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John 8:31-36
A Sermon for Reformation Sunday
Is Reformation Sunday passé? Some Lutherans have said the Reformation is over, and we shouldn’t bother with celebrating it anymore. What we should do is admit it was a mistake, and those who were involved in it were mistaken.
That’s not true of course, but that’s the way some Lutherans are trying to spin it. For example, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) tries to say this (in their 1999 agreement with Rome, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. It’s all over. There’s no problem anymore.
But the main thing is: What happened? What was it all about?
Luther is a very important person in world history. You may be familiar with various lists of the most important people in the last 1,000 years, and on some of these lists, Luther comes in second. Not just among Christians, but in the world at large, Luther is a VIP.
That’s why we have special texts for today from John 8 about freedom. It ends: “If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.”
Back in Jesus’ day there were these people who said to him: “But we’ve always been free; we’ve never been slaves. We’re not in bondage to anything.”
We have to ask ourselves: What is meant here about freedom? Why is it said that the Reformation was about freedom, Christian freedom?
Luther wrote a famous essay about this (1520). Usually what comes up is indulgences. Luther was not trying to create a public scandal when he nailed those 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. They were written in Latin, and only a few people could read Latin. Luther’s fellow monks and scholars. Only about 10% of the people could even read German, let along Latin.
But the 95 Theses were quickly translated, published, and conveyed in cartoons and drawings. What he had written spread quickly to all Germans, the educated and uneducated alike, but that wasn’t his intention. He was concerned about the spiritual health of the people of Wittenberg.
What was the problem about indulgences? It’s important to realize that in the way Roman Catholic spirituality works, there are two levels. There’s the lower level of ordinary people, and then there’s the higher level for people of extra-ordinary spirituality, those in monasteries, the priesthood, and some others.
When ordinary people commit sins, they are called upon to be contrite, repentant, then confess their sins and make satisfaction. That is the basic system which existed for many hundreds of years.
But for the extraordinary, for the monks, priests, and certain unusual people, there’s an extra level, and you can see it by the oath that people in those positions take, the oath of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
They are called to live an extraordinary kind of life, and if they do more than is required, they gain merit. The issue is merit, something you can have more than is required.
There’s a big fancy word—supererogation, which means more than the works required. These are gathered in a spiritual treasury, a treasury of merit, and they help people, who don’t manage enough in this life, to cut down the time in purgatory. The treasury of merit and purgatory are defined by the Council of Trent.
Then there are indulgences.
If you have seen any of the movies of Luther’s life, you recall Tetzel who was selling indulgences to pay for the church in Rome, St. Peter’s Cathedral. There are abuses, and it becomes almost a comic kind of thing. But the basic issue is there is a kind of spirituality in the Christian life in which there is merit and indulgences.
In the US Lutheran Catholic Dialogue between top Lutheran and top Catholic scholars, the Lutheran scholars asked the Catholic team if they could formulate the Catholic concern in terms other than “merit.” After deliberating among themselves at great length, the Catholics came back and said: “Sorry we can’t do anything else than this.”
And that is why there was a conflict back in the Sixteenth Century, and why it continues today, and also why indulgences are still operative today.
A number of years ago, the Catholic World Congress, meeting in Cologne, Germany, announced that a plenary indulgence would be given for anyone who attended the Congress with the proper intention. The public press was not given this information. It appeared only in the Catholic press.
All this about indulgences creates movie drama—you can see it in your mind’s eye: Tetzel calling out: “When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs!”
It was a huge problem, but that’s not at the heart of what Luther was struggling with.
Using a play on words we could say: It’s not about indulgences but indulging yourself.
Luther’s genius was that he was honest. He would not lie to himself. He would not indulge himself. He looked squarely at the situation because he was concerned to be sure about salvation. How could you be certain? How could you be sure?
He struggled with that. We tend not to struggle as he did because we indulge ourselves.
In the first place, the common ordinary person is called upon to do what you have in you. That’s just translating the Latin phrase. You do what you can do and what you’re able to do. It’s not the same as just your intentions because we know that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Rather, it’s to do what you can because you can do good works. So you are supposed to do what you can.
Luther struggled with this because how would you ever know when you’d done enough?
In Luke 17 there’s the parable of the dutiful servants who do all that is commanded of them and then say: We are unworthy servants; we have simply done our duty. In doing these things, we haven’t gained any merit. Luke 17:1-10).
In the second place, there is the higher level of extraordinary Christians. They are those who are called upon to do more fasting, more praying, and more confessing. Luther was in that group, and he drove his supervisor, his confessor, Staupitz crazy.
Staupitz finally sent him out to be a professor of Biblical theology. He wanted to get him doing something else rather than trying to figure out: “How can I be certain? How can I be sure about salvation?”
Luther knew that it says in Matthew 5:48: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So it wasn’t just doing what you could, but you’re called upon to be perfect.
Or as it says in Romans 10:5: If you’re going to live by the law, then you need to do so 100%. How are you going to know when you get ahead?
In the third place, and this is where his honesty came in, he realized that whatever I do, I do for myself, for my own salvation. How can I get ahead? How can I get any merit and take care of those things where I’m lacking, where I’ve forgotten, that is, committed sins of omission, or where I’m wrong?
How can I do something with a pure heart? My heart is always mixed. My motives are always mixed. I can pretend, but I know it’s hypocrisy. Whenever I do something, I’m caught, either by spiritual pride or spiritual despair. I think I’ve managed it, but then I’ve forgotten about my motives. They’re not pure.
Or I fall into spiritual despair which is simply another kind of pride.
In 1520 he also wrote a sermon on good works in which he points out that all of the commandments are summed up in the first one which is: “You shall have no other gods.” And the basic sin, which is in everything we do, is spiritual pride. You can never get ahead unless you lie to yourself and end up in hypocrisy and spiritual pride. What’s to be done?
He struggled even though Staupitz had sent him out, sent him to work as a professor of Biblical Theology.
In 1514, which is well before he posted the 95 Theses on the Door of the Wittenberg Church, as he was studying the Book of Romans, he came to Romans 1:16, and he suddenly saw that the righteousness of God is not the righteousness that God demands, but the righteousness that God gives.
And he said it was as if the heavens opened. It changed everything. Salvation was God’s doing, not our doing, and not what he is demanding of us such that we never know if we’ve done enough and done it right. It’s all taken care of.
It’s stated another way in that verse in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Luther calls this the best business deal that ever was. He takes our sin and in exchange gives us his holiness. O happy exchange. It’s not our doing, our striving, not our making up what it’s all about.
It’s perfectly symbolized by infant Baptism. When a baby is baptized, that little infant doesn’t understand, doesn’t make a decision for Christ, doesn’t have any knowledge of what it’s about. Yet that little one is given the Holy Spirit, faith, and eternal life, as it is spelled out in the Small Catechism.
Infant Baptism shows us Gospel truth. It shows us that it doesn’t depend on us, and we can be certain and sure because it depends on him. In him we have absolute certainty and absolute surety. We don’t have to worry about our doing it, our delusions, and our illusions that we can produce faith, good works, and salvation.
And as it then also says in the Small Catechism when it deals with Baptism, we are then free from sin, death, and the devil, which are all the same thing. We are free then in him to live today and all our days as his creatures. He is the Creator, he is Lord, we are free to be truly ourselves and to live under him in his kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Jesus means freedom. Amen.