Sermon Text

October 26, 2008
REFORMATION SUNDAY

ONE FOOT IN THE FUTURE
John 8:31-36

Today is Reformation Sunday, and in Protestant churches around the world, Christians are remembering their Reformation heritage; giving thanks for saints like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Jan Hus, John Knox, William Farel, and Theodore Beza; and celebrating the ways in which their present is shaped and enriched by their past.

But these celebrations will fall short without the recognition that our church, while Reformed, is constantly in need of reformation. It is an essential matter for us, because from our earliest beginnings, we have affirmed “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda,” the Church reformed and always being reformed, according to the Word of God under the leading of the Holy Spirit. Who we have been has led us to who we are, but who we will become remains, by God's grace, open. We live in the present, with one foot in the past and the other foot in the future. On this day, of all days, we should celebrate all three. But first, I have to tell you a story.

1. The Past

On the day called All Hallows’ Eve, October 31, 1517, crowds of visitors were streaming in and out of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Displayed in that church were a large number of religious relics, and many pilgrims visited the shrine on the eve of All Saints’ Day to see them.

By adoring the over 5,000 relics displayed there on that day, a person could receive over 1,400 years of freedom from the cleansing fires of Purgatory. Among the relics (believe it or not!) were: a piece of the Burning Bush of Moses, 9 thorns from the crown on Jesus' head, 35 fragments of the cross, and bits of the body and dress of the Virgin Mary.

A little before noon, a monk dressed in the black cowl of the Order of St. Augustine walked up to the North Entrance of the church. His stature was not arresting, but he had the blazing eyes of a fiery spirit. His name was Martin Luther, a minor official in a nearby monastery and a Professor of Bible at the local University. The North Door of the church was used as a kind of community bulletin board, and Luther nailed on it a printed placard containing 95 propositions for debate within the Roman Church, a kind of academic thing to do.

And so, the Reformation was born. Luther was not prepared for the decree of excommunication he eventually received from the Pope, nor for the widespread acclaim he received from the people who agreed with his stand. The movement spread rapidly across Europe, and it endures in many forms in the world today.

We can thank the Reformation for reminding us of the centrality of Scripture, the sufficiency of God's grace received by faith, and of each individual's access to God within the context of the believing community. On the other side, the Reformation was, in some ways, a reactionary movement, and caused the fragmentation of the Christian Church in Europe, which had already been separated from the Orthodox Christians of the East for 500 years. These divisions also remain with us today, for better or worse.

2. The Present

For us Presbyterians, almost everything we are can be traced somehow to those events of 4½ centuries ago. Our form of government, our basic beliefs, our ways of worship, and our views of Scripture all stem in some way from the Reformation. The fact that our worship service for today, while based on patterns over 400 years old, differs so little from our normal Sunday worship, is a powerful witness to the truth that those reformers recovered.

But we are not just a people of the past. We are just as much, if not more so, a people of the present. Our form of government, beliefs, and worship have all been refined and changed over the years, and they have even changed considerably in recent memory. There is no one here who would remember (or want!) sermons in the style of the reformers, which usually lasted somewhere between 3 and 4 hours! A few of us may remember the reason for having worship at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning. It grew out of the requirements of morning farm chores, time to travel on foot, horseback, or by buckboard to the church for services and lunch on the grounds, and a trip back home while there was still enough light for evening chores to be completed. A few of us here may still remember the tradition of the “communion token,” a sign that you had gone through a process of personal, individual confession with your minister or an elder before seeking admission to the Lord's Table on Sunday. Many of us here can remember the time when it would have been shocking enough to have a woman leading in public worship, let alone one dressed in a pulpit robe and wearing the yoke of ordination to the Ministry of the Word and Sacrament!

But things are different today. Just as our world has changed in some drastic ways in the last few generations, so our Church has changed, too, although in most cases not drastically! (In some cases, some of us would say, not drastically enough!) We Presbyterians are renewing our acquaintance with our Reformed roots, but we are also renewing our acquaintance with roots that extend back before the Reformation, and even before the split that occurred in the 11th century between western and eastern Christians. We are looking at our world in different ways, and our missionaries no longer seek to carry Christianized western culture with them to foreign lands, but to help new hearers of the gospel story to receive God's Word in forms they can understand.

The tolerance of Christians for other Christians that has finally grown out of the intolerances of the Reformation has issued in an ecumenical spirit of cooperation and kinship among the Protestant churches, and also with Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. We also open ourselves to relationships with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Bahais, and many more. Where once we emphasized our differences, now we emphasize our similarities, without compromising the unique contributions each group can make to our common mission.

3. The Future

But, as I said earlier, it isn't enough just to celebrate how our past has brought us to where we are now. We also celebrate the fact that we always have one foot in God’s future. A baptism, such as we celebrated last Sunday, is a uniquely eloquent sign of that reality. In baptism, we affirm the ancient covenant that God established with us in grace. It is the promise contained in baptism that, by God’s grace, the Church has a future. It’s true, we can’t see into that future, but we can be confident that God will be present with us in it. The sign in all our baptisms is that God isn’t through with us yet. Many of us here won’t be around when little Kyriana, who was baptized last Sunday, is old enough to bring her own child to receive this Sacrament of grace and welcome, but our participation in this Sacrament today affirms our confident prayer that that wonderful day will come, and that the message of God’s grace and love will be passed on to yet another generation of God’s people.

Reformation Sunday -- and particularly one occurring as the culmination of Stewardship Season -- impels us to look to the future. It reminds us that we have a stake in that future, for ourselves and for future generations, and it calls us to plan and provide for that future now.

At this time of year, we are reminded once again that the commitment of our time, talent, and treasure to the church is a sign, an indication, of our faith in God, and of our orientation toward God's future. The commitments that we will make in a few minutes will allow our officers to plan for our future, and not just to take it a day at a time. Our commitments will point to our belief that our God is Lord of the future, and that God calls us to join in creating and shaping that future. And our commitments will make possible a renewed and expanded ministry for this church, as we seek to eliminate the indebtedness that encumbers our ministries. With a generous giving of time, talent, and treasure by all of us, our ministry together, to our community and to our world, will be amazingly and wonderfully enhanced.

4. Conclusion

St. Philip Presbyterian Church has an exciting outlook for the future. We are growing and changing, seeking to respond to our present and future needs, and to minister to the needs of our community and our world. We look to the future with faith and hope, certain that as God has been with us in the past and remains with us in the present, God awaits us in the future.

Over the coming year, in fellowship and eating together, in worship and Sunday School classes, in Bible studies and ministries of caring and outreach, I invite you to discover with me and with others what God will do with and through us in 2009. It promises to be an exciting adventure! Won't you place one foot in the future, and come along?