This is not the Reformation Sunday we expected. We expected a bustling energy in those moments before A Mighty Fortress opened with trumpet resounding. We expected our community, sitting around us, clad in red. We expected, perhaps, a joyous rendition of the Reformation Polka. Normally, on this day, I tell a heroic story of Martin Luther, of a conscience captive to the Word of God, a declaration of “here I stand; I can do no other.” Normally, I lift up the grace of God Luther discovered in the pages of the New Testament and how Luther courageously worked to unravel the corruption of the 16th century church in Germany. Normally, we rejoice in the Spirit of God that brought new life to the church and set us on a trajectory that leads us here, to 1124 N 3rd Street in Phoenix, to today, October 25, 2020. And while Luther’s triumphant story is still true and we still sing A Mighty Fortress with trumpet accompaniment, this is not the Reformation Sunday we expected. On this Reformation Sunday, in this year of pandemic, divisive election, and controversial protests against racism, it occurs to me that our Reformation story of years past is not the only way to tell the story.
Despite his status as a monk and priest, Martin Luther agonized over his sins. When university student Martin Luther began reading the New Testament in its original Greek, he discovered a gracious God. A God who upended the claims of those church leaders who sold indulgences to people who wanted to escape a wrathful God, sales that provided a hefty sum to build St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. Compelled by the grace of God, in 1517, Luther nailed 95 theses that critiqued the sale of indulgences to the door of the Wittenberg Castle. He did so as a faithful servant of the church. He did not mean to start a revolution. Indeed, throughout his life, Luther aimed to make the Roman Catholic Church more faithful, more true to the spirit of Jesus, not start a new church altogether. We rightly celebrate his courage for he did not back down from his pioneering theological claims even when facing cardinals, a prince, a duke, and even the pope. He was excommunicated, declared a heretic, and escaped being burned at the stake only by a legal technicality. After the Diet of Worms where Luther refused to recant his heretical writings, the king issued an edict that rendered Luther and his followers, the Lutherans, political outlaws. Fortunately, Frederick, a local civic leader, delivered Luther to the safety and seclusion of Wartburg Castle. Nearly a year later, Luther rejoined society, but when he and others attempted to put reforms into practice, riots and protests erupted. While we may treasure and chiefly remember the theological claims of Martin Luther, his life and work entailed more than Bible study. He was a political dissident, a man wanted, one who found safety in disappearance for his call to reform was unpopular among those in power. By the grace of God, Luther survived those years and is now understood as a major force in the development of western history. But day to day life for Martin Luther was dicey, uncertain, uncomfortable. Embroiled in controversy and no stranger to hardship, Luther found hope in the grace of God poured out for him, in God’s freely given favor towards him. He was not sentenced by a wrathful God nor fighting for God’s favor. In hardship and struggle, Luther clung to God’s grace.
In this unusual year, one that will go down in history as surely as Luther’s life and work did, we are likely uncomfortable and impatient for a return to whatever “normal” will mean now. We are likely grieving and maybe even despairing. Like Luther, our lives are at stake. In a time of real difficulty, the grace of God we celebrate today is not simply a compelling story nor a neat doctrine. The grace of God leads us into a different kind of life, a different way of being in a world short on hope and long on misery. The grace of God does not stamp out the practical difficulties of these days; it may not eliminate our sorrow or even our fear. But confident of God’s grace, we rest assured we are not alone. Because God is for us, nothing in all creation can overcome us. God who is our mighty fortress sends the Spirit to defend us, sends us gifts of the Spirit to empower us, sends the people of God to walk with us. In his commentary on Galatians, Luther wrote: “We find no rest for our weary bones unless we cling to the word of grace.”
Our question of the day is: What is one way you have received god’s grace in your life? Read the Facebook feed from Sunday, October 25 to see the community’s reflection.
I have received God’s grace through so many different people who patiently allow for my mistakes and, most recently, my physical limitations. Just the other day, I met a friend for tea. She came into the tea shop and me, with my weary, gory, painful knees, didn’t get up to greet her but remained seated. With our tea in hand, we left the shop and sat outside. We hadn’t seen each other in months, not just because of the pandemic but because she had traveled to another state to care for her father in the last months of his life and finally to bury him. How are you doing, we both asked each other. Okay. Just okay. Of course, we each listened to each other and each spoke at length about what we’re thinking and how we’re growing and what we’re learning and where we’re finding hope these days. No pretense, no particular words were necessary. It wasn’t just that my friend, by the Holy Spirit, offered me grace and that I offered her grace—although she did and I did too. We felt held by grace, by an easiness, by a love that does not make demands prior to acceptance.
When Luther said, “We find no rest for our weary bones unless we cling to the word of grace,” he was speaking from a place of knowing weariness in real time. On this Reformation Sunday, in a time, again, when the weariness is real, God’s good news for us discovered in the pages of the New Testament is the same for us as it was for Luther: God finds favor with us, accepts us, loves us, not because of anything we’ve done or not done but simply because God is gracious. In that, we find rest. Thanks be to God! Amen.