REFORMED OR REFORMING?
Scriptures: Romans 3:19-28
Galatians 2:15-21
The last Sunday of October has traditionally been designated by most Protestant churches as Reformation Sunday. What’s that? Am I hearing a collective yawn along with an under-the-breath kind of muttered “huh?” or “so what?” Well, you’re probably right. Used to be, back in the day, that Reformation Sunday was a really big deal, especially in the 19th century when die-hard Protestants would rail against “papists” and do everything possible to differentiate Protestants from Catholics. But then following the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s the “breath of fresh air” that moved through the windows of the Roman Catholic church meant that there was much more of a sense of rapprochement between Protestant and Catholic – a sense that we have more that unites us as Christians than divides us as two different branches of Christianity. Oh, to be sure, there are many areas where we, especially in the United Church of Christ, differ with the positions of the Catholic Church, particularly on matters of social issues. But this disagreement is done more in the context of genuine dialogue than it is with diatribe and Catholic-baiting. Reformation Sunday just hasn’t quite been the same since.
So, why am I lifting it up here today? Well, at a simplistic level it gives us an excuse to sing Martin Luther’s magnificent hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”. Or, we could spend this sermon time looking at the life and legacy of Martin Luther, who, after all, is one of the primary figures of our faith. (Indeed, the last time Reformation Sunday had some real cachet was probably 1993, which was the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth.) Or, we could wait until next year which would be the 490th anniversary of Luther’s act of reformation by nailing 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church. But 490s are really strange anniversaries to be noting, anyway, aren’t they?
No, as you’ve probably already guessed by now, I have a somewhat more serious concern in mind in wanting us to note Reformation Sunday – and that’s to look at the question of whether we are a reformed church…or a reforming church.
A few years back the Consultation on Church Union, which has been slowly striving since 1962 to see what it could mean for eleven Protestant denominations to come together around such matters as baptism, eucharist, and ministry, changed its name to Church of Christ Uniting in order to demonstrate in its name the dynamic process that working toward union could be. The hope that was expressed in such a name change was that if and when actual union did occur the name could become Church of Christ United. Sounds a lot like our own denomination, doesn’t it? In fact, when the United Church of Christ came into being 50 years ago there was some sentiment that the name be Uniting Church of Christ, so that the dynamism present in the coming together of the Congregational Christian Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church could be carried into the future. I continue to think that might be a helpful way to refer to our denomination.
COCU – the Consultation on Church Union, or, now, the Church of Christ Uniting – likes to speak of a church which could come into existence through uniting as being “truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed”. A church that is “catholic” (small “c”) would be universal, inclusive, open to all (again, sounds an awful lot like what the UCC aspires to be). A church that is “evangelical” (again, small “e”) would be responsive to God’s mission in the world with plenty of outreach through programs like our food pantry and bread run. But what would it mean for this church to be “reformed”. After all, we are already part of the Reformed (here, capital “R”) tradition, following in the footsteps of Calvin and Zwingli and all those other 16th century luminaries who fixed the principle of reformation in our consciousness. What could it mean to tell those of us who are sons and daughters of the Reformation that we are to be “truly reformed”?
Well, here I think that COCU gets it wrong in its choice of words. “Reformed” sounds like the end of the process – something that has finally happened to and for us. But reformation, renewal, re-vitalization of life are not just aspects of God’s promise that happen once, and then we only need to look back and remember them – like on Memorial Day. Rather, to be true to God’s desires for God’s church and God’s world involves us in an ever-renewing process – a reforming of ourselves, our church, and our world.
What I believe COCU is really talking about here is the reforming principle – a principle which is going to have to be a part of any church of the future, whether it be one that unites several denominations into one or whether it is seen as a uniting church. No longer is the Christian church – or, at least, not mainstream Protestant churches, as we said last week – in a position of privilege where it can count on largess from government or society or on blind obedience from those for whom belonging to a church is “the thing to do”. No longer is the church viewed as having all the answers to the ultimate questions. No longer are the dictates of the church seen as divine commands. Whether we deplore or welcome these changes in the attitude of the world toward the church, it is the case that church people of the 21st century are going to have to search out new ways of being responsive for God’s will for the world. One such way is through this reforming principle.
Dr. Rene Williamson, speaking about the effects recent societal trends have had on the life of the church, has said, “But in its present state the church is powerless to counter and change these effects because it is not a reforming church but a conforming church,” That’s a pretty damning statement, but let’s look at what’s behind it. Churches and church members have a tendency to adapt to what is happening in the society to which they belong rather than analyzing that society in order to see how it might be renewed. This is true of both liberal and conservative church people. Some would hold to the ways of the past, even those ways which have been culturally conditioned, as though there is no other way to do God’s will. On the other hand, there are those who want to baptize the culture by seeing any expression other than the traditional as being God’s will for this time. The key problem I have with the religious right is its tendency to take a political, socio-economic solution to a societal issue and apply it as though it is the God-given answer to that issue…and no other approach is possible.
Here’s a perhaps kind of silly example of what I am talking about: it is not necessarily wrong to use a rap song for the anthem on any given Sunday. It would be wrong to oppose it just on the basis that it has never happened before, but it would be equally wrong to advocate for it for the same reason: this has never happened here, but it’s part of today’s cultural scene, so we ought to do it. What needs to be brought to bear on this or on any issue that comes before us is the reforming principle: what meaning might this event have in terms of God’s love for the world? This is really the central question to bring to any attempt at reforming ourselves, or our church, or our society: what meaning can our efforts have in terms of God’s love for the world? If we stop to ask this, perhaps a lot of the things we are doing – or not doing – will take on a different perspective.
This is not a hypothetical or idealistic question. It is at the heart of what effect the church will have on our rapidly changing society. A church that says, “we are already reformed,” is in danger of being static; a church that says, “we wish to be reforming,” looks for involvement and engagement in the world.
Look at the big issues of our time: global instability in the wake of terrorism and concomitant tensions between Christians and Muslims; renewed fear over nuclear warfare in the light of North Korean atomic bomb testing; ethical sexual conduct following a Congressman’s inappropriate e-mails to a page. A church that applies the reforming principle to these issues – what meaning needs to be found in them in terms of God’s love for the world? – will have much to say about the outcome as these issues are played out. And the important point is that the church should be speaking about these kinds of issues if it wishes to be a reforming church.
What about issues that are on the horizon? Many of these are coming out of the biological sciences. Organ transplants are by now pretty commonplace, but soon this practice will lead to the transplanting of a dying person’s brain into a healthy body. What will the church have to say about human personality and uniqueness when this happens? Progress has been made in the area of freezing someone dying of an incurable disease with the intention of re-animating that person in some future era when the disease’s cure has been found. What will the church have to say about life-spans and human attempts to manipulate biological existence? Working with amino acids and DNA scientists are at the very brink of creating life in a test tube. What will the church have to say about the meaning of God’s creation when life itself can be humanly created? If the church – or, more accurately, some parts of the church – reacts to these issues like it did at the time of Galileo or Darwin, by hiding its collective head in the sand in the face of scientific breakthroughs, the reforming principle will have gone down the drain and the church will be written off as irrelevant.
What happens, you see, is that the church as an institution tends to codify its way of thinking, and this leads to legalism and a rigidity of the law. God’s will for a particular time gets formed into a principle, but then that principle becomes, in the minds of believers, a divine command for all time. It was against this kind of legalism that Martin Luther fought; he saw the church of his day as offering a systematic repression of any new ways of responding to God’s love for the world. In fact, it was exactly this same kind of legalism against which Christ struggled. For him to say that the Sabbath belongs to humanity and not humanity to the Sabbath was anathema to those for whom human beings were supposed to be bound by institutions. If we today let institutional restrictions of God’s freedom rule our religion, we are in danger of rejecting the reforming principle.
And that would be rather odd, for the reforming principle is part and parcel of one of the strongest affirmations of our faith – the affirmation of justification by faith as spelled out by Paul in his letter to the Romans, which we read today, and which Luther made the basis for his reformation of the church. What this idea tells us is that Christianity as an institution can give us basic principles as a way of ordering our lives, but if we are to live freely as God intends us to be free, then we must be open to going beyond the law, as the word of Christ continually went beyond the law. One example of this, as I’m sure you’ve heard before in this kind of a discussion, would be those good people in Nazi Germany who illegally hid Jews so that they would not be killed. Love was stronger than the law in this instance.
When Paul says in Galatians, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God,” he is not trying to make a case for himself that on God’s account he has become an anarchistic lawbreaker. Rather, he is affirming that the claims of God may move us beyond the boundaries of what institutionalized religion is telling us. And when the church understands this – and, more importantly, when it lives it out – it is operating under the reforming principle. This is not easy. It is human nature, and perhaps even religious nature, to want to stick with something that has been fully acceptable behavior for years. Yet, an earlier generation of Christians were able to decide that the Sabbath was made for humanity and not the opposite, as they had believed; that they were not to judge others so that they wouldn’t be judged, as they had been taught to do; that good should be returned for evil, rather than try to get an eye for an eye. They were able to make these decisions because they had encountered a man – Jesus of Nazareth – not a law book or a set of principles or a religious institution.
As we also encounter that man in each person we meet, so, too, will we be enabled to respond freely and not just on the basis of past, dearly held beliefs. That man taught us to look at people more than at principles. And that, finally, is what the reforming principle is all about – to look first at people and their needs and then to respond on that basis. This is what Paul is calling us to when he tells about his response to this man who was more than human: “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” If we as individuals and as a church can reach out for this kind of reforming, then it will never be so for us that “Christ died for nothing”.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
October 29, 2006