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"Re-Formation"
Happy Re-Formation Day! Yes, you heard me correctly. Happy Re-Formation
Day. I'm hoping that by putting the em-PHA-sis on the wrong
sy-LAB-le you will catch the spirit of this day's worship and
be carried along by it through the coming week.
A new book based on research by the California-based research
firm the Barna Group found that church attitudes [the way
Christians act toward the world around them] … are driving a
negative image of the Christian faith among people ages 16-29.
David Kinnaman, Barna Group president and author of the book
"UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity",
said one of the biggest surprises for researchers was the extent
to which respondents said that modern-day Christianity was no
longer like Jesus.
Kinnaman said some Christians … [are] prefer[ring] to call
themselves "followers of Jesus" or "apprentices of Christ"
because the word "Christian" could limit their ability to
relate to people.
Kinnaman also observed that, "When Jesus pursued people, he
was much more critical of pride and much more critical of
spiritual arrogance than he was of people who were sinful.
And today's Christians, if you spend enough time looking
at their attitudes and actions, really are not like Jesus
when it comes to that."
It’s no surprise to us is it? The church, which is not an
institution or organization but the people in it, namely
you and me, are constantly in need of re-formation. Look
at the folks Jesus was talking to in the Gospel for today.
“We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves
to anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Church people have always struggled with pride and arrogance.
It is really a very simple story. In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. There, in the beginning, it says that
God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his
nostrils of breath of life and man became a living being. Male
and female he created them in His own image.
It is that very image of God that Jesus is after when He
says, “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
The image of God imprinted on the soul of man is the freedom
to truly live.
Freedom is what the Re-formation is all about. God has designed
human beings so that we want to be free and to live free. Spiritually
free so that we are no longer afraid of death and a vengeful God
but free to die and then live with God for all eternity. Emotionally
free so that we are no longer haunted by the ghosts of our past or
the fears of our future; no longer hung-up on ourselves but free
to truly love others. Economically free so that we are no longer
worried about what we will eat or what we will wear but free to
be content in any an all circumstances. Even politically free
so that we can live quiet and peaceable lives and not be manipulated
or persecuted by any corrupt system of church or state.
Freedom, spiritually free, emotionally free, economically free,
politically free, we all want it. It is how we were designed by
God to live.
Today we celebrate the re-formation of a man named Martin Luther
whose rediscovery of true freedom altered the course of human
history. Luther was not free. He was a slave to his childhood,
to the culture of 1500’s that he grew up in, to the religious
practices of the church in his day. In a strict German household
where behavior was controlled by severe discipline Luther grew
up in fear of the punishment. In fact he lived in a world where
fear was the common currency of daily life. And sadly, the church
itself had become fear’s primary commodity, buying and selling
souls for a piece of paper called an indulgence which would free
grandma or grandpa from the fires of hell.
Luther’s re-formation began as he studied the New Testament of
the Bible as a young professor in the little town of Wittenberg
Germany. Amazingly he discovered that God was not angry and vengeful
seeking constantly to punish him for his wrong, but in fact a
merciful and kind heavenly Father who wanted more than anything
else to forgive and set him free to start living. Luther discovered
that God’s love and mercy for him was entirely free and inexhaustible.
He discovered that God did not want him to live in fear. As Luther
saturated himself in the Word, God’s Word, the Bible, he was set
free to be the kind of human being God intended him to be.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds incredibly refreshing to
me. It is so easy to get trapped in this culture, in the mindset
of 21st century America, chasing that deep down inner sense of
freedom that says now you’re really living. And there is so much
good stuff out there that promises satisfaction – hard work, a
high moral standard, a compassionate spirit seeking to do good
for others, and a plethora of preachers telling you if you only
try a little harder you will be able to achieve God’s blessing
and favor. Of course there is a lot of bad stuff out there too
that promises satisfaction the quick and easy way – look out
for yourself first, indulge every desire you can when you can,
eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die.
I read a story about a man in Pittsburgh. It is one of those
sadly humorous, dumb-crook stories. His idea wasn’t necessarily
a new one. He needed money and decided he could get it in a
grocery story by handing the checkout clerk counterfeit money,
and ask for change. He was a big thinker. If he was going to
risk attempting this fraud, he was going to do it in a way
that would set him up for life. So he decided to try to pass
off not a counterfeit $100 bill, not a counterfeit $1000 bill,
not even a counterfeit $10,000 bill, but his very own counterfeit
$1,000,000 bill.
Now you would have thought that it would have crossed his mind
that a grocery store clerk might not have change for a million
dollars in her register. Then again it might have occurred to
him that a one million dollar bill was going to attract some
attention. But if he had done even a little bit of research he
surely would have easily discovered that there is no such thing
as a $1,000,000 bill. In fact the largest currency printed in
the US today is a $100 bill.
Folks, trapped in this culture, in the mindset of 21st century
America, chasing that deep down inner sense of freedom that says
“now you’re really living,” whether you take the high road of
hard work, high moral standards, and selfless acts of service;
or the low road of looking for love in all the wrong places,
is like walking into that grocery story with a fake $1,000,000
bill. You will not walk out free.
Even if you manage to achieve emotional freedom through self-help
and pop-psychology-try-harder-and-God-will-bless-you religion;
even if you manage to achieve economic freedom by some adequate
measure of savings and investment; even if you achieve political
freedom by voting the magic party into office who will fix all
our social problems; you cannot achieve spiritual freedom –
to escape death and live eternally with God - by yourself.
You see spiritual freedom is achieved only through perfection –
in every thought, every word, and every action of your existence.
Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Sin is simply
our inability to be perfect. It is what was lost in very opening
chapters of the Bible when Adam and Eve decided that freedom meant
being free from God – and they chose to try and do life their own
way rather than His way.
Jesus says the only way to be free is “if the Son sets you free,
[then] you will be free indeed.” My friends, not only did God form
human life out of the dust of the ground and breathe into our nostrils
the breath of life, but God has also re-formed us by taking on human
flesh himself in the person of His one and only Son, Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus is the only truly free person who has ever lived since Adam and
Eve. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, the Son
of God was like us in every way except He was without sin. That’s
what we believe.
For our re-formation the Son of God went willingly to the cross. He
was mocked, beaten almost to death, and then crucified. He hung for
hours in agony and the worst of it was not the physical pain He
endured but the spiritual separation from the Father that cut Him
off from the source of all life. He cried out from the cross, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” And then he died. All the
sin of all the people in all the world, past, present and future
were laid on Him and His lifeless body was laid in a tomb.
But the re-formation of all human life was about to be fulfilled.
On the third day Jesus rose again from the dead. Spiritual freedom -
to no longer be afraid of death because you know that eternal life
is yours - that's what Jesus accomplished. And that freedom is yours
right now by simply believing that Jesus truly is God who suffered
and died and rose again to take away all your sins and give you
eternal life with God. Now that's what He does day after day, by
the power and work of the Holy Spirit - you confess - He forgives -
and with that forgiveness comes new life, that deep down inner
sense of freedom that says now you're really living. It is your
re-formation that God accomplishes in this worship through the
very Words you are hearing, in the water of your baptism, in the
body and blood of Jesus in with and under the bread and wine of
our communion.
Oh, and one last thing, when you are set free by the Son
you are now able to be person God intended you to be. I heard
someone compare our freedom in Christ to the picture of a
guitar string. When you take a new string for a guitar out
the package and it's hanging there freely, disconnected, is
it really free? No, in fact it is only when the string is
attached to the guitar at both ends and it is tightened down
that it is able "sing" its appointed note. It isn't really
free until it is able to fulfill its purpose.
In Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection you are reconnected
to God on one end and to the human race, the world we live
in at the other end. To love God with all our heart, soul,
mind and strength and to love one another as God has loved
us that is our purpose. Freedom in Christ is not doing your
own thing like a free dangling guitar strings, with no
attachments. Connected to God on one end and to each other
on the other end our lives begin to sing.
There is so much to do! Take a look around you, who needs your
help, your comfort, your presence? How are you connecting to
your family, that person at work you’ve been meaning to talk
to, that new neighbor that moved in? It’s not just big things –
you know building houses, feeding the hungry, caring for poor
and needy – it is those things – but it’s also, and even more
so, the 101 little things you do without having to think about
it. The Son has set you free – be creative.
Happy Re-Formation Day!
Amen.
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