Reformation
Sunday I KNOW 10/26 & 29/06
David
Wells in his book, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of
Fading Dreams, writes: “There are
few dangers threatening the religious future more serious than the slow shallowing of the religious mind…a senility of faith which
fears that which is high.” Our world, our days, our lives are full of
mystery. Our modern world sees mystery
as a something to be solved, rather than “savored”…something that, with adequate
research, will eventually be explained and no longer a mystery. Often uncomfortable in the face of mystery,
of things we do not fully understand, many of us run a lifelong race for
knowledge and understanding, in the absence of which we live in fear and doubt
and insecurity.
Concluding a baptismal celebration a
few Sundays ago I admitted, although unrehearsed and unplanned, that the
newly-baptized infant I held in my arms did not understand what had just
occurred, neither did I fully understand.
For a few of our congregation, my admission was troubling, as I was
asked: “How can our Pastor baptize
without understanding Baptism?” I answered,
“The same way I can breathe without understanding my respiratory system; the
same way I can love my wife without understanding why she loves me.” I’m all for instruction, goodness knows I
have received and offered decades of it.
But, there are limits to our ability to understand and some unlimited
realities that simply exceed my severely limited brain!
All attempts to reduce the grand and
glorious Christian faith to a set of moral directives, a list of positive
values to be affirmed, a collection of noble philosophical platitudes are
destined for failure. The Christian
faith is about the mystery of being met by Jesus…encountered, blessed,
reassured, forgiven, saved, and sent. God
forgive us for our misguided attempts to dumb-down the church to some moral
improvement club to make professed nice people even nicer, and for all the
other petty injuries we inflict upon the very body of Christ. To be a Christian…to be in this time, place,
and space…is to be among that fortunate group of people who have been with
Jesus; who have looked into the eyes of this Jewish carpenter from Nazareth and
have seen the very face of God. With
Him, we launch out on uncharted seas, without a star to guide us, into the
stormy gale. But, as was printed on a
bathroom nightlight in my parent’s home long ago: “I’d rather walk in the dark with God, than
in the light without Him.”
There is much about this world I do
not understand; much about myself, much about God, and about you that I do not
understand. But I remember what a dear woman
once simply said at a Congregational meeting at the Church I served in
Hilliard: “You know why I keep coming to
this church?” she asked us. (I thought she might mention the
warmth of our fellowship or the profundity of my preaching! I thought wrong!) What
she said was, “I keep coming to this church because it’s with you, in this
place, that I meet Jesus---not every Sunday, mind you, but enough to keep me
coming back. It is here, with you all,
that Jesus comes to me, embraces me, and I leave to live another day in that
embrace. Without that, why bother?” The congregation and Pastor sat in silence …How
simple? How profound?
This week we celebrate the Protestant Reformation, not as a moment
in time, nor a chapter in Church history, but as an ongoing reality of the
Christian Church. We are to protest
against all that is contrary to the will and teaching of God and are, thus, to
be “protest-ants.” We are called
away from remaining the same people we were last month or last year. Through the Holy Spirit, we are being
continually “re-formed” by the Word and power of God into the likeness
of Christ. We are the earthly body of
Christ, ever-changing, ever-evolving, and---by the grace and desire of
God---becoming more like Christ, the head of this body, everyday we are
afforded the gift of life. This, I
know!
I know that God desires that “all” will know Him, for He said this through
Jeremiah (31:34). I
know that “…the whole world (will be)
held accountable to God,” for Paul wrote this to the Church at
At
the Special Olympics the two competitors on the track approached the starting
line. The starting gun “fired” and the
foot-race began. Suddenly the student in
the lead slowed down, waiting for his friend.
When his friend caught up, they held hands and ran, together, with
matching strides across the finish line.
“We tied! We tied!” they shouted
with tears of joy! The judges were
confounded, wondering “To whom will we give the one first place ribbon?” The vision of the new covenant was demonstrated
by those two “special” olympians…a world where it is more blessed to run together than to
finish first; more blessed to care, than to conquer; more blessed to witness,
than to win. The judges were confused,
the runners were not: “Blessed be the
tie that binds”! AMEN.
Copyright
© 2006 Pastor Daniel M. Powell Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church
All Rights Reserved.
Contact Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church