Reformation Day
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series IX, Cycle A
Theme of the Day
Freedom!
Collect of the Day
Two options are available. In the first, after noting that the Holy Spirit renews the church in every age, petitions are offered that the Spirit be poured on God's faithful people, keeping them steadfast in His word, protecting and comforting them in time of trial, defending them against all enemies of the gospel, and bestowing saving peace on the church. The doctrines of the Holy Spirit, Church, and Sanctification are emphasized. The alternative petitions that the holy Catholic church be filled with all truth and peace, be purified where corrupt, be directed where in error, reformed where amiss, strengthened where it is right, reunited where divided. This is a prayer about the church and God's grace.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 46
• A Korah Psalm celebrating God's victory over the nations. The Psalm (esp. v. 1) inspired Martin Luther's hymn, "A Mighty Fortress."
• God is said to be our refuge and strength, a present help in trouble. We need not fear (vv. 1-3).
• The promise is made that Jerusalem will endure forever (vv. 4-7). John Calvin understood these references to be about God providing security for the church (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. IV/1, p. 563).
• The establishment of God's kingdom will bring peace (vv. 8-9).
• We are urged to be still and know that the Lord is God (v. 10). These words may have been a divine oracle of salvation, giving God's observance of help against enemies.
Sermon Text and Title
"When You Can't Stop Yourself!"
Jeremiah 31:31-34
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim the good news in the midst of the chaos of strains of modern life that we are affirmed (Justification by Grace) along with an awareness that God unites us to Him so we become people who just cannot help but spontaneously do God's thing (Sanctification as Spontaneous Good Works).
2. Exegesis (see First Lesson, Christmas 2)
• The lesson is part of the so-called Hopeful Scroll (see 30:1-3); it was probably a promise directed to Israel as a whole. As prophecies have been loosened in editing from their original contexts, these prophecies of hope become new for every successive generation.
• It is prophesied that the Lord will establish a New Covenant, replacing the one given on Mount Sinai that had been broken (vv. 31-32).
• The New Covenant will involve putting the law in the hearts of people and renewing Israel's status as God's people (v. 33). All will know Him and the people's sin will be forgiven, for God will remember their sin no more (v. 34).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
• The text witnesses to the creation of the New Covenant that entails forgiving all past sin (Justification by Grace) and the planting of the law in the hearts of the faithful (Sanctification with Good Works as Spontaneous).
• John Wesley claimed that in verse 33 Jeremiah aimed to distinguish the law and the gospel (Commentary on the Bible, p. 346). He also nicely claimed why we do not need the law because Christ lives in us: "[Christ has become] a fountain of life in my inmost soul from which all my tempers, words, and actions flow."
• John Calvin insists that nothing is detracted from the law by saying it is weak and ineffectual (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. X/2, p. 130).
• By saying that He will be our God, Calvin adds, the Lord offers us "His paternal favor, and declares that our salvation is become the object of His care; He gives free access to Himself..." (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. X/2, p. 133).
• Commenting on Psalm 119, John Calvin observes about sin:
As the whole world are given to folly, those who wander astray plead in excuse that it is difficult for them to guard against the allurements of vice. But the remedy will be near at hand if... instead of leaning on our own wisdom, we seek understanding from the word of God.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. VI/1, p. 478)
• The text is not just about Justification by Grace apart from works of the law. Sanctification, the New Covenant involving the embedding the law in the hearts of the faithful, is also taught. As Martin Luther once put it in a sermon:
For our sins are not forgiven with the design that we should continue to commit sin, but that we should cease from it. Otherwise it would more justly be called, not forgiveness of sin but permission to sin.
(Complete Sermons, Vol. 4/2, pp. 168-169)
• These works happen spontaneously, the lesson adds, as the law is in the heart and so need not be exhorted. Martin Luther points out how they are works of freedom: "All that a Christian does is nothing but fruit. Everything such a person does is easy for him. Nothing too arduous" (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, p. 230).
• The idea that the law is in our hearts suggests the concept of Justification as Intimate Union with Christ. See the quote by Luther in the second bullet point of this section for the Second Lesson, Christmas. Also see the quotations by Bernard of Clairvaux in this section for the Second Lesson, Epiphany 7.
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
• For data on the legalistic propensities of Americans, see the next-to-last bullet point of this section for the Second Lesson, Advent 2.
• More than 1 in 2 Americans are weary of their circumstances, feeling burned out, a 2012 ABC News survey reported. In this connection, American writer Steve Kaczmarski offers an interesting insight: "The No.1 cause of burnout is doing the same thing over and over again and not seeing results. You need to do something different."
• In our narcissist ethos a preoccupation with identity or the quest for self-consciousness and finding ourselves is a consuming passion for many Americans. (See Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, pp. 177-179; David Frum, How We Got Here: The 70s, esp. pp. 70ff.)
• For data on how belief in a loving God makes life happier and more secure, see the first bullet point for this section for the First Lesson, Advent 3.
5. Gimmick
Times were very hard for Jeremiah and the people of his era (in late seventh-early sixth centuries BC). Times are tough in America today.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
• Review data in the second and third bullet points of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.
• We are so burned out from all the effort we put into seeking to please ourselves and trying to be somebody who is envied or has celebrity status. Then we are further burdened by the expectation in America that if you don't live a certain way, the righteous God will not reward you (see first bullet point of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights).
• The Hebrew people of Jeremiah's day encountered burdens not completely unlike our own. Like us, the Hebrew people were in spiritual doldrums, uncertain about their nation's fate, and burdened with God's commandments given them on Mount Sinai about how to live in order to fulfill the covenant. This sense that faith is a burden, of having to prove ourselves, is precisely what the Protestant Reformers were experiencing in the Catholic church before the reformation (Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 39). Ask the congregation if they do not feel this burden. Jeremiah and the Reformation have a freeing word for us.
• Review the second and third bullet points of Exegesis. God in Christ has removed the burden of the commandments that indict and prod us but instead has created a New Covenant by putting His law in our hearts! We are forgiven and released from the law that judges us.
• Martin Luther, who made this discovery and whose Reformation was about giving the gift of this insight to the church, well expresses the significance of this profound forgiving love of God for us: "For the divine majesty is such that it gives to every man and helps in every anxiety and need. If I recognize that, I understand that I cannot help myself" (Luther's Works, Vol. 12, p. 187).
• Use the quote by John Wesley in the second bullet point of Theological Insights. We do not need the law to tell us what to do anymore because Christ lives in us. Also consider the leads in the last bullet point of Theological Insights.
• Christians no longer have anything to prove. The burden is off our shoulders. In fact, now that Christ lives in us we cannot help but do Jesus' thing.
Use John Calvin's comments in the third and fifth bullet points of Theological Insights. No more do we need to prove ourselves to God: We can lean on Him.
• Consider again the quotations referred to in the last bullet point of Theological Insights. This total dependence on God means that we cannot stop ourselves from doing what God wants, from doing His thing, like a lover does loving things for a loved one.
• This reformation word of God's love for us makes life easier in other ways. Famed twentieth-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr helps us understand how God's love (grace) makes life easier:
We do not become unselfish by saying so. But thank God, there are forces in life and in history that draw us out of ourselves and make us truly ourselves. This is grace.
(Justice & Mercy, p. 43)
God's grace makes us truly ourselves -- without even thinking or fretting about it, just by being ourselves. Good works are spontaneous for Christians saved by grace and with the law implanted in their hearts.
• Of all human beings, Christians can truly be themselves. It is like English guitarist and band leader John McLaughlin once said: "Only in spontaneity can we be who we truly are."
• Living spontaneously, being who you are this way, is as pleasurable as the spontaneity of love. Australian scholar and journalist Germaine Greer puts it well: "The essence of pleasure is spontaneity."
7. Wrap-Up
Elaborate on how this life of spontaneously doing the Christian thing, unable to stop ourselves from doing and being good, gives pleasure. Use the last bullet point of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights. A life lived spontaneously doing God's thing, because you can't stop yourself from doing it, is what the Reformation is all about and that is a life of freedom and joy!
Sermon Text and Title
"Come As You Are: But You Will not Leave the Same Way You Came"
Romans 3:19-28
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim that we have been affirmed by God (Justification by Grace) and also have been changed (Sanctification construed as the Spontaneity of Good Works).
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
• A transition from Paul's discussion of the world's need for redemption to a discussion of God's saving act in Christ.
• The Law of God silences us, for no human may be justified by works. The law gives knowledge of sin (vv. 19-20).
• The righteousness of God revealed apart from the law, though it is attested to by the law and the prophets (v. 21).
• Paul refers here to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction, since all have sinned, but are now justified by God's grace as a gift (vv. 22-24a).
• This transpires through Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by His blood. This shows God's righteousness, because in His forbearance He passed over sins committed (vv. 24b-25). This proves that God Himself is righteous, justifying the one who has faith in Christ (v. 26).
• This excludes boasting, for a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law (vv. 27-28).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
• The text affords the opportunity to understand the Pauline/Reformation concept of the righteousness of God and external righteousness (Justification by Grace) as well as a Satisfaction Theory of the atonement, freedom from the law, and the need to take our sin and guilt seriously.
• Martin Luther nicely outlined the importance of the righteousness of God and how his new Reformation insight about it being a passive righteousness received from God, changed his life:
For I hated the word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use of custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner... at last... I began to understand the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 34, pp. 336-337)
• Earlier Luther noted that works do not justify any more than a monkey who might imitate certain human actions can be said to do good deeds. These deeds would only be human if perpetrated by a human being, so only those whom God made righteous can do righteous deeds (Luther's Works, Vol. 25, p. 235):
God does not want to redeem us through our own, but through external righteousness... A true Christian must have no glory of his own and must to such an extent be stripped of everything he calls his own.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 25, pp. 136-137)
• Luther points out why we so badly need this word of forgiveness:
The consciousness that God is angry and that He is an irate judge of sin is innate in the human heart... In such circumstances it is impossible for man to be happy.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 22, p. 375)
• For citations indicating we sin in all we do, see the last bullet point of this section for the First Lesson, Ash Wednesday.
• John Calvin claimed that to be in Christ is to be out of ourselves. God buries our sins (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XIX/2, p. 136): "... for God by no means keeps His riches laid up in Himself, but pours them forth upon men" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XIX/2, p. 146).
• Although not developed in this sermon it might also be possible, in accord with much New Testament scholarship, to understand the righteousness of God as a faithfulness of God to His promises and God has been doing this throughout history. See the affirmation of Justification by Faith by the Jews sixty years prior to Christ's birth in Habakkuk 2:4, which is why God is righteous in not imposing the law on the Gentiles. (He has not essentially changed.) (Krister Sendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, pp. 78ff).
• Regarding the issues raised in the last bullet point in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights, it is significant to note that the famed nineteenth-century Danish Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard claims that effectively to propagate the gospel it is necessary to move people to an awareness of their guilt and despair (Either/Or, Vol. II, pp. 222-223, 232-233). Kierkegaard further reflects on how God's love relates to this insight: "Against God we are always in the wrong. This thought then checks doubt and claims its distress, it encourages and inspires to action" (Ibid., pp. 355-356).
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
• See the next-to-last bullet point of this section for the Second Lesson, Advent 2, for American disbelief of this reformation word.
• With the breakdown of moral standards in America (see first two bullet points of this section for the Second Lesson, Advent 2), it seems that Americans are less ridden by guilt.
5. Gimmick
This text brings us to the heart of the Reformation. It is all about the doctrine of Justification. Our lesson says that we are justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law (v. 28).
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
• Explain salvation by grace: Help the flock appreciate that they are not saved by what they do, but because God loves and forgives them. We have done nothing to earn God's favor.
• God wants a love affair with us. He has been courting us all our days. (Follow leads given in the last bullet point of Theological Insights for the First Lesson.) Like any lover, God deserves our answer. Faith is that answer. This is why we speak of Justification by Grace through Faith.
It all boils down to the good news that God is inviting us to a love affair. Like all lovers, God has found a lot in us lovable. He likes us just the way we are.
• To understand our lesson and Justification by Grace through Faith this way is illumined by the insights of a famous Swedish theologian of the twentieth century, Gustaf Aulén. Discussing salvation by grace he once wrote: "The watchword of the gospel is: 'Come as you are' " (The Drama and the Symbols, p. 165). Come as you are. This is the way love works. No matter if you are not at your best, it does not matter. I just like being with you. Come as you are. The preacher should illustrate this point by referring to his/her relations with loved ones and how a special loved one makes him/her feel he/she can come as he/she is.
• This message of acceptance is clearly proclaimed by the Second Lesson. It is also evident in the Gospel Lesson. Jesus affirms the discipleship of His followers (John 8:31)! "Faithful followers," He seems to say. "Come as you are!"
• Likewise in our First Lesson we encounter the Hebrew people and the difficult times they were facing (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Yet in the midst of their despair God sent Jeremiah to assure them and to give hope. "People," He seems again to say, "Come as you are."
• Invite the congregation to note how this theme of our unconditional acceptance by God reflects not just in today's lessons, but is all over the Bible. This insight brings us to the core of the Reformation heritage, so appropriate to consider in our celebration of Reformation Sunday.
• All of today's lessons make clear that something else happens when God proclaims His unconditional love. In our Second Lesson Paul proclaims God's unconditional forgiveness. But it was actually that theological perspective which drove Paul into the world to make him the greatest of all evangelists. Paul was not the same after being confronted by God's forgiving love.
• In the Gospel Lesson the same dynamic is reflected. The faithful followers of Jesus whom He had set free were given the freedom to break with the faith and practices of Judaism. They became the founders of the Christian faith! God's love makes a difference in their lives.
• We see this transpire in the First Lesson. The wayward, despairing Jewish people received the promise that God's Law would be put in their hearts, and they would be changed.
• It is not surprising that God's love would change the characters in our Bible lessons. Ask the congregation if this is not the way love works. The preacher might allude to how his/her first awareness of God's unconditional love changed him/her from the type of person she/he was before this insight. If married, reference might be made to how the marriage relationship had changed him/her.
• Suggest that an amendment might be made to Aulén's words of wisdom. Jesus' message in twofold: Come as you are; but you will not leave the same way you came. You will be a different person than you were before and will have a new identity.
Love changes people. You do not leave the same way you came. Yet a love relationship does not begin until you know that you are accepted by the other person. That is what Christianity (Justification by Grace through Faith) is all about: You can come to God as you are. But when you do come, it will make a difference!
7. Wrap-Up
The Reformation word: God says to the people of this congregation "Come as you are!" There is such great peace and security in that statement to know that you are affirmed at the very core of your being by the one who created life. Come as you are. But you will not leave the same way that you came! You have a new identity that works to make your life and this whole parish shout for joy about how good God's love really is. This is the reformation word: Come as you are, but you will not leave the same way you came.
Sermon Text and Title
"Without Christ There Is No Freedom: Listen America to the Reformation Word!"
John 8:31-36
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To extol and teach the revolutionary and comforting concept of Christian freedom (Sanctification construed as the Spontaneity of Good Works) with a reference to Justification as Intimate Union. The implications of these insights for everyday life are explored. Attention is also given to Social Ethics.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
• Jesus had been proclaiming Himself as one from above, perhaps a prophecy of His ascension (vv. 21-30). He proclaims to Jews who had believed in Him that if they continue in His word they are truly His disciples (v. 31). The truth will make them free (v. 32).
• The Jews who are addressed object, contending that as descendants of Abraham they have never been slaves (v. 33). Jesus responds, claiming that any who sin are slaves to sin (v. 34). Only the Son makes them free (v. 36).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
• An examination of Christian freedom (Sanctification as the Spontaneity of Good Works) with a reference to Justification as Intimate Union.
• Martin Luther sees the fragility of faith taught in Jesus' remarks in verse 31. He wrote:
People would gladly believe in Christ if this could make them lords or confer kingdoms on them... Fidelity to Christ's doctrine is rare, especially when people encounter an evil wind.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 393)
• Luther offers interesting reflections on the nature of our bondage to sin, how and why we can't stop sinning (v. 34):
A good work at its best is a daily sin according to the merciful judgment of God and a mortal sin according to His strict judgment.
(What Luther Says, p. 1504)
It follows from this that the free will of man, praise and extol it as you will, can do absolutely nothing of itself and is not free in its own volition to know how or to do good.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 51, p. 57)
• The Lutheran Formula of Concord makes a similar point:
Therefore, according to its perverted character and nature, the natural free will has only the power and ability to do whatever is displeasing and hostile to God.
(The Book of Concord [2000 ed.], p. 544)
• As Luther put it elsewhere:
The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off on the other side. One can't help him no matter how one tries.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 54, p. 111)
• This point was made more starkly by Luther's bishop at the time of the Reformation, Albert of Mainz:
I know very well that without God's grace there is nothing good in me, and that I am as much a piece of useless, stinking s*** as anyone else, if not more.
(reported in Heiko Oberman, Luther, p. 108)
• The freedom Christ has provided Christians is powerfully described by Rudolf Bultmann:
Faith includes free and complete openness to the future... [It is] freedom from the past, because it is faith in the forgiveness of sins; it is freedom for the enslaving chains of the past. It is freedom from ourselves as the old selves, and for ourselves as the new selves.
(Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp. 77-78)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer elaborated on the social implications of this Reformation word of freedom:
The person who loves, because he is freed through the truth of God is the most revolutionary person on earth. He is the one who upsets all values; he is the explosive in human society. Such a one is the most dangerous person. For he has recognized that people are untruthful in the extreme, and he is ready at any time, and just for the sake of love, to permit the light of truth to fall on them.
(A Testament to Freedom, p. 217)
• Regarding freedom Luther writes:
A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 344)
From this anyone can clearly see how a Christian is free from all things and over all things so that he needs no works to make him righteous, free; saved.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 356)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
• See Second Lesson.
• Regarding human selfishness soiling our best deeds, see the last bullet point of this section for the First Lesson, Lent 1.
5. Gimmick
Read verses 31-32, 36. Christ makes us free.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
• Christian freedom: This is a big issue for Martin Luther and the Reformation. Consider the last bullet point of Theological Insights and since we are celebrating the 497th anniversary of the start of the Reformation this week, it is appropriate we would have an assigned Bible reading that is all about Christian freedom.
• Ask what Christian freedom is. Is the exercise of free will and doing whatever you want? In fact we are not free in this sense. Use the quotations by Martin Luther in the third bullet point of Theological Insights. The book of Romans (3:20, 23) makes this point as well. We sin in all we do. See verse 34.
• Of course we have freedom in earthly things, to decide where to live, work, or what activities to undertake. But in the end we wind up doing what we do for selfish motives. Use the quotations from the Lutheran Formula of Concord in the fourth bullet point of Theological Insights. Also see the last bullet point of that section for the First Lesson, Epiphany 3.
• Pretty depressing sermon so far but it is true. Ask the congregation when the last time was that they did not sin. We may do good deeds and attend church, but are not these deeds soiled by our selfish motives? Consider leads in the last bullet point of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.
• These hard words are accompanied by good news. God gives us freedom, but we only have it because God gave it to us.
Use the quotes by Martin Luther in the last bullet point of Theological Insights.
• Music to our ears to know that we are free in Christ, subject to none. We are free from needing to do good works. They do not save, but does that mean we are free to do whatever we wish? Repeat the first quote by Luther in the last bullet point of Theological Insights. We are free to serve others! Christian freedom makes you a slave to others.
• It is like Eleanor Roosevelt once said: "With freedom comes responsibility." And Martin Luther King Jr. made a related point: "We are always both free and destined. Freedom is the chosen fulfillment of our destined nature" (A Testament of Hope, p. 120). Freedom is joyfully doing God's thing (what He ordained us to do in eternity).
• We may not be free to do good on our own. Consider the quotations in the fifth and sixth bullet points of Theological Insights. But that does not mean that we have not received freedom from Jesus. It is freedom on his terms. America has not given it to us. Jesus has! We are most free when we are doing Jesus' "thing" and serving our neighbors with it.
7. Wrap -Up
Ask the congregation which freedom they prefer -- the freedom to do whatever they want or the freedom to do God's thing? The only real freedom is God's freedom. (Methodists may consider Article 8 of their Articles of Religion.) The reformation reminds us that America may speak of freedom, but it only comes when we are wrapped up in the unconditional love of God.
Freedom!
Collect of the Day
Two options are available. In the first, after noting that the Holy Spirit renews the church in every age, petitions are offered that the Spirit be poured on God's faithful people, keeping them steadfast in His word, protecting and comforting them in time of trial, defending them against all enemies of the gospel, and bestowing saving peace on the church. The doctrines of the Holy Spirit, Church, and Sanctification are emphasized. The alternative petitions that the holy Catholic church be filled with all truth and peace, be purified where corrupt, be directed where in error, reformed where amiss, strengthened where it is right, reunited where divided. This is a prayer about the church and God's grace.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 46
• A Korah Psalm celebrating God's victory over the nations. The Psalm (esp. v. 1) inspired Martin Luther's hymn, "A Mighty Fortress."
• God is said to be our refuge and strength, a present help in trouble. We need not fear (vv. 1-3).
• The promise is made that Jerusalem will endure forever (vv. 4-7). John Calvin understood these references to be about God providing security for the church (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. IV/1, p. 563).
• The establishment of God's kingdom will bring peace (vv. 8-9).
• We are urged to be still and know that the Lord is God (v. 10). These words may have been a divine oracle of salvation, giving God's observance of help against enemies.
Sermon Text and Title
"When You Can't Stop Yourself!"
Jeremiah 31:31-34
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim the good news in the midst of the chaos of strains of modern life that we are affirmed (Justification by Grace) along with an awareness that God unites us to Him so we become people who just cannot help but spontaneously do God's thing (Sanctification as Spontaneous Good Works).
2. Exegesis (see First Lesson, Christmas 2)
• The lesson is part of the so-called Hopeful Scroll (see 30:1-3); it was probably a promise directed to Israel as a whole. As prophecies have been loosened in editing from their original contexts, these prophecies of hope become new for every successive generation.
• It is prophesied that the Lord will establish a New Covenant, replacing the one given on Mount Sinai that had been broken (vv. 31-32).
• The New Covenant will involve putting the law in the hearts of people and renewing Israel's status as God's people (v. 33). All will know Him and the people's sin will be forgiven, for God will remember their sin no more (v. 34).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
• The text witnesses to the creation of the New Covenant that entails forgiving all past sin (Justification by Grace) and the planting of the law in the hearts of the faithful (Sanctification with Good Works as Spontaneous).
• John Wesley claimed that in verse 33 Jeremiah aimed to distinguish the law and the gospel (Commentary on the Bible, p. 346). He also nicely claimed why we do not need the law because Christ lives in us: "[Christ has become] a fountain of life in my inmost soul from which all my tempers, words, and actions flow."
• John Calvin insists that nothing is detracted from the law by saying it is weak and ineffectual (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. X/2, p. 130).
• By saying that He will be our God, Calvin adds, the Lord offers us "His paternal favor, and declares that our salvation is become the object of His care; He gives free access to Himself..." (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. X/2, p. 133).
• Commenting on Psalm 119, John Calvin observes about sin:
As the whole world are given to folly, those who wander astray plead in excuse that it is difficult for them to guard against the allurements of vice. But the remedy will be near at hand if... instead of leaning on our own wisdom, we seek understanding from the word of God.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. VI/1, p. 478)
• The text is not just about Justification by Grace apart from works of the law. Sanctification, the New Covenant involving the embedding the law in the hearts of the faithful, is also taught. As Martin Luther once put it in a sermon:
For our sins are not forgiven with the design that we should continue to commit sin, but that we should cease from it. Otherwise it would more justly be called, not forgiveness of sin but permission to sin.
(Complete Sermons, Vol. 4/2, pp. 168-169)
• These works happen spontaneously, the lesson adds, as the law is in the heart and so need not be exhorted. Martin Luther points out how they are works of freedom: "All that a Christian does is nothing but fruit. Everything such a person does is easy for him. Nothing too arduous" (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, p. 230).
• The idea that the law is in our hearts suggests the concept of Justification as Intimate Union with Christ. See the quote by Luther in the second bullet point of this section for the Second Lesson, Christmas. Also see the quotations by Bernard of Clairvaux in this section for the Second Lesson, Epiphany 7.
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
• For data on the legalistic propensities of Americans, see the next-to-last bullet point of this section for the Second Lesson, Advent 2.
• More than 1 in 2 Americans are weary of their circumstances, feeling burned out, a 2012 ABC News survey reported. In this connection, American writer Steve Kaczmarski offers an interesting insight: "The No.1 cause of burnout is doing the same thing over and over again and not seeing results. You need to do something different."
• In our narcissist ethos a preoccupation with identity or the quest for self-consciousness and finding ourselves is a consuming passion for many Americans. (See Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, pp. 177-179; David Frum, How We Got Here: The 70s, esp. pp. 70ff.)
• For data on how belief in a loving God makes life happier and more secure, see the first bullet point for this section for the First Lesson, Advent 3.
5. Gimmick
Times were very hard for Jeremiah and the people of his era (in late seventh-early sixth centuries BC). Times are tough in America today.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
• Review data in the second and third bullet points of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.
• We are so burned out from all the effort we put into seeking to please ourselves and trying to be somebody who is envied or has celebrity status. Then we are further burdened by the expectation in America that if you don't live a certain way, the righteous God will not reward you (see first bullet point of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights).
• The Hebrew people of Jeremiah's day encountered burdens not completely unlike our own. Like us, the Hebrew people were in spiritual doldrums, uncertain about their nation's fate, and burdened with God's commandments given them on Mount Sinai about how to live in order to fulfill the covenant. This sense that faith is a burden, of having to prove ourselves, is precisely what the Protestant Reformers were experiencing in the Catholic church before the reformation (Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 39). Ask the congregation if they do not feel this burden. Jeremiah and the Reformation have a freeing word for us.
• Review the second and third bullet points of Exegesis. God in Christ has removed the burden of the commandments that indict and prod us but instead has created a New Covenant by putting His law in our hearts! We are forgiven and released from the law that judges us.
• Martin Luther, who made this discovery and whose Reformation was about giving the gift of this insight to the church, well expresses the significance of this profound forgiving love of God for us: "For the divine majesty is such that it gives to every man and helps in every anxiety and need. If I recognize that, I understand that I cannot help myself" (Luther's Works, Vol. 12, p. 187).
• Use the quote by John Wesley in the second bullet point of Theological Insights. We do not need the law to tell us what to do anymore because Christ lives in us. Also consider the leads in the last bullet point of Theological Insights.
• Christians no longer have anything to prove. The burden is off our shoulders. In fact, now that Christ lives in us we cannot help but do Jesus' thing.
Use John Calvin's comments in the third and fifth bullet points of Theological Insights. No more do we need to prove ourselves to God: We can lean on Him.
• Consider again the quotations referred to in the last bullet point of Theological Insights. This total dependence on God means that we cannot stop ourselves from doing what God wants, from doing His thing, like a lover does loving things for a loved one.
• This reformation word of God's love for us makes life easier in other ways. Famed twentieth-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr helps us understand how God's love (grace) makes life easier:
We do not become unselfish by saying so. But thank God, there are forces in life and in history that draw us out of ourselves and make us truly ourselves. This is grace.
(Justice & Mercy, p. 43)
God's grace makes us truly ourselves -- without even thinking or fretting about it, just by being ourselves. Good works are spontaneous for Christians saved by grace and with the law implanted in their hearts.
• Of all human beings, Christians can truly be themselves. It is like English guitarist and band leader John McLaughlin once said: "Only in spontaneity can we be who we truly are."
• Living spontaneously, being who you are this way, is as pleasurable as the spontaneity of love. Australian scholar and journalist Germaine Greer puts it well: "The essence of pleasure is spontaneity."
7. Wrap-Up
Elaborate on how this life of spontaneously doing the Christian thing, unable to stop ourselves from doing and being good, gives pleasure. Use the last bullet point of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights. A life lived spontaneously doing God's thing, because you can't stop yourself from doing it, is what the Reformation is all about and that is a life of freedom and joy!
Sermon Text and Title
"Come As You Are: But You Will not Leave the Same Way You Came"
Romans 3:19-28
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim that we have been affirmed by God (Justification by Grace) and also have been changed (Sanctification construed as the Spontaneity of Good Works).
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
• A transition from Paul's discussion of the world's need for redemption to a discussion of God's saving act in Christ.
• The Law of God silences us, for no human may be justified by works. The law gives knowledge of sin (vv. 19-20).
• The righteousness of God revealed apart from the law, though it is attested to by the law and the prophets (v. 21).
• Paul refers here to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There is no distinction, since all have sinned, but are now justified by God's grace as a gift (vv. 22-24a).
• This transpires through Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by His blood. This shows God's righteousness, because in His forbearance He passed over sins committed (vv. 24b-25). This proves that God Himself is righteous, justifying the one who has faith in Christ (v. 26).
• This excludes boasting, for a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law (vv. 27-28).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
• The text affords the opportunity to understand the Pauline/Reformation concept of the righteousness of God and external righteousness (Justification by Grace) as well as a Satisfaction Theory of the atonement, freedom from the law, and the need to take our sin and guilt seriously.
• Martin Luther nicely outlined the importance of the righteousness of God and how his new Reformation insight about it being a passive righteousness received from God, changed his life:
For I hated the word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use of custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner... at last... I began to understand the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 34, pp. 336-337)
• Earlier Luther noted that works do not justify any more than a monkey who might imitate certain human actions can be said to do good deeds. These deeds would only be human if perpetrated by a human being, so only those whom God made righteous can do righteous deeds (Luther's Works, Vol. 25, p. 235):
God does not want to redeem us through our own, but through external righteousness... A true Christian must have no glory of his own and must to such an extent be stripped of everything he calls his own.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 25, pp. 136-137)
• Luther points out why we so badly need this word of forgiveness:
The consciousness that God is angry and that He is an irate judge of sin is innate in the human heart... In such circumstances it is impossible for man to be happy.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 22, p. 375)
• For citations indicating we sin in all we do, see the last bullet point of this section for the First Lesson, Ash Wednesday.
• John Calvin claimed that to be in Christ is to be out of ourselves. God buries our sins (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XIX/2, p. 136): "... for God by no means keeps His riches laid up in Himself, but pours them forth upon men" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XIX/2, p. 146).
• Although not developed in this sermon it might also be possible, in accord with much New Testament scholarship, to understand the righteousness of God as a faithfulness of God to His promises and God has been doing this throughout history. See the affirmation of Justification by Faith by the Jews sixty years prior to Christ's birth in Habakkuk 2:4, which is why God is righteous in not imposing the law on the Gentiles. (He has not essentially changed.) (Krister Sendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, pp. 78ff).
• Regarding the issues raised in the last bullet point in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights, it is significant to note that the famed nineteenth-century Danish Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard claims that effectively to propagate the gospel it is necessary to move people to an awareness of their guilt and despair (Either/Or, Vol. II, pp. 222-223, 232-233). Kierkegaard further reflects on how God's love relates to this insight: "Against God we are always in the wrong. This thought then checks doubt and claims its distress, it encourages and inspires to action" (Ibid., pp. 355-356).
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
• See the next-to-last bullet point of this section for the Second Lesson, Advent 2, for American disbelief of this reformation word.
• With the breakdown of moral standards in America (see first two bullet points of this section for the Second Lesson, Advent 2), it seems that Americans are less ridden by guilt.
5. Gimmick
This text brings us to the heart of the Reformation. It is all about the doctrine of Justification. Our lesson says that we are justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law (v. 28).
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
• Explain salvation by grace: Help the flock appreciate that they are not saved by what they do, but because God loves and forgives them. We have done nothing to earn God's favor.
• God wants a love affair with us. He has been courting us all our days. (Follow leads given in the last bullet point of Theological Insights for the First Lesson.) Like any lover, God deserves our answer. Faith is that answer. This is why we speak of Justification by Grace through Faith.
It all boils down to the good news that God is inviting us to a love affair. Like all lovers, God has found a lot in us lovable. He likes us just the way we are.
• To understand our lesson and Justification by Grace through Faith this way is illumined by the insights of a famous Swedish theologian of the twentieth century, Gustaf Aulén. Discussing salvation by grace he once wrote: "The watchword of the gospel is: 'Come as you are' " (The Drama and the Symbols, p. 165). Come as you are. This is the way love works. No matter if you are not at your best, it does not matter. I just like being with you. Come as you are. The preacher should illustrate this point by referring to his/her relations with loved ones and how a special loved one makes him/her feel he/she can come as he/she is.
• This message of acceptance is clearly proclaimed by the Second Lesson. It is also evident in the Gospel Lesson. Jesus affirms the discipleship of His followers (John 8:31)! "Faithful followers," He seems to say. "Come as you are!"
• Likewise in our First Lesson we encounter the Hebrew people and the difficult times they were facing (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Yet in the midst of their despair God sent Jeremiah to assure them and to give hope. "People," He seems again to say, "Come as you are."
• Invite the congregation to note how this theme of our unconditional acceptance by God reflects not just in today's lessons, but is all over the Bible. This insight brings us to the core of the Reformation heritage, so appropriate to consider in our celebration of Reformation Sunday.
• All of today's lessons make clear that something else happens when God proclaims His unconditional love. In our Second Lesson Paul proclaims God's unconditional forgiveness. But it was actually that theological perspective which drove Paul into the world to make him the greatest of all evangelists. Paul was not the same after being confronted by God's forgiving love.
• In the Gospel Lesson the same dynamic is reflected. The faithful followers of Jesus whom He had set free were given the freedom to break with the faith and practices of Judaism. They became the founders of the Christian faith! God's love makes a difference in their lives.
• We see this transpire in the First Lesson. The wayward, despairing Jewish people received the promise that God's Law would be put in their hearts, and they would be changed.
• It is not surprising that God's love would change the characters in our Bible lessons. Ask the congregation if this is not the way love works. The preacher might allude to how his/her first awareness of God's unconditional love changed him/her from the type of person she/he was before this insight. If married, reference might be made to how the marriage relationship had changed him/her.
• Suggest that an amendment might be made to Aulén's words of wisdom. Jesus' message in twofold: Come as you are; but you will not leave the same way you came. You will be a different person than you were before and will have a new identity.
Love changes people. You do not leave the same way you came. Yet a love relationship does not begin until you know that you are accepted by the other person. That is what Christianity (Justification by Grace through Faith) is all about: You can come to God as you are. But when you do come, it will make a difference!
7. Wrap-Up
The Reformation word: God says to the people of this congregation "Come as you are!" There is such great peace and security in that statement to know that you are affirmed at the very core of your being by the one who created life. Come as you are. But you will not leave the same way that you came! You have a new identity that works to make your life and this whole parish shout for joy about how good God's love really is. This is the reformation word: Come as you are, but you will not leave the same way you came.
Sermon Text and Title
"Without Christ There Is No Freedom: Listen America to the Reformation Word!"
John 8:31-36
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To extol and teach the revolutionary and comforting concept of Christian freedom (Sanctification construed as the Spontaneity of Good Works) with a reference to Justification as Intimate Union. The implications of these insights for everyday life are explored. Attention is also given to Social Ethics.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
• Jesus had been proclaiming Himself as one from above, perhaps a prophecy of His ascension (vv. 21-30). He proclaims to Jews who had believed in Him that if they continue in His word they are truly His disciples (v. 31). The truth will make them free (v. 32).
• The Jews who are addressed object, contending that as descendants of Abraham they have never been slaves (v. 33). Jesus responds, claiming that any who sin are slaves to sin (v. 34). Only the Son makes them free (v. 36).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
• An examination of Christian freedom (Sanctification as the Spontaneity of Good Works) with a reference to Justification as Intimate Union.
• Martin Luther sees the fragility of faith taught in Jesus' remarks in verse 31. He wrote:
People would gladly believe in Christ if this could make them lords or confer kingdoms on them... Fidelity to Christ's doctrine is rare, especially when people encounter an evil wind.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 393)
• Luther offers interesting reflections on the nature of our bondage to sin, how and why we can't stop sinning (v. 34):
A good work at its best is a daily sin according to the merciful judgment of God and a mortal sin according to His strict judgment.
(What Luther Says, p. 1504)
It follows from this that the free will of man, praise and extol it as you will, can do absolutely nothing of itself and is not free in its own volition to know how or to do good.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 51, p. 57)
• The Lutheran Formula of Concord makes a similar point:
Therefore, according to its perverted character and nature, the natural free will has only the power and ability to do whatever is displeasing and hostile to God.
(The Book of Concord [2000 ed.], p. 544)
• As Luther put it elsewhere:
The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off on the other side. One can't help him no matter how one tries.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 54, p. 111)
• This point was made more starkly by Luther's bishop at the time of the Reformation, Albert of Mainz:
I know very well that without God's grace there is nothing good in me, and that I am as much a piece of useless, stinking s*** as anyone else, if not more.
(reported in Heiko Oberman, Luther, p. 108)
• The freedom Christ has provided Christians is powerfully described by Rudolf Bultmann:
Faith includes free and complete openness to the future... [It is] freedom from the past, because it is faith in the forgiveness of sins; it is freedom for the enslaving chains of the past. It is freedom from ourselves as the old selves, and for ourselves as the new selves.
(Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp. 77-78)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer elaborated on the social implications of this Reformation word of freedom:
The person who loves, because he is freed through the truth of God is the most revolutionary person on earth. He is the one who upsets all values; he is the explosive in human society. Such a one is the most dangerous person. For he has recognized that people are untruthful in the extreme, and he is ready at any time, and just for the sake of love, to permit the light of truth to fall on them.
(A Testament to Freedom, p. 217)
• Regarding freedom Luther writes:
A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 344)
From this anyone can clearly see how a Christian is free from all things and over all things so that he needs no works to make him righteous, free; saved.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 356)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
• See Second Lesson.
• Regarding human selfishness soiling our best deeds, see the last bullet point of this section for the First Lesson, Lent 1.
5. Gimmick
Read verses 31-32, 36. Christ makes us free.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
• Christian freedom: This is a big issue for Martin Luther and the Reformation. Consider the last bullet point of Theological Insights and since we are celebrating the 497th anniversary of the start of the Reformation this week, it is appropriate we would have an assigned Bible reading that is all about Christian freedom.
• Ask what Christian freedom is. Is the exercise of free will and doing whatever you want? In fact we are not free in this sense. Use the quotations by Martin Luther in the third bullet point of Theological Insights. The book of Romans (3:20, 23) makes this point as well. We sin in all we do. See verse 34.
• Of course we have freedom in earthly things, to decide where to live, work, or what activities to undertake. But in the end we wind up doing what we do for selfish motives. Use the quotations from the Lutheran Formula of Concord in the fourth bullet point of Theological Insights. Also see the last bullet point of that section for the First Lesson, Epiphany 3.
• Pretty depressing sermon so far but it is true. Ask the congregation when the last time was that they did not sin. We may do good deeds and attend church, but are not these deeds soiled by our selfish motives? Consider leads in the last bullet point of Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.
• These hard words are accompanied by good news. God gives us freedom, but we only have it because God gave it to us.
Use the quotes by Martin Luther in the last bullet point of Theological Insights.
• Music to our ears to know that we are free in Christ, subject to none. We are free from needing to do good works. They do not save, but does that mean we are free to do whatever we wish? Repeat the first quote by Luther in the last bullet point of Theological Insights. We are free to serve others! Christian freedom makes you a slave to others.
• It is like Eleanor Roosevelt once said: "With freedom comes responsibility." And Martin Luther King Jr. made a related point: "We are always both free and destined. Freedom is the chosen fulfillment of our destined nature" (A Testament of Hope, p. 120). Freedom is joyfully doing God's thing (what He ordained us to do in eternity).
• We may not be free to do good on our own. Consider the quotations in the fifth and sixth bullet points of Theological Insights. But that does not mean that we have not received freedom from Jesus. It is freedom on his terms. America has not given it to us. Jesus has! We are most free when we are doing Jesus' "thing" and serving our neighbors with it.
7. Wrap -Up
Ask the congregation which freedom they prefer -- the freedom to do whatever they want or the freedom to do God's thing? The only real freedom is God's freedom. (Methodists may consider Article 8 of their Articles of Religion.) The reformation reminds us that America may speak of freedom, but it only comes when we are wrapped up in the unconditional love of God.
