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| "Luther's Rose" by Jen, on flickr |
Romans 3:21-28
But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.
John 8:31-36
Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “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 answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
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Well here we are again. The church is dressed up in red, and some of you are dressed in red, too! Red is the color of the fire of the Holy Spirt, the color for defenders of the faith, the color of Christ’s freeing sacrifice for us and for the sake of the world. It is Reformation Sunday and is a very red day, as we celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit in the church and in reformers like Martin Luther, who worked - and continue to work - tirelessly to make sure that the church bears faithful witness to free grace of God in Christ. Yes, today is all about the color red, and today is all about freedom.
The catch, however, in talking about freedom, is that freedom is never the beginning of the story. As we learn from Jesus in today's gospel and as we learn from the work of Martin Luther, freedom only comes on the far side of bondage. We, and the church, cannot speak of our freedom without first talking about what we need to be freed from.
This is at the heart of the argument that Jesus finds himself in in today's gospel reading from John.
Jesus is in Jerusalem to celebrate Feast of Tabernacles - a festival celebrating God's care for the Israelites while they were wandering in the desert after Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt. He gets into a conversation with "the Jews who believed in him" about discipleship and freedom, and the conversation gets a little prickly.
An argument unfolds between the people and Jesus about whether freedom comes from being sons of Abraham or through Jesus the Son of God. Jesus argues that while, yes, Abraham was deemed righteous through his faith, this doesn't mean his ancestors can mooch off his faith. Their Abrahamic heritage might define them and their history, but it is not what saves them. Jesus has to convince them that they need a savior, that they need the Son of God, that they are slaves but that he can offer them freedom. The people insist that Jesus is mistaken in his offer to set them free, because, "we are sons of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone."
In this declaration, they prove that they have missed Jesus' point two times over. First, they insist that they have never been slaves to anyone, except that, of course, the defining moment of their faith heritage up until this point is the Exodus - Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt; not to mention the fact that they are now gathered in Jerusalem for a festival that celebrates God's provision in the wilderness on their way from slavery to the promised land. But second, they miss the point and think that Jesus is talking about actual slavery when he is really talking about slavery of the heart; slavery to sin and death and brokenness.
What they can't see, or don't want to admit, is that we are all slaves to something. We all need to be set free. We all get stuck in our own cycles of pain or fear or destruction. Some of us are in bondage to fears of inadequacy or the pain of broken relationships; some of us are slaves to material ambition or to resentment; others of us are in bondage to grief or addiction or illness; or are slaves to self-centeredness or pride, prejudice or anger; or are held captive by tight finances and hungry bellies. Whether by choice or by circumstance, we are all salves to something.
But Jesus says to us, "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free". And what is the truth? The truth is Jesus himself, the word-made-flesh who came to dwell among us full of grace and truth; the one who says of himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," the one who says, "everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
This is our good news. It is Christ our truth who sets us free; we do not break the chains of our slavery ourselves. Paul in Romans says, "Now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed...through faith in Jesus Christ....For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Christ sets us free from sin and puts us back into right relationship with God and neighbor; he gives us free and unrestricted access to the grace of God - not through the law, not through works, not through our heritage. We find our salvation and freedom simply in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.
Part of what Martin Luther was seeking in his church back in the 1500's - and what what he didn't find there - was this assurance of being made free by the grace of God in Christ. He saw a lot of fear around him, and he saw a church that exploited the people's fears for its own gain.
When Martin Luther nailed up his list of grievances to the church door, he was resisting practices that said that God's grace was something that could be purchased; he was resisting practices that said God's grace needed to be purchased. He was resisting practices that exploited people's fears of death and the afterlife. He was resisting a church structure where those in power were the gatekeepers of worship, the sacraments, the Bible, and really, of grace itself.
Martin Luther wanted the church to be a place of freedom, where all could come and praise and participate together, as a priesthood of all believers, where God's grace was freely preached and given, where the Bible was in the language of the people and where people were free to explore their faith apart from the constraints of church dogma.
The church is still striving to be a place of freedom and grace. Despite the good work begun in the church through Martin Luther’s witness, over these last 500 years, the church has still fought wars, hurt and excluded people, gotten sidetracked by unimportant or even corrupt things.
Thank goodness that Christ died for the church as well as for the people in it. One of the really important lessons of the Reformation is that the church should still always be reforming, by the grace of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Faithful individuals and faithful churches alike continue to repent of the things that keep us in bondage, so that Christ's grace, generosity, and freedom might shine through us anew.
The question for us, here and now, is: Where do we, as individuals and as a church, need Christ to set us free to be gracious and generous, as we are called to be? How can we continue to repent and reform so that the we can make a safe place for seekers and doubters and all those whom the church has, at other points, shut out instead of inviting in?
Because thing about the church is that it should be a place where people gather together by God's grace, in God's grace, for the sake of being reassured, time and time again, of that grace. We worship together and hear God's grace in confession and forgiveness, touch God's grace in the waters of baptism, taste God's grace in the bread and wine, the saving body and blood of Christ.
If we believe that the Church, capital C, is truly the body of Christ, the community of faith bound by our experience of God's grace, then the Church is the one place - even if yet imperfect - that we can always come to feel safe, loved, and free. Which is not to say that you won't ever feel challenged here. As you seek and touch an untamable God in this sacred space, there's a chance that this place might just break your heart open. But it will also be there to help put you back together.
The community of faith is a place where you can come, just as you are, into the presence of God, free from what binds you. Here you can pray and lament, to have good days and messed-up days, to be happy or bored or curious.
Confirmation students, I know that we spent a lot of time in your interviews talking with you about where you might find a place for yourself here after confirmation, and encouraged you to find ways to stick around. We didn’t talk about all of that stuff to try to guilt you into being here. We truly and honestly want you to trust that this is a place for you different than any other place that you have in your world. A place where you are valued because you are blessed and beloved children of God. A place where all of you is welcome and you don’t have to hide. A place free from the pressures of achievement that you might feel elsewhere. A place that you can come back to, over and over again, when you need grace. Love. Kindness. Forgiveness. Hope. This place is for you. This place is for me. This place is for all. It is safe. It is free.
For here, in this place, we aren’t the sum of what we are, what we’ve done, or what we fear. In this place, we are all children of God, one in Christ and one in grace. This is our truth. This is our hope. This is our freedom.
Thanks be to God.
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