October 26, 2025
In the summer of 2017, my wife Britt and I joined a group from the church for a visit to Germany. It was a tour celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. We spent a good chunk of time in the town of Wittenberg where Martin Luther lived and labored most of his life. There, in Wittenberg, we saw the famous door. It is the door of the Castle Church where it is believed that Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses. It is surrounded by a gate and the door itself is cast in bronze with the 95 theses inscribed in the door. You can’t miss it. The door is set apart, it seems, as a kind of sacred space.
Luther posted these theses on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints Day. Though seeds of reformation were already being sown in the church, this day and the door stand as symbols for the birth of the Protestant Reformation.
Besides the encased door we went inside the church, All Saints Church and we spent a good bit of time in the town church, St. Mary’s. We saw where Luther lied and worked and preached and protested. We even saw the Wartburg Castle where Luther hid out for some time. It was the place where he translated the Bible from Latin into German. Seeing the small room where Luther translated the scriptures and purportedly threw an ink well at the devil gave me goosebumps. It was like history come alive.
Putting together the history learned and read with the places where it all happened is a great delight. Part of being immersed it such history is to get a sense for the nuances and many aspects of the story. One of them is something we ought never to forget: these 95 theses were intended for debate. Yes, they were born of grievances and complaints about the abuses of the church but they were framed as issues to be debated, talked about. That is why the 95 theses were given to Luther’s bishop. They were for the whole church to discuss and debate. Luther and his confreres wanted a conversation around these issues in the interest of reforming a church they truly loved.
Luther never wanted to leave the church. Luther wanted a serious conversation to address the corruptions of the church and areas for potential reform. The theses dealt with very important issues, mostly arising from concern over deep corruption in church practice. A power hungry church wanted money to build a basilica and they got it on the backs of the faithful women and men who were told that they were prying their way out of purgatory. Such practices were a betrayal of the good news of God’s free love and mercy of Christ. In other words, you don’t pay or work your way into heaven. It’s all gift. Sadly, no debate took place, no conversation held, no entertaining of the talking points. Reform of the church did not prevail.
The grim fact of life for Luther and the other reformers is that a new breakaway church was formed, one of the last things Luther wanted.
Reformation Sunday looks back to the beginning of a truly evangelical movement for the church catholic and for this we give thanks.
At the same time, we look back with some degree of sadness because a schism occurred in the 16th century. Something neither the papacy nor the reformers wanted. It caused a breach. And that is no cause for celebration. A fracture within the body of Christ is cause for lament.
Many, maybe most Christian denominations began that way. A split is formed over some disagreement around doctrine or practice, a betrayal of Jesus’ wish that the church be one. Yet, when such things happen, God steps into bring about something new and life-giving. So, something to be grateful for is the long road to Christian unity over the centuries and the church, with God’s help, has made a lot of headway. One grace in all of these attempts at unity is to truly listen, to truly learn from one another, get to know one another from the various traditions and know that dialogue works two ways. Any denomination has much to share and much to receive from other denominations.
From this vantage point we see the widely diverse Christian church as a rich and colorful kaleidoscope filled with many expressions that enhance one another.
Beyond the official full communion agreements or official dialogues that have taken place between various traditions, much of the work of unity, I believe takes place at the grass roots level where Christians meet one another on the ground and work together in common mission and worship together through bonds of common prayer whether it is acknowledged or not.
Most of the Christian world shares common creeds where we confess that we believe in “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”
But, do we really mean what we say? Sometimes attempts at inter-Christian dialogue go south and, sadly, wearing religious labels like a badge is the result of spiritual pride.
That’s when dialogue or debate becomes a struggle or a fight. Should we get smug about our particular tradition, which does not serve the body of Christ well?
Friends in Christ: I hate to break the news to you but Lutherans do not have a monopoly on the truth. Neither do Presbyterians or Episcopalians or Roman Catholics or Baptists or … you can fill in the blanks.
We are keenly aware self-righteousness is in our human DNA. We want to be right and we love to be right and that gives us a sense of security albeit a false one.
So, the ongoing work of reformation and reform in the church requires humility to discern what God is up to, to share our gifts with others Christians, to receive from them, and to ask God to open our hearts to truly pray together and have conversation with one another.
Today is a good day to remember the reformers of all ages who have helped tilt the church toward Jesus and that can be many things: a prophetic voice that speaks truth to power, a greater vision of God’s kingdom, an accent on ministry to the those oppressed and hungry and forgotten, a life steeped in prayer, and a new sense of freedom. Freedom. I think that was the song Luther sang the most and it’s good thing because without knowing that we are free and trusting God who gives us the gift of freedom, we can get all consumed with ourselves, whether it is trying to save ourselves or putting forth agendas other than the Gospel.
Woe to us if today becomes a time for self-congratulation.
Good for us if today we pray in earnest for the unity of all Christians and dare to pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to rattle our chains from complacency and even lead us to give up the need to be right and engage in the ongoing work of the body of Christ. Good for us if we want to be free.
Freedom is a tricky thing. When we speak of freedom we may mean a kind of radical independence that belongs to each of us or to those who have passed the tests of the “survival of the fittest” and concluded that freedom celebrates the autonomous self so that at the end of life we can proudly declare, “I did it my way.” Freedom is often imagined as something reserved for the individual.
Gospel style freedom isn’t just about you or me. Gospel freedom finds us in community- the community called church and a call to live within the world of the neighbor.
Jesus says to us, “If you continue in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
Continuing in his word is really about abiding in Jesus, living in Jesus, dwelling in Jesus, being in relationship with Jesus. Freedom then isn’t tied to a system of right thinking or feeling but it is centered in a person. For the word of God is God’s word made flesh, Jesus Christ.
How is this freedom?
Well, we are free from the need to have all the answers or using our religious tradition to bully others. We are free from needing to be self-righteous or judgmental. Freedom is recognizing that by grace we do God’s work and that none of us ever fulfills God’s work. Freedom means we can admit it and confess it! Freedom finds us praying that God will pry us away from any attempt at perfection. Freedom is to live in Christ’s ever-flowing fountain of forgiveness. Freedom is living to love our neighbors as ourselves. Freedom is to be released form the deathly chains that bind us. Freedom is the will to work toward the common good and the well-being of our neighbors not to score points but to do it for the sake and joy of doing so. Freedom means being released from an ominous notion that we must save ourselves knowing that God has taken care of that. So, we are free to seek justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God. Freedom says we love each other and our neighbor by kneeling down to wash each other’s feet. We are free to be truly honest about a world hemmed in by sin, evil, brokenness, pain and to trust that where there is darkness, God steps in to bring light. Where there is death, Jesus is at work bringing resurrection. We are free from needing to justify ourselves and to trust the God who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it.
We are free to abandon the need to be right and to seek the unity of the church in our congregations and in the wider church.
Jesus says “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” And this is how we know him: receiving him in bread and cup, hearing him in a Word that gives life, knowing him in prayer and service to others and within the life of Christian community. Nothing abstract, but all very physical and tangible even as we honor God’s mystery. The word of God has indeed become flesh and lives among us full of grace and truth. Dwell in Jesus. Live in Jesus. Be free!
Amen.