For the righteousness of God

It is so tempting to turn this Reformation day into a safe history lesson, because we can then consider it briefly and then push it aside, even as Adam pushed God aside for the sake of an enticing hunger.

The situation is as contemporary as the latest news report and as ancient as God's first intentions for us.

We cannot reduce this day to a history lesson, because the scriptures demand our attention as the basis for interpreting everything that is happening in these tumultuous times around us right now.

A generation ago an idea grew up that the key to interpreting the Bible can be found by reading the daily newspaper.

Unfortunately, that is backwards.

Rather, we understand our present situation by reading the ancient scripture.

This is an audacious claim that we as Christians make, but it is nonetheless true.

I've been thinking about the half-hearted attitude of so many who still name themselves Christians these days, and perhaps we can trace at least part of the problem to this confusion.

(1) Are the scriptures something tacked on as a nice religious decoration to my life?

(2) Or are the scriptures source and norm for me to understand who I am and what I am to be doing here?

If it is the first, then we may decide to get together...or not;

we may spend time in worship and study...or not;

we may spend our selves in loving service to those in need around us,...or not,

since it doesn't matter much either way.

That would be our attitude if the scriptures are merely a religious decoration to life.

But if the scriptures are the core of my identity, then we had better be hanging onto each other for dear life;

we need to be together in worship and study and service, so that we know who we are, and can then act accordingly.

Wednesday evening in our final session of the October school of religion, our little group of persons was exploring the formation of the canon of scripture, that is, how the New Testament gospels and epistles were formed and how the various writings came to be gathered together and regarded as scripture just as were the Old Testament writings.

In those days there was a movement called gnosticism, the idea that there is a secret knowledge that can be passed down from a master, secret knowledge that is not available to all, but is the key to good and successful life.

In fact, they thought that many people were not worthy to receive this knowledge.

In many places, these spiritual elites took over the church of Jesus Christ and molded it into something else.

They would use some familiar language but invest it with different meanings.

Some took scissors to the developing list of books that were being gathered for the New Testament, deleting sections or whole books in order to have only the writings that they could massage into their perspective.

Scribes would even change some words here and there to make this superiority sound better.

So the list of the 27 books in the New Testament was firmed up and agreed upon as a response to this two-fold challenge:

what is the truth about this Jesus?,

and, what are the implications for my daily life?

Why should we bother trying to understand that old controversy?

Isn't that just musty, dusty history?

No, it is not!

Gnosticism is alive and active and seducing people all the time these days.

Oprah is perhaps one of the more glamorous of them, but there are many others who say that their religion is all contained inside themselves.

They have this wonderful feeling about themselves , this secret knowledge that they will share with those who are worthy...for a price.

We have mystics right here in our own community who talk about a saving knowledge that they have developed inside themselves without reference to the Lord Jesus or his death on the cross.

And when that doesn't capture everyone, there are others who are actively promoting changing the text of scripture to suit their point of view.

I don't mean a new translation, which is always needed in order to keep the meaning the same, since language changes through the years.

I'm talking about directly altering the text of scripture, changing its meaning.

Twenty years ago I was able to prevail in a debate at Synod assembly concerning the language about God because I could point to scripture and say “That's not what scripture says.”

So it was quite predictable that the next assault would come on the Bible itself, trying to make it say something other than the text actually says by changing the words.

And that is exactly what has been happening.

We'll save the examples for a class or other conversation, but there are plenty of them.

Ecclesia semper reformanda is an old slogan which means “The church must always be reformed.”

The church must be called back to the sources again and again from whatever excess or false direction it takes.

This process of discernment and re-direction is never completed, because we get ourselves in trouble repeatedly.

We think up something, and declare it “new and improved”

only to discover that it is likely a problem that our forebears in the faith faced centuries ago and we have fallen for it again as it wears a new disguise.

The observations that Paul makes in the book of Romans 2,000 years ago still fit us perfectly.

“We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Paul says.

All: Jew and Gentile, of every age, both genders, and whatever nationality.

Sinned: separate ourselves from God and from each other, engaging in self-righteousness, saying “I don't need you or anybody or anything else; I'm fully self-satisfied, self-motivated, self-sustaining.”

Glory of God: things that are full of light, full of truth, full of their proper relationships to one another.

One way of illustrating that is in our icons.

It may take a while to realize that there are no shadows in an icon: the whole work is suffused with light.

In an icon, especially if it is an icon of Christ Jesus himself, the glow comes from within the figure, without shadows.

That is the Glory of God at work.

And what does this glory of God do to us?

It announces God's law that accuses us,

and also it announces God's forgiveness that transforms us,

as well as God's re-direction which sets us on a new path of life.

It is the content of our slogan justification by grace through faith.

And it comes to us as a free gift, by hearing, by washing, by receiving, by eating and drinking.

This is the righteousness of God of which Paul speaks:

his creating of us and not ignoring us;

his judging of us and not destroying us;

his forgiving of us and not abandoning us;

his adopting of us and not orphaning us.

This righteousness of God is truly Good News for us, in spite of the mess we continue to make of things.

God is determined to be God for us, over us, and on behalf of us.

Because of that Good News, what should we be doing?

--Giving thanks

--Praying for ourselves and for everyone.

--Learning about the traps into which our ancestors in the faith fell and from which they had to be dragged by the work of the Holy Spirit

--Watching for the ways the old traps are disguised and re-set in our day.

--Returning again and again to the sources in the scriptures to make sure that we have heard the judgment clearly and grasped the forgiveness boldly.

--Inviting your neighbors to hear this word and experience this truth.

When we are busy with those things, it will be clear that the scriptures are not a mere decoration, but rather the foundation of life.

In our Second Lesson today, Paul has used a boatload of terms, accompanied by two boatloads of references to God's work in Christ Jesus.

It takes a lifetime of living and thoughtful reflection to know all that we can know about them.

But wherever the truth of the Scripture has free course among us, the continuing Reformation is at work, in the power of the Spirit.

May it be so among us! Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.