Here I Stand

I preached this sermon in honor of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. We have no idea what that time was like, or of how much bravery it took to stand with Martin Luther and other reformers against the nearly absolute power of the Roman Catholic Church of their time. This sermon may give you a glimpse of it.

It was just 500 years ago this coming Tuesday, on the day that we call Halloween, that the Protestant Reformation officially began. On October 31, 1517, a young monk named Martin Luther nailed a piece of paper to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. It was a list of 95 theological points that he wanted to debate with church officials. Although he didn’t know it at the time, the sound of his hammer would echo throughout Europe; and the Protestant church would eventually split from the Roman Catholic church because of the response to Luther’s thinking. Martin Luther caused an awful fuss 500 years ago! In fact, the fuss was so violent that thousands of Christians died in the resulting conflict. We are called “Protestants” because our ancestors “protested” the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church of their time; and that church reacted violently! The paraments are red this morning in honor of all those people who were martyred during the Reformation. Some were burned at the stake, while others were beheaded or put to the sword. It was a dangerous business to be a Protestant in those days. Many Protestants said nothing; but Luther refused to be silenced. He was eventually called before a Roman Catholic council to explain his beliefs. The council participants didn’t really want to hear what he had to say. They wanted a reason to declare him a heretic so that they could arrest him and execute him! And Luther knew all of that; but he refused to back down from his beliefs. His closing words to that council are well-known:

“I put no trust in the authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves. I stand convinced by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word. I cannot and will not recant anything. Here I stand. I can do no other.”

Martin Luther wasn’t the first person to put his life on the line for what he believed. Paul did the same thing nearly 1500 years earlier. He tells us in I Corinthians (11:23-33) that during the time that he preached the gospel, he was jailed, whipped, stoned, and beaten with rods; and all of that because, as you heard in this morning’s scripture reading (I Thessalonians 2:1-4), he was “not trying to please people, but God.” Both Paul and Martin Luther preached things that the religious leaders of their times didn’t like one bit; but their beliefs were non-negotiable.

What were Martin Luther’s beliefs, anyway? They aren’t very different from what we Protestants believe today; and they are as non-negotiable for us in the 21^st century as they were to Luther in 1517. Perhaps the most important of those beliefs is that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. That sounds innocent enough; but read between the lines. If Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, then no one else can be its head. No person, no council, no government can tell the Church what to do; only Jesus Christ can do that. That infuriates people who want that authority for themselves! Sometimes those people are church leaders, and other times they are politicians or other secular leaders who want the church to behave as they think it should! But as Protestant Christians, our response to all of them is the same. “Jesus Christ is the head of the Church; and you are not. Here I stand. I can do no other.”

But Jesus isn’t here today, is he? At least, he isn’t here in the flesh. That means that we can’t call him on the phone to ask for his advice if we’re not sure what we should do. So, how do we find out what Jesus wants of us? We go to the Bible. That’s another one of Martin Luther’s points. The church leaders of his time didn’t like that, because they wanted to be the ones who read and interpreted the Bible for everybody else. But Luther said that we should all be reading the Bible – and reading it with our minds in gear, so that we not only know what it says, but also interpret what it says intelligently. If anyone tells you that you don’t need to read the Bible because he will interpret it for you, you tell that person that you’ll do it yourself, thank you very much! Reading and interpreting the Bible for ourselves with the guidance of the Holy Spirit is one of Luther’s non-negotiables; and it should be one of ours, too.

So, Jesus is the head of the Church; and the Bible is the ultimate authority of how Jesus wants us to behave. Those are two of the non-negotiable beliefs that got Martin Luther in such big trouble with the Church of his time. But there’s another one that was just as much of a problem: God’s grace. The Church taught that everyone had to come to them for grace; and they decided how much you got on the basis of how good you had been. Luther’s response was something like, “Nuts to that! God bestows grace; and the Church has no say in it whatsoever!” That was the most troubling of all for the Church. After all, if you don’t have to rely on the church to receive God’s grace, you are free from all the rules and regulations that the Church sets up! But Luther had read about God’s grace in the New Testament; and Luther believed that Jesus Christ, who offers grace to everyone, is the head of the Church; and Luther wouldn’t give an inch! “Here I stand,” he said, relying on God’s grace – the grace that the Church refused to allow him because he was so threatening to their power.

In the end, Luther wasn’t executed by the Church, because he had powerful friends. One of them grabbed him before he could be arrested and whisked him away to an isolated castle in a Medieval “witness protection program”; and he lived there until it was safe for him to come out again. But many other Protestants were not as fortunate, and they paid for their beliefs with their lives. Christians who say boldly, “Here I stand. I can do no other” still suffer the consequences of holding fast to their beliefs, especially in places where Christianity is scorned, or even outlawed; but although the powers of the world will always be against us, God stands with us, and God will triumph in the end! Martin Luther wrote the great Reformation hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” for Christians who were risking their lives by joining him in proclaiming, “Here I stand!” You might want to read its message again: God is a mighty fortress who never fails! This world may be filled with devils who are trying their best to frustrate what we do and shatter our faith; but God will get the last word in Jesus Christ! Although we may be killed for what we believe, God will be with us through it all.

I hope that you believe that. I do. Here I stand.

Making Room for Faith

Everybody talks a lot about faith, but not many of us really know what it is. This sermon may help you sort out the differences between "faith" and "beliefs." One can change; the other, hopefully not!

As church-going Christians, we talk about some things over and over. Take faith, for example: it’s the topic of many Christian conversations. That’s true in the Bible, too. The word “faith” is everywhere in the New Testament. It’s one of the “big three” that Paul mentions in I Corinthians 13 together with “hope” and “love.” We even sing about it. Why, I’ve known the hymn “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” since I was a child! But we don’t think about the definition of “faith” very often. We should do that now and then, though, especially since we Protestants believe that we aren’t saved by our good works, but by our faith.

So… what is “faith,” anyway? The very simple answer is that “faith” is “trust.” Faith is trusting that God will do what God has promised to do. Faith is trusting that Jesus didn’t lead us astray when he told us that the best kind of life is a life of sacrifice that is lived for others. Faith is trusting that the Spirit is guiding us every single day, even though we may not feel it at the time. Faith is saying, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” and trusting that Jesus is going to show us that love.

One example of what faith looks like in action is through an activity called a trust fall. It’s a secular example of faith, but it’s a powerful one. I participated in a trust fall at a summer camp many years ago. I climbed up three or four rungs of a stepladder while several of my friends stood behind me. I was asked to allow myself to fall backwards off that ladder, trusting that my friends would catch me before I hit the ground. It takes a lot of trust to do that! And that’s faith: allowing ourselves to fall backwards into the arms of God and trusting that God will catch us before we hit the ground.

Most people, though, don’t think of faith as trust. In fact, if you ask a random Christian who is sitting in a church pew on a Sunday morning to define faith, he would probably say, “Faith is what I believe.” He might even give you some examples: “I believe that God loves me; I believe that Jesus is the son of God; and I believe that Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.” Now, those are all good things to believe (and I hope that everyone here believes the very same things); but all those beliefs are only the basis for faith. That’s because believing is something that you do with your head; while faith is something that you do with your heart. You can believe all sorts of things and not have an ounce of faith! The author of the book of James said as much when he wrote, “You believe that there is one God? Good! But even the demons believe that!” (James 2:19) His point is that trusting in God goes way beyond intellectual beliefs.

In fact, those beliefs can trip us up if we’re not careful. In her book The Luminous Web, Barbara Brown Taylor writes that “the Bible is one long story about how God demolishes human beliefs in order to clear space for faith.” The moment we think we have God’s ways all worked out, God pulls the rug out from underneath us with something new that we had never even considered! Abraham believed that Ishmael was the child of God’s promise – until long-barren Sarah bore Isaac. Elijah was certain that God’s voice fell like fire from heaven – and then God spoke to him in a whisper that came out of sheer silence. Paul believed that he was helping God to get rid of heretics – until a bright light knocked him flat on his back and he heard Jesus ask him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And when Job believed that he knew how God worked, God appeared in person and showed him a few things – and Job realized that reality was way, way bigger than he had ever imagined that it was. Our beliefs can (and should) change as we experience more and learn from those experiences.

So, does this mean that we shouldn’t try to think about what we believe? Of course not! In fact, we should probably try to think about it a whole lot more than we do! One of the greatest ancient Christian thinkers, Anselm, said that a Christian life should be “faith seeking understanding,” and that certainly involves thinking about what the Bible says. God wouldn’t have given us brains, after all, if God didn’t want us to use them! But our human brains are limited. We can’t possibly understand all of God’s ways! Compared to God, we have the brains of a flea! Long ago, God said through the prophet Isaiah: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 54:8-9) That’s as true today as it was in Isaiah’s time.

So, if we will never completely understand God by reading the Bible, what is the Bible there for? The Bible is there to point beyond itself to the living God, to his son Jesus Christ, and to all the workings of the Spirit. The Bible is like an eye-catching sign that points the way to Disney World. The sign may be beautiful, but what it points to is a whole lot better! The stories of the Bible are meant not just to tell us who God is and how God works, but to inspire the faith that I talked about at the beginning of this sermon – the certainty that God can be trusted with our lives and with our eternal destiny. If we come to the Bible as a book of puzzles about God that we are supposed to solve, then we’ve missed the point! That was the problem with the Pharisees did back in Jesus’ time. They studied the scriptures so much that they got stuck in them and missed what those scriptures are pointing towards! In this morning’s reading from the gospel of John (5:36-40), Jesus told the Pharisees, “You study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” The Pharisees were so busy studying the beautiful sign that pointed the way to Disney World that they never did make it to the park itself.

So, what’s today’s take-home message? It’s just this: believing things about Jesus is good; but having faith in Jesus is even better. In fact, Jesus wants us to have faith like a little child! Remember that Jesus told his disciples, “Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Little children aren’t old enough to believe much of anything, but they certainly do trust – and trust deeply. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all have that kind of faith? As we live our lives following Jesus the best that we can, may we believe as thinking adults, but may we have the faith of little children!

Keys to the Kingdom

What did Jesus mean when he gave Peter "the keys to the kingdom of heaven"? Did he mean for us to be gatekeepers, deciding who gets in or stays out; or did he mean something else entirely? If you're wondering, this sermon might help to clear things up.

I learn a lot when I travel. This past spring, for example, when I traveled to Scandinavia, I learned a lot about Vikings. I was especially interested to learn about Viking women. It turns out that they had a lot of power in their society, especially within the home; because they were responsible for making sure the family had enough to eat. The women were the ones who doled out the food during each long, hard winter so that it would last until the next year’s harvest; so they kept the keys to the food pantry. (You see one of those keys on the screen right now.) They wore their keys on a necklace as a symbol of their status: the more keys a woman wore, the higher her status. No one was allowed to get into the food without her permission. In fact, if a man got the munchies and raided the pantry in search of a midnight snack, it was legal for his wife to throw him out into the snow and lock the door behind him!

That’s what keys are for, aren’t they? They lock some things in, and they lock other things out. They keep the deed to the house and the title to the car safely in a bank box, and they keep thieves who might want to steal our big-screen TV out of our home. We have all kinds of keys! We have keys to the house, the garage, the car, the church, and sometimes even a storage unit; and we have passwords – electronic keys – on our computers and our smart phones to keep people from poking into our personal business.

We even have keys that Jesus gave us! You heard him give those keys to Peter in the first text from Matthew that I read just a few minutes ago (Matthew 16:13-19). They’re very important keys, too – they’re keys to God’s kingdom. Now, we Protestants believe that when Jesus gave those keys to Peter, he was actually giving them to all Christians. It’s not just the clergy who have the keys to the kingdom of heaven; we all have a set of them. But that raises a crucial question: are we supposed to use those keys to unlock God’s kingdom so that people can go in; or are we supposed to lock the door to keep them out?

That question has been debated since Jesus himself was alive. The Pharisees back in Jesus’ time were pretty sure that their job was to lock people out; but you heard what Jesus had to say about that in the second text that I read (Matthew 23:1-7, 13). “You shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces!” he said. “You don’t go in yourselves; but you don’t let anybody else in, either. What good are you, anyway?” Jesus knew why they behaved the way they did. They liked their status as religious professionals. When they put on their fancy robes and marched through the Temple, people called them “Rabbi,” and got out of their way. They even sat at the head table at fancy dinners. Those keys put them on the A-list! Whey, if the keys to God’s kingdom had been physical keys made of metal, they would have worn them around their necks to flaunt their status just like the Viking women did! They weren’t about to unlock the door to God’s kingdom and let other people in, because they wanted to be the most important folks around!

I’m sorry to say that some Christians behave just like the Pharisees did, because they think that God likes them best. So they don’t want to let just anybody into God’s kingdom! Before they unlock that door, they want to make darn sure that someone deserves to be there. They think that they’re entitled to ask questions like “What church to you belong to?” “What do you believe?” and “Have you lived a good life?” and they are all too happy to shut the door to the Kingdom in people’s faces if they don’t like the answers that they hear. But that’s not at all what Jesus had in mind at all! Jesus gave us those keys so that we could unlock the door to God’s kingdom to everyone we meet.

But how do we do that? We begin by showing folks that the Bible’s story of salvation isn’t just something that happened to people long ago and far away. It’s our story, too; and it can be theirs! We need to forget about rules and regulations, and concentrate on showing people where they belong in the story of God’s people! Here’s what I mean. Do you know somebody who doesn’t know where he’s headed in life? Tell him the story of Abraham. God called him out of his comfort zone and told him, “Just take one step at a time, and I’ll show you which direction to take.” We can all relate to that. Maybe you know someone who has really messed up big time, and wants to make a new start; but she’s not really sure that she can ever leave the past behind her. Tell her the story of Peter. When Jesus was on trial for his life, Peter denied that he knew Jesus three times to save his own skin; and he became one of the leaders of the early Christian church. And, of course, the most powerful story is the story of Jesus himself. Do you know someone who has really been dumped on in life? (Maybe that someone is you!) Tell them that life dumped on Jesus, too. He was killed not because he had done anything wrong, but because he stepped on the toes of the politicians and religious leaders; and God raised him from the dead to prove that the powers of the world don’t get the last word! It’s those stories that are the keys to unlock the door of the kingdom of heaven – the miraculous, inspiring, life-changing stores of the Bible.

So go out and get ready to use the keys that Jesus gave us. If they’re a little tarnished from not being used, clean them up. Get out the polish by reading the stories again; and let them speak to you! As you do, I predict that an amazing thing will happen. As you get ready to encourage others through the stories, those stories will encourage you right back. By using your keys to unlock God’s kingdom for other people, the door will swing open even wider for you. Those keys are too important to keep tucked away in your back pocket! Let’s all use them a little more.