"Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda!"
John 8:31-36
Dr. Steven P. Eason
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31Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33They 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’?” 34Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
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Well, it’s Reformation Sunday. No parades, no presents, no cards, cakes or candies. Just Reformation Sunday. About as exciting as watching paint dry. And yet, a long, long time ago, in a place far away, people fought and died over what it meant to be the Church. For centuries there had been only one church, until the 11th century, when Greece and others pulled away to form the Eastern Orthodox Church. The western church remained purely Catholic – Roman Catholic. It was that way for centuries.
In the year 1302, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church dispensed a formal decree stating that salvation was not possible outside the Catholic Church. Hard lines were drawn. The church grew in wealth, political power and corruption. The Catholic Encyclopedia states,
Political power, material possessions, privileged positions in public life, the defense of ancient historical rights, earthly interests of various kinds were only too often the aim of higher clergy. (www.newadvent.org)
There was a growing mistrust of the church among the common people and the church responded by burning heretics at the stake. Back in 1415, John Hus, a priest was bound at the stake for heresy but it would not be until the 16th century when things would come to a head. The Church was selling indulgences, which had once been strictly spiritual disciplines. Now you could pay cash for an indulgence in order to remove any obstacles between you and heaven. Buy your way out of sin or into a high church office. It was a means of raising funds for the church.
A German Catholic priest by the name of Martin Luther, a professor of theology, nailed 95 theses (or arguments) against indulgences on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saint’s Day. He would argue his case against the selling of indulgences, which would bring into question the authority of the Pope, as well as the theology and tradition of the church. His goal was to reform the Church. They weren’t open to it.
The Church took a bold stand against the would-be reformers who were now being called “protestors” or “Protestants.” The Council of Trent would yield nothing to the rebels. After years of debate, the Catholics maintained papal authority and their positions on Scripture, marriage, the Mass, celibacy, the sacraments, and all other issues raised by Luther and his followers. It now was virtually impossible to be neutral.
Luther was banished from the church, stood trial before Charles V, and went into hiding where he translated the Bible from Latin to German, so that it could be read by the common people, which had never been done. The doors were open.
The issues were much more than what people believed. They were socio-economic and political. It was the perfect storm for a division and a revolt.
A new movement was born that branched off into many different directions. There was Luther in Germany and Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland.. Then there was King Henry VIII in England. Each one brought some new emphasis to the table.
Luther argued that the Scriptures alone were the authority and rule of faith for the church. He also argued that we are justified by grace and not by works. You can’t buy your way into heaven. It is by faith alone that we are saved through Christ.
Zwingli added that the Christian life should be simpler and that statues and paraments should be removed from the churches. He also called for more simplistic buildings and worship services. All this was going on while St. Peters was being built in Rome! The church had become too rich, too worldly and Zwingli called it back to simplicity.
John Calvin was the second wave of the Reformation and pushed it beyond Germany throughout all of Europe. He was a lawyer who had studied humanism and brought a rigid discipline to the new Protestant lifestyle. In Geneva he formed a Christian community that governed every part of a person’s life. The term “Protestant work ethic” came out of Calvin’s Geneva. Capitalism found its birthplace as feudalism began to diminish. You could be punished for many things in Geneva, including laughing in church. Being a Protestant, a protester, was serious business.
John Knox studied under Calvin and returned to his homeland in Scotland, where he and the Scottish Parliament eventually established Presbyterianism; “presbyter” meaning “elder,” a church governed by elders. Thus the bagpipes and Scottish traditions we Presbyterians enjoy to this day. (As a side note, I had the privilege of preaching in the Church of the Holy Rude in Sterling where John Knox preached James VI’s coronation sermon. It had once been a Catholic Church, now Presbyterian and stripped of all its statues.)
Over in England, King Henry VIII had other motives in the Reformation. The theology of the Church didn’t bother him. It was the politics, the money and the rules and the regulations that he opposed. Henry requested an annulment of his marriage which was refused and so he pulled away from Papal authority, abolishing 500 monasteries, removing their roofs and allowing the buildings to deteriorate. Because his arguments with the Church were not theological, the Church of England remained close to Catholic traditions and worship, which are seen today in the Anglican Church and in the Episcopal Church, finding their birthplace in the Church of England.
People fought and died over these issues that we have virtually forgotten. People now choose to attend a church for a wide variety of reasons. The Catholic Church of today is vastly different from the Catholic Church of the 16th century. Protestants aren’t protesting much. All churches have their challenges, shortcomings, failures and sin. Those churches that once sought to re-form the church are now in need of re-form themselves. Therefore we have the phrase, “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda!” Reformed and always reforming.
Discipleship is not a piece of cake, then or now. Jesus said to the Jews, who 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.’ (John 8:31-32)
But we have various versions of “the truth!”
Over the past years the Church has debated the institution of slavery, the role of women in the church, divorce and remarriage, and most recently, positions on homosexuality. We live in a post-modern world in which some say is also post-denominational, and even post-church. We have new questions like, “Do you have to have the Church at all in order to be spiritual?” And what is “spiritual?” Does the mega-church have it any more right than the small country church? Should the mainline churches close their doors and start attending Elevation Church or Warehouse 242? Who has the truth?
That would be Jesus! “Which Jesus?” is a good question asked by Rob Bell in his book, Love Wins. Some say that God created us in God’s image and then we returned the favor. We have created God in our image, fashioning for ourselves a Jesus that makes sense to us. As long as we keep doing that we will always be divided by a catalog of truths. Take your pick!
And by the way, that is one of the major characteristics of this post-modern world in which we live. There apparently is no “absolute truth” and so we are all left to our individual truths. Where is the authority? A central question of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
If we brought the lessons of the Reformation with us, they might be;
- Newer is not always better. Whenever we venture into something new, we always take ourselves with us, so you can assume it will be tainted by our sinfulness. We must be always open to re-form.
- Old is not always right. There are some things in our tradition, and certainly in Scripture, that are stakes in the ground, but because it is tradition doesn’t automatically make it right. To re-form does not mean to throw away or to adapt, but to return to the core of who we are as defined by the Scriptures.
- And this Reformation cannot be done by mere human effort. We are reformed, not by mere ideas, arguments or positions. We are re-formed by a fresh wind of God’s Spirit among us. We are re-formed according to the Word of God and the call of the Spirit. Yet, not all of us agree on what this means.
Our task as Christians in the Church today is not simply to reiterate what our fathers and mothers in the faith once said. Rather, our task is to do today what they did in their day; to open ourselves to the work of a living God who reforms us into God’s will and vision for who we are called to be in this day and age.
In this sense, Reformation is a gift that is to be celebrated by the Church both then and now. “Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda!” is more than just an ancient motto, “the Church reformed and always reforming.” It is our hope and trust in God to lead and guide us in this modern day, not to merely adapt to a changing world but to be the faithful disciples of Christ who said,
‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ (John 8:31-32)
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Congregation: Amen
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