Reformation Conundrums

Biblical Text: Romans 3:19-28

Reformation Sunday in a Lutheran congregation can have three flavors. Vanilla is a simple celebration. We assume that everyone knows the greatness and key points of the Reformation. We just celebrate it. Chocolate is to complicate that celebration. You do that by asserting that we don’t know it or we’ve lost the Reformation script or something about it is no longer relevant. This sermon has at least a scoop of Chocolate. Strawberry is the last and a little rarer flavor. It is an attempt to make us feel Luther’s anfechtung, his problem with sin and righteousness. If you can do that, you don’t have to worry about he Chocolate, because it is immediately relevant. This sermon is an attempt at a lot of strawberry. It is an attempt to rip away the veils of the age that hide the same problems Luther wrestled with. They are there. Our veils just worked for a while. So do the veils of the Papacy for a while before Luther.

The primary veil that we depend upon can be summarized in the word acceptance. We treat acceptance as the gospel, when it is no gospel at all. Acceptance doesn’t desire or achieve righteousness. It just overlooks sin. The Gospel is absolution. The sin is no more because we have been given the righteousness of Christ. This sermon attempts to take off the veil and encourage the reception of righteousness from outside ourselves.

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The Law and the Gospel

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Biblical Text: Romans 3:19-28 (John 8:31-36)

This is my attempt at a Reformation Day sermon that tries to bring that 500 year old crisis into our day. The core insight of the Reformation is understanding that the Word of God comes to us as a Word of Law and a Word of Gospel. (Gospel has become a churchy word. It simply means good news, but even that feels like a euphemism. I would simply use promise. The Gospel is the promise of God revealed in Jesus Christ.) And I think it might take a bit, but the animating phrase, the phrase that makes it fall into place for me is “do the work.” That’s the modern “woke” phrase and it is so close to the Reformation era phrase “do what you can” or what Luther started with in the 95 theses, “do penance.” The Law demands from us. The law of God is good and wise, human laws less so, but the fact of the Word of the Law is that it always condemns. And our primary strategy is to try and minimize the law. Unleash our internal lawyers to make affirmative cases. Yes, we did it, but it doesn’t matter, because…

The work is never done, except in the cross. That is the gospel. This sermon attempts to make us feel the weight of the law, and to open that bottle of 200 proof grace that Luther stumbled accross.

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A Reformation of the Heart

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Biblical Text: Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36

What exactly is Reformation Day? It has been a lot of things. This sermon mentions a couple of them. But almost of of the alternates are corruptions of what it really was. Which is a recovery of the Apostle Paul. Which is a new birth of freedom in hearing the law and the gospel. It is not just the gospel, although that is the happy best part. It is also the law. The Reformation recovered that 200 proof cask of grace that Paul preached. Christ died for sinners and God’s righteousness is given to you as a gift. You have been made a member of God’s house by God’s choice. And that free gift also frees us to see the law for what it is. It is not a method of saving ourselves. But it is also no longer our writ of condemnation. Yes, we are sinners. But the righteousness of God does not come by the law, but by grace through faith. So we can accept the law as God’s good gift to us for our good. Reformation Day is about the law and the gospel, and how they Reform our hard hearts into hearts of flesh.

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The Righteousness of God Comes By ______?

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Biblical Text: Romans 3:19-28

Law and Gospel is a beloved Lutheran theological slogan. For my money though it has moved from being something that is life changing to being a doctrinal formulation that is barely understood. And part of the problem is how it has been preached and used for the past 50 years or so. It has been used not as law AND gospel, but law and gospel have been set contrary to each other. That is both an abuse of the law, expecting from it what it can’t do, and a misreading of the gospel.

This sermon is my attempt to move law and gospel from a dead doctrine to a life changing reality.

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How are you Righteous/Just?

Biblical Text: Romans 3:19-28
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This is a reformation sermon reflecting on the divisions and questions of our day. My central contention is that in Luther’s Day people assumed the Justness of the collective: the unity of the church and her pronouncements, the majesty of the mass and the sacraments, the divine right of Kings and the entire sacred order. And if the society was just, then it should produce righteous members. That was Luther’s conflict. He didn’t see or feel righteous. I think ours is somewhat the inverse. We assume that at least my tribe is righteous. And if we have righteous members, we should be able to build the just society. Both of these quests are quests for righteousness/justice (the same word in the biblical languages) are pursued through the law.

But we hold that no one is justified by works of the law. One is righteous by the blood of Christ given by his grace and received in by faith. The just society is not found or made with human laws or efforts, but is see from a distance – the New Jerusalem. One day we will get there. Now, we do not seek our justice in the law, because we will be forever angry as it slips away. Now, we live by faith. And only if we life by faith are we truly free.

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