I. Luther’s Reformation
About 500 years ago there was a problem in the church. People did not have access to God’s word and basically took the church at their word. And people in power in the church took advantage of this. And Martin Luther entered into this story by seeing that the church was abusing its power and doing what he could to put an end to that abuse. Martin Luther didn’t want to break off from the Catholic Church, at least initially, he wanted to see that church reform and take back the truth that they had once held to.
But truths that seemed obvious to Luther as he studied scripture were not as obvious to those in charge and the Catholic Church decided that it wasn’t in need of reform. And therefore Luther broke off from the Catholic Church and began a pattern that has continued for 500 years that when people disagree with what the church says about something, they leave and start over.
I actually find this kind of sad. On the one hand, Luther’s complaints about the church were real and needed to be heard and the changes he suggested were changes that needed to be made. It was more than necessary for people to have access to Scripture in their own language so they could learn from it themselves instead of relying on others to tell them what it meant. And the horrible idea of indulgences, that you can buy forgiveness from your sins, is definitely something that needed to fall by the wayside. But it is sad that the church had to fracture. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could say that there is one church and we are all a part of it together? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could disagree about some of the things that the Bible talks about without feeling the need to exclude those around us because they don’t agree with us?
Luther brought reformation to the church, which it needed, but in the process he fractured the church. And I believe that there has to be a better way. The Covenant Church is also a church that separated from the church that went before it. It separated from the Lutheran church, specifically the Swedish Lutheran church. It separated from the Swedish Lutheran church because at the time Swedes were born Lutheran and you didn’t have to do much more than be born to consider yourself a Christian. The early Mission Friends believed that faith needed to be something more than this. They believed that the Swedish Lutheran Church had fallen away from truth much as Luther believed the Catholic Church had fallen away from truth. They believed that personal relationship with Jesus was necessary to faith and to religion. And again, they were right. Most Lutherans I know today would agree with that, just as most Catholics I know today agree that indulgences are wrong.
But one thing I love about the Covenant Church is that we don’t exclude others. We don’t try to teach that we are the only ones with access to truth. We see ourselves as a part of the bigger, greater church of God. And yet, as individuals, I fear that we sometimes forget this. I fear that we sometimes do think that we might have a tighter rein on truth than other churches around us. We might look down on them for their inaccuracies or problems. This is a dangerous place for us to go. This is not where reformation should lead.
II. Jesus’ Reformation
During his ministry, Jesus saw problems with the way that God’s people were worshipping God. He saw problems in their understanding of their faith and their practice of their religion and he was troubled by this. People were often too focused on following the letter of the laws instead of catching the truth behind the laws that God had given them.
It is funny because often when I hear people talk about the spirit behind a law they are doing so to explain why they did not choose to follow the law. They say that though they did not follow the letter of the law, their actions were in line with the spirit of it. Very few of us follow the letter of the law when it comes to driving the speed limit. But many of us will follow the spirit of that same law by being sure that we are driving safely and in control of our vehicle.
But when Jesus teaches people about following the spirit of the law, he doesn’t use this as an excuse to sin. No, the spirit of a law, for Jesus is more important and often harder to follow than the letter of that law. And the spirit behind all of God’s laws is to love God and love others. If you truly follow this way of life you will find yourself keeping God’s commandments in every way.
But this wasn’t the only problem that God’s people had in Jesus’ day; that they were too interested in being legalistic about God’s laws. They also weren’t worshipping right. In today’s scripture we see Jesus clearing out the temple with a whip. He is upset because he came to the temple hoping to find a place where people were worshipping God in truth and love and instead he found a marketplace. He was hoping that it would be a place where God was exalted but instead he found it to be a place where money and profit were exalted. Those in power, the religious leaders, instead of wanting to make God and worship available to everyone, were interested in figuring out how they could profit from the people’s faith. When people are trying to profit from other’s faith, there is a problem. This is obvious in today’s story, when Jesus saw people selling animals for sacrifice in the temple grounds. But it is also something that happens in other ways. Politicians on both sides of the isle use the faith of the voters to encourage them to vote for them. They are profiting from people’s religion. The Christian music industry has had the same problem. It started out being people who wanted to allow music to worship and serve God and in some places it has turned into a place where musicians can be discovered, their faith is serving their desire to be famous. They are profiting from their faith.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t allow people to make money in Christian enterprises. God put together a system in the Old Testament for the priests to be able to lead in worship without having to find other work so that they could dedicate their lives to him. But when our religion tries to combine with something else, one always ends up serving the other; be it money or politics or music or power. And unfortunately the case is that people head into the arena with the idea that power or politics or money will serve their faith and it gets turned around somehow and they end up selling out, not intentionally, not even realizing it sometimes, and their faith ends up being second to them after whatever else it is they are serving.
In his cleansing of the temple Jesus spoke very clearly against this. He made it clear that God’s house wasn’t to be a means to an end, but rather an end in itself. What is interesting is that later in the New Testament we are told that our bodies are temples to the Lord, that we are God’s house. When we realize this Jesus’ cleansing of the temple takes on a whole new meaning. By clearing out all that is turning the temple away from focusing on God, Jesus is showing what he does in each of us when we allow ourselves to be his temple. It’s a powerful image, and one we need to pay attention to; as individuals and as a church.
III. Reformation Today
You see, even though we have the Holy Spirit, for some reason the church and God’s people continue to get away from the truths that God has. In Jesus’ time it was related to money. People were using worship to make money. In Luther’s time part of the problem was also money. The church wanted to make money from their people and so came up with the horrible idea of indulgences. But money isn’t the only thing that has turned God’s people away from truth. People in power often do everything they can to hold on to it. And corruption happens.
The fact is that sin can be just as strong in and among God’s people and God’s church and we should be on guard to keep our church from getting off track. Reformation happened when Jesus tried to tell the people of his day how to worship God in truth. It happened 500 years ago when Martin Luther saw that the Catholic Church was heading the wrong direction. It happened 130 years ago when the Mission Friends saw that the Swedish Lutheran Church was only a husk of what it was supposed to be and formed their own denomination, the Covenant. And reformation happens today each and every time that God’s people stand up for truth instead of letting those in leadership over them tell them what to believe and how to worship.
Reformation has this protestant, old, sound to it. It sounds a bit stuffy, even. And we don’t always like to focus on the parts of our faith and our faith heritage that sound stuffy. But reformation is important in the church. It is the time when the church refocuses on what’s important. It is the time when the church gets back on track. It is the time when God’s people decide to be serious about following God in their worship and in their whole lives. And God’s people are in constant need of reformation. But perhaps we need to have a different term for it. Instead of calling it reformation, maybe we need to look at it as revival. Revival is when God’s people get back on track, back to the basics, back to loving God and loving others. Often when we think of revival, we think of tent meetings and we think of people becoming Christians. But that is not what revival is. Revival is when the church is revived. It is when those who are already Christians get on the right track, when they get back to what is important.
This is what Martin Luther wanted to see the church get back to in his day. This is so much what the early Mission Friends were about when they started meeting for their Bible studies. And this is what Jesus was about as he taught throughout Judea and Jerusalem and when he cleansed the temple, trying to get God’s people and their leaders back on track. This is what we are called to be about as well. And we need to look at ourselves and see if we are fulfilling the purpose that God has called us to. If we are, then that is wonderful and we need to continue on the path we are headed. But if we are not centered on loving God and loving others, then we need to have our temple cleansed, we need revival among ourselves, we need to be reformed into what God has called us to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment