Sermon: Free indeed (Reformation, 2015)

Reformation Day

October 25, 2015

John 8:31-36

Grace to you and peace from God our Mighty Fortress and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Being a cancer survivor, a wife of someone who struggles with allergies, and now a mother of a young babe, I have gotten very interested the past couple years in cleaning. In particular, my interest is in the growing movement to “clean green,” trying to cut back on the barrage of chemicals we’ve grown accustomed to in cleaning and personal care products, but which often do more harm to our health than good. One article I recently read to this end was one on anti-bacterial soap and hand sanitizers. It outlined a history of hand cleanliness: did you know that when Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis suggested in the 1840s that washing hands before seeing each patient would decrease the spread of disease, he was ignored, ridiculed, rejected, and eventually admitted to an insane asylum? Of course now, washing hands is common sense and understood as the best way to prevent the spread of disease. Clean hands are so important, that today, 75% of liquid soaps include some anti-bacterial agent, and hand sanitizers are ubiquitous in purses, classrooms, doctor’s offices, and even church pews. We’ve taken the war on germs very seriously. But, this article went on to say, it turns out that our obsession with anti-bacterial hand-cleaning has had an undesired effect: it has weakened our immune systems, and created a “superbug,” a super resistant bacteria, not to mention exposed us to some dangerous chemicals along the way. As it turns out, plain old soap and water is still the best way to wash hands.

            I posted this article on Facebook, and a friend commented, “And another pendulum keeps swinging…” It’s true. Whether it is what current wisdom or research is recommending, or learning

that something we all were told was the best thing ever is actually harmful, or just the way we look at and understand something in our lives, it seems the world around us is a constantly swinging pendulum. Just when you get used to life one way, everything shifts.

            And so this week I have been thinking a lot about change, stagnancy and freedom. No one likes change – that is, no one likes it until we find ourselves in an uncomfortable or discouraging rut: a job that no longer challenges us, a relationship that does not bring us life, a way of living that drags us down. In these cases we may think that stagnancy is actually worse than change, but we don’t always have the courage to make the change that is necessary to break that stagnancy. We are held back by too much baggage, too much doubt, or too much fear. We are in some way enslaved by these things – our baggage, doubts, and fears – and we feel we lack the freedom to make the change we need.

            I wonder if that’s how people felt back in 1517, when Martin Luther famously took his stand regarding how the Church needed to change and reform? In the 95 theses Luther hammered to the church door on that October day, he noted the abuses the Church had engaged in, most notably the sale of indulgences that were allegedly required for people to get into heaven. Luther explained how unbiblical this was, how contrary to the gospel of forgiveness and eternal life. He preached that we are saved and justified not by our actions or the law, and certainly not by how much money we are able to pay (that is, we cannot buy our way into heaven). Rather, he preached that we are saved purely by God’s grace, apart from any works. As Paul writes in the passage we heard today from

Romans, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

In other words, nothing you do or don’t do is grounds for you going to heaven or not; it doesn’t so much matter what you have done as what God has done through Christ. It was (and is!) a beautiful gospel of freedom, life, and forgiveness. Seems pretty good, right? And yet, the Church of the 16^th century resisted this truth. It was a change in what the Church had been teaching – a good, and more faithful change, but a change nonetheless. But the resistance to change, to reform, was so strong that Luther ended up spending his last years hidden away in a stone safe haven, for fear of his life. Like with our hand-washing doctor friend, what now seems like a common sense change for the better was resisted in favor of keeping the status quo.

            Well, it’s easy to look back at the 16^th century Church and say, “Wow, they really missed the boat on this one. Why would they be so resistant to such good news?” The gospel that Luther preached was one of liberation, one that released people from financial obligations they couldn’t afford, and emotional and spiritual baggage that was destructive to their relationship with God. Why would they reject that?

But honestly, even though it is this same interpretation of the gospel that I try to preach each week, we are all still resistant to it. The possibility that God’s grace could be more powerful than our shortcomings seems like a long shot. Even though we believe God to be all-powerful and the king of the universe, it is sometimes hard to accept that God’s grace and forgiveness extend even to us, that all of that baggage, that self-doubt, that fear that enslave us and keep us from moving forward, moving toward life and transformation, might in fact be powerless in the face of God’s love and grace. It is hard to accept that we could actually be free.

But imagine for a moment what that freedom might mean. Imagine that you are not riddled with self-doubt, and instead can trust that God loves you and is pleased with you. Imagine that whatever haunts you or hurts you from your past no longer matters, and instead you can trust that you are forgiven for all your past mistakes. Imagine that the expectations you put on yourself, and your frustrations over when you don’t meet those expectations, are no longer weighing on your shoulders, and instead you can live and rejoice in the knowledge that God has claimed you in baptism, redeemed you through Jesus Christ, and promises continual grace and life to you. If all that were true, what might you be able to do? How might you be able to be in the world? Unencumbered by all those things that enslave you, how would your life look?

It’s hard to grasp all that! It all seems too good to be true. But friends, it is true. God has given all of this to us. The Son has made us free, and we are free indeed – free from doubts, fears, frustrations, burdens, sins, and all that would enslave us and keep us from living the life that God intends for us. Free to make the changes we need to make in order to live life more fully. We are free. Tell yourself in the morning. Tell yourself at lunchtime. Tell yourself before bed: “I am free. God loves me and forgives me when I fall short, and I am free to live a life that reflects my God of grace.” Thanks be to God!

Let us pray… God of grace, we are so often held back and enslaved by our fears and doubts. But you are a God of freedom! Guide us to live in that freedom – freedom for love, freedom for joy, freedom for service. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.