Reformation Sunday
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” These are Jesus’ words to the group of people before him. And not one of them shouts “Thank you!” or “This is good news indeed!” or “Alleluia!”
Instead, the people get angry, defensive. “What do you mean? We have never been slaves to anyone.”
I could imagine a similar reaction today. If Jesus were to tell a group of folks in this country that he could set them free, they might react with, “Wait a minute! This is America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. What do you mean you will make me free?!”
This defensive reaction highlights an important point: In order for liberation and salvation and grace and forgiveness and all the gifts of Jesus to be good news, we have to admit that we need these gifts. If you welcome salvation you acknowledge that you need saving. If you are grateful for forgiveness you are aware that something in your life needs to be forgiven. If you are longing for grace than you reveal a current lack of grace. If Jesus’ promise of freedom is good news for you than you imply that somehow you are not free now.
The people listening to Jesus did not want to admit any such truth. Many of our contemporaries don’t, either. Repeatedly, people have told me that they don’t understand why we begin every worship service with confession; they didn’t think they needed that.
In that, they reflect today’s cultural ideal of the self-made man and woman: There is nothing really wrong with us; all we need is some good advice and a couple of self-help books and we’ll be fine; we are in control; we are self-sufficient.
Jesus’ audience doesn’t want to hear about the gift of freedom he offers. They don’t think they need it. “We have never been slaves to anyone!”, they claim. With this statement they reveal an enormous amount of denial. Remember the key story of Israel’s history: the exodus from slavery in Egypt? And how about the occupations by the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and, right then and there, the Romans. Never been slaves to anyone? I call BS on that one.
Likewise are we in denial if we think we are self-made, in control, and in charge of our own fate.
It is interesting that we are pondering this Gospel text in the week when the Senate held hearings on the damage social media networks do to the well-being of their users. Leaked documents have revealed that Facebook was fully aware of how much hurt and psychological harm was created and disseminated on their platforms.
But we already knew that, right? We looked through our friends’ and neighbors’ social media pages and saw all these amazing images of their perfect lives. Everyone is happy and smiling and eating amazing food and going on amazing trips and enjoying amazing tender moments with loved ones or amazing celebrations of weddings and graduations and it all looks so perfect.
And our life is not like that. We are not that happy. Research has shown that four out of five users experience an increase of negative feelings. We compare our life to what we see and just don’t measure up. That depresses us.
It also pressures us to pretend that we have such a life, too. We post pictures from only the happiest moments and upbeat messages and hope everyone thinks that’s who we truly are. It’s exhausting, though. Keeping up appearances is draining. If only we could stop. If only we could admit that we struggle, that we are tired, that we crave supportive community and a word of comfort.
Maybe this is one of the few good things that came out of COVID: We are all going through this pandemic, we are all struggling, and we all know it. For now, we can stop pretending. We can dare to be honest about the ways this virus has affected us. There is freedom in that and relief. This experience gives us an understanding for what Jesus is talking about when he says that truth can set us free.
Honesty with ourselves, with others, and with God is the framework within which we need to understand the message of the Reformation we celebrate today. Many of us know the catch phrase of justification by grace through faith. The term “justification” often brings to mind a court room setting: We are guilty, yet God forgives us and declares us free – God justifies us.
A better framework for understanding the impact of this message is, however, the realm of relationships.
Martin Luther arrived at the Reformation truth after a personal struggle with trying to be good enough before God. He strove to be the perfect monk, was constantly fasting and praying and chastising himself and confessing, but it was never enough. He never felt he was good enough, and as a result he never felt safe in his relationship with God. He feared God.
Through his Bible study, he finally discovered that righteousness before God is something God gives us, not something we earn. It is the gift of a loving creator. This revelation completely changed Luther’s faith, his relationship with God. Now he trusted God, felt safe with God, loved God, and did his best to please God, not to earn salvation but to express his gratitude for salvation already promised to him through Jesus Christ. It was a completely different relationship.
There was a second experience that drove Luther, though. He served as parish priest and heard people’s confessions. He was appalled by the attitude of the parishioners. They would confess their sins and then ask, “What is it going to cost me?” How many Ave Marias? How much money? They treated their sin and God’s forgiveness like a business deal.
Sin, however, hurts relationships. We all know that. When our spouse hurt us, would a piece of jewelry or a new tool or a set of golf clubs make the hurt go away? When your BFF betrays your trust, would a gift card to Starbucks or Sephora or GameStop make amends? No, the relationship has been damaged, and it needs to be addressed with relationship tools, like sincere apology and desire to not repeat the offense.
That’s what repentance is: admission of shortcomings, apology, and the sincere desire to do better.
The good news of the gospel, rediscovered by the Reformation, is that our relationship with God does not depend on our ability to do better. We try out of love and gratitude for God. But God and we both know we will be messing up again.
God, in his amazing and forgiving love, upholds his relationship with us, anyway. Our readings today give us two beautiful images that express this everlasting relationship established and upheld by God.
Jeremiah speaks of the new covenant God will make with us. This covenant relationship will be so intimate that we will know God’s will in our hearts, intuitively. Luther describes this as the way we know a spouse after many decades of marriage: intimate, familiar, trusting, comfortable, loving. God offers us that kind of a relationship in baptism and promises to uphold it in eternity.
Jesus speaks of us having a place in our Father’s house. Servants and slaves come and go, but children belong there forever. We are God’s children through our baptism into Christ. We belong in God’s house forever. We have a place with God forever.
In the original Greek, Jesus actually uses a verb here that in most other places is translated as ‘abide’. “The son abides forever.” Jesus also uses this verb in the beginning of the reading: “If you abide in my word.” I love all this abiding. We abide in Jesus’ word and presence, and we abide in God’s house. We belong.
All we need to do to belong is to admit that we need that, that we long for that, that we crave that, that we are hungry for that. We need to admit that not everything about ourselves and our lives is wonderful. We have to stop the denial and pretense, and instead admit the truth that we struggle, and that we need help and love and forgiveness and hope.
In baptism, God began his relationship with us and assured us that we would always belong in his house. In baptism, God also made us part of the people of God, the community of believers living as the body of Christ in the world. When Jesus offers freedom through his word and truth, he speaks to a group of people. When Jeremiah announces the joy of the new covenant, he speaks to the congregation.
By the grace of God, we are part of this community of faith. We are in relationship with one another, relationship that is based on love and truth. Here we can be honest about our struggles and regrets, because we are all here for the same reason: We long for help and love and forgiveness and hope. We find it by abiding in Jesus’ word and in our Father’s house and among the company of saints surrounding us. Thanks be to God. Amen.