Reformation Sunday
Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36
Truthiness: the American Dialect Society in its 16th annual "words of the year" selection, voted truthiness as the word of the year. Recently popularized on the Colbert Report , a satirical mock news show on Comedy Central, truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, "I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart."
A lot of Reformation Day activities wrap Martin Luther in "truthiness"; that is good feelings in the gut about Martin Luther that are notreally the whole picture. Reformation Day is not a Martin Luther commemoration day. Martin Luther had no desire to be made a saint and he would be the first one to declare that he should not be so honored. Luther wrote many incisive declarations about the faith, that to this day stand as paragons of teaching and learning. From his simple Small Catechism which was meant for parents to teach to their children to his discourses on the Book of Romans and the "Freedom of a Christian" his body of work has withstood the test of time.
But we don't want to cover Luther in a cloak of truthiness. H e also wrote awful, terrible scandalous tracts about the Jews, things that many historians feel played into the rise of the Nazi regime.
In his own day, He riled up the peasants so much so, that they revolted against the overlord princes and Luther pulled the rug out from under them, disowning and denying the validity of the peasant complaints. It was an action that troubled him to his dying day.
We could go on but this is not a Luther bashing day any more than it is a saint Luther day. The point is, that Luther would be the first one to deny that this day should be about him or about any denomination that bears his moniker.
His most ardent struggle throughout life was that he was a sinner, a lost human being caught in the bondage of sin and death that nothing, nothing he could do would save him. His greatest peace came from knowing God's grace, the free gift of love showered upon him and from realizing he was forgiven.
His watchwords became the piece of scripture from our lessons for today. "Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace, as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. " So this Day, this Reformation Day is not about putting Martin Luther up on a pedestal, it is not about drenching him in truthiness.
Rather this day is about something that Luther, a saint and sinner kind of guy, managed to do back in 1521 that models and exemplifies a charge for us and for every generation.
Martin Luther " spoke truth to power ."
In 1521 there was no one in the world more powerful than the Pope. Kings and Queens, Princes and Principalities were swayed and buffeted by the scope of Papal influence. This was a force to be reckoned with.
Into this context stepped a lowly professor at a brand new, not very distinguished university, Wittenberg. He was a heady sort and there were some issues about the practices of the church that didn't square with his reading of scripture. He thought by enumerating those 95 issues and posting them he could get a little debate going among the university community. Little did he realize that that action would be the catalyst for a changed world. He spoke truth to power.
"Then Jesus said, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."
Now this Reformation day would not be much if it were only a dusty history lesson about events 500 years ago. This reformation day needs to be about more than that. It needs to be about the empowering message of the gospel that allows us to " speak truth to power ."
In our own day one of those who has "spoken truth to power" is Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. As a peacemaker he called for the government of South Africa to end the abusive system of apartheid and he called for the world to pray for his country. He has this charge to us, the Christian community.
We are a church on the move, an instrument in the hand of God, proclaiming the Good News, nurturing new converts, we are instruments of peace and reconciliation and justice in the hands of God. We are the means of healing hurts, of building community, of feeding the hungry. We are a worshipping Spirit-filled community, who know that we can do God's work only in God's way with God's means, and so we have an engaged spirituality that places first things first.
We are God's partners, God's agents of transfiguration, to change the ugliness of the world, its hatred, its hostilities, its jealousies, its hunger, its poverty, its injustice, its oppression, its alienation, its loneliness, its rivalry, its competitiveness, its grasping, its sickness, into their glorious counterparts; so that there will be laughter and joy, sharing and caring, justice, reconciliation and peace, and compassion.
For we have seen the Lord high and lifted up and we have heard him say 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' and we are saying 'Here we are Lord, send us'." (Archbishop Tutu's Charge to Synod, 1992). Bishop Tutu knows what it is to speak truth to power.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai speaks truth to power in another way. As a biologist, she began Kenya's Green Belt Movement, starting with a small tree nursery in her backyard in 1977. The goal of the Green Belt Movement was to replace the trees that had been cut down, to curb erosion, to protect the future of Kenya's land for her children and their children. As she empowered ordinary women to begin by planting trees in their back yards the grassroots movement spread. Since then, over a 10 million trees have been planted
Her efforts to promote an environmental agenda quickly conflicted with government building plans and she was labeled subversive. At first she was ignored, then made fun of. The president of Kenya once said, when asked about her "Oh these African women they all have insects in their heads." But she persisted and by winning national acclaim in 2002 was elected to the Parliament with 98% of the vote. One of the first things she has tried to do is to make Easter Sunday a tree planting day. "To get the cross somebody has to go into the forest, cut a tree and chop it up. I thought there would be nothing better for the Christians to do than plant a tree and bring back a life, the way Christ came back to life."
Speaking truth to power is never easy. This day we take a page from history and some pages from our world today. We dust off the truthiness. Behind it we see not extraordinary human beings, not perfect people but ordinary people who have been enlivened by a power beyond themselves to courageous and purposeful activity.
Jesus said, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."
Amen