Reformation Sunday John 8:31-35 October 28, 2007

Reformation Day is really October 31^st.  We know it better today as Halloween.  I was sent some wonderful ideas of costumes and thought you’d enjoy seeing a few as well.

Halloween is really All Hallow’s Eve – the eve before All Saint’s Day.  Martin Luther chose to put his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg on All Hallow’s Eve because he knew many people would be at church on All Saint’s Day.  That is the connection of Halloween to Reformation Day – that Luther expected a lot of people to come to church the next day and he wanted them to see his 95 Theses (see October 2007 issue of The Lutheran ) inviting debate on an issue facing the church of his day.

Luther wasn’t ragging on the Roman Catholic Church as a whole; he wasn’t making a laundry list of his complaints.  He focused on one concern – the use of indulgences: certificates that could be purchased to buy God’s good graces.  Luther’s reading of the Bible led him to the conviction that we live by God’s grace and that there is nothing we can or need to buy or do to win that grace.

We are not debating the issue presented in the 95 Theses anymore – Lutherans and Roman Catholics alike reject the sale of indulgences as means of salvation.  Other debates, however, are alive in today’s church.  And even the seemingly most simple can ignite a lot of feeling.  For instance, what kinds of songs or hymns should we sing in worship?  Are we to meet the needs of seniors, or families, singles, teenagers or children or of the unchurched who aren’t among us yet?  Or, should our focus be on the poor?

Or, is meeting needs something we’re to do as the church out in the world and the worshipping community is where we hear and are encountered by God’s word that sets us free for service in the world – to the poor, to the unchurched, to all?  Debates go on.  How do we relate to people different from us?  Should worship be offered in Spanish?

Lively debate today isn’t over the topics that captured Luther in his day, but reform is always needed in the church if we are to keep up with what God is doing in the world.  God is amazingly invested in the world and in us.  All we have to do to know this is to watch what happens when something bad happens.  We can look back at 9/11.

Evil happens because God honors our free will, but free will doesn’t take away God’s freedom to do good!  God is still free and so God can bring new life even out of the ashes.  One sign of new life from 9/11 is the increased communication going on between Jews, Muslims and Christians.

We see this happening in Chico through Celebration of Abraham events, but it is happening all over the world.  Our Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson was among the world’s religious leaders who received a 29 page letter written by 138 Muslim scholars.

The letter (here's the PDF version from The Washington Post) is addressed first to His Holiness Pope Benedict, then to His All Holiness Bartholomew of Rome, His Beatitude of Africa, Alexy of Russia, and Christian leaders in Serbia, Romania, Greece, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and so on down to The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rev. Mark Hanson of the ELCA and LWF, the Methodist leader, the Baptist leader, and so on, and finally to all leaders of Christian Churches everywhere, so that means us.  The letter is titled:  A Common Word between You and Us.

The Muslim leaders wrote: “Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population.  Without peace and justice between these two, there can be no meaningful peace in the world.  The basis for this peace already exists in the foundation of both of our faiths: love of the One God and love of neighbor.”

This 21^st century letter has similarities in purpose to Luther’s 95 Theses.  It’s not ragging on anyone, but invites conversation and communication.  Even a few years ago this kind of conversation wasn’t widespread in churches.  To be sure, small groups gathered for discussion, but until recently it was rarely talked about in the local church.

We knew we were a sibling religion with our Jewish brothers and sisters, but even that left us wondering what we’re supposed to do with each other.  Are we to convert Jews or honor them?  We certainly haven’t known what to do with Muslims.  I knew very little about Islam until a few years ago.  It was only recently that I came to appreciate what it meant that Jews, Christians and Muslims share the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac…

That Bishop Mark Hanson delighted in receiving this letter is clear from his letter of response, but I got to hear his excitement personally.  He spoke at California Lutheran University last Friday as their Founder’s Day Speaker and as I was there for a meeting I had a chance to speak with him.  I told him about a dinner dance celebrating Eid with the Muslim Women of Chico.

I was honored to be invited as were others among us.  There was fellowship, speakers, great food and, belly dancing – just among us girls.  I told Bishop Hanson about the event and I know he heard me because later on I got to talk with his wife Ione and she had already heard about our Chico gathering because he had told her of it knowing she would be interested, and she was!

The 21^st century is an exciting time to be the church.  Martin Luther doesn’t have anything on us if we will rise in our day as he rose to the occasion of his day.  Had we lived in a different era we would not be being invited by Muslims to share in the joyful ending of Ramadan.  The Spirit of God is stirring in our day!

Bishop Hanson wrote in his letter of response: “I encourage everyone everywhere to read the beauty of the passages found in the sacred texts of the Abrahamic faiths, which signify God’s vision for how and whom we love in a broken world.  This common vision signifies fidelity and fellowship in a world where conflict offends our common heritage as children of God.”

God was alive bringing about change and reform in Luther’s Church of the 16^th century, and we say thanks be to God for that.  And God is alive doing a new thing and reforming us towards God’s amazing love in our century.  How good it is to be a part of the church today.

Today we are celebrating Confirmation at our 11:00 service.  Confirmation brings to mind that young people are growing up in a world that is learning walls can come down and friends can be made across time honored barriers.  Youth are learning that being afraid of each other and seeing each other as enemies will not serve them or anyone well.

As Christians we follow Jesus who broke through all kinds of barriers – even the barrier between life and death.  May we be attentive, this Reformation Day, to where God is stirring, and noticing what God is up to, may we, like Luther, live out our baptismal calling by following!

Amen.

+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, California