PJ’s Page –
Five hundred years ago this month, Martin Luther started a reformation that changed the course of history. Because of him, there is a Protestant church in all of its forms, and of course, there is the Lutheran Church.
This month we will celebrate the Reformation in a variety of ways, from movie nights (Reel Reformation), to a grand festive worship service on Reformation Sunday, October 29th. Be sure to check elsewhere in this newsletter for details.
In the education wing hallway there are Luther lithographs on display. The print will rotate until we’ve displayed the entire collection, which were a generous donation to Luther Memorial and framed by a grant from the Endowment Fund.
In the narthex you will find a giant Luther head quote….check out what he has to say! Additional Luther quotes will be found in the building and in the seasonal bulletin for October.
It’s helpful to remember that Luther reflected his time in some ways that are not worth celebrating. He was infamously anti-Semitic. He had very choice words to say about the Pope. He was often not very nice….downright cranky, some might say. He even suggested that a woman’s hair was her crowning feature. (He said this while being financially supported by his wife, Katarina von Bora Luther, who brewed the beer and ran the boarding house.)
Still.
Still we give thanks that his persistent efforts toward calling out what was wrong in the life of the church gave way to a new way of being the church. It was a way and remains a way that is fully accessible to the laity….the mass is in a language the people understand and the Bible is available in multiple languages. Thanks be to God.
Protest has become the order of the day in our nation lately. This is not uncommon when citizens find it necessary to protest injustice. They take to the streets because their voices are not heard elsewhere.
I like to say that we Lutherans put the “protest” in Protestant. We are a church born out of protest, so to sit complacently in our pews is not in our nature. At least, it should not be.
Our Middle and High School students have encouraged us to “get out there” into the neighborhood, with a sign and a word of God’s love. So, on October 8th, following worship and a brief congregational meeting, we will be taking sack lunches over to Aurora Avenue, to offer to folks we might meet there. Jesus never sat in the Temple and waited for people to come….he went out among the people and shared food and in the process, shared love. That’s an act of reformation. That’s an act of revolution. Love revolution.
Pastor Julie Hutson+