Actual Homily for Reformation Sunday

Reformation Sunday
October 31, 2010
John 8, 31-36

St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Tallahassee, FL

The prophet Jeremiah, as we have just heard in the first lesson, would have us know that God is at work in our hearts, imprinting on them both the divine image and the divine will, transforming us more and more, as St. Paul would later say, into the image of Christ. It’s this divine work in us that we call grace.
And yet, for all God’s grace at work in us, we still find ourselves missing the mark, disfiguring the divine image imprinted in our hearts. We fail to live and love as Christ in the world. This is the painful reality we call sin.
Then comes a moment when grace wins out, when we recognize our weakness and turn again to God. When this happens to individuals, we call it conversion. When it happens to the whole church, we call it reformation. And neither, my brothers and sisters, is a onetime event.
In the 16th Century, the University of Wittenburg was probably an important center of learning within what would eventually become Germany, but it was no Oxford or Sorbonne. It is unlikely that any of us would have ever heard of it had it not been for young Augustinian friar, Martin Luther. Luther’s struggle, both academic and spiritual, with the mystery of grace and sin brought about in him a gradual conversion. In Luther’s case, his personal conversion experience eventually lead to reformation and the Church was changed forever.
To suggest, however, that the reformation of the Church was completed 500 years ago is to seriously miss the point. In celebrating Reformation Sunday today, October 31, 2010, we stand together as individuals in need of conversion and as a church still very much in need of reform.
Conversion and/or reformation come about as a result of an encounter with, as we just heard in today’s Gospel, the truth that sets us free. And so, we must ask with Pilate: “What is truth?”
There’s a church on a street that I often use when driving to St. Stephen from my home. The thing I’ve found most notable about this church for the last year or so is its never changing marquee sign which announces that this particular congregation is: “Proclaiming the truth, verse by verse”. The underlying claim made by this statement is that the truth consists of words on paper in a book we call “the book” – the bible. The Gospel of John teaches us something quite different.
In the beginning was the Word. John wants his readers to know from the outset that words on a page have been replaced by a living Word who has become human in the person of Jesus Christ. Our Gospel passage for today takes that logic a step further by identifying the “truth” with the person of Jesus – the Son of God. The “truth” will set you free. The “Son” sets you free. They are one and the same. Later in the Gospel, Jesus says of himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Finally, when Pilate asks Jesus “what is truth”, Jesus remains silent. He answers, not with words but with actions. He answers with his dying and rising. The truth, then, can ultimately be found in Jesus Christ, dead and risen. To equate Holy Scripture with “the Truth” is to mistake the map for the destination. That, my brothers and sisters is idolatry.
The truth will set you free. Our encounters with Jesus Christ lead us to conversion and reformation. Authentic conversion and reformation lead to freedom.
Conversion is what we are about when we face the font and acknowledge our sinfulness every Sunday. The truth of our sin convicts us even while the truth of grace and forgiveness empowers us to turn around. We actually turn and follow the cross as a sign of our interior turning. While never complete in our lifetimes, this series of conversions has a cumulative effect and we are transformed, as St. Paul also said, from one level of glory to the next.
But what about reformation? That’s a much harder one to pull off. Like conversion, it is ultimately God’s doing. That’s the first and most important thing to remember.

As I said before, Wittenburg was hardly the European center of intellectual and spiritual ferment. Luther himself, while in many ways quite brilliant, was a very flawed vessel. Yet, despite his very human flaws, he was the vessel God chose to jump start the desperately needed reform of the Church.
Most of us share neither Luther’s gifts nor his flaws but God does, in fact call us to be reformers as well. We do not need to be a certain age, on the church council, ordained, have advanced theological degrees or be eloquent speakers. We need only, like St Paul once again, to know Christ Jesus, and him crucified. We need only find ourselves in the position of having to say with Luther, here I stand I can do no other. Apparently, and perhaps even thankfully, God only calls forth a Martin Luther once in a great while. The reformations I am talking about are generally on a much smaller scale then the one that began on October 31, 493 years ago. They are, however, no less important.
I can’t even pretend to know what God has in store for St. Stephen Lutheran Church, the Florida/Bahamas Synod, the ELCA or the church universal. The only thing I can say for certain is that reform is always necessary. Our congregation, our synod, our churchwide bodies and the church catholic are all in need of occasional course corrections – many small but others much larger. In the future we, as Lutherans within the ELCA, will continue to be challenged by the meaning of full inclusion, the choices we make with regard to finances and other resources, and our relationships with other Christian and non-Christian people of faith as well as the larger secular culture. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. I will make a plug here for the vicar program and say that our being a place where a future pastor’s faith and gifts are nurtured is a way in which we as individuals and as a community have an effect on the church far beyond what we might be able to imagine.
The truth who is Jesus Christ stands before us to reveal all in our ecclesial institutions that is not of him. We, through the process of our own individual and collective conversions are equipped to stand before our institutions and the people who lead them and call them to account when such is required. As Luther would no doubt confirm, such stances are not always easy nor immediately effective, but grace always win the day. It is not an idea or even an ideal that gives us the courage to act. It is only the Spirit of Jesus Christ who makes such things possible. The truth will set us free.
As a former Roman Catholic, who still very much loves the church of his birth, I have long had an uneasy relationship with Reformation Sunday. I have sometimes felt like the child of divorced parents hearing one speak poorly of the other. For that reason I am particularly pleased to have been asked by Pastor Marda to preach today. When I joined St. Stephen, I made a commitment to myself that I would become a Lutheran not only in word but in deed. That’s a process that still continues. Today, I am able to celebrate with all of you the good news that we have each been called, in our own way, to join Luther as reformers of the Church insofar as we are also open to the ongoing need for personal conversion. Both accomplished in faith by grace. And to know that I can bring my Roman Catholic theological training to the task of ongoing reformation through a homily like this, would no doubt make Luther smile.

Here I stand with you, I can do no other. Here we stand, we can do no other.
Praised be Jesus Christ, both now and forever. Amen.