Only Scripture. Only Grace. Only Faith.
Last week we talked about how Martin Luther, a German monk and university professor, began the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago because he wanted to have a scholarly, academic debate on the question of whether or not your soul could be saved by indulgences – purchased papers from the Pope on which your name was written – or by other good works, or whether faith in the works of Christ was what was important. Luther had been reading the Paul’s Letter to the Romans and his Letter to the Galatians, and Martin had found that that it was our faith in the divinity of Christ and His promises that saves us and sets us right with God.
So Luther put his Ninety-Five Theses, or statements on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany on Oct 31, 1517 – five hundred years ago this week – and then….nothing much happened for a few weeks.
Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18; Psalm 1; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46
The document was written in Latin. It was a proposal for a scholarly debate. Few people outside the priesthood and the university even read Latin. And Luther did not directly criticize the Pope, but thought of this as something that might be going on behind the Pope’s back. Luther didn’t plan to split the church over these issues, he simply asked for an academic debate to see what he might have missed in his studies...
But a few weeks later, the document was translated by a friend into German and then the printing press was used to make thousands of copies. And then, the papers hit the winds all over Germany and the question quickly became a political issue.
Can you believe that something so abstract would become a political issue that would eventually lead to war – one of the most devastating wars of European history, the Thirty Years War, a war that killed millions using swords, spears, and muskets?
Church fights can indeed become major, major political issues, which can lead to civil war. For questions of theology affect not only how we live our lives in the present life, but how our children must live…and sometimes they concern questions of what will happen to us after our life on earth is over.
Luther’s objections to the sale of indulgences was the type of question that would affect the livelihood of thousands of men and women, as well as a question very basic – what happens when you die? How do you live in Heaven with God? What could keep you from living with God and send you to Hell?
At the core of this question were three more basic questions:
First: Where is the ultimate authority about how we relate to God and Christ? Scripture? The Pope as Christ’s representative on earth? The Traditions of the Church? Reason and our own experience? Direct revelation from God? The answers that a ouija board or a fluid-filled eight-ball gives you?
Second: Just how special were you to God and the world if you were ordained a priest, a monk, a nun, a bishop, a Pope? Were there two or more levels of Christian?
Third: How much God-power was found in the seven Catholic sacraments of baptism, penance, communion, confirmation, marriage, anointing of the sick, and ordination?
Martin Luther’s views – and the views of most Protestants like ourselves – began with the question of authority. In the medieval Catholic church, authority questions abounded. Was the Pope infallible? Or was the Pope subject to a degree of control and limiting by the secular authorities, such as the kings? Or were great church councils, with the assembled Pope, bishops, and archbishops the real authority?
In general, the Church had recognized that the Pope was limited by the councils, and “shared” power with the kings (usually when the king in question controlled the town where the Pope was currently living), and also there was an emerging idea that when the Pope was acting as Pope, he was infallible.
In this view, the traditions of the church, our reason and experience, and indeed, even Holy Scripture were less important that what the Pope today thought and said and declared in writing.
In fact, church law even proclaimed that “even if a Pope should be so evil as to send thousands of people to Hell, he could not be removed from office."
This struck many people, particularly Martin Luther, as wrong. Church Law in effect said that good doctrine was whatever the Pope said it was, whether he was wise or a numbskull, whether he was saintly or devilish, whether he was, if you will, Andy Griffith or Barney Fife or J.R. Ewing (of Dallas fame). (For those of you a bit younger in outlook, it didn’t matter if the Pope was Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Vader.)
We are all entrusted with reading the Word of God, of listening to the Holy Spirit, of speaking to others to lead them out of the dying desert of despair into the living lushness of the living Church.
So Luther read his Bible. And reading his Bible, Martin Luther found that he couldn’t even find the idea of a special ordained group of priests who gained spiritual power because of their ordination. The closest he found were the Apostles and the Deacons from Acts 3. But what he found in those were ordinary men – definitely not saintly men, but men who had sinned, men who had not believed and then finally believed. He found people like Paul of Tarsus, who showed church leadership without a special ordination, and people like Philip, who spread the word to the Ethiopian eunich without a special ordination. He found Priscilla and Aquila, a married couple and Phoebe, a woman, ordinary people who led in their churches, who even founded churches. No where did he see Christ setting a group of men above others – instead, he read about Christ specifically telling his closest disciples to wash people’s feet and to act as servants to all. Christ set His leadership team below the ordinary person.
And so, Martin Luther questioned the ideas that the priesthood and holy orders were to be set above the ordinary people, that priests that have special spiritual powers because of their ordination. And in our modern United Methodist church, we agree. As a local pastor, I do not have special abilities that come to me just because of my appointment. Instead, it is just the opposite: because of my training, my education, and my experience, I am entrusted with performing certain duties.
In particular, Luther found that this idea of the special priesthood limited the church. In its place, Luther rediscovered in the New Testament the priesthood of all believers. Simply by your baptism, you are made a priest of God, entrusted with connecting the people of the world to God through an understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us. We are all entrusted with reading the Word of God, of listening to the Holy Spirit, of speaking to others to lead them out of the dying desert of despair into the living lushness of the living Church.
The people whom you see read up here in our gatherings are those who are able and willing to read clearly so you can hear what God has to say. If you are interested in reading, speak to me.
And you may have noticed that some people deliver sermons besides myself. These people are lay speakers, people who have taken a course or several courses to become good speakers, to understand what is correct doctrine, who have studied how to lead and how to preach. Some, like Rosemary Stromberg or Gerry Messenger, have taken a dozen or more courses over the years. Others, like Dustin Freshour or Jessica Coe or Cassie Freshour are just getting started. Altogether, we have in this two-church charge over a dozen lay servants or lay speakers, people who are studying to lead ministries. If you are interested in these one- or two-day short courses, see or talk to me.
But even if you haven’t taken the courses, like Luther, we believe that each person here has a ministry to others. It may be of service, it may be of speaking the Word of God, it may be in teaching, it may be in keeping your poor, disorganized pastor organized. You may minister to the elderly, you may minister to the children, you may minister to adults. You may minister by installing electrical outlets or by setting up and tearing down tables. But if you believe in the God-ness of Jesus Christ, if you have been baptized, you are able to minister in some way. The courses we ask you to take are to help you do a good job and be successful in your ministries.
On the subject of the sacraments, Luther found something different about them, too. To the medieval Catholic church, the sacraments were the things you and the priest must do together to ensure you didn’t go to Hell.
To Luther, sacraments were ways instituted and required by Christ that gave us grace through Christ. For example, to Luther, marriage wasn’t a sacrament. It was good, it was started by God the Father, but it wasn’t commanded and wasn’t required by Christ. So it wasn’t a sacrament.
In the same ways, holy orders – ordination – wasn’t required. Ordination was special, it was good to make vows to serve Christ, but it also wasn’t required, and to Luther, it did not give you special grace.
Yet baptism was initiated by Christ, it was commanded by Christ, and in it, we receive a cleansing, a special grace that comes from Christ and the Holy Spirit. He washes away our sins, we join with Him in our death through baptism, we join with Him in our resurrection to new life.
In the same way, Communion is commanded by Christ, initiated by Him and we receive grace through the bread and the juice. In what other way can we regularly receive grace from Christ than in the spiritual food given by His body and His blood?
Confession with Penance? No. Because while confession to a fellow Christian is a good thing and encouraged, it is not commanded by Christ, especially in the way that it was seen by the medieval Catholics. We don’t fall out of grace and need to return to grace through Confession and Penance. Instead, it is more like we need to speak with another because we know we have stepped from the path of holiness and need to understand where we lost the path and be pointed back on the path by the one we Confess to, which any believer with wisdom can help us with.
Confirmation is similar. It is ourselves proclaiming that our baptism worked – a good thing – but not commanded by Christ.
And anointing of the sick – this is once again a good thing, but it was found in the Book of James, apparently instituted by James and the early apostles. While Christ healed the sick directly, he did not command that we anoint the sick to heal us, but He is present in the healings. Yet this has nothing to do with the grace of salvation.
And so Luther reduced the sacraments down to two – Baptism and Communion, the same two that Methodists have.
Why not include foot-washing? It was thought that foot-washing is a good thing, initiated by Christ, but it seemed to be more of a demonstration, an object lesson, than a sacrament where Christ provides grace to us. We receive from one another rather than from Christ.
Luther did not take the step that the later Jean Calvin did, reducing all of the sacraments to the status of ordinances, because Luther understood that in Baptism and Communion there is a direct connection with Christ, that Christ is present, and that special graces are conferred to the recipient. For Luther - and to all sacramental churches, these are not meaningless rituals, but are ways in which our souls are directly touched by Christ. Ordinances, in the view of Calvin, are simply things we are commanded to do, rituals of obedience. And this is why Baptism and Communion are seen as much more central to the faith in sacramental churches - Christ is present!
Luther’s writings on these issues began to directly challenge key points of Roman doctrine – and what is more, to challenge financial interests of the bishops. This eventually led to a command by the German emperor for Luther to appear at Worms – the infamous Diet of Worms, (pronounced dee-ot of verms). This was a meeting of all the German princes and the German emperor. Here, Luther was asked to recant and disavow his teachings. He asked for and received an evening to think it over.
Luther’s realized that his very life was at stake – literally. The common punishment for unrepentant rebels against Rome was burning at the stake. But he also realized that his teachings were based upon his conviction that these were the words of God that had led him to his positions. And if he had been led to his position by the words of God, then only equally convincing scripture would lead him to back down. He recognized this might be possible – but until someone gave him a stronger reason than, “The Pope says so” or “The Church says so”, he felt he could not back down.
The next morning, that is what he said.
Over the next few days, the question of what to do with Luther was postponed because of more urgent and apparently more important issues, such as what to do about the Turks who were marching on Vienna. Besides, Luther had a safe-conduct pass to and from the meeting. So Luther was able to leave the meeting safely and head home to Wittenberg.
After Luther left the meeting, he was declared a wanted man by the Diet and the Emperor. But Luther’s princely friends had arranged a friendly kidnapping on the highway. Luther was put into protective custody in Wartburg Castle, where he wrote more and more, even translating the Bible into German for the first time as his friends in Wittenberg began to implement the changes he’d wrote about.
And perhaps the strongest outcome of the things Martin Luther read in the Bible was the greatly increased strength of what Jesus called the second greatest commandment – Love your neighbor as yourself.
The medieval Catholic church was pretty good about fearing God. On that account they were strong – at that they were excellent. But in their quest for personal power and wealth, the Church leaders had forgotten to love their neighbors as themselves, just like the Pharisees before them.
Each of our readings today talk about the need to love our neighbor and to walk with God. And still today, we have forgotten to keep both of these commandments strongly.
Today, the church once again needs reformation. We are like people walking down a narrow road with a muddy ditch on either side of us.
On the right is the ditch that is labeled “Harshness Toward Our Neighbor”. Many churches and members of the church who have fallen into this muddy ditch look at our left-hand neighbors and become harsh and condemning toward them, believing that whatever evil and mud lands on those neighbors is their fault because they are walking in the left-hand ditch. And so, those who walk in the right-hand ditch of Harshness throw mud on people who are trying to climb out of the left-hand ditch, which makes sure that those right-hand walkers will stay in their ditch, never understanding how muddy they are from the Ditch of Harshness.
On the left is the ditch that is labeled “Anything Goes”. Churches and members of the church in this left-hand ditch look at people and believe that anything is to be tolerated, that everything is okay, for they believe God loves everyone except those in the Ditch of Harshness on the other side of the road. And so they try to pull everyone into their "Anything Goes" ditch, keeping people muddy and proclaiming the mud is a virtue, while throwing their particular type of mud on the people in the right hand Ditch of Harshness.
And there are those who walk down between the ditches. The truth is that we are to help people out of both ditches without getting muddy and pulled into the ditches ourselves. And it is not an easy task, not something we can do by ourselves.
Yet, Martin Luther showed the world that when we keep our eyes on what Jesus has done for us, his Teflon white robes will catch all the mud and let it slid off. Following Jesus is key, learning and believing what the Scriptures say about Jesus is critical, for the more we learn, the easier it is to stand clean in the center of the road as more and more of Jesus is in us, making our robes slicker and cleaner, allowing us to bring people out of the ditches on either side with the water of baptism to cleanse them, able to feed them with the Body and Blood of Christ, speaking to them with the Word of God, which is Jesus Christ.
It is an amazing thing.
So Luther read his Bible. And reading his Bible, Martin Luther found that he couldn’t even find the idea of a special ordained group of priests who gained spiritual power because of their ordination. The closest he found were the Apostles and the Deacons from Acts 3. But what he found in those were ordinary men – definitely not saintly men, but men who had sinned, men who had not believed and then finally believed. He found people like Paul of Tarsus, who showed church leadership without a special ordination, and people like Philip, who spread the word to the Ethiopian eunich without a special ordination. He found Priscilla and Aquila, a married couple and Phoebe, a woman, ordinary people who led in their churches, who even founded churches. No where did he see Christ setting a group of men above others – instead, he read about Christ specifically telling his closest disciples to wash people’s feet and to act as servants to all. Christ set His leadership team below the ordinary person.
And so, Martin Luther questioned the ideas that the priesthood and holy orders were to be set above the ordinary people, that priests that have special spiritual powers because of their ordination. And in our modern United Methodist church, we agree. As a local pastor, I do not have special abilities that come to me just because of my appointment. Instead, it is just the opposite: because of my training, my education, and my experience, I am entrusted with performing certain duties.
In particular, Luther found that this idea of the special priesthood limited the church. In its place, Luther rediscovered in the New Testament the priesthood of all believers. Simply by your baptism, you are made a priest of God, entrusted with connecting the people of the world to God through an understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us. We are all entrusted with reading the Word of God, of listening to the Holy Spirit, of speaking to others to lead them out of the dying desert of despair into the living lushness of the living Church.
The people whom you see read up here in our gatherings are those who are able and willing to read clearly so you can hear what God has to say. If you are interested in reading, speak to me.
And you may have noticed that some people deliver sermons besides myself. These people are lay speakers, people who have taken a course or several courses to become good speakers, to understand what is correct doctrine, who have studied how to lead and how to preach. Some, like Rosemary Stromberg or Gerry Messenger, have taken a dozen or more courses over the years. Others, like Dustin Freshour or Jessica Coe or Cassie Freshour are just getting started. Altogether, we have in this two-church charge over a dozen lay servants or lay speakers, people who are studying to lead ministries. If you are interested in these one- or two-day short courses, see or talk to me.
But even if you haven’t taken the courses, like Luther, we believe that each person here has a ministry to others. It may be of service, it may be of speaking the Word of God, it may be in teaching, it may be in keeping your poor, disorganized pastor organized. You may minister to the elderly, you may minister to the children, you may minister to adults. You may minister by installing electrical outlets or by setting up and tearing down tables. But if you believe in the God-ness of Jesus Christ, if you have been baptized, you are able to minister in some way. The courses we ask you to take are to help you do a good job and be successful in your ministries.
On the subject of the sacraments, Luther found something different about them, too. To the medieval Catholic church, the sacraments were the things you and the priest must do together to ensure you didn’t go to Hell.
To Luther, sacraments were ways instituted and required by Christ that gave us grace through Christ. For example, to Luther, marriage wasn’t a sacrament. It was good, it was started by God the Father, but it wasn’t commanded and wasn’t required by Christ. So it wasn’t a sacrament.
In the same ways, holy orders – ordination – wasn’t required. Ordination was special, it was good to make vows to serve Christ, but it also wasn’t required, and to Luther, it did not give you special grace.
Yet baptism was initiated by Christ, it was commanded by Christ, and in it, we receive a cleansing, a special grace that comes from Christ and the Holy Spirit. He washes away our sins, we join with Him in our death through baptism, we join with Him in our resurrection to new life.
In the same way, Communion is commanded by Christ, initiated by Him and we receive grace through the bread and the juice. In what other way can we regularly receive grace from Christ than in the spiritual food given by His body and His blood?
Confession with Penance? No. Because while confession to a fellow Christian is a good thing and encouraged, it is not commanded by Christ, especially in the way that it was seen by the medieval Catholics. We don’t fall out of grace and need to return to grace through Confession and Penance. Instead, it is more like we need to speak with another because we know we have stepped from the path of holiness and need to understand where we lost the path and be pointed back on the path by the one we Confess to, which any believer with wisdom can help us with.
Confirmation is similar. It is ourselves proclaiming that our baptism worked – a good thing – but not commanded by Christ.
And anointing of the sick – this is once again a good thing, but it was found in the Book of James, apparently instituted by James and the early apostles. While Christ healed the sick directly, he did not command that we anoint the sick to heal us, but He is present in the healings. Yet this has nothing to do with the grace of salvation.
And so Luther reduced the sacraments down to two – Baptism and Communion, the same two that Methodists have.
Why not include foot-washing? It was thought that foot-washing is a good thing, initiated by Christ, but it seemed to be more of a demonstration, an object lesson, than a sacrament where Christ provides grace to us. We receive from one another rather than from Christ.
Luther did not take the step that the later Jean Calvin did, reducing all of the sacraments to the status of ordinances, because Luther understood that in Baptism and Communion there is a direct connection with Christ, that Christ is present, and that special graces are conferred to the recipient. For Luther - and to all sacramental churches, these are not meaningless rituals, but are ways in which our souls are directly touched by Christ. Ordinances, in the view of Calvin, are simply things we are commanded to do, rituals of obedience. And this is why Baptism and Communion are seen as much more central to the faith in sacramental churches - Christ is present!
Luther’s writings on these issues began to directly challenge key points of Roman doctrine – and what is more, to challenge financial interests of the bishops. This eventually led to a command by the German emperor for Luther to appear at Worms – the infamous Diet of Worms, (pronounced dee-ot of verms). This was a meeting of all the German princes and the German emperor. Here, Luther was asked to recant and disavow his teachings. He asked for and received an evening to think it over.
Luther’s realized that his very life was at stake – literally. The common punishment for unrepentant rebels against Rome was burning at the stake. But he also realized that his teachings were based upon his conviction that these were the words of God that had led him to his positions. And if he had been led to his position by the words of God, then only equally convincing scripture would lead him to back down. He recognized this might be possible – but until someone gave him a stronger reason than, “The Pope says so” or “The Church says so”, he felt he could not back down.
The next morning, that is what he said.
Over the next few days, the question of what to do with Luther was postponed because of more urgent and apparently more important issues, such as what to do about the Turks who were marching on Vienna. Besides, Luther had a safe-conduct pass to and from the meeting. So Luther was able to leave the meeting safely and head home to Wittenberg.
After Luther left the meeting, he was declared a wanted man by the Diet and the Emperor. But Luther’s princely friends had arranged a friendly kidnapping on the highway. Luther was put into protective custody in Wartburg Castle, where he wrote more and more, even translating the Bible into German for the first time as his friends in Wittenberg began to implement the changes he’d wrote about.
And perhaps the strongest outcome of the things Martin Luther read in the Bible was the greatly increased strength of what Jesus called the second greatest commandment – Love your neighbor as yourself.
The medieval Catholic church was pretty good about fearing God. On that account they were strong – at that they were excellent. But in their quest for personal power and wealth, the Church leaders had forgotten to love their neighbors as themselves, just like the Pharisees before them.
Each of our readings today talk about the need to love our neighbor and to walk with God. And still today, we have forgotten to keep both of these commandments strongly.
Today, the church once again needs reformation. We are like people walking down a narrow road with a muddy ditch on either side of us.
On the right is the ditch that is labeled “Harshness Toward Our Neighbor”. Many churches and members of the church who have fallen into this muddy ditch look at our left-hand neighbors and become harsh and condemning toward them, believing that whatever evil and mud lands on those neighbors is their fault because they are walking in the left-hand ditch. And so, those who walk in the right-hand ditch of Harshness throw mud on people who are trying to climb out of the left-hand ditch, which makes sure that those right-hand walkers will stay in their ditch, never understanding how muddy they are from the Ditch of Harshness.
On the left is the ditch that is labeled “Anything Goes”. Churches and members of the church in this left-hand ditch look at people and believe that anything is to be tolerated, that everything is okay, for they believe God loves everyone except those in the Ditch of Harshness on the other side of the road. And so they try to pull everyone into their "Anything Goes" ditch, keeping people muddy and proclaiming the mud is a virtue, while throwing their particular type of mud on the people in the right hand Ditch of Harshness.
And there are those who walk down between the ditches. The truth is that we are to help people out of both ditches without getting muddy and pulled into the ditches ourselves. And it is not an easy task, not something we can do by ourselves.
Yet, Martin Luther showed the world that when we keep our eyes on what Jesus has done for us, his Teflon white robes will catch all the mud and let it slid off. Following Jesus is key, learning and believing what the Scriptures say about Jesus is critical, for the more we learn, the easier it is to stand clean in the center of the road as more and more of Jesus is in us, making our robes slicker and cleaner, allowing us to bring people out of the ditches on either side with the water of baptism to cleanse them, able to feed them with the Body and Blood of Christ, speaking to them with the Word of God, which is Jesus Christ.
It is an amazing thing.
Before Luther, Europe (outside of the far Southeast which was occupied by the Moslem Turkish Empire), was theoretically over 95% Catholic, with the few who were not Catholic being the Jewish population, as well as a few remaining pagans, and a few Moslems remaining in Spain.
But few of these people actually had faith in Christ.
Oh, they had faith in the mysterious Latin words the priests said, they had faith in the actions the priests took, they had faith in the powers of the priesthood.
But very few had heard in a language they understood anything from the Bible. Very few had read anything from the Bible. Very few knew anything of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, except for what they could piece together from the statues and paintings in the great churches. And they knew that the Bread and the Blood were holy, but not really why? Their souls were in captivity to what the men from Rome said.
Luther’s time spent in Wartburg Castle created a miracle. For much of his time was spent translating the Bible into German. Meanwhile, his friends in Wittenberg church did something really amazing – they translated the liturgy into German. One Sunday, the people, instead of hearing hoc est corpus meum, words they mocked as hocus pocus, they heard in German, words they understood for the first time, “This is my body, given for you.”
And then, Luther’s friends with the new-fangled printing press got ahold of his German translation of the Bible, and soon churches all over Germany, and wealthy people all over Germany had Bibles they could read, and a few years after that the price began to drop, for the printing press took what used to be a hundred-thousand-dollar book and dropped the price to a few hundred dollars equivalent in today’s money. And soon French Bibles were being printed and Dutch Bibles and then 5000 English Bibles were printed and snuck into England, and by the end of the century the Authorized King James Bible was printed in London. Now men and women and even children were reading the word of God for themselves and today….you can go to biblegateway.com and read the Bible for free in 57 different English translations – I counted them Thursday evening – or in any language from Arabic to Vietnamese, in a dozen different Chinese versions, in Spanish, in Italian, in Polish, Russian. The list goes on and on.
And this means that you can check the conclusions that Martin Luther came to. Instead of relying upon what the Pope or a council said about what to believe, instead of relying upon what a bishop or a priest or I have to say about the Bible, you can go and check it out in any of those 57 English versions or even check the original Greek or Hebrew, if you are willing to learn those.
And you have the freedom to accept those conclusions – or reject them. Or you can write your own ideas and put them up on Facebook to be accepted or rejected by other people who also can check your facts, your statements about what Jesus said and meant. All because Martin Luther chose to translate the Bible from Latin into German, set the example, and stood up for the Word of God.
And as the religious controversies swirled and developed in the lifetime of Martin Luther, it became critical to learn how to read. Souls were at stake! People learned to read just so they could read one single book – so they could read the Bible and decide for themselves what Jesus had said and what He had meant.
And so, at the time of the American Revolution, almost every American household owned a Bible – and (perhaps!) a few other books. And that Bible was read almost daily, over and over, father or mother reading a passage at each meal to the family, who then discussed what it meant during the meal, even the five-year-olds! Even the teenagers!
Perhaps that is why in America, people from Germany and people from Britain and people from France were able to live together with people from Spain and from Italy and from Norway and from Russia.They had civil arguments over the interpretation of passages, yes! But a common worship of Christ held people together. Thou shalt not murder is not subject to much interpretation! And so Bible reading brought people together.
But today, we have seen the percentage of people who report reading the Bible daily decline at the same time we have seen an increase in the hatred of groups of people for other groups of people in our country.
But few of these people actually had faith in Christ.
Oh, they had faith in the mysterious Latin words the priests said, they had faith in the actions the priests took, they had faith in the powers of the priesthood.
But very few had heard in a language they understood anything from the Bible. Very few had read anything from the Bible. Very few knew anything of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, except for what they could piece together from the statues and paintings in the great churches. And they knew that the Bread and the Blood were holy, but not really why? Their souls were in captivity to what the men from Rome said.
Luther’s time spent in Wartburg Castle created a miracle. For much of his time was spent translating the Bible into German. Meanwhile, his friends in Wittenberg church did something really amazing – they translated the liturgy into German. One Sunday, the people, instead of hearing hoc est corpus meum, words they mocked as hocus pocus, they heard in German, words they understood for the first time, “This is my body, given for you.”
And then, Luther’s friends with the new-fangled printing press got ahold of his German translation of the Bible, and soon churches all over Germany, and wealthy people all over Germany had Bibles they could read, and a few years after that the price began to drop, for the printing press took what used to be a hundred-thousand-dollar book and dropped the price to a few hundred dollars equivalent in today’s money. And soon French Bibles were being printed and Dutch Bibles and then 5000 English Bibles were printed and snuck into England, and by the end of the century the Authorized King James Bible was printed in London. Now men and women and even children were reading the word of God for themselves and today….you can go to biblegateway.com and read the Bible for free in 57 different English translations – I counted them Thursday evening – or in any language from Arabic to Vietnamese, in a dozen different Chinese versions, in Spanish, in Italian, in Polish, Russian. The list goes on and on.
And this means that you can check the conclusions that Martin Luther came to. Instead of relying upon what the Pope or a council said about what to believe, instead of relying upon what a bishop or a priest or I have to say about the Bible, you can go and check it out in any of those 57 English versions or even check the original Greek or Hebrew, if you are willing to learn those.
And you have the freedom to accept those conclusions – or reject them. Or you can write your own ideas and put them up on Facebook to be accepted or rejected by other people who also can check your facts, your statements about what Jesus said and meant. All because Martin Luther chose to translate the Bible from Latin into German, set the example, and stood up for the Word of God.
And as the religious controversies swirled and developed in the lifetime of Martin Luther, it became critical to learn how to read. Souls were at stake! People learned to read just so they could read one single book – so they could read the Bible and decide for themselves what Jesus had said and what He had meant.
And so, at the time of the American Revolution, almost every American household owned a Bible – and (perhaps!) a few other books. And that Bible was read almost daily, over and over, father or mother reading a passage at each meal to the family, who then discussed what it meant during the meal, even the five-year-olds! Even the teenagers!
Perhaps that is why in America, people from Germany and people from Britain and people from France were able to live together with people from Spain and from Italy and from Norway and from Russia.They had civil arguments over the interpretation of passages, yes! But a common worship of Christ held people together. Thou shalt not murder is not subject to much interpretation! And so Bible reading brought people together.
But today, we have seen the percentage of people who report reading the Bible daily decline at the same time we have seen an increase in the hatred of groups of people for other groups of people in our country.
First, there were people who no longer read the Bible for themselves, but were content to have faith in the man preaching up front. And the next generation decided that attending a handful of times a year was enough. The third generation decided that weddings and funerals were enough. And today, we see entire families that have never entered a church. They are in worse condition than the pagans before the early apostles brought them Christ!
Where is your family in this movement back toward the pagan days before Christ came? You can turn it around for your family simply by taking five minutes at meal time to read a dozen verses or a half chapter and talking about it with your children or grandchildren.
It just takes a bit of faith in God’s love, the faith that the Word of God has the power to change a person’s heart. Will you let God speak to your children at an early age, that they will grow up to follow Christ?
It just takes a bit of faith that God will do good, the faith that the Gospel of Christ has the power to change the world. Will you help transform our world by letting God speak to the next generation, the children?
It is just this little matter of faith in the promises of God, as recorded in the Scriptures, that Luther found and stood upon in front of the assembled princes and Emperor of Germany. And that faith allowed him to live another 25 years and write the words that changed the world for the better.
Is your faith strong enough to believe that reading the Bible for yourself might change your life or the lives of your family for the better? Is it worth five minutes at meal time?
Is your faith strong enough to believe that God tells no lies, that He truly loves you enough that His Son died to pay for all the things you’ve done wrong, that God really, really forgives you of everything you’ve done wrong if you will just come forward and ask him? Do you have just a little bit of faith in God’s power to receive a blessing?
If so pray to the God who created you. And listen...
This is a day to begin again, to change, to reform ourselves and our world by returning to Christ.
Where is your family in this movement back toward the pagan days before Christ came? You can turn it around for your family simply by taking five minutes at meal time to read a dozen verses or a half chapter and talking about it with your children or grandchildren.
It just takes a bit of faith in God’s love, the faith that the Word of God has the power to change a person’s heart. Will you let God speak to your children at an early age, that they will grow up to follow Christ?
It just takes a bit of faith that God will do good, the faith that the Gospel of Christ has the power to change the world. Will you help transform our world by letting God speak to the next generation, the children?
It is just this little matter of faith in the promises of God, as recorded in the Scriptures, that Luther found and stood upon in front of the assembled princes and Emperor of Germany. And that faith allowed him to live another 25 years and write the words that changed the world for the better.
Is your faith strong enough to believe that reading the Bible for yourself might change your life or the lives of your family for the better? Is it worth five minutes at meal time?
Is your faith strong enough to believe that God tells no lies, that He truly loves you enough that His Son died to pay for all the things you’ve done wrong, that God really, really forgives you of everything you’ve done wrong if you will just come forward and ask him? Do you have just a little bit of faith in God’s power to receive a blessing?
If so pray to the God who created you. And listen...
This is a day to begin again, to change, to reform ourselves and our world by returning to Christ.
Amen.
