I was asked to write this column in celebration of the 500th
anniversary of the Reformation because I am a Lutheran pastor and the beginning
of the Reformation movement is measured by the actions of Martin Luther. According to the traditional story, on
October 31, 1517, the Augustinian friar posted his 95 Theses on the door
of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
He was hoping to begin a debate on the question of the sale and abuse of
indulgences, a means which the Roman Catholic Church offered the faithful to
reduce the amount of one’s punishment for sin.
In Luther’s time, the sale of indulgences was being used to fund the
rebuilding of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Luther
believed that, based on scripture, the grace of God could not be bought, sold
or earned and that, by sparking a discussion, the Roman Catholic Church would
reform from the inside. Instead, his
actions led to his excommunication from the Roman church and the beginnings of
myriad Protestant traditions. If you are
part of a Christian church that is something other than Roman Catholic or some
form of Eastern Orthodox, you can likely trace your religious heritage back to
Martin Luther.
For
Lutherans, it is tempting to turn this 500th anniversary into a time
for hero worship and nostalgia.
Thousands of Lutheran congregations around the world will belt out “A
Mighty Fortress is Our God” (the Reformation theme song) in many different
forms. Thousands of study groups will
open dusty copies of Luther’s Small Catechism (the Reformation handbook)
with their repetitive query, “What does this mean?” In the United States, congregations that were
once much larger will listen to the praises of grey-haired choirs and think
about how it used to be.
This is
the challenge of a tradition begun in protest.
A great deal of energy went into the reforming movement. A great deal of conflict shaped it and grew
out of it. Many of the different
Christian denominations we see today stem from divisions (sometimes angry
divisions) that spread from that original 1517 moment. The 100th anniversary of the
Reformation in 1617 was a year shy of the beginning of the Thirty Years War, a
war which began as a conflict between Catholic and Protestant states and led to
the death of millions throughout Europe.
Eventually
the dust settled and congregations founded in protest wanted something more
than the insecurity of reform. We wanted
comfort. We wanted certainty. We wanted the church to be formed and
finished; a constant; a snapshot that preserved ages past. We wanted organ music and four-part hymnody,
the good old songs we used to sing. The
church became more about culture, heritage and local practice than
transformative ideas, more about being comforted than being stirred.
In so doing we seem to have lost
the connection to some of the fundamental ideas of the Reformation. We have lost the sense of the priesthood of
all believers and have given authority and ministry back to the professional
clergy. We have lost the sense of
humility that comes from a “both/and” understanding of faith described as simul justus es peccator, justified and
sinner at the same time. We have lost
the sense of radical grace, that the loving grace of God has set us free to
serve all neighbors lovingly. As Luther
wrote in his treatise The Freedom of a Christian in 1520, “A Christian
is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of
all, subject to all.”
The Reformation impulse, which might push
churches of Protestant heritage to a broader understanding of faith and a wider
sense of neighbor, has become yet another means for separation, enclaves of
faith often segregated by race, class, generation or heritage. We have a much easier defining ourselves by who
we are not than who we are. It is not
unusual to find Lutherans who know little of their tradition other than being
“not Catholic and not Baptist.” We have
become yet another means for people to define who belongs and who doesn’t, who is
inside and who is outside, the good and the bad.
In
short, the work of reform is unfinished.
We need to go back to the ideas that began the movement and not rely on the
traditions that developed around it. For
many Lutherans (again, speaking from my own tradition), we need to rediscover
that our faith is sparked by ideas of a gracious God rather than coffee
consumption and Scandinavian sweaters. It
is also important to keep in mind that not everything about the Reformation is
good. The Reformation grew out of a
culture that was sexist, anti-Semitic and assumed that social classes,
including peasant and slave, were ordained by God. We need to reexamine the basic ideas of
grace, faith and service to the neighbor, and think about them in light of what
we have learned about our universe, our society, our minds and our bodies in
the past five centuries.
Every anniversary is an opportunity
for renewal. It is my hope this 500th
anniversary will be a moment to rediscover and share the love of a gracious God
and our calling to share that love through acts of kindness, compassion,
justice and peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment