John 8:31-36; Romans 3:19-28; Jeremiah 31:31-34
God of new covenants, help us to know you, forgive our iniquity, and
remember our sin no more. Amen.
Tradition: the handing down of statements, beliefs,
legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially
by word of mouth or by practice. (www.dictionary.com)
What are some of the
traditions that you observe in your life?
Really, go ahead
and shout them out.
Holiday meals, praying before meals, going to church, special foods…
In addition to those, there
are some more basic traditions that are part of our society, that most of us
follow without even thinking about them.
Do you celebrate birthdays with candles and cake?
If you’re married, do you wear a ring on your left
hand?
The last time you went dancing, did the man lead?
This is the time of the year
when we start to prepare for some of our favorite holiday traditions.
But before the holiday season really begins, we have
the chance to celebrate Reformation Sunday. This is an opportunity for us to
reflect on all of our traditions, and why it is that we actually do them.
In the church, we have lots
of traditions.
Communion and
Baptism.
The words of the
liturgy, the order of worship.
Having worship
on Sunday to begin with.
The order of the
books of the Bible.
There are reasons behind
each one of these traditions in the church, and there are reasons to continue
observing many of them. But the church does not exist for the sake of tradition
– our traditions are simply some of the ways that we’ve used throughout history
to share the message of the Gospel with the world.
On Reformation Sunday, we remember what happens when
we begin to revere our traditions so much that they become what defines us, rather than the Gospel.
About 500 years ago, the
church was so steeped in inflexible traditions that many Christians felt
oppressed by the requirements to follow all the rules.
People were taught that they had to observe every single tradition in order to earn their way into heaven. As
you can imagine, people had a hard time keeping up. They did the best that they
could, but they always fell short of the expectations. What would happen if a
child was sick on a holy day of obligation – or if a person forgot to confess a
lustful thought before receiving Communion – or if a family didn’t have enough
money to pay for the proper prayers to be said for their loved one who had
died?
Would God keep people out of
heaven just because someone failed to follow through on their religious
obligation one time?
Those questions are what
started our Lutheran denomination. Martin Luther knew that he could not
possibly fulfill the entire law prescribed by the Church. He tried, but he
continually failed.
And finally he realized the truth of the words we
heard in the second lesson today: we hold that a person is justified by
faith apart from works prescribed by the law. (Romans 3:28)
In other
words, according to Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, we can’t earn our way
into heaven by completing lots of good works and following all the traditions
of the church.
Instead,
God chooses to save each one of us.
As a sign of
our thanksgiving for God’s grace, we
choose to follow the law of God as closely as we are possibly able, asking
forgiveness for the times we fail.
When he realized that
salvation is completely in God’s hands, all of a sudden Martin Luther felt free
from the laws and the centuries worth of traditions that had been bogging him
down!
But he didn’t want to throw
the baby out with the bathwater.
Luther had a very strong faith, and he had felt the
presence of God in his life many times. He didn’t want to stop being Christian
altogether, he just wanted to reform the church of his day – to give Christians
a new focus on God’s grace, instead of on the legalism of religious obligations.
So Martin Luther asked a
question that continues to form our church today.
Why do we do
what we do?
Where did these
traditions come from, anyway?
Is it important
or not for us to continue observing these practices?
If our traditions have
meaning – if they show the love and grace of God to us – if they help us in our
mission to share the Gospel of Christ – then by all means, keep doing them!
But if our traditions are no longer life-giving, if
they are simply laws that must be followed to the point at which we feel oppressed,
then maybe we need to reassess the
tradition. Maybe we need to do away with it altogether, or maybe we need to
update it for our current place in life.
As Lutherans, we keep those traditions that have meaning,
knowing why we do them. But we are free to leave
behind those traditions that no longer have relevance to us, and that no
longer remind us of God’s grace.
For example.
We read the Bible in worship,
very time we gather.
Why? Does the Bible change? Of course not. That’s
one of the great things about the Word of God – it remains the same.
But we change. And when our lives change, the ways that God interacts
with us change also. The Bible can speak to us in new ways as we encounter new
adventures in life. So each time you come to church, you hear the Word of God for you that day.
The text
of the Bible remains the same, but the meaning
may be different from week to week or year to year. And so we continue the
tradition of reading it in worship, every time we gather. It helps us remained
focused on the Gospel.
As Lutherans, we keep those traditions that have
meaning, knowing why we do them.
But there are also
traditions of the church that Lutherans have set aside. There are some ancient
practices of the church that we choose not
to observe any more.
For example.
We do not venerate relics.
Relics are pieces of hair, wood, bones, fingernails – anything with a
connection to a sacred person or place.
For centuries, the veneration of relics was an
important piece of Christian worship. Many altars in churches were built around
these tiny pieces of the saints – maybe you’ve visited one of those old
churches, and seen the dedications to the saints whose remains are contained
there.
We as Lutherans do not build
our churches around the relics of the saints.
500 years after the
Protestant Reformation, most of us find this practice to be utterly foreign, even a little strange.
This is one tradition that our predecessors in faith determined to be a distraction from the Gospel,
so they decided to leave the veneration of relics out as they were developing the
Lutheran church of today.
Lutherans keep some
traditions and let some fall by the wayside.
Our denomination began
during the Reformation.
It is the most Lutheran
thing ever to be constantly re-forming, to be re-evaluating
our practices and why we do them.
We should never choose to do something just
because that’s the way we’ve always done it.
Traditions have meaning and they can
help us grow in faith – that’s why we follow them. But if a tradition does not serve
these purposes any more, it just might be time to update it for a new time and
place, or to stop following it altogether.
Many of our traditions have
changed over time.
For example.
When you have people over
for dinner, do you eat first, or do you serve your guests first? In today’s
culture, we usually think that it’s polite for the host to eat last, to make
sure that the guests have enough. But in a different time and place, it was
considered polite for the host to eat first, as a way to show that the food
wasn’t poisoned or otherwise unsafe.
Our practices about Communion have followed the same
protocol. Pastors and priests used to always serve themselves before serving
the congregation, so that the people would know the food was safe. Now many
pastors choose to eat last, to make sure that the congregation has enough
before partaking of the meal ourselves.
So how do we know what
traditions to continue, and which to change, and which to throw by the wayside?
500 years ago, the church
frequently got in the way of people having a meaningful relationship with God.
Based on that measure, Luther spoke out against the
current practices in the church – he protested,
trying to reform the church at the time – so that the church would become a
place where people heard about the Gospel rather than a place where people felt
constantly inadequate.
When do our churches and our
traditions get in the way of people having a meaningful relationship with God?
If our traditions
are based on fear of punishment, like they were in the church of Luther’s time –
if our traditions do not bring us closer to God, then we need to reconsider why
we do them.
Martin Luther would be
shocked by what I’m about to say, but hey – things have changed in the past 500
years, and unlike Luther, I don’t happen to believe that the Pope is the
antichrist.
The current Pope has some good wisdom for us today.
(And Luther rolls over in his grave.)
Pope Francis tell us, God is
not afraid of new things.
God can handle change just
fine – God has seen a lot of changes over the years, and God has gotten though each
one of them unscathed.
God is not afraid of new things.
So why should we be?
Let me share one more
example of how some traditions are helpful and some need to be re-formed.
Some of us have kept a family baptismal gown from a
grandmother or great-grandfather. This gown gets passed through the generations
as each new baby wears it for their baptism. That is a good tradition. It connects
family and church, and reminds us of God in tangible ways.
But most of us don’t keep
our grandmother’s or great-grandfather’s diapers for our children to wear.
Seriously. Some things are just not worth keeping. They serve their purpose for
a time, and do it well – but when their purpose is over, it’s time to move on
to a new practice, a new tradition.
That’s the message of
Reformation Sunday. Continue in God’s word, follow the truth, and you will be
made free – free from the legalistic obligations that can bog us down, free to
observe those traditions that are life-giving, and free to follow God
wholeheartedly.
Our Christian faith is not about earning
salvation – Jesus has already taken care of that.
Our Christian faith is about thanking God for our salvation
by drawing closer in relationship to God.
Our traditions can often
help us do that, but sometimes they keep us separate from one another or from
God. As Lutherans, we can follow in the tradition of the founder of our faith,
keeping those traditions that are life-giving, but discarding the ones that are
hurtful.
Our faith, and
our church, are continually re-forming.
God is
continually speaking to us in ways both new and old.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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