The Holiness of Humility, the Glory of Grace

Sermon for the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation
Oct. 29, 2017

Today, we’re celebrating the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The famous date is actually October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses against Church practices of his day.  It’s not entirely clear whether he nailed those 95 theses to the door of Wittenburg Castle or the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenburg; or whether he never nailed them to anything but simply sent them to his archbishop in Mainz and published them to others. 

In any event, Luther was protesting the selling of indulgences, which theologically were said to shorten a sinner’s time in purgatory and practically raised a lot of money for the institutional Church.  The deeper issues were about sin, redemption, and religious authority.  For Luther and the later Protestant reformers, we are justified by faith in God’s grace alone, not by good works.  Scripture, rather than Church tradition, is the source of divine revelation.  And all baptized people have direct access to God’s grace because they’re part of the priesthood of all believers.

Luther’s protest focused a movement that had been building for years before and would continue for years after.  What we call the Reformation had been coming since 1378, when the Western Church was torn by schism and three would-be popes claimed the title.  The movement picked up steam in 1414, when Jan Hus was burned at the stake for condemning the sales of indulgences and for arguing the papacy was a human institution – and then, a year later, when John Wycliffe was declared a heretic for translating the Scriptures into English and for criticizing the clergy’s pomp and privilege.  And the movement would grow beyond Luther’s 95 theses to include the work of others, especially John Calvin, from whom would come the Reformed tradition, including what we know as the Presbyterian Church.  Like Jan Huss and John Wycliffe, Luther and Calvin believed in the power of grace alone to bridge the gap between sinful humanity and the righteous God who loves us; and they believed that people must be able to hear and read God’s Word, and offer the gift of worship, in their own languages.  The reformers also took the movement in different and competing directions.  There’s an old joke that “divisiveness was Protestantism’s greatest gift to Christianity,”¹ and sadly there’s truth to that.  Certainly, without the Reformation, the religious shopping mall we know as denominations simply wouldn’t exist. 

The Reformation opened a couple of other huge doors to the future, too.  One was the question of authority.  Where do we look for truth, in church matters and in everything else?  If three politically motivated bishops can each claim to be the true pope; and if reforming priests can start pointing out the Church’s corruption; and if printing presses can mass-produce new ideas; and if scientists can observe that the earth actually revolves around the sun, not the other way around; and if different churches can read the same Biblical texts and find different meanings in them – if there is no longer a consensus about who holds the truth, then to whom should we listen?  Where does authority lie?²

The answer came from the other door to the future opened wide by the Reformation:  the power of individualism.  Luther came to see that, just as salvation didn’t come from following Jewish Law, it doesn’t come from following the rules of Church tradition, either.  Salvation comes from recognizing that I “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and only faith in Jesus Christ heals my sinfulness and lets me share in God’s righteousness.  Well, if that’s true – if my salvation depends on my faith in Jesus Christ – and if books can now be produced with machines rather than parchment and pen, then I need a Bible in my home; and my children need to learn to read so they can get right with God, too.  And if Luther was right about the priesthood of all believers, then I don’t need a priest or a church hierarchy to do the work of reconciling me with God.  I can do that myself.  And if there are multiple ways of worshiping God, then I have the power to choose which one is right for me.  With the Reformation, it became the individual’s faith that mattered … and, ultimately, the individual who chose which path of truth to take.³

So, you may be wondering, why are a bunch of Episcopalians celebrating all this?  If you know your Anglican history, you know that we are a tradition of the Reformation, too; but we took a different path that led to a different place.  For us, the break with Rome came first, followed by the theological reflection – and bloodshed – of reform.  It’s important that the name of our vehicle of reformation is the Church of England, rather than the “Henry-ites” or the “Cranmer-ites.”  We’re named for a nation, not an individual, because for us the break with Rome was about power and sovereignty first, theology second.  But reformation did happen in England, too: worship in the people’s language, administration of both bread and wine to the congregation, and an ongoing argument about just how reformed our worship should be.  The vestments we’re wearing today illustrate what Anglican clergy would have been wearing in the mid-1500s – and over the years, there were great arguments about how “popish” our vesture and liturgical practice should be.  The more Protestant among us thought even a white surplice was too much, arguing for no vesture at all and no ornamentation at the altar.  It wasn’t until the Oxford Movement in the 1800s that stoles and chasubles, vesture from the early and medieval Church, began to make a return. 

We Episcopalians and other Anglicans around the world see ourselves as “catholic and reformed.”  We are part of Christ’s universal Church, in succession with centuries of tradition that’s come before us, proclaiming the ancient creeds, centered in sacramental practice.  And at the same time, we’re reformed – reliant on God’s grace alone, knowing God as revealed in Scripture, and living out the priesthood of all believers.  Our Book of Common Prayer unites these paths, focusing us on the sacraments, calling us back to the Creeds, giving us Scripture for daily and weekly hearing, and empowering lay people as the primary ministers of the Church.  The catechism tells us the orders of ministry are lay people, bishops, priests, and deacons (BCP 855); and the order of the orders matters. 

So, there you have it: catholic and reformed, finding our authority in Scripture, and tradition, and reason; reveling in the mystery that “both/and” can be true.  That’s the Anglican via media, the middle way – a good, if messy, path to walk.

So, what do we do with all this history, as we celebrate the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s protest movement?  Here are two primary take-aways from the Reformation for me.  The first is our call to the holiness of humility as broken individuals and as a broken Church, both in need of God’s grace.  “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” said the Son of God, “for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).  Follow my way, says God’s Incarnate Word – made flesh in a dirty stable, living among the poor and oppressed, dying the worst death imaginable.  The way of the cross is the only way Jesus calls his Church to take, in Luther’s day and in our own.  The Church needs humility perhaps more than anything else, especially in an age when people have embraced the gospel of the individual to such a degree that there is no common narrative, just the truth of my own story.  But the real truth is, people need a bigger story, even if they don’t realize it; and the Church has that story to offer, if it can do so with clarity and humility rather than entitlement and judgment.  Good News from a humble heart is the very best news there is.

Here’s the other take-away I see for us in the Reformation.  If humility is our call when we look in the mirror, and when we look at our Church, and when we look at our society, then the other side of Jesus’ call is to acknowledge where power and glory truly lie.  Power and glory abide with the God who stoops down in an act of divine humility to share power and glory with even such as us.  To those who have faith in Jesus and who aspire to the faith of Jesus (Romans 3:26), that divine glory is in sight, if we can get ourselves out of the way long enough to look for it. 

In fact, in just a few minutes, we’ll hear from a mighty apostle of that deep truth, one who certainly could have reveled in his own talent.  Johann Sebastian Bach is arguably the greatest composer in Western history; at one point in his life, he was cranking out a cantata a week of the kind of quality we’re about to hear.⁴  But Bach also attended the same school Martin Luther attended as a boy; Bach served in and composed for Lutheran churches all his life; and he had all of Martin Luther’s writings on his library shelves.  So, it’s no great surprise that, at the end of his magnificent manuscripts, Bach did not simply sign his name or his initials.  He also wrote the initials S.D.G., which stand for Soli Deo Gloria – “to God alone be the glory.”⁵ 

It is perfect, I think, that we celebrate the Protestant Reformation, and our own ongoing need for reform, by hearing Luther’s words set to Bach’s music.  Together, they bring us the complementary truths of the holiness of human humility and the glory of God’s grace.  To bring those truths together, let me leave you with Luther’s words; you’ll have Bach’s tune in your head soon enough:

Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing,

Were not the right man on our side,

The man of God’s own choosing.

Dost ask who that may be?

Christ Jesus, it is he.

Lord Sabaoth his name,

From age to age the same.

And he must win the battle.

1.       Tickle, Phyllis.  The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008.  46.

2.       Tickle, 45-48, 55-56.

3.       Tickle, 45-46, 50-51.

4.       “Johann Sebastian Bach.”  Available at: http://www.reformationsa.org/index.php/history/90-johann-sebastian-bach.  Accessed Oct. 28, 2017.

5.       Swett, Jonathan.  “Johann Sebastian Bach.”  Available at: https://lutheranreformation.org/history/johann-sebastian-bach/.  Accessed Oct. 28, 2017.

Downward Mobility

Sermon for the Feast of St. Francis, transferred, and pet blessings
Oct. 8, 2017 (posted late)
Matthew 11:25-30

As we gather this morning to celebrate St. Francis and bless our pets, I’m going to confess a sin to you, a sin for which all you good dog owners can hold me in contempt.  I bless my dog, Petey, with cheeseburgers.  Petey seems to have quite a fondness for cheeseburgers, and I have erred and strayed in my ways by getting into the habit of bringing him one when I stop by McDonald’s to get something for myself.  We stand there in our kitchen, and I tell Petey he needs to sit and calm down, which he sort of manages to do; and then I give him his heart’s desire.  We do this bite by bite until that disc of greasy, cheesy goodness is gone.  Forgive me, for I am a bad doggie daddy, blessing Petey with cheeseburgers.

I have a much better example of dog blessing that comes from another member of my family. When we first moved here, we got a Lab–Golden Retriever mix named Jenny.  Jenny was many times Petey’s size but also many times humbler.  Petey, in fact, isn’t here this morning to get a blessing because he doesn’t work and play so well with other dogs.  Jenny, on the other hand, was the ultimate good dog, both among other canines and with us, her pack.  She wanted nothing more than simply to be with you, regardless of whether you had a cheeseburger in your hand.  And so our son, Dan, got into the habit, as a boy, of getting down on the floor with Jenny and lying there with her to watch TV or a movie.  I imagine it was the best thing ever for Jenny, having one of the people of her pack bless her with that kind of presence, stooping down to inhabit her world. 

I don’t know whether St. Francis ever had a dog, but I’ll bet Francis would have understood what my son, Dan, was up to.  Francis of Assisi is maybe the ultimate model in Christian tradition of embracing a life of stooping down.  Some of you know his story.¹  Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Italy, born in the late 1100s.  In his early years, he lived into the very worst you might expect from the spoiled child of a wealthy family – entitled, wasteful, drunken, arrogant.  Francis got the chance to play soldier and go off to war against another Italian city-state, so he spent a lot of his father’s money to buy a horse and fine armor.  He was taken prisoner, as it turned out, and spent a year waiting for his father to ransom him.  He went back to his unsavory lifestyle until he got the chance to play soldier again, this time leaving as a knight for the Fourth Crusade. 

But, you know, sometimes – all the time, actually – God chooses the last person you’d expect and inspires that person to change.  A day’s ride out of Assisi, Francis heard God calling him to turn back home.  It must have been quite a persuasive encounter, because the arrogant man-child actually did go back home.  Again, he resumed his old lifestyle, but he also kept listening to God, who apparently also kept knocking.  Francis began to see that his life wasn’t just shallow but contrary to the call he’d heard from Jesus in the Gospels.  And one day, Francis encountered a leper – a broken, impoverished, smelly man with an awful, contagious skin condition.  The leper was the antithesis of everything Francis had valued – fine clothes, fine food, beauty, power, strength, wealth, all that.  But Francis stooped down from his horse and greeted the leper with the kiss of peace.  Contrary to everything he knew, Francis found joy in greeting that leper.  And it sent him even further along his journey. 

Francis then heard God calling to him, saying, “Francis, rebuild my church.”  He thought the instruction was literal – that he was supposed to rebuild a local broken-down chapel.  So Francis took some of his father’s stock of fine cloth and sold it to pay for the repairs.  His father had had enough; he dragged Francis before the local bishop, demanding that Francis return his money and renounce his rights as heir.  Francis took it one step further.  He stripped off his fine clothes, tossed them before his father, and renounced his connection to his family, acknowledging God as his only Father.  Then Francis left with literally nothing to begin a life of wandering service to people he would meet and preaching about following God’s call to love. 

Before long, others saw Francis’ joy in the freedom he’d found, and they joined him.  Francis organized his companions’ life around a simple rule of giving away their possessions, keeping nothing as they proclaimed the kingdom of God, and taking up the cross daily – serving the people they encountered in acts of self-sacrificing love.  Francis and his group lived the Gospel literally.  They had nothing but the joy that comes with the perfect freedom of being bound by nothing but God’s command.  They lived Jesus’ model and his teachings.  The story is told that a thief stole the hood of one of the brothers, and Francis made the brother chase after the thief to offer him his cloak as well.  Against all the world’s expectations, this movement caught on, with thousands following Francis’ model.  Eventually, he had to organize them, and the Franciscan Order was born.

Francis was all about stooping into love – which, after all, is God’s practice with us.  The Psalms say that God “stoops to behold the heavens and the earth,” taking “the weak up out of the dust and lift[ing] the poor from the ashes” (Psalm 113:5-6, BCP).  Jesus lived that out ultimately, God incarnate born among the animals and crying in the dirty straw; the Son of God who, like the birds of the air, had no place to lay his head.  When Jesus identifies who is blessed in God’s eyes, it’s not the people whose lives seem to reveal blessing.  It’s the poor who receive the kingdom of heaven, the meek who inherit the earth.  All of what we seek and value is window dressing at best.

There seems to be a pattern here.  To practice love, both God and Francis stooped down, renouncing power and possession, status and privilege.  If that was true for God and Francis, it’s probably true for us: We have things we need to lose in order to love as Christ loves us.

Like what?  Well, there are the usual targets, of course, things Francis certainly would witness against:  Consumerism, waste, and pollution that harm God’s creation.  The love of money, which “is a root of all kinds of evil and … many pains,” as the apostle Paul wrote (1 Timothy 6:10).  But this week, as we reel from the news of yet another mass shooting, it’s violence that weighs on my heart. 

In our society, violence is a commodity, whether it’s real or entertainment.  And as long as violence is profitable, we’ll keep pursuing it.  Here’s my second confession for the morning: I choose to watch violent movies sometimes; there is something in them that seems real and raw and exciting.  And at the movie theaters, I see people there with small children … because, you know, the violence isn’t real, not like a mass shooting – it’s only a movie.  Well, I don’t think you have to be a social scientist to see a connection: If violence seems normal, then violence becomes normalized.  Whether you’re talking about movies or firearms, the government isn’t going to ban something that’s both a freedom in this nation and a source of immense profit.  We have to exercise our freedom to renounce violence, and its instruments, for ourselves.  And we have to pray that God will make use of our small examples to transform other hearts, too, working with our witness as we live and narrate the choices we make.  That’s how love happens – from the bottom up.  Love is an insurgency, not a legislative mandate.

So, as God’s insurgent of love, what do you need to lose?  What binds you and keeps you from stooping low, into the experience of another?  Like my son’s example, as he got down on the floor with our old dog Jenny, it’s the stooping low that blesses those whom God places in the intersecting points of our lives.  So, here’s my prayer for us this St. Francis’ Sunday:  May we be the people our dogs think we are, and may we practice the holy downward mobility of stooping low into the kingdom of God.

1.        St. Francis’ story is taken from “St. Francis of Assisi.”  Catholic Online.  Available at: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=50.  Accessed Oct. 6, 2017.

We Are What We Do

Sermon for Oct. 1, 2017 (posted late)
Matthew 21:23-32

I imagine each of us has a few stories we could share about how things are done, or were done, in our families growing up.  Families have norms and expectations, some spoken and some unspoken; some flexible and some not so much.  I remember in my family, especially at holidays when my grandparents would be visiting, the norm was that everyone was there for dinner and for conversation before and after.  If you were around, and you were more than about 12 years old, you were expected to be part of the circle. 

So I remember once, after my sisters and I had long since left home but were back for Christmas, I was talking with one of them about the two of us going out and doing something else after family dinner one night.  My sister got this shocked look on her face and said, “Do you think Mom will let us?”  I was 25 years old, and she was 30.  Of course, I don’t think my mother would have kicked us out of the house if we’d gone off to do something on our own.  But my sister and I also knew that wasn’t what our family did.  That kind of thing might be fine for other families, but it wasn’t what happened in our house.  For us, being in right relationship with each other carried certain expectations.  We didn’t have to earn our way into each other’s good graces, but being with each other was part of the family’s identity.  It helped us remember who we were, deep down.

Our Gospel reading today gives us a chance to reflect on the norms and expectations of our larger family, the family of God that gathers around this table each week.  In that reading, living out the ways of God’s family is called “righteousness.”  It’s one of those words preachers like to throw around as if everybody in the room understood it the same way, which I imagine we don’t.  All “righteousness” means is this: action that reflects right relationship with God.  And because God has the priorities we know God has, righteousness extends to actions that reflect right relationship with other people, too – especially those on the margins or those at the bottom of the social scale.

But I think when many of us hear that word, “righteousness,” we might hear it in terms of self-righteousness – considering yourself holier than the person next to you, or the person down the road, or the person on the other side of some issue.  That self-righteousness is also what the religious leaders are living out in today’s reading.  They come to Jesus clothed in authority though not in leadership, and they confront him about what he’s been doing.  Just before this story, Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday, and he’s overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple, condemning them as thieves for gouging the poor peasants trying to buy sacrificial animals.  If you literally turn the tables on the religious establishment, you can expect some push-back.  So, the chief priests and the elders challenge Jesus, saying, “By what authority are you doing these things?” (Matthew 21:23).  Who appointed you to tell us where we’re falling short? 

So Jesus responds not by claiming authority but by shining the light of hard truth.  He confronts the leaders’ self-righteousness by asking them what they thought about John the Baptist’s teaching.  Now, that may seem to come out of nowhere; but if you remember, John’s teaching was all about action that reflects right relationship with God and neighbor.  When the religious leaders came out to see John, joining the crowds wanting to be baptized, John had yelled at the scribes and Pharisees, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” (Matthew 3:7-8)  If you’ve got an extra cloak, give it to someone who doesn’t; and if you’ve got extra food, do the same (Luke 3:11).  John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance toward righteousness – turning away from self-centered behavior and turning toward right relationship with God and others.  So, Jesus holds the religious leaders accountable for the fact that they didn’t follow John’s lead and didn’t offer him their stamp of approval.  Instead of the path of righteousness, the religious leaders chose the path of self-righteousness.

The other reason we may turn away from a call to righteousness is that we often think that word applies only to special, holy people – people with better wiring than what we’ve got.  Mother Theresa – now there’s a righteous person.  I can’t measure up to that, right?  Righteousness sounds like a losing proposition because the deck is stacked against normal sinners like us.

Well, Jesus might confront us on that just a bit.  Righteousness isn’t perfection; righteousness is the choice you make today.  Jesus illustrates that in the parable he tells the religious leaders.  A father has two sons.  He tells the first son to go work in the vineyard.  Now, who knows what the son had planned for that day, but he clearly didn’t have it in mind to go work in the vineyard because he refuses to go.  Maybe he’s lazy, or maybe he’s bull-headed, or maybe he simply has other work that’s required of him – for whatever reason, he declines.  But then he thinks better of it, and goes out into the vineyard, and fulfills his father’s wishes.  Meanwhile, the father gives the same command to his second son.  This one says to his father, “I go, sir” – definitely the right answer.  And maybe he even has the right intention, planning to go just as soon as … whatever.  But he doesn’t follow through.  “Which of the two did the will of his father?” Jesus asks (Matthew 21:31).  The answer is easy … but it’s also really hard because it strikes pretty close to home.

Every day, we sinners get up and have to decide what path we’ll take.  Or, I should say, we get to decide which path we’ll take.  Yesterday’s success or failure is yesterday’s success or failure.  Every day, we’re offered the grace to start again.  Every day.  That’s why Jesus says to the supposedly holy religious leaders that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are coming into God’s kingdom ahead of them – because those tax collectors and prostitutes who’d become part of Jesus’ community were making the choice for right relationship with God and neighbor each day.  That’s what being part of a beloved community means:  Choosing to act out the values and norms of that community, that family, with each new day.  Righteousness isn’t an account we build up that eventually tips the scales and opens up the pearly gates to us; it’s making the choice to live as part of Jesus’ family today, and tomorrow, and the next day.  Righteousness isn’t what earns us a ticket to our heavenly home.  Righteousness reminds us where our home already is. 

So, what does that mean for you and me, here and now?  What I hear Jesus saying is this: Remember whose family you belong to.  Be clear about the values that guide you, and be sure your actions align with those values.  In this family, Jesus’ family, the primary value is love – love of God and love of neighbor.  And we believe that the model for practicing love is following the way of the cross.  As Paul writes in the second reading today, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8)  That’s love that gives itself away for the sake of the other.  And for members of Jesus’ family, every choice we make must spring from that value of self-giving love. 

It doesn’t matter whether the question of the moment is personal or public because Jesus expects us to be the same person in both settings.  That value of self-giving love needs to inform everything – how much time I spend with my wife and kids, or how much of my income I give away, or how deeply I listen to someone, or how our nation treats immigrants and refugees, or what steps we take to bring people out of poverty, or how we respond to people who kneel, or don’t kneel, during the national anthem.  Love has something to say about how we deal with each of those situations … and a thousand more.

Thankfully, love is also a work in progress.  Righteousness doesn’t require of us that we come before God with an unblemished record.  Righteousness doesn’t require of us that we get every answer right.  What righteousness requires of us is that, on this day, we choose to do what we can to live in right relationship with God and neighbor.  That’s who we are because, after all, we are what we do.