However, a holiday which I have come to celebrate with, albeit less fervor, but no less sincerity and appreciation, is Reformation Day, which also happens to be today. On this day 493 years ago, the day before All Saint’s Day, according the account of Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Luther strolled up to the doors of All Saint’s Church, or Castle Church, in Wittenberg, Germany, and nailed to the door of the church a paper, or disputation, which he had written and also sent a copy of to his archbishop, Albert of Mainz, containing “95 thesis” on “The Power and Efficacy of Indulgences;” criticizing the sale of indulgences, aspects of the doctrine of purgatory in general, and some of the policies of the Pope.
If you weren’t already aware, I have a very strong “Lutheran-streak,” theologically and spiritually speaking. I attended Lutheran churches throughout most of college, and up until only a couple years ago I intended to go into the ministry, not in the UMC, but in the ELCA. Now, in the same way that you ought not talk too much about an ex-girlfriend around your wife, I won’t go into too many details about how I ended up here and not there, nor the virtues or vices of either.
However, I would like to share a story from a couple years ago when Erin and I attended a Synod Conference as voting members in the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the ELCA.
This was the first time I’d ever been to a large scale church conference, so I was very impressed by the huge crowds worshipping and receiving the sacrament together, all of the various petitionary groups going around, the accessibility of people whose time was obviously very important, and so on. I heard a lot of good messages and had a very good time there. But one of the things which has stuck with me the most from that weekend up in Fort Wayne was the opening message of the conference’s keynote speaker, Kelly Fryer.
She told the story of the first day in one of her systematic theology courses when studying for her M.Div at Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. If I remember correctly, this is sort of what happened. The professor for the course walked in, and began walking the class through the syllabus, highlighting the things they would be studying and the books they would be reading. Apparently this was meant to be an advanced class, but the materials and topics which the professor had chosen were fairly basic. So, as he was talking, some of the students began to grumble a little.
Finally, the professor paused, and asked one of the students what the problem was. “Well, we all know this stuff already, we were hoping to get into something a little deeper, to learn a little more,” she said. The professor looked at the student, looked around the room, and said “you want to become experts in theology? I can teach you all there is to know about theology in 10 seconds.” The professor then walked over to the board, and drew this.
He then promptly packed up his things and then walked out of the classroom, leaving all the students staring at the board.
Of course, many of the students were puzzled. They strained their brains trying to figure out what he meant, what he was trying to say with that arrow. Someone quipped “is he saying we’re all going to Hell?” And so, over the next week, the students racked their brains, trying to solve the conundrum. And, of course, at the next class, the professor found his students waiting in their seats expectantly.
“Did you figure it out?” He asked them. Nobody raised their hands. He looked at them, then looked at the arrow, and said this: “God comes down.”
I’d like to tell you another story, if I may. I often talk about from this pulpit about the other pulpit over at Gibault. I feel uniquely blessed to hold simultaneously two vastly different ministerial posts. Both sets of duties have challenged me and refreshed me, and though I am still very green, both have provided me with a spiritual education which I find difficult to put into words.
One of my particular joys at Gibault is to have clients who come up to me and ask me questions; questions about the Bible, or spirituality, ethics, and a number of other religious topics. Last week, while eating dinner with the clients before the 7 o’clock service for main campus, two of the kids I was eating with were asking me just such a string of questions. It was great. However, as the conversation progressed, it began to veer in a direction which such conversations, unfortunately, often go.
Being in such a unique ministry setting, given that we are dealing with first, teenagers, second, teenagers from all over the state, third, teenagers from widely different socio-economic settings all over the state, fourth, teenagers whose settings have often bred in them a highly-sectarian nature, and fifth, teenagers who are most often what some call “un-churched,” these conversations can diverge from the path of spiritual growth onto a path of what I would call “categorization.” Some people might call it Pharisee-ism.
There exists, of course, amongst teenagers an inclination to be very “clique-y.” It’s ingrained in their nature to have an “us vs. them” mentality. Not only that, but teenagers, more-so than other age groups, have an intense drive to assert themselves as individuals, to fly their own personal flag. Thus, these religious conversations can sometimes steer away from questions of “my faith and my life,” and onto questions about “that person over there’s faith and their life.” It turns away from saying “I’m struggling with this or I don’t understand that” to asking “isn’t what that person over there is doing considered evil by God?”
They want to know, it seems, that they are ok with God and, additionally, that someone else isn’t. During this particular conversation, one of the two kids who were talking to me at the time was gay, the other straight. And, of course, the straight client asked the inevitable question “isn’t what he’s doing considered a sin by God?” By the grace of God I had the presence of mind to tell the client that I didn’t want to have that conversation, or at least not in that way.
But, this is often what we do, isn’t it? Isn’t this how a relationship with God functions in the minds of most people? How often do people say, “oh, I want to go to church, but I want to get my life straightened out first,” or, “I’m not good enough for God.” In fact, one more story and I’ll move on with the sermon.
I can remember the very moment I was pushed, metaphorically, into the arms of the Lutheran church and away from the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition. I, of course, had grown up Methodist, and even when my family started going to an interdenominational church, the pastor was a former UM pastor. So, when it came time to go to college, for this and various other reasons, Indiana Wesleyan University was my top pick. No, if you are unaware, we in the United Methodist Church share a common history, heritage, and several distinctives with the Wesleyan Church.
One of the requirements of being at Indiana Wesleyan was that you attend chapel three times per week, a requirement which the religion and ministerial students seemed to complain the most about, ironically. I was, of course, a religion and philosophy major intent on attending seminary and being ordained; but at this point in my life I was also struggling. There was a sin in my life that it seemed, no matter how hard I prayed, was simply a hurdle too high.
Well, one Wednesday a local Wesleyan pastor came to preach the mid-week chapel service. He seemed like a nice, intelligent guy, and he took as his subject, like any good Wesleyan, the topic of Holiness, specifically the duty of holiness which is placed upon the Christian. If I remember correctly, he took as his passage that verse from Hebrews which tells us to “pursue holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord.” And, in the heat of the moment, preaching without notes, he told a bunch of college kids, all of whom were either involved in or pursuing vocational and avocational ministries of some sort, that “God cannot use you unless you are clean.”
That was it, I was done. It struck a chord too deep for me. I knew I was unclean, I knew I hadn’t yet attained holiness. If the Wesleyan Church thought that meant God wasn’t going to use me, I at least wanted to get a second opinion before I threw in the towel and gave up on ministry. Later that week, providentially, while studying in the library, I happened to be sitting by the enormous 55 volume set of Luther’s Works put out by Augsburg Fortress in the 50’s.
On a lark, I picked up a volume at random, and just so happened to turn to Luther’s work “On the Freedom of a Christian,” which I have quoted from this pulpit before but want to do so again, because these are the words I read, in speaking of the spiritual marriage between Christ and a believer: “Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul’s; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride’s and bestow upon her the things that are his.”
In other words, God comes down. We do not love in order to get God to love us. God loves us first. Now, back to that idea of “categorizing” people, the group which John was writing too had, as we’ve seen, been invaded by a group of people which adhered to a much different religion than that of Jesus. As I’ve said, as Gnostics, they believed that salvation came by “secret knowledge,” knowledge that could only be gained through strange and complex rituals and meditation which only the rich and intelligent had the ability to participate in, practice, and supposedly benefit from.
There adherents had to perform these acts in order to earn God’s “love,” or to merit salvation. Thus, according to them, if you weren’t rich, God couldn’t love you. If you weren’t smart, God couldn’t love you. It was all about what you do, up here in your head. To this John gives them his version of the arrow. God comes down amongst us; we did not love God but He loved us first and sent His Son to be the propitiation, the payment, for the sins of the whole world.
To the people of today, a modern day Pharisee may say “you have made mistakes in your past, God can’t love you,” or “you’re a screw up, God can’t love you,” or “you’re poor, God can’t love you,” or “you’re rich, God can’t love you,” “you’re stupid, God can’t love you,” “you vote different than I do, God can’t love you.” To my kids out at Gibault they might say “you have drug problems, God can’t love you,” “you’re involved in gangs, God can’t love you,” or “you’re gay, God can’t love you.” And to each of these accusations God’s response is this.
God comes DOWN. He loves us FIRST.
And not only that, but He provides us so many assurances of that love. Here we may here echoes of 1 John chapter 3. God wants us to know, verses 14 and 15, that God sent His Son into the world as it’s Savior and WHOEVER confesses Jesus abides in God and God abides in Him. Doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, smart, stupid, a screw up, a drug abuser, a gangster, or gay. God loves you and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. He loves you, and His love is perfected when it reaches it’s goal, when you trust in it. His love casts out fear, verse 18. If you look at God and are afraid, you do not see Him rightly. To know God is to see His loving care for you.
And this love changes us. Holiness, as that Wesleyan pastor understood it, is the fruit of love, not its prerequisite. John tells us in verse 19 that “we love because He first loved us.” Love changes people. Studies have reportedly shown that people who feel that they are loved do better in pretty much every are of their life over people who don’t feel as if they are loved. And it seems like a fairly common experience; when we feel that people have been loving and kind towards us, we’re more likely to want to be loving and kind towards other people.
Plus, there’s another subtle explanation of why this works. When we are loved by God, we perceive His forgiveness of us; Jesus tells us in the Gospels that “whoever is forgiven much, loves much.” Think of it this way, on an average day, if someone accidently cuts you off in traffic, you might honk your horn, perhaps call them a few choice names, perhaps even point to the sky, clearly because it’s such a nice day out and you just wanted to share that fact with them. But, let’s say the day before you said something you shouldn’t have said to someone, you really hurt them, and you went around the whole morning feeling guilty about it. Then you go and apologize to the person and they completely forgive you, the whole of your guilt is gone, you feel light as air because that burden has been lifted off your back. Now, if on that day someone were to accidently cut you off in traffic, feeling as you do, are you more likely or less likely to honk, cuss, and show off your knowledge of sign language? My inclination is that you’d be less likely.
Not only that, not only does God’s love for us “naturally” affect us and make us more loving, but it “supernaturally” affects us. Whereas in natural relationships, when we are loved we are more likely to love others, in this supernatural relationship with God, when He loves us, John tells us, He gives us His Spirit as part of that love. And His Spirit dwelling in us literally changes us in ways for which there is no possible natural explanation. We cannot ascend the ladder to Heaven, so God comes down, and changes our lives down here.
Into our broken world, where we categorize people and ostracize them, where we are ostracized by others, amongst we spiteful, bitter, horn honking, muttering our breath people, God COMES DOWN, AND LOVES US FIRST.
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