Tag Archives: Reformation Sunday

Reformation: None of Us Know What We are About to Become

Posted on by
Reply

“Semper Reformanda” – “Always Reforming”  the rallying criesof the reformers. A short little phrase shouted out by the agents of change to express the Church’s need to be always reforming. Now, to reform is by definition to make changes. I don’t know about you but I’m not sure how many more changes I can bear. Since March of 2020, we have all endured 20 long months of change. Talk about a reformation. Churches all over the planet, closed the doors to their sanctuaries. Trapped in the relative safety of our homes, we found ourselves gathering not in sanctuaries, but in the ever-changing platforms of the internet. Liturgies and sermons were changed and adapted in ways we could never have imagined or entertained, as we scrambled to find ways to worship together even as we were being kept apart. Pastoral care, baptisms, funerals, committee meetings, annual meetings, bible studies, all these had to change and adapt. While here at Holy Cross we embarked on this interminable eucharistic fast. If you had told us way back when this long covid nightmare began that it would last this long, I’m not sure we would have had the courage to endure it.

Back in the early days, many of us assumed that we would be back inside our buildings by Easter, celebrating together. But Easter came and went, so we looked toward Homecoming, hoping that the summer months would get us to a place where we could come home into our sanctuaries. Then before we knew it, Reformation Sunday came and went, so we looked toward Christmas, and then Christmas came and went, and then another Easter, on and on it went through the second summer, and second Homecoming, and now here we stand, pardon the pun. But here we stand, ready to at last to tentatively open the doors to this sanctuary so that we can gather together, in-person for worship.

I say tentatively, because I’m not sure what will happen when we open the doors. So, much has changed. None of us are the same as we once were. There have been so many losses. Monumental losses. There have been surprises. So very many surprises. Challenges, where do we begin to list all the challenges we have encountered? The enumerable challenges have resulted in an untold number of changes. Change upon, change, upon change. If ever the church has needed to embrace the need to always be reforming, it has been during these past 20 months. So, if like me, you are longing for some freedom from semper reformanda, the need to be always reforming, well who can blame us?

Over the past few weeks, I suspect that like me, you have also heard, or perhaps even said yourselves, phrases like, “won’t it be nice to get back to normal?” The trouble is there is no going back to normal, not for any of us and certainly not for the church. Each of us is forever changed by our experiences. The Church, which was struggling long before lockdowns, is forever changed by this long exile from our sanctuaries. The truth is, normal wasn’t working very well for the Church. As weary as many of us are of all the changes we have experienced during this exile, most of us know, we know it in our bones that none of us can go back to the way things were. That’s just not how life works. We have all changed, our families have changed, our friends have changed, our neighbourhoods have changed, our country has changed, our world has changed, and so has our church. And so, in the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther, “Here I stand, for I can do no other.”

Here we stand on the threshold of a new tomorrow. On Reformation Sunday we will open the doors to this sanctuary. Some of you will be able to cross the threshold into this place and others of you will have to continue to cross technological thresholds in order to be with us. All of us will have to cross various thresholds in order to continue to emerge from this long exile. Thresholds, or doorways, are by their very nature liminal spaces. Liminal means transitional. Liminal spaces, or thresholds are also what our ancestors often referred to as “thin places”. Places where the boundaries between the SARCED and the ordinary are very thin.

I always feel very vulnerable in thin places, betwixt and between, what was and what is to come. That vulnerability can sometimes make me fearful or cause me to put up defenses. Not knowing what I will encounter beyond the threshold can be frightening. Sometimes, I find myself lingering in doorways, wondering how to muster up the courage to move through the threshold into the unknown.

If I am honest, I suppose that there is part of me, the fearful part of me, that would just as soon stay right where I am. It may not be where I want to be, but I’ve become accustomed to the way things are here and now and I’m not sure I’m ready for whatever lies ahead. So, here I stand, in this empty sanctuary, doing what I’ve learned to do during our exile, not knowing what comes next, full of anticipation and trepidation as the words of our ancestors echo down through the centuries, “semper reformanda”

From within this threshold, this thin place, my skin is not as tough or as thick as it has needed to be during these long months. I can feel the excitement begin to penetrate my defenses, and my fear is beginning to be replaced by my longing to move through this doorway into whatever the future holds. But before I can move ahead, the words of the gospel which has been proclaimed on Reformation Sundays for generations, penetrate this thin place, as I anticipate the transformation of this ordinary room into a sacred sanctuary. From the anonymous gospel-storyteller we call John, we hear that, Jesus said to the people who had believed in him,  “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31)

Free, who among us doesn’t long to be free. Free to gather. Free to hope. Free to laugh and sing and rejoice. Free to dream. Free to grieve together. Free to comfort one another. Free to hope. Free to be all that we are created to be. I know, I know. Here I sand. Here I stand in a threshold that is wider than I would like, a threshold which will take longer to pass through than I would like. But here I stand, longing for the freedom to be all that I am created to be. I don’t yet know what lies beyond this threshold. None of us know what we are about to become. Sure, we know something about the restrictions which lie on the other side of this doorway. COVID hasn’t gone away, and we will have to take care of one another. Some of us aren’t going to cross this threshold with us. We’ve lost some dear friends. Many of the problems we had before going into exile are still there or have grown into bigger problems. It’s tempting to simply grow thicker skin and set up stronger defenses. But here we stand, in this thin place. And low and behold, there are new people standing here with us. We’ve learned new ways to be with one another. We’ve extended the size of our sanctuary, beyond these walls, to include room for people who are just beginning to get to know us and whom we are just beginning to get to know.

There are new opportunities for us to explore as we begin to unpack the blessings which flowed like manna in the wilderness of our exile. All those smiling faces on screens who ventured into newly created space on internet platforms, you too are here on this threshold, you are like sacred manna sustaining us, even as we have been manna sustaining you. So, here we stand, together, in this thin place, this liminal space, this threshold, to quote the good Dr. Luther, “for we can do no other.” Here we stand in the doorway into a new way of being together.

Semper reformanda, always reforming. There’s a SACRED freedom in all this change, a freedom for us to linger as we both remember, with more than a tinge of nostalgia, the way things were, together with the freedom to hope and dream for what we will become as we change and grow together. So, let our celebration of Reformation, be just that, a celebration. Let us take the time we need to recall what was, to see what is, and to dream of what might be. Let the truth of where we have been, the truth of what is, and the truth of what lies ahead, set us free to be all that we are created to be. Our lives together are a gift and LOVE is the point of our lives together. Let these truths set us free to be all that we are created to be. Let truth free us to be LOVE in the world, the whole world, all the various worlds in which we live and move and have our being. Whether those worlds are here in this place, or over the various media through which you are able to connect with one another.

Let us embrace our freedom to be LOVE, LOVE which IS BEYOND the BEYOND, and BEYOND that also.  Here I stand. Here you stand. Here we stand. For we can do no other. May the truth set us free to be LOVE, now and always, in-person, on-line, crossing thresholds, creating sanctuary for one another, nourishing, grounding and sustaining one-another, manna for one another, manna for the exciting journey LOVE invites us to make, here and now. Semper Reformanda!  Always Reforming.

Watch the full Reformation Worship video below

CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD the Order of Service

Always Reforming: Freedom and Loss

Posted on by
1

Jesus said: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples: and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  Semper Reformanda – always reforming! Reformation has a great deal in common with freedom.  Whenever I hear that word “freedom” the lyrics of an old folk song pop into my head: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

I suppose there is always a price to pay for freedom. A church that holds up the value of always reforming, is a church that will choose freedom over tradition.     Sometimes, choosing freedom over tradition can feel like losing; losing traditions that once seemed precious to us.  When it comes to worship the truth has set us free from all sorts of traditions that we once valued. Sometimes we discover that the traditions we once believed were so very important fall away.

What follows is a reflection on what we have lost and what we have found.

Echoing the Divine Plea: “I Lay Before You Life and Death. Choose Life!” a Reformation Sermon

Posted on by
1

Listen to the sermon Here

As you can see and hear, our granddaughters are spending the weekend with us. As many of you know, because you have experienced it yourselves, when little children come into your life, they completely change your perspective. For the past several weeks, my focus and indeed, our focus together has been upon our Visioning Process as we try to envision the kind of church we here at Holy Cross want to be over the course of the next five years. There have been many questions and conversations about who and what we are together as a congregation and where and how we want to engage our talents and resources; questions and conversations about what it means to be a congregation in the 21st century and how we might respond to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. What do we have to offer? How can we play to our strengths? How might we make a difference in and with the various communities that we currently serve? How can we do more? What is the more that we can and should be doing? What are we as a congregation being called to be and do? What is the importance of our Lutheran heritage? What does our reputation for being a “progressive church” mean to us, to the communities that we serve, and to the future we see for ourselves? How can we stay relevant in a world where the church is continually being judged as irrelevant? How will we choose what is most important? Which needs or whose needs can and must we meet, and which needs, or whose needs must we say no to because we can’t possibly hope to meet everyone’s needs? Where will the energy, time, and resources come from so that we can fully live into all that we envision for ourselves?

Semper Reformanda, Always Reforming can and is so very exhausting. But Semper Reformanda, Always Reforming is also challenging, invigorating, and vital! So, “here I stand” on this Reformation Sunday, charged with the responsibility to proclaim the Gospel, the Good News in ways that will challenge us all to be bold, to be the Church that Martin Luther set loose on the world 500 years ago.  So, since our Visioning Session last Sunday, I’ve been all up in my head trying to figure out exactly what I could possibly preach to you that would help us to break the log-jam in which we find ourselves as we try to figure out where we are going and what we are called to do. I’ve been reading and studying, going over and over where we’ve been, what we’ve been doing, and what we have been considering and my mind has been full of questions and concerns, and hopes, and dreams. That is until Friday evening when the little girls arrived. Suddenly, I was jolted out of my head and into the fierce immediacy of now! Now Gran? Gran, can we? Gran, can you get me? Gran, I want!!! Gran, NOW!!! Followed by me, saying, In a minute. Just a minute. Wait, I’m coming. Look out! You’re going to hurt yourself. Stop that please! Wait, hold-on, maybe, let me see, I don’t know, maybe, let’s wait and see, OK, Yea, OK, I said, “NO”. What, leave her alone. Don’t do that! Do this! Please. Please Gran. Can we Gran, can we? Playing with and responding to the needs of a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old has shifted my focus.  It’s exhausting and it’s liberating and there’s nothing quite like little ones to get you out of your head and into your heart.

So, today, despite all the grand and glorious questions that are swimming around in my head as we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and regardless of all our concerns about our future together as a congregation, one question looms very large in my mind and perhaps more importantly, in my heart. Today, my response to Martin Luther’s challenge to the church to be “Semper Reformanda!” – “Always Reforming” comes from my heart’s concern for my grandchildren. Looking toward the future of these little people, I cannot help but wonder what kind of church they will encounter as they grow into all that they have been created to be. Will they encounter an irrelevant, out of touch, Church, that is in so much denial about the realities of existence, that fails to respond to our changing understanding of what it means to be human, a church that holds tightly to ideas, doctrines and dogmas of a bygone era and cannot respond to the needs of the poor, the hungry, or the powerless? Or will they encounter a Church that has died a slow, agonizing death? Or maybe they will meet a living, thriving, vibrant Church that is relevant, responsive, and vital? Continue reading →

95 Theses for the Twenty-first Century

Posted on by
1

Delighted that so many of you after reading yesterday’s post have expressed interest in learning more of Matthew Fox’s 95 Theses for the 21st Century.  The best place to find out more is in Fox’s little book “A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity” published in 2006 by Inner Traditions press.

Click Here where you will find a complete list of Fox’s  95 Theses for the Twenty-first Century

Enough with “A Mighty Fortress” Already! Sing a New Song!

Posted on by
4

In the spirit of the Reformation motto: semper reformanda – always reforming, what say we abandon the fortresses of our traditions.  This Sunday, Lutheran churches all over the world will begin their Reformation Sunday worship services vigorously singing “A Mighty Fortress” and I for one wish they wouldn’t.  I suspect that the hymn’s author Martin Luther might just agree with me. After all didn’t Luther write a Mighty Fortress in an attempt to bring the popular music of the day into the church? I am convinced that this particular Reformation Sunday tradition has dear old Martin spinning in his grave at the thought that the church that bears his name is still singing a tired old chestnut like A Mighty Fortress to celebrate the Reformation. The very idea of 21st century Lutheran’s celebrating the Reformation by clinging to the events of the 16th century is an affront to the memory of Martin Luther. Continue reading →

95 Theses for the Twenty-first Century

Posted on by
Reply

Delighted that so many of you after reading this morning’s post have expressed interest in Learning more of Matthew Fox’s 95 Theses for the 21st Century.  The best place to find out more is in Fox’s little book “A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity” published in 2006 by Inner Traditions press.

Click Here where you will find a complete list of Fox’s  95 Theses for the Twenty-first Century

Enough with “A Mighty Fortress” Already! Sing a New Song!

Posted on by
Reply

In the spirit of the Reformation motto: semper reformanda – always reforming, what say we abandon the fortresses of our traditions.  Tomorrow, Lutheran churches all over the world will begin their Reformation Sunday worship services vigorously singing “A Mighty Fortress” and I for one wish they wouldn’t.  I suspect that the hymn’s author Martin Luther might just agree with me. After all didn’t Luther write a Mighty Fortress in an attempt to bring the popular music of the day into the church? I am convinced that this particular Reformation Sunday tradition has dear old Martin spinning in his grave at the thought that the church that bears his name is still singing a tired old chestnut like A Mighty Fortress to celebrate the Reformation. The very idea of 21st century Lutheran’s celebrating the Reformation by clinging to the events of the 16th century is an affront to the memory of Martin Luther.

We should be singing this centuries music and rather than smugly resting on the laurels of the past, we should be plotting were the reformation goes from here.  Perhaps in this the 21st century, when so many of the church’s traditions have seen the institution fall into the malaise of irrelevancy, we need to echo the cry: “Semper Reformanda”  —  “Always Reforming” the cry of the reformers who insisted that the church in every age stands in need of reformation.

Legend has it that on October 31st 1517, after taking a long hard look at the Roman Catholic Church and having fixed his sights on what he saw as the source of the rot that threatened to destroy the church’s ability to proclaim the Good News of God’s grace that is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Martin Luther took his 95 Theses on the abuses of the doctrine of indulgences into the streets of Wittenburg and nailed them on the doors of the church. Within a few short weeks, with the aid of the newest technology, copies of Luther’s 95 Theses spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire and sparked a Reformation the likes of which the church hadn’t seen since the Apostle Paul did away with the need to snip the male anatomy to gain entrance to the church. Luther’s words threatened the status quo of centuries of abuse. And the church as is her way, struck back with force so as to ensure that tradition might prevail. The rest, as they say, is history.

 Ah history, safely ensconced in the past with its hoards of devils. Let the people rejoice because Martin Luther did it all and we can relax safe in the knowledge that we are justified by grace, through faith. Ain’t it great to be a Lutheran!  “A mighty fortress is our God, who himself fights by our side with weapons of the spirit. Were they to take our house, goods, honour, child, or spouse, though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day. The Kingdom’s ours forever!”

So tell me, if they fought the good fight in the sixteenth century and handed us everything we need, and God is on our side and wins salvation glorious:    Where are the children? Where are the young people? Where are the neighbours?  Where is everybody? How and why did the church of our ancestors manage to fall into such disrepair? How did we become so irrelevant?

Most of us, can look around and see for ourselves how broken the church is. If we are honest, we all have our own particular theories as to why and how this happened. Yet we continue to go about our business, hoping against hope that someone will notice and finally fix it.  Year by year the church slips farther and farther into the morass of it’s own making and more and more people forget the wisdom of the ages and Christ seems to slip further and further from our grasp.  We, who go by the name Lutheran, we can’t do much more than point to our glorious past as if we could only turn the clocks back the work of the reformers of old would save us. But time waits for no one and year after year, people drift away and churches close their doors, and those who are left react with fear.

Despite the fact that we’ve tried to immortalize him, it’s as if Martin Luther never lived at all. Back in the dim recess of memory Luther stands, frozen and impotent. And I can’t help but ask the question:  “What would Martin do?”

Well in good old Lutheran style, a song comes to mind, a song of the people, a song from the streets, a drinking song…

             “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening, all over this land, I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out warning…

It’s time to stop celebrating the Reformation as if it is somehow over. The work of reformation continues precisely because the church is always in need of Reformation.

This week I re-read a little book by Matthew Fox. Fox was a Roman Catholic theologian until Mr Ratzinger silenced him. The Roman Catholic church’s loss was the Episcopal church’s gain.   Shortly after Mr Ratzinger made himself pope, Matthew Fox took a long hard look at the church he’d served for so many years and became demoralized. Fox noticed the similarities between the sex-abuse scandals that continue to rock the church and the abuses wrought by indulgences, and asked himself what Martin Luther would do. That’s when Matthew Fox decided to write a few Theses of his own. Except where Luther wrote his 95 Theses to object to the practice of indulgences, Fox wrote 95 Theses to object to the many and various abuses of the church. It wasn’t difficult, over the course of a particularly dark night, Matthew Fox found that 95 Theses came flooding out of him. In the morning, he resolved to take his 95 Theses to Wittenburg and nail them to the very same doors where Martin Luther instigated the Reformation.

Well, things have changed a little over the course of nearly 500 years since that fateful day in Wittenburg. You can’t just waltz up to the doors at Wittenburg and nail things there.  The doors are no longer made of wood and the city councilors require that you obtain a permit to protest at Wittenburg.

Fox was told that he would need to stay at least 500 feet from the doors, lest he interfere with the tourists who flock to visit the very spot were the church of the protester’s was born. Thus proving one of Fox’s thesis that the church has become for many nothing more than a museum for tourists.

Eventually the town council relented and after some careful construction, on October 31st 2005, Matthew Fox nailed his 95 Thesis to the doors of the church in Wittenburg. Rome took no notice.  But the churches in Germany did.  Just as Martin Luther’s action was aided by the invention of the printing press, Matthew Fox’s action was aided by the invention of the internet and thus began a conversation that led to the publication of Fox’s little book: A New Reformation:  Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity.  I return to Fox’s tome annually as part of my preparation to preach on Reformation Sunday.

Here’s a sample of Fox’s theses:

1) God is both Mother and Father.

3) God is always new, always young, and always “in the beginning.

4) God the Punitive Father is not a God worth honouring, but a false god and an idol that serves empire builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead, who is as much female and motherly as masculine and fatherly.

5) “All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves” (Meister Eckhart). thus people who worship a Punitive Father are themselves punitive.

6) Theism (the idea that God is “out there” or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).

10) God loves all of creation, and science can help us more deeply penetrate and appreciate the mysteries and wisdom of God in creation. Science is no enemy of true religion.

15) Christians must distinguish between Jesus (a historical figure) and Christ (the experience of God-in-all-things).

16) Christians must distinguish between Jesus and Paul.

18) Eco-justice is a necessity for planetary survival and human ethics; without it we are crucifying the Christ all over again in the form of destruction of forests, waters, species, air, and soil.

20) A preferential option for the poor, as found in the base community movement, is far closer to the teaching and spirit of Jesus than is a preferential option for the rich and powerful, as found, for example, in Opus Dei.

23) Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honoured as such.

24) Creativity is both humanity’s greatest gift and its most powerful weapon for evil, and so it ought to be both encouraged and steered to humanity’s most God-like activity, which all religions agree is compassion.

32) Original Sin is an ultimate expression of a punitive father God and is not a biblical teaching. Bit Original Blessing (goodness and grace) is biblical.

33) The term original wound better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world–a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming–than does the term Original Sin.

59) Fourteen billion years of evolution and unfolding of the universe bespeak the intimate sacredness of all that is.

60) Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control, or homosexuality.

71) A church that is more preoccupied with sexual wrongs than with wrongs of injustice is itself sick.

75) Poverty for the many and luxury for the few are not right or sustainable.

I’m sure that we all have thesis or two that you would like to nail to the door. I know that if I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening all over this land, right up to the doors of churches everywhere, and I would nail a few theses to the more than a few church doors. I’d begin with a thesis about the need to move beyond the destructive theories of atonement that have only served to pervert the meaning of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and separate people from the sure and certain knowledge that neither death, nor life nor anything in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

I’d include a theses or two about the dumbing down of our best theology and our acceptance of easy answers that have turned most people’s vision of God into a sadomasochistic father who insists on the death of his own son in order to satisfy our definition of justice.

I’d go on and on about the wonders and beauty of creation, and insist that we confess that we are wonderfully made.

I’d confess our obsession with self that lies behind the sin of avarice that permeates our consumer culture and turns our energies toward violence.

I’d call for a return to the Jewish tradition of Sabbath that called upon believers to read the Song of Songs and make love on the Sabbath.

I’d call the church to its responsibility to instill a love of creation in all people so that we can walk upon the earth lightly.

I’d remind the powers that be that all people are created equally and that sexuality is a gift from God to be celebrated and not used to segregate some believers from the priesthood that belongs to all believers.

On this Reformation Sunday, lovers of the church everywhere need to free ourselves from the shackles of tradition and about our 95 theses.

What wisdom do you have to share with the church?  What needs reforming?           What needs preserving? What needs tossing out? What needs holding up and celebration? When should we cry out in solidarity?  When should we sing out with joy and wonder? What should we do? What should we stop doing?  Semper Reformanda!    Always reforming!

This Reformation Sunday at Holy Cross Lutheran, we will sing new words by Miriam Therese Putzer to Luther’s traditional tune:  EIN FESTE BURG  which you can find  here

You can watch the video of Matthew Fox talking about his book here