This was my Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) sermon for my Introduction to Preaching class at LSTC. This is the only one of the four sermons that I actually was able to preach in real life, at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Reformation Sunday, October 31, 2021.
Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is our Christ. Amen.
In our Hebrew Bible scripture today, Jeremiah 31:31-34, we hear Jeremiah’s foretelling of the new covenant, a promise God gave to God’s people.
Let’s let those last two verses resound in our heads and hearts one more time:
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Most Lutheran churches use these words from Jeremiah as the good news every last Sunday in October. This day. Reformation Day. The day we commemorate our identity as God’s people, not by anything we do, but because of what God does and who God is. God’s grace is wide enough, Christ’s love strong enough to reconnect us with God, messed up people we are. That’s the truth. The truth that sets us free, as we hear echoed in today’s texts from Romans and John.
That’s good news today. Today and every day. I could sit down now. But as seminary pulls me onward, and my time in this place draws shorter, I would be remiss in wasting this opportunity to fill you with encouragement and challenge as God’s people, called to share the good news.
The Church always has been in correction mode, starting with that first Pentecost 50 days past Resurrection Sunday. The Holy Spirit ignited the believers, and what had been a small handful of disciples of Jesus of Nazareth grew by thousands from all sorts of places. The Way no longer was a secret group hiding in homes around Jerusalem and Galilee, but a Spirit-led wildfire of new believers throughout the nations. Recovering from that early morning Spirit-tossing, Peter preached to those who were watching and wondering, and encouraged them to be baptized in the name of Jesus the Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.
I imagine Peter looking out over the crowd, asking his fellow disciples: “Can you see the future church?”
The Reformation was a course correction for the Church, a movement away from being pronounced in good standing with God by what we could do, to restoration with God by grace through faith. As Lutherans, we think of Martin Luther, priest and university professor, and his criticisms, his 95 Theses, as the spark for the Reformation 504 years ago today. Basically, his 95 Theses were the 1517 version of a viral Facebook post. Thanks to the recent invention of the printing press, copies of Luther’s discourse rejecting the Church’s selling forgiveness of sin and reduced time in Purgatory were circulated widely. They spurred other theologians, such as Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin, to speak boldly their own criticisms of the Church, and provoked opposing viewpoints. Within the next few years, the seeds of disillusionment were being sown throughout Europe, birthing the Protest, or Protestant movement.
I think of Martin Luther, on October 31, 1517, holding his 95 Theses that represented his love for the Church and his misgivings for its direction, saying “Can you see the future church?”
But our always reforming Church didn’t stop there. The Spirit blew the passion for the gospel on the four winds, and the Church took root around the globe. Here in the United States, Europeans seeking religious freedom landed on these shores. While we know the Church has its share of appalling, inexcusable history – the colonization of indigenous people, infighting and schisms, intolerance for other faiths, and rejection of ever so many people God calls Beloved – it also has moments of grace. Congregations became the centers of community life, and its people asked for forgiveness for being a part of the problem, rather than caring for all those Jesus loves.
- Moments like church leaders marching in the Civil Rights events of the 1960s.
- Moments like the first ordinations of Lutheran women pastors in 1970.
- Moments like the Church asking for peace in the Middle East and an end to the war in Vietnam.
And that historic meeting in spring 1987, when members of three American Lutheran bodies met in the Constituting Convention to reverse the torn fabric of the Body of Christ, to bring to life a new unified Lutheran church, which became the ELCA on Jan. 1, 1988.
I can see the ELCA’s first Presiding Bishop Herbert Chilstrom, elected during that meeting, looking out over the people gathered in Columbus, Ohio, declaring “Can you see the future church?”
And the Spirit continued to blow the good news of God’s love and grace across the country: across the plains, over the mountains, into the valleys. Some of that Spirit drifted westward with new settlers to a quickly growing town, Prescott Valley, in the ranching valley between the Bradshaw and Mingus ranges. The Spirit blew them together some 30 years ago, first in a funeral home, then in the elementary school gym. Finally, on March 2, 2003, the Spirit settled them into this modest space, where they could worship and be equipped to go out and keep spreading the good news.
I can imagine Kirk Anderson looking over those of you gathered that day, ready to continue the adventure, saying “Can you see the future church?”
And the story only begins there. The baptisms, the confirmations, the weddings, the new member gatherings. Our commitment to growing benevolence funding for the larger Church, and outreach to local organizations that serve the least, the last, the lost, and the little. Our first God’s Work, Our Hands events, and all the ones since. The Congregational Meeting in January 2017, when we voted to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation, welcoming everyone, especially people of every sexual orientation and gender identity. Our studies of racial justice. That weekend during the global pandemic, no less, when we moved forward to make worship accessible to anyone, everywhere, via livestream.
So many moments of change, of reformation. Hard work. Difficult decisions. And so many moments still to come for this family of God in Christ. Paths we will take. And the paths we won’t.
I can see the president of the congregation at Emmanuel’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2042 – you know, that’s not so far away anymore – speaking words of anticipation toward the next 50 years: “Can you see the future church?”
Reformation Sunday. A day to commemorate and remind ourselves that the Church is always changing, always adapting, leaving some things behind, and finding other ways to live out God’s love in a world that so desperately needs it. A chance to reboot and know that the Spirit is working now to help reform the Church for those future days. And Jeremiah’s words foretelling God’s covenant still are so appropriate as we live into that future. Listen to those words, brought up to date for 2021
The time is drawing near when I’ll work with believers in a whole new way. It won’t be like I did in Israel, when I led the children of Israel out of Egypt by pillars of fire and pillars of smoke, allowing them to wander in the wilderness for a long time until they were ready for the land of promise. It won’t be like the church after Pentecost, people who kept fighting about the right way to be Christ followers. And it won’t be the way of Christians of today, meeting in buildings to praise me on Sunday, then acting indifferent to Love the other six days.
This is the brand-new promise that is rising up – the truth. I did not intend to create a religion – I came to bring the truth: live peaceably, show compassion to one another, care for the earth and its living creatures. You don’t need that written on stone tablets or sacred books – it’s in your heart, your very DNA. You know love because you are loved, cradle Lutherans and people who walked in the door this week, those who can define all those big churchy words, and those who really don’t care. My grace covers you all, every beautiful and broken piece. Grab onto that truth, my kids, and hold on tight. We’re in for some wild times. Are you with me?
Or to put it another way: “Can you see the future church?”
Amen.
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