Reformation 10 25 20 sermon
Reformation 2020 John 8:32-36
We’re probably all familiar with the bit of wisdom, Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I know I have many times said in sermons that you’d think in the 2000 years since the Resurrection the church would have learned its lesson about any number of issues Jesus clearly addressed. But it turns out that even by Jesus’ day, that tendency of human nature towards institutional amnesia and lack of self-reflection was already well-established.
Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus often encourages his followers to continue in his word, to abide with him, to discipline themselves so their lives better reflect his, to keep on living out the truth. Here he tells them that it’s the truth of his life and teaching that will make them free, but that promise, far from comforting them, offends their pride.
We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. Where do you get off telling us “You will be made free?” Had they stopped for even a moment to really think about their history as a people, they would have realized that this was the most ridiculous claim they could possibly have made. It was not their common ancestry in Abraham that gave Israel its identity; in addition to Israel’s family line, Abraham also fathered Ishmael, who himself became a distinct and prosperous nation. No, what solidified Israel’s national identity was the Exodus event—God leading the people out of slavery in Egypt. So it would only be accurate to say that they had never been slaves to anyone if you didn’t count the Egyptians…or the Assyrians…or the Babylonians…or the Persians…or the Romans, under whose occupation they were living as this conversation took place. Somehow they had managed to forget that they had been—and still were—an enslaved people many, many times over. And that probably means that they had also forgotten that they had been freed by God many, many times over. That was really Jesus’ message about remaining in his word and being his disciples; it was not that Jesus was giving them a new way of attaining truth and freedom. Jesus was the Son of God; sticking with him meant sticking with the God who, out of steadfast lovingkindness, always rescued the people, bringing them out of slavery and making them free.
This text is appointed to us on Reformation Day, recalling Luther’s refocusing of the church’s attention on Christ alone as the author of salvation. In much the same way that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had forgotten that it was not their ancestry that made them who they were, or their own piety that made them who they were, but only God who made them who they were, so the church in Luther’s day had gotten sidetracked. Luther of course had a long list of criticisms of the ways in which Christians had come to think that they could achieve salvation for themselves; his work was essentially reminding the whole of Christendom of the last verse of today’s gospel: It’s only if the Son makes you free that you will be free indeed. Anything else we do may be true, honest, just, pure, good, and lovely, but it won’t earn our freedom; for that, we’re going to have to rely on God.
So, now that Luther cleared all of that up for us, I guess we’re good to go, right? The Reformation achieved its goal; we can all go out for pancakes. Except for that pesky human nature that always forgets its history. Luther would not appreciate us sitting here saying, We’re descendants of the Lutheran Reformation; We don’t need to be made free. Yet, we still persist in a mindset of enslavement, believing that any number of human endeavors contribute to our being in good standing with God. It creeps in when we think we just need to be basically good people, or when we think we just need to believe the right things about God, or when we think we just need to observe the correct rituals—even rightly celebrated sacraments, or when we think we’re saved because we belong to a church, or the “right” denomination of the church, or because we’ve prayed certain prayers or been confirmed or even been ordained. If we think we can point to something we’ve done or something we’re doing that ensures our salvation, we’ve forgotten ourselves. There’s only one place we can point to that, and that is the cross.
If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve felt truly helpless, you know what a terrible, desperate, scary feeling that is. We don’t like feeling that way; we want to feel as though we have some agency, some control, some power to help ourselves. But Benjamin Franklin was quoting Algernon Sidney, and not the Bible, when he said God helps those who help themselves. In fact, God helps us because we can’t help ourselves, and every time we forget that, which is pretty much all the time, we are in need of a little Reforming.
And that is why we don’t observe the Reformation merely as a historic event; in this case, learning from history should inspire us to repeat it. Because human nature will always lead us to institute our own rules so we can congratulate ourselves for not breaking them; it will always induce us to build our own obstacle courses so we can feel good about clearing the hurdles; it will always tempt us to imprison others and judge them for not being free. That makes us feel more like we’re in control. Yet we are called to trust that without our work, without our contribution, without our initiative, without our willpower, but only out of infinite divine love, it is God who is in control, and God chooses to free us. The Reformation is ongoing, because we are always being made new—not by our own hand, but by the One who made us and claimed us and did what we cannot. We would make ourselves slaves to anyone and anything just so we could feel like we’re working out our own freedom. But thanks be to God who, not because of what we can do ourselves but in spite of what we can’t do ourselves, truly makes us free.