Reformation Sunday - October 26, 2008

In honor of the Reformation, a brief clip from Luther (2003): Luther preaching in Wittenburg quite a while before he posts the 95 Theses, unintentionally starting the whole thing off with a bang... this clip is a good summary of Luther's move from believing in a God of condemnation to a God of love




And now the sermon...

The Son Sets Us Free
John 8:31-36
Reformation Sunday – October 26, 2008


“Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.”

We've all heard it, most of us have probably said it – but somebody shoulda told the people Jesus was speaking to in the gospel today. From their history and world geography lessons, these Jews who believed in Jesus would've known about the Nile River, but they were blind to the fact that they were living in denial.

Because when Jesus is talking to them and says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” they come right back at him. “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?”

His listeners were in denial. Political denial, for 1 thing, for they certainly had been slaves – for generations in Egypt, and then during the exile to Babylon, and even now, as this conversation is going on, Roman forces occupy and rule their land; they cannot rule themselves. But more than that, they were in spiritual denial too, blind to the fact that they are enslaved to sin. They couldn't see the truth right in front of them, that they were captives to their sinful selves, the part of them that turns away from God, the part that declares independence from the one who gave them life.

No, denial ain't just a river in Egypt. And somebody oughta tell us - because we live in a state of denial too. If someone were to come along and tell you that you are a slave, what would your reaction be? My guess is that we would deny it right away. Perhaps we would say with the people in this story, “We have never been slaves to anyone!” We live in America, the land of the free. Liberty is one of our unalienable rights. Freedom is our birthright.

But despite all our talk about freedom in this great land of ours, I ask you today, when was the last time that you felt really and truly free? Really, take a minute and think about when you last felt free.

Can you answer that question quickly, or do you need even more time to think, to comb through recent & distant memory to find an example of freedom? We are all walking around enslaved to something, but the fact is, we are so used to it, it is so much a part of “normal” for us that we don't even recognize we are living in slavery until we stop to think about those times when we have felt free – and we suddenly realize that most of the time we don't. Every week in church, we confess our sin to God – we confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves, but do any of us ever stop to think about what that means? Do we stop to consider what is holding us captive? Original sin, yes – the self-centeredness that makes us think we are God, that we are should be in control, but our specific sins too – our greed, our idolatries, our fears, our busy-ness that has spun out of control?

Martin Luther it seems, did not live in denial. He knew he was enslaved. He was captured by his fear of God, a God who he believed was angry and filled with wrath, ready to punish even the most minor sin, a God who needed to be appeased by human acts before God could or would forgive. Luther was a slave to his attempts to get right with God on his own, and to his knowledge that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to do enough or be repentant enough to earn God's forgiveness. Luther knew he was trapped, and he longed to be set free, wrestling for years trying to find a way out.

But finally, Luther rediscovered the truth of the gospel, a truth that had been muted for so many years - the truth that God's love and forgiveness cannot be earned, but come to us as a gift by grace through faith in Jesus! Even as Luther wrestled with the voices of his own fear and guilt, he was encouraged by his spiritual mentor to continue in Christ's word – to study the New Testament, to pray, to seek the face of Christ, the one who had lived and died for him. And there in the words of the gospels, in the witness of Paul's writings, like those we heard today from his letter to the church in Rome, the truth was revealed to Luther, and Christ is truth. As he studied the words written in the Bible, Luther came face to face with the Word, with a capital “W” - Christ himself. The beginning of the gospel of John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and lived among us...” (John 1:1, 14). And from this very personal Word, Luther learned the truth that even though he was a sinner, God loved him anyway, loved him with a love so deep and so strong that God sent the Son to set him free.

It was a truth so powerful that it changed the world. It sent Luther to pound his 95 Theses on the Wittenburg Door on October 31, 1517, when he saw the wrongs being done in the name of God and could no longer keep silent. It was the truth that compelled him to speak out, to dare to call for conversation and debate about the practice of selling indulgences, a practice that taught that God's love and forgiveness could be bought & sold, a practice that played on and profited from the fears of the people. It was the truth that sparked a revolution, as people were set free to search for God's truth in their own lives, to find God in the words of scripture translated into their own language, to learn to know God personally, as the God of love who longs to be in relationship with each of us.

This is the truth the Bible speaks to us today, the truth that will make us free. It is the truth that calls us to stop living in denial and face who we really are, to admit to God and to ourselves that we are sinners, and then reminds us that we accepted by God anyway, just as we are. It is the truth that assures us that we are justified – made right with God – not because of the things we do or the things we keep ourselves from doing, but because of God's grace, God's undeserved, unmerited love. It is the truth that the Son has come to set us free from our enslavement to sin – free from those things that keep us from God, free to be transformed by God's love into the people God created us to be.

God's word, both the words of scripture written down in the Bible, and Jesus, the Word incarnate, together invite us to step into freedom, to walk with Jesus in the way of discipleship. It calls us to live in the world as free people, no longer bound by fear or anger or regret, but people who live joyfully and boldly because we know we have been given a permanent place in the household. It encourages us to be courageous in confronting the wrongs we see in the world, speaking the truth to power, unafraid of the consequences. People of God, the Son has set us free – let us live in that freedom and share the Good News, so that all may be made free!

Amen.