SERMON Reformation Sunday October 30, 2011 Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 46 Romans 3:19-28 John 8:31-36 Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is the Christ. Amen. The prophet cries out; The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant. These prophetic words were given to Jeremiah at a time when his people had again turned away from God. For they were engaged in every sin imaginable. Jeremiah severely condemns them for their idolatry which sometimes even involved sacrificing their children to foreign gods. Because of this, Jeremiah knew that God s judgment would be swift and severe. But even so, Jeremiah loved the people of Judah in spite of their sins. And he prayed for them even when the Lord told him not to. Then he gave them some good news. Says the Lord; I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will forgive their wickedness, and remember their sin no more. As Christians, we believe that promise came to pass in the form of Emmanuel God with us. God became human and lived among us. It is through Jesus that the ball and chain that weighs us down has been removed. For it is through the Holy Spirit that God s law has been written on our hearts.
Therefore, we are no longer enslaved to the law, but are set free. Through Jesus, the weight has been lifted. No longer do we need to live lives of guilt and shame. No longer do we live under the threat of hell and damnation. For now we can be the person that God has created us to be. This is the message of the Reformation that we commemorate today. Indeed, we have been set free. And this freedom comes in two parts. Freed from and freed for. Freed from, the condemnation of sin. And freed for, a life of service to God and one another. The weight has been lifted and the challenge is before us. So what is it in life that has been weighing you down lately? What is it in life that prevents you from being the person that God created you to be? Perhaps for some of you it s your self-image, which denies the fact that you were created in the image of God. You are too short, too tall, too fat, or too skinny. Your nose is too big, your hair is too dark or too light, or has decided to leave your head completely. Maybe your ears stick out too far or you have too many wrinkles. Has the preoccupation with your appearance been a ball and chain in your life? Maybe for some of you it s your self-worth which denies the fact that God loves us all the same. You don t have as much money as some. Your house is too small, your car is too old, you can t send your kids to the expensive private schools, you can t afford the latest fashions. Has the preoccupation with your self worth been your ball and chain in life? Perhaps it has been an addiction in your life. Has the addiction to alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, pornography, been a ball and chain in your life that has threatened your freedom? Maybe it s debt. This is a huge issue in America today. Many of us have significant amounts of credit card debt. We can only manage paying the minimum payment each month. The interest fees, late fees, transfer fees, keep adding up. It becomes a downward spiral. We become enslaved to high-interest charging corporate banks. Is debt keeping you enslaved?
Another big one is guilt. I don t spend enough time in prayer; I don t eat healthy and exercise as much as I should; I don t spend enough quality time with my children; I don t tell my spouse or partner that I love them as much as I should; I sometimes buy things I really don t need. Does guilt keep us from being all that God has created us to be? All of us have things in our life that weigh us down. It s like a weight on our backs that just gets heavier and heavier. The message of the Reformation that we celebrate today is that Jesus has lifted that weight from our backs and put it on his. This is what we heard in today s second reading from St. Paul s letter to the Romans: For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his GRACE as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Grace ; Grace. This is the message of Jesus summed up in one word. It is a word that will set us free from the balls and chains that weigh us down. In the book What s So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey writes: In 1987, an IRA bomb buried Gordon Wilson and his 22 year-old daughter beneath five feet of rubble. Gordon alone survived. And forgave. He said of the bombers, I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them. His words caught the media s ear and out of one man s grief, the world got a glimpse of grace. Grace is the church s great distinctive. It s the one thing the world cannot duplicate, and the one thing it craves above all else for only grace can bring hope and transformation to a jaded world. Yancey goes on to tell of a story he heard from a friend who works with the down-and-out in Chicago:
A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two year old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter two years old! to men interested in kinky sex. You see, she made more money renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in an entire night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her grim story. For one thing, it made me legally liable I m required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman. At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. Church! she cried. Why would I ever go there? I am already feeling terrible about myself. They d just make me feel worse. Yancey writes: What struck me about my friend s story is that women much like this prostitute fled TOWARD Jesus, not away from him. The worse a person felt about themselves, the more likely they saw Jesus as a refuge. So it begs the question Has the church lost that gift? Evidently the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. What has happened? Perhaps we have all lost the concept of grace. Grace is what Jesus did for us on the cross. Jesus was made sin for us. Jesus became the murderer, the thief, the procrastinator, the liar, the immoral person; whatever it is that we are enslaved to. Jesus takes it in our place. Grace is God s acting in love on our behalf. Grace frees us from what binds us. But the problem is, is that most of us do not like to be free. Now that sounds strange, doesn t it? After all, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. But it s true. Most of us enjoy the comfort of being enslaved.
Why is this do you think? I think it s because freedom requires responsibility; and responsibility is sometimes scary. When I was a teenager I was really into freedom. Most teens think that they are in bondage to their parents. They have to depend on them for everything. They are constantly yearning for the day when they can be free; the day when they can stay up as long as they want, drive a car all over town, buy the clothes they want to wear, and eventually become totally free by moving out of the house. That was me. I couldn t wait until I could have true freedom, living on my own, and making my own decisions. But I found that that freedom gets old after a while. Soon my piece of junk car that I had broke down, and I needed dad to fix it. I also found that I was not making enough money to live the lifestyle that I had envisioned. I started to bring my clothes back home once a week so mom could wash them. I would just happen to stop by my parent s house a dinner time. What a coincidence. I found myself asking them for a little loan to get me through the week until I got my next paycheck. Those of you who are parents know that there is no such thing as loaning your kids money. You might as well right it off as a charitable contribution on your next tax form. I found that what I thought to be freedom was no freedom at all. But you see, this was not the freedom Jesus was talking about. Jesus is saying that true freedom only comes from receiving the gift of grace that God has given us in Christ Jesus. It is allowing the arms of Jesus to remove those weights that weigh us down. Therefore, we can be free no matter what our circumstances. This message is the heart of what we celebrate today; Reformation Day. 500 years ago, the reformers became prophets who witnessed to the truth. But it s not over.
We must always be raising up prophets who will point the way to Jesus as truth and life; Jesus as a source of mercy and grace. This morning, three of our young adults will be affirming their faith through the Rite of Confirmation. They will be part of a new generation that will witness to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. It might not look like their parent s faith. Even so, it must be a faith that speaks to a world that is searching for meaning. And it cannot be a faith that is filled with judgment and condemnation. Rather it must be a faith reflected in love and grace. For we must never cease to be a place and a people who offer grace in a world filled with ungrace. Amen. May the peace that passes all understanding be with you now and for life everlasting. Amen.