Here is the Reformation Sermon I preached two years ago. Pastor Tiews has preached the last two. I must confess it is my least favorite Sunday of the year. Of course I love the hymns and red paraments and such, but celebrating the fracturing of the Western Catholic Church is like celebrating a divorce. Perhaps we should change the paraments to purple as a call to repentance?

Anyway, we consecrated our new (antique gothic) pulpit and lectern on that Sunday in 2007.

Today we hear the voice of that great reformer, David Bowie, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes, turn and face the strain.” Changes, turn and face the strain. As you entered the Lord’s house this morning, your eyes were greeted with the dramatic change of this pulpit and that lectern. For some, this may be a strain. Now I’m not talking about the physical strain on your neck as you have to look up a little higher to see the pastor. And I’m not referring to the emotional strain inflicted on those who sit in the far back pews because I am now able to see them during the sermon. But I am referring to the strain that change itself places on many of us. Change forces us to adjust and reevaluate; to consider and reconsider. Even a change that is an improvement both architecturally and theologically can place a strain on us. But with the passage of time, we grow accustomed and it becomes ordinary, commonplace, and even comfortable. Before you know it, you will not be able to imagine a time when this sacred space was not graced with such glorious and fitting works of art.

It is fitting that we introduce this change on Reformation Day. After all, Reformation Day is traditionally celebrated in commemoration of a dramatic change to the Western church. For many Protestants and Lutherans (there is a difference, you know), it is occasion to celebrate the birth of a new church. We look back to October 31, 1517 when Luther dramatically nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg and, not so dramatically, sent a letter of concern to the Archbishop of Mainz. Through these initial acts of protest, Luther started the events that are known as the Reformation, thus securing the proclamation of the Gospel, which had been lost in those dark Middle Ages. With such an interpretation, Reformation Day becomes a day of triumph and victory. And all of the signs of celebration are present here today: the red paraments and processions signal festival. But we must be careful. If our view of the Reformation is one of necessary, dramatic, cataclysmic change to birth a new church, then we threaten to do violence to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of God over hundreds of years. And we threaten to lose our own Lutheran identity established in the same.


Now there is no doubt, of course, that the Western catholic church of Luther’s day was a mess. Gradual changes introduced by medieval philosophy and theology as well as political and social turmoil had dramatically strained the message of the Gospel in the church. In fact, the eternal unchanging Gospel had been distorted and obscured. These gradual changes had a significant effect on the life and faith of the Church. People were promised grace and salvation for themselves and their loved ones in return for giving money to support the projects of Rome. The preaching of indulgences and dubious doctrines like purgatory has nothing to do with the message of Christ. Theologians also taught that humans were capable of contributing to their salvation, earning merits before God by their effort and hard work. Such teaching negates Christ’s work on the cross and has nothing to do with the message of Christ. Moreover, the people were expected to submit to the hierarchy, bureaucracy, and authority of Rome if they expected to have any favor with God. But the hierarchy, bureaucracy, and authority of Rome had problems too numerous to detail. Circumscribing Christ’s grace and salvation in the machinations of a political entity has nothing to do with Christ and Him crucified. These and other changes introduced into the message of the Western church had definitely put a strain on its faith and life before Christ.

So, on October 31, 1517, Dr. Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and theologian at the University of Wittenberg, invited the Church to engage in a debate and discussion about the effects of these many gradual changes. Dr. Luther wanted the Church to consider its biblical texts and traditions in order to correct its mistakes. He was not the first person to call the church to reform its ways. And Luther certainly did not want to make any sort of dramatic changes. Luther could not imagine being outside the Catholic Church. He was, after all, catholic. And despites its mess, Christ was present and at work in the church through His word, Holy Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, and Absolution. But while Christ was present, he was often difficult to find. His grace had been obscured and overshadowed by a number of theological and philosophical accretions. So Dr. Luther asked the church to look again at a picture of itself from its own scriptures and its own faithful tradition. The church needed to listen to the voice of Christ and have ears to hear the ways they had departed from Him. The church needed to consider the writings and teachings of its fathers to be reminded that the Gospel of Christ is eternal and cannot change. Luther and the Reformers were not revolutionaries, trying to create something new, nor were they restorationists, pretending they could return to some pristine, imaginary early church. Luther and his co-workers merely desired to correct the abuses that had gradually crept into the Church. Unfortunately, a somewhat obnoxious German monk and his buddies from a backwater university did not have much pull in Rome. And. rather than recognizing or acknowledging its mess, the Roman bureaucracy kicked Luther out. He was excommunicated in 1521, dramatically changing the landscape of Western Christianity.

As we gather on this Reformation Sunday, we are not here to celebrate the splintering of the Western Church; the events of five hundred years ago; or even the fact that we bear the name Luther. No, we are here to consider what it means today for our life and faith to be Lutheran Christians. Charles Porterfield Krauth, a significant Lutheran voice in 19th century America, stated that “It is vastly more important, then, to know what the Reformation retained that what it overthrew.” In other words, to understand what it means to be Lutheran requires knowledge of what did not change. And this forces us to come to terms with our catholic identity. Catholic can be a scary word for Lutherans because we assume it belongs to Rome. But it does not. Catholic belongs to Jesus. The fathers taught, “Wherever Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” Luther and his colleagues acknowledged that Christ was always present in the church, even in all of its mess. Christ was present in the Word. Christ was present in the Mass. Christ was present in the Sacrament of the Altar. Christ was present in Holy Baptism. Christ was confessed in the creeds. And Christ’s people were strengthened and nourished not only in these gifts, but were drawn closer to Him in faith through many of the faithful traditions that had organically developed. Not all of the changes that had taken place were negative. The art and architecture of the tradition served faith. Making the sign of the cross, kneeling, and genuflecting were all reflective of a profound faith in Christ. Thus, the Lutherans retained the Mass as well as the aesthetic and liturgical traditions of the Western church. After all, the Lutherans were catholic, just not Roman Catholic. Thankfully, Luther did not have the iconoclastic spirit of the radical reformers who rejected liturgy, sacrament, and creed, reducing faith to the personal, subjective, and emotional! To have made such dramatic changes would put the faith in risk of succumbing to the whimsical desires of sinful people and effectively deny the power of the Holy Spirit to work faith in Christ through means.

To identify ourselves as catholic raises an important question, “What kind of catholic, if not Roman Catholic?” And this is a fair question. The Western Church had long identified Rome as the seat of authority. The Bishop of Rome, the Pope, was the central figure for faith and life. But changes over time had threatened both the authority of the papacy and the ability of Rome to speak the Gospel with clarity. Luther’s call to reform was primarily interested with the clarity of the Gospel; the evangel or good news of Jesus. The evangel of Jesus was repentance and belief for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus Christ suffered, died, and rose for the redemption and salvation of sinners. Jesus commanded his followers to take this message into the world. Salvation comes through faith or trust that Jesus died for your sins and rose for your justification. This is the good news. The indulgences, pilgrimages, and merit based system of the Roman church was not good news. It was a burden and not catholic. So Luther called the Western church to return to the evangel of Jesus Christ. As such, Luther and his colleagues were called evangelicals. They were concerned with the preaching of the eternal Gospel, the message of salvation that cannot change. As the angel in Revelation testifies, this eternal Gospel draws people to fear God and give Him glory and worship. Fear acknowledges sin, but glory and worship reflect a heart that knows God forgives sin for the sake of Christ. Our catholicity, then, resides in the evangelical message of the church. Lutherans are Evangelical Catholics. If we are less than evangelical, then there is no reason to be here in this place. After all, we gather here as sinners to receive Christ’s gifts of forgiveness and salvation in the good news of His death and resurrection on our behalf. If the evangelical message is not here, then you should stay home. And if we are less than catholic, then we will eventually become hostage to the fads and novelties of the culture around us. Our identity will be lost and we will be adrift in the sea of sentimental and saccharine spiritualities of modern religion and the destructive pluralism of the age. And the Gospel will soon be lost. Then we could just stay home at that point.

Today we are called to celebrate our identity as Evangelical Catholics. We are privileged to gather around the good news of Jesus Christ and know that our sins are forgiven because of his merits and work on the cross, not because of our feeble, weak efforts or imagined holiness. We are privileged to gather in this place and celebrate the Mass—yes, the Mass (it is the language of Luther, after all)—where Christ comes to nourish, sustain and strengthen our faith by His grace through His means. We are privileged to be heirs of a catholic heritage that is evident in the stone, wood, glass, iron, and brass of this sanctuary; in the beauty that draws us closer to Christ. On this Reformation Day, our identity as Evangelical Catholics does not send us back to the 16th century, but actually propels us toward the hope of our faith, the salvation of our souls. After all, the evangelical message secures our salvation and promises an eternal rest with Christ and all the saints where the Church will be truly catholic. May the grace of Christ keep us to that glorious end. INJ