St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL – Reformation Sunday
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 46; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36
Gospel: John 8:31-36
31Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
34Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
NRSV
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It Is All God’s Doing
Grace and peace to you, beloved of God, from our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
One evening this past week, I was installing the new TVs we will be using for Christian Education. My wine sneaked into the church, scared the death out of me, asking the question in a way that only she can, “what you doing?”
“I am finally getting these TVs out of the box.” She replied, “Don’t you need the manual?” What for?
See, I am not an instruction-manual person. I don’t like to read them. I tend to toss them in the recycle bins. Thank goodness for online manuals. They can be real life-savers. As I grow old, I have to surrender to them more and more.
I suspect some of you are instructions-manual people. I admire instruction-manual people. My father was an instruction-manual person. He could not be otherwise. He was a mechanical engineer. He tried to teach me the value of reading them. Bless his heart. He failed miserably. My wife is an instructions-manual person. She actually listened to her father’s teachings. She was the one who convinced me to read our vehicles’ manuals. I was like, do they have those? You know what they say, we may not listen to our parents, but we better listen to our wives!
I have a subterfuge that I use to convince myself that instruction manuals are mostly unnecessary. I was trained in my previous professional life to improvise. To do scientific research in an environment of real scarcity meant we never had the resources to do it the way it was originally instructed. We had to put the manuals aside and devise new ways to accomplish the same results. Hence my passion for the word innovation and the reason I fell in love with the Reformer’s understanding that the community of sinners made saints. In other words, the church would always be made new.
Luther did not make it up. It is a theological conclusion of the reading of scripture.
In the book of Isaiah, God already spoke about his desire to do things in a different and new way. In Chapter 43, verse 19, God said:
“I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth,
do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”
Then God said in verse 25:
“I, I am He
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.”
The lost and the condemned were about to be found and forgiven.
Then God reveals his new plan. The new thing is a new covenant. The former, we mere mortals, broke it over and over again. It was not working for God’s satisfaction, and God’s satisfaction was for us to be in faithful relationships. Maybe there were too many instructions and ordinances, so God put the old manual aside and decided to do things differently, so God could save us and be in relationship with us.
God promised to carve his law in our hearts, the law St. Paul calls the law of faith. No longer must we earn our salvation. Our sins are no longer remembered, for we have been branded, and it reads justified, made righteous, through the faith God gave us as a gift of grace and love. Faith that confesses that Christ alone forgives our sins through the new covenant in his blood.
Regardless of who we are, what we did or did not do, regardless of what others think, regardless of the disdain, the discrimination, and the aggression, we are beloved and God said that we are good, so we can be ourselves just as he made us. This is real freedom. No human being can take it away.
This is real freedom because we all fall short. There is no distinction.
This is real freedom because it none of it is our own doing.
This is real freedom because it frees us from judgment.
This is real freedom because it frees us from self-righteousness.
This is real freedom because it frees us from the fear of the other.
This is real freedom because it frees us from avenging ourselves.
This is real freedom because this is the freedom that comes from Christ.
The burden is off our shoulders. We need not to save face.
Therefore we are freed to give to each other generously.
We are freed to repent.
We are freed to forgive.
We are freed to encourage.
We are freed to mourn.
We are freed to celebrate.
We are freed to love one another and be church together.
For as long we continue with Jesus, as long as we remain and abide with him, we remain free, for evil will have no power over us.
Faith alone, Christ alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone, God alone. What a mighty fortress that is. Amen.
Bridging Faith 