Reformation Sunday October 26, 2014
Texts from 20th Sunday After Pentecost
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
Leviticus 19: 1-2, 15-18 + 1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8 + Matthew 22: 34-46
O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Someone else who loved fashionable shoes said that there’s no place like home. Boy is that ever true! I am glad to be with you. This has been a summer of unplanned, unexpected travel at the death of family and friends. However, in February I accepted the invitation to be the preacher at Grace Lutheran Church in Hendersonville, NC for their annual Women of the ELCA Thankoffering Service. When they invited me I had no idea it would be on the heels of so much travel, with one more to come. I will be away from you next week again, as I travel to Ohio to preach at the ordination of our former Vicar, Inge Williams. I do hope you will be in worship next Sunday, though, as we remember those who have died in this year during our All Saints Celebration. You will be joined by Pastor Erik Samuelson of Trinity College in Everett. Trinity College used to be Lutheran Bible Institute and was located just across the street from our campus; they even used our sanctuary for their chapel services. So do come and welcome Pastor Erik! He will also be with you in First Sunday Faith Forum to talk about what is new at Trinity College.
Such traveIs do offer the opportunity to be reminded of how wide and diverse our denomination is. Just because our signs says we are part of the ELCA, there is a wide variety to be found in our congregations.
Inge’s ordination will be in Brookville, OH, at the congregation where her father first served as pastor and where she attended as a young person. I will experience once again the uniqueness of being Lutheran in the Midwest, where it is noted that Lutherans are denser. J
When I preached at Grace in North Carolina, I preached at three back to back worship services – 8:15, 9:45, and 11:15. It was wonderfully exhausting. This is a culture, throughout the south, where everyone goes to church on Sundays. It’s just what you do. There are no soccer games or classes or anything else. You go to church. Between the 3 services over 800 people were there.
And I was so glad to share with them about the work and the ministry of this place. About the way we make a difference in the lives of the hungry, the homeless, and the helpless. And about the difference they make in our lives. And do you know, as people were shaking my hand, the comments were mixed between “I’ve never met a lady pastor” to “Wow. Thank you for reminding us about what Jesus said we should do.” And in that moment, in that day, these two congregations on two sides of the country, in two different cultures, were connected by the love of God in Jesus Christ. And on Saturday I will bear your blessing and love to Inge. The church is wide.
Of course, in Luther’s day, the church wasn’t wide at all. It was the Roman Catholic Church or nothing. And when you are the only game in town, well, it’s a situation that is ripe for misdeeds and abuse of power. Just ask Comcast.
So Luther wrote 95 things about the church that he hoped could be discussed and changed. His famous 95 theses. And the rest, is quite literally history. It’s not just our history, but it’s the history of the Protestant Reformation. In 2000 the A & E Network issued a list of the most influential people in history. Martin Luther is #3. Number 3. He’s ahead of Jesus and behind only Guttenberg and Isaac Newton. Wow. So, he was kind of a big deal. But even he would have admonished us on this day to stop talking about him already and turn to Scripture. And so we will.
The texts we read this morning are the readings assigned for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, which is also what this Sunday is in the liturgical year. Often on Reformation Sunday we consider other texts, assigned specifically for Reformation. But as I was looking at the two sets of texts and considering them and pondering them, I realized that what holds today’s text together is love. And there is nothing that reforms a person or a movement or a church in more profound ways than love.
Even the writer of Leviticus knew this. Leviticus, which is a book of law, of the holiness code for the people of Israel. And yet, our reading today, which lays out lots of do and don’ts, ends with this: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself. ”
And in the Gospel Jesus reminds us of this again. When he is asked which of the commandments is the greatest, he responds in like fashion, with two commandments. The greatest one, he says is “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And a second is like it “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus would have heard that read in the temple, and taught perhaps at the knees of his parents, from the book of Leviticus.
And in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians he notes that Paul and his colleagues came to Thessalonica and cared for them as a nurse tenderly cares for her children. This loses a little something in translation. It is actually a nursemaid in the original language, a woman who nursed the children of another at her own breasts. What deeply intimate self sacrifice, done in gentle love.
At first glance it might seem that these texts stand in contrast to the pomp of the Reformation hymns and the image of Luther nailing those theses on the door and demanding that his beloved Church do the right thing.
But again, I contend, that there is nothing that reforms a person or a movement or a church in more profound ways than love.
Because love can be hard. Sometimes the people we love the most are the ones who challenge us the most. Ask anyone who gets together with a wide circle of family at the holidays. Love can be hard when we must offer it in tough ways to those we love who may be making bad choices and decisions. Love can even be hard, perhaps most especially hard when it is directed at ourselves. But Jesus is clear. We must love ourselves because only then are we able to fully love one another. And because we are made in the very image and likeness of God, each one of us, we worthy of all the love we can muster and then some.
And this is a message we need to hear, believe, and pass on to our young people. Regardless of what you believe about the easy accessibility of guns, unless our young people know that they are loved and valued for who they are, just as they are….we will continue to be a nation that grieves at the news of repeated violence. The shooting at Marysville Pilchuck high school was the 50th school shooting this year and the 87th since Newtown. We ask what we can do and I wish I had the answer. Of all places that should have at least AN answer, it ought to be a church that says it is always reforming. And reformation is hard work, just like love can be. But if not us….if not the Church of Jesus Christ….if not us who say All are welcome, all are loved, all are made in the image of God, who will carry that love into the world. I don’t have the answer, but I would say we must begin in love, loving our young people, helping them love one another. We must work for justice and righteousness. And pray. We must pray.
Originally the rest of this sermon talked about how this congregation can carry God’s love out into the world through our various ministries. About how it will take all of us. And that is still true. But in the wee hours of the night, I could not stop thinking about what Jesus said in today’s Gospel. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is our message to share. And we have neglected that. If no one else is saying it to our hurting and helpless neighbors, we are going to have to be the ones to say it. And we need to stop being so darn afraid to attach God’s name or Christ’s name to it. It’s hard. I know it is. This morning at 6am on my way here I stopped at the 7-Eleven down the street in search of a banana. The clerk was weary. He just looked weary. And I was in a hurry and we were doing that thing we do so well in the Northwest, we weren’t looking at each other. And all I could think of was “what if he’s in pain? “ Can’t I just look him in the eye and say “God bless you today” So I did. And I hoped I didn’t offend him in some way, but he brightened a little bit and said “Thank you pastor”.
What if someone had said to 14 year old Jaylen Fryberg? You are loved. You are valued. God bless you. It might not have made any difference. He still might have walked into the lunchroom at Marysville PIlchuck High School and shot his friends in the head. But people of God, we have got to try. We can no longer keep the good news of the wide love of God to ourselves.
Go out into the world. Be reformers. Share love. Amen.