Sunday of the Reformation
October 25, 2009
Romans 3:19-28
“Something must be Dane!” These were Martin Luther’s words as he struggled with the teachings and practices of his church. It was the sixteenth century. The medieval church had lost it vision. It saw the gospel, not as the good news of God’s unconditional love given in Jesus Christ, but as a way to participate and therefore cooperate with God in seeking the fulfillment of one’s life. The church’s vision was that Christ was in the past tense – he was a treasure source of merit for us.
For example, there are two great concerns common to all of us. One is that we are trapped by our guilt. None of us can escape the trap of guilt, because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, as we heard in our second reading from Romans. How then am I ever made right with God? Will God ever forgive me?
The second great concern we have is that we are threatened by despair. Is this all there is to life? Is meaninglessness my only fulfillment in life?
The medieval church’s answer to these soul-wrenching questions was a whole list of cultural and religious works that promised the recipient that their life would be fulfilled by Christ. However, believers needed to cooperate with him. There was a list of things that God really wishes the believers to do: special prayers were to be prayed; pilgrimages were to be made to Rome; they were to be kind to animals, be generous to the poor, and be against war and injustice. Also on the list was to believe in God. This was the most potent one for as a favor to Jesus, God has decided to let us off the list if we will do just this one. Believing became a work.
However, under such a system an awful question hung over the believers of the sixteenth century. Will God enable me to cooperate? Am I one of his elect to find fulfillment? Am I worth God’s doing or being anything at all?
The Reformation discovery and insight was that the radical question about us can only be answered by an unconditional affirmation. The message about Jesus is that He, the Crucified One, lives for us. This affirmation is unconditional, for it is in the name of the one who already has death behind him and whose love can therefore be stopped by nothing. As Luther usually put it, Jesus dies in order that his will to give himself to us might be a “last will and testament,” and so be subject to no further challenges.
If we are trapped by guilt or threatened by despair, the gospel proclaims, “Because the Crucified One lives as Lord, your destiny is good.” The gospel is a wholly unconditional promise of the human fulfillment of its hearers, made by the narrative of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
When Luther and other members of the church took their ordinary life problems to the constituted religious agencies, and did what they were supposed to do, they found no solutions. The medieval church was a church that lost Christ as its center. Christ and the Gospel message were considered things from the past; therefore, the church was not looking forward. Focusing on the past, the medieval church had no vision of the future. Something had to be Dane.
We are a church of the reformation. Christ, the Crucified One lives in all that we do here at First Lutheran Church. We are worth God’s doing. His affirmation of us is unconditional. His love for us is his “last will and testament.”
Therefore, we look to the future and in doing so we must ask the question: “What is the vision and mission of First Lutheran Church as it continues its life and ministry into the 21st century?” This is a very difficult question to ask but also a very important question. It is one of those “something needs to be Dane” questions. How we answer this question determines the future of our congregation.
The Congregation Council and the Priority Committee consider this question so vitally important that they have contracted with Dan Hotchkiss, a senior consultant from The Alban Institute to provide the necessary leadership that we can answer this question fully and most beneficially. Established in 1974 The Alban Institute is a church consulting firm working under the motto of “Building Up Congregations and Their Leaders.”
Next Saturday from 9:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon, Mr. Hotchkiss will be leading a retreat for the members of the congregation council, those nominated for the council in 2010 and the priority committee. The main question of the consultation process is where is the Crucified One, the living Jesus, calling First Lutheran of Carlisle to be and to do in the decades to come? This process will raise some challenges, poise some hard choices and require some difficult decisions. The consultation is our Reformation, our time of Renewal. From it we will receive our new vision that will be the future in which the living Christ affirms us here in this time and place.
Reformation Sunday 2009 begins our time to see Christ living among us and to have the vision of where He is leading us. Pray for Dan Hotchkiss, the council, the priority committee and for the consultation process. Jesus Christ, the Crucified One, is alive and with us. He has affirmed us unconditionally that we may look ahead to where He is leading us. This is our “Something needs to be Dane” time.