Reformation Sunday

John 8:31-36

On this Reformation Sunday, we celebrate the freedom that we have in faith,
the very same freedom that the apostles claimed even when they were imprisoned for witnessing to “all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven” (Acts 1:1-2), and, the very same freedom that the Augustinian monk Martin Luther seized when he criticized the Catholic Church for false teaching and abuses of power.

But, dear Church, dear Church, please hear me when I say that this “freedom” is not the same freedom that western culture, and especially our American culture, has embraced; the freedom we have through Jesus Christ is not unfettered individual choice.

It is not the freedom to construct and deliver explosives that can kill or maim, regardless of how much you dislike a person, resent their power and position, or disagree with their political viewpoints. 

And it is not the freedom to violently act out against a group of people in their place of worship and murder men and women who believe differently about who God is.

The freedom we have in faith is a freedom for the neighbor and the stranger.

Yesterday afternoon, after a man killed eleven people and injured others at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, these words were lifted up by colleagues:

Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death;
vict'ry is ours, vict'ry is ours,
through God who loves us.
Vict'ry is ours, vict'ry is ours,
through God who loves us.

Text from An African Prayer Book selected by Desmond Tutu, © 1995 by Desmond Tutu.

That hymn, “Goodness is Stronger than Evil” was written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1995 when he was chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that examined the atrocities committed by both pro- and anti-apartheid groups during the period of white minority rule in South Africa in the second half of the 20th century. Unlike Nelson Mandela who was jailed for 27 years for his leadership in the African National Congress, Tutu lived and worked in Johannesburg throughout the 70s and 80s advocating for change by building consensus in his community. Working from within the Anglican church first as the dean of the cathedral and then as Bishop he also worked in the secular world to address injustice and in 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his achievements.

Tutu’s witness embodies the freedom we have in faith that is not self-centered or motivated by self-interest but rooted in love for the neighbor and the stranger.
But all too often, we exercise our freedom at the expense of others and when we do that, we are not free at all, but captive to sin. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus is telling the Jewish leaders about this freedom that is found in faith when,
as if their ancestors had never fled Pharaoh’s Egypt,
or wandered in the wilderness for forty years,
or been exiled to Babylon and later persecuted by the Romans, they said, “Wait, we've never been slaves! We are descendants of Abraham.” (v. 33)

Comfortable and complacent now, they had forgotten where their very own grandfathers and great-grandfathers came from and how their own ancestors suffered. They were oblivious to the weight of sin they carried and to the ways they remained bound and shackled.

Jesus tries again, saying, “everyone who sins [which, by the way, is all of us] is a slave to sin.” (v. 34) And then, again he names that freedom from sin that is the promise received through faith.

The Prayer of the Day we said earlier in worship was inspired not by Desmond Tutu, but by another Anglican priest, a 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury named William Laud. In its words, we called on God, remembering that Jesus continues to free us from our sin.

In the petitions we asked for God’s promised redemption, publicly and institutionally, in the capital-c “Church”
where it is corrupt – as in the decades of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests that was first covered up and now is being addressed there and across denominations to ensure the safety of children and adults;

We asked for God’s promised redemption, where there is error – on Saturday, the family of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was killed in Wyoming twenty years ago in a hate crime, inurned his ashes at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in a reversal of (again) the capital-c “Church"’s historic position rejecting LGBTQ people.

We asked for God’s provision for the Church and among its people where it is in need – not because we live in fear of what we do not have or cannot see, but because we trust God that will equip us for the ministry we are called into for this time and place.

And we asked for God to unify the world where it is divided – as Bishop Elizabeth Eaton wrote last night,

“We are reminded that hate-filled violence knows no bounds – whether a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, [Wisconsin], a Christian church in Charleston, [South Carolina] or a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania]. As people of faith, we are bound together not only in our mourning, but also in our response.”

Today, we can respond by claiming our freedom in Christ to love the neighbor and stranger.
Many of you will remember Pastor Dee Liss who preached here in the summer; her husband Howard, one of the co-owners of Bicycles here in Shelby, attends Temple Beth El in Charlotte with his father, and last night, I asked their permission to write notes of encouragement to their congregation. So on your pews you have notes like this and you have pens. I ask you now to write words of encouragement and prayers for their community. If you’d like to just sign your name or our church’s name, that’s ok, too. I will send our notes to their rabbis this week.

Thank you.
Now, in a tradition that reaches back through generations, may we ask for God’s ever-reforming presence and power to accomplish what God has begun in us.

Let us pray… [1]
Almighty God, through the death of your Son you have destroyed sin and death. Through his resurrection you have restored innocence and eternal life. We who are delivered from the power of the devil may live in your kingdom. Give us grace that we may believe this with our whole heart. Enable us, always, to steadfastly praise and thank you in this faith, through your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

[1] “Martin Luther’s Prayer for strengthened faith,” in Herbert F. Brokering. Luther’s Prayers.