you can… deep down you know it. Not a single one of us perfectly lives up to the vision that God has for us. We just can’t. The entire world is doomed to spiritual judgment and death. Unless a cure can be found.
Truth #2: God loves us greatly in spite of our shortcomings, in spite of our sin. Sin does not have the final word, and neither does our physical death. We are brought into right relationship with God through the divine activity centered in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
God’s living Word breaks into our lives with judgment and mercy, and the aim is to set us for something much better than the tired old ways – free for faithful living and fervent loving. It is God’s grace, given in Christ, that liberates us from sin and empowers our faith. Jesus Christ is the cure, Jesus Christ is the answer to all of sin’s destruction in every person’s life. Maybe you sense it. Maybe you want more. Maybe that’s why you show up in worship each week. Do you want to be free?
GOSPEL READING: John 8:31-36
Jesus was speaking in Jerusalem to some of his Jewish followers. He spoke of truth and of freedom as spiritual realities that could be known and experienced through his word, and he encouraged them to continue to be his “disciples” (students) studying and practicing his word. But those followers focused on what it meant to be a descendent of Abraham, and they mistakenly said that they had never been “slaves to anyone”. That, of course, was not really true as a historical physical reality. As they speak, for instance, they are still under Roman rule. And their history included many chapters of being oppressed by others.
But Jesus is actually describing a different type of enslavement – the slavery to sin. And he is offering deliverance from sin’s clutches… freedom to live as God’s grateful, loving child in the family, in the household, of God. The transformation is from “slaves to sin” to “children of God”.
The concept of freedom is one of the most treasured and debated ideas in the United States (and other democracies). Our nation is often lifted up as the “land of the free”. But then we engage in debates about voting rights, freedom of speech, a woman’s right to choose, gun laws, and multiple other issues. And just witness how we have even politicized the wearing of face masks (as well as other social distancing regulations and guidelines) during this COVID-19 pandemic as infringements upon our personal liberty and autonomy. Sometimes it seems that we are most concerned about what seems individually “right for me” – what I want, what I like, what I need, what I think, what I desire, what I experience, what I believe.
But Jesus is actually speaking about something different from personal independence and freedom to do as we please. He is speaking about a faith relationship with him that continues, that forgives us and nurtures us, that shapes and empowers our daily living, and that delivers us from the power of sin and the finality of death. He embodies this freedom and has offered it to us.
Are you free? Do you want to be free?
THE REFORMATION
On All Hallow’s Eve 1517, Father Martin Luther walked across the main square of the small town of Wittenberg to nail his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church. He had previously sent a copy to the primate of Germany, Archbishop Albert of Mainz.
Both a priest and a professor, Luther was protesting the preaching of the Jubilee Indulgence proclaimed by Pope Leo X to raise revenue for the building of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In Wittenberg, All Saints’ Day (November 1 on the calendar) included a special viewing of the Castle Church’s huge collection of holy relics that numbered 17,433 and included such items as nine thorns from Christ’s crown, thirty-five splinters of the true cross, straw from the manger, one piece of Jesus’ swaddling clothes, one piece of bread from the Last Supper, one vial of milk from the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so on. Viewing the relics for a monetary contribution and the promises of indulgences raised a lot of money. But Luther’s Ninety-five Theses challenged these practices and offered to participate in debate about the time-honored sale of indulgences. Indulgences were a form of deliverance of time that ordinary people would have to spend in purgatory after death until their ultimate future was decided. The deliverance came from a sort of spiritual treasury consisting of the spiritual merits of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the few very holy saints who had gone directly to heaven upon death. Purchases of the merits of others could shorten someone else’s time in purgatory.
The Reformation was underway. Luther argued that this practice “made out of God a merchant, who would give the Kingdom of Heaven not freely, out of grace, but for money and human achievement.” Indulgences were, for Luther, just part of a bigger problem: the common belief that good works bring about human salvation without God’s grace. His own answer was simple: Human beings are saved by God’s grace alone through faith. We are saved on account of Christ’s death and resurrection. We receive this gift with gratitude and trust.