Reformed and Reforming

Matthew 23:1-12

10.29.2023

I’m not sure how any of y’all spent your day yesterday on what was, at least in Southern (and as it turns out Central) Indiana a chilly and, more importantly, rainy Saturday afternoon. I’m certainly hopeful that you spent the majority of it dry. I, and my family, for our part, did not. Yesterday we spent the whole of our day alternating between misting and deluge standing in lines at Holiday World taking a trip that had been rescheduled at least 3 times over the course of the summer until we arrived at the last weekend in October which corresponded with the last weekend that Holiday World was open for the season. Now, before you go thinking that your pastor is a nincompoop I’d like to point out that Friday it was 80 degrees and sunny, a point I made to my family numerous times whilst we were some varying level of drenched and cold to decidedly mixed results. And while the weather did not do its job, the family still had a wonderful time. Now, my own fear of heights, speed, cramped spaces, and what not being well documented from this space, it will surprise you not in the least that Jamie McLeod does not do roller coasters. Again, think what you will about your pastor but I do not like them here or there, with a fox, in a box, in a house, with a mouse, I do not like them, Sam I am. And I have made peace with that for myself. In fact, I was cajoled into getting on one in the children’s section of Holiday World yesterday alongside like 4 and 5 year-olds and it was, by far, the scariest ride of the day for me. In fact, getting off and quite proud of myself for having done it I saw a sign getting off that said that the ride was of a moderate level of thrill and I pointed that out to my wife who quickly responded, “for kids.” And it looked like she was summoning all her willpower not to add, “You yellow-belied doofus.” But I digress. My kids, quite luckily were not given their father’s side of the DNA in that regard and so especially Jameson, Seamus, and their mother were off like a bolt to ride the scariest, most thrill seeking rides at the park while Asa and I spent our time riding the tamer rides. Now, keep in mind, Asa was not particularly happy with this arrangement and did not like the fact that his lack of stature was prevent him from riding most of the exciting adult rides but he and I made the best of it with soft pretzels and kid-sized spaceships and fish and seahorses. Now, at this point, I was a bit like the Presbyterian minister father in the novella A River Runs Through It (player brilliantly by Tom Skerritt in the movie). As he has grown older and his boys go off fishing the rapids of the Big Blackfoot River in Montana, he goes off into the woods with his bible and thinks about what he is going to say in his sermon for the next day. That is much more my speed. And so as I am watching Asa with his pretzel and on his Seahorse, I think about the ride that the three of them most wanted to do, a boat called the Mayflower and as it turns out you can see this ride from all over the park. On it, you sit on a large boat that is suspended straight down almost like the weight of an old grandfather clock except that when it starts, it swings back and forth getting higher and higher into the air until, finally, it reaches the top of the circle of motion and flips completely over and fishiness the circle. And watching this thing, as I was, and thinking about my kids and wife on there and hearing the shrieks of terror, excitement, lunacy, whatever, it struck me that on this Reformation Sunday, in which we mark the anniversary of Martin Luther and his 95 theses coming together with hammer and nail on the door at the church in Wittenberg, this is exactly what the story of the Church has been like since its inception. We have now spent two thousand years lurching back and forth in cycles of history between times of opulence and times of scarcity, times of legalism and times of freedom, times in which we were aligned with society and times when we stood against it, times of war and times for peace, times of hope and times of despair, times of sight and times of crippling blindness, back-and-forth, back-and-forth until every 500 years or so when we complete the circle and everything is thrown into utter chaos, utter revolution, utter Reformation when the faith is completely rethought and changes in preparation for the next 500 years of lunging and lurching back and forth. Today, in this time in history, we sit on the pinnacle of the circle and no one knows for sure what is coming next. So it is that we, in these pews this morning, are both Reformed and yet also reforming.

In our passage for this morning, Jesus is reaching the end of his earthly ministry and I think he knows that he is completing the unbroken circle that starts in Heaven, comes to Earth, and then returns to Heaven. And with every moment that he grows closer to completing the circle, I think he is aware of the growing chaos within the faith. As a Jew, he is well aware of the ongoing battle over the faith in which several competing sects are seeking to take control of the tradition, the Temple, and the direction that Judaism will go moving forward. There are those who wish it to be more legalistic and pay especially close attention to the rules and regulations laid out in the Torah. Those that think the faith should be more in-line with the Roman Empire that has kind of landed on top of Israel and Judea and now controls virtually every aspect of their lives. There are those who think the faith should move out of Jerusalem and live lives of asceticism in the caves that surrounded the Holy City. Into the midst of this Jesus begins to critique virtually all of Judaism in equal measure but especially those practitioners that place a higher value on the trappings and social standing of being leaders of the faith. So it is that this morning, seeking maybe to finally push the ship over itself he begins calling out practices of the religious leaders in the community by critiquing their manner of dress, their inability to see the shared equality with their sisters and brothers in the faith, their efforts to place burdens on the backs of the poor and downtrodden without even a modicum of willingness to bear those same burdens themselves. And in calling all this out, Jesus has to know, he has to have some sense as to where this will end up. Angering the leaders of the Temple will surely have repercussions. Calling them hypocrites and lazy. Calling them out for desiring all the honor of being religious leaders without an ounce of willingness to do anything for those who share the faith with them. And yet. And yet completing the circle was far more important than his own security, his own safety, his own life. And, of course, what was touched off by Jesus was a revolution, a reformation, a new era in the faith. What was touched off by Jesus was a new day in which all were called to be brethren and sistren under God. What was touched off by Jesus was an equality, a hope, a light, a life, all of which continues to illuminate us to this day. Even when the world feels like a dark place of violence begetting violence, of natural disasters causing massive destruction, of our sisters and brothers, our friends facing challenges, even in the midst of all of that, we know that God remains with us. That we have one God in heaven and one messiah who walks with us, talks with us, and tells us we are his own. And so it is that we can have faith to face whatever tomorrow will bring. And yet.

I find mass shootings to be both exhausting and triggering. Triggering because of my own experience with them and being taken back to that place in my mind every time another one of them is big enough that it makes the evening news. But, more than that, exhausting. Exhausting that we cannot seem to figure out a way to make it so that folks can safely go bowling on a Wednesday night. Exhausting that we cannot seem to figure out a way to make it so that folks can enjoy a night out with friends. Exhausting that we cannot seem to figure out a way to make it do that folks can send their kids to school every day and not have that feeling in the backs of their minds that they need to make sure that the last thing their children here before walking into the building is, “I love you.” This is the world that we have created. You, me, us, every American. This is the world that we have made for our children. This is the world that we are slowly but surely bequeathing to our children. This is the world in which every one of our kids goes to school, the mall, the ball game, the concert knowing that their parents and grandparents have made a Faustian bargain in which we have declared that we value our weapons of war far more than we value their lives. That we are so completely bumfuzzled by an issue that literally every other advanced nation in the world has solved that our children have to do active shooter drills at age 5 (or younger). As it was 500 years ago, it is time to once again complete the circle. To turn everything on its head and rebuild the faith that we will pass on to our children. A faith that values peacemakers over those who would beat the drums of war. A faith that seeks to lift up the poor in spirit, that they might inherit the holy realm of God. A faith that seeks out the mourners that they might be comforted. A faith that unites the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, with those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Until Christ comes again and again and again.

We sit in this place in the direct lineage of those earliest Reformers. Martin Luther inspired a whole tradition of believers who bear his name. Our tree branched off of them by way of John Calvin and John Knox, persons, all, who sought to lead the church to a more faithful rendering of the healing and grace-filled message of Christ. More than a Reformation as it would come to be called, it was a revolution—a revolution that cost people their lives and splintered the church and altered the course of human history forever and ever and brought us to this place today. And it is how we tell our story. How we view our world. How we engage with one another. How we find hope. Within the Reformed tradition, both the understanding of the world as imperfect, as sinful, as broken help us to understand how it is that we can mess things up so much, so often. And yet, deep within each of us, remains the image of God, the spirit of God, to power of God to strive to make it better. And that was the message that was at the heart of the Reformation 500 years ago and that remains the message this morning. A unity, an equality, a hope that all people might one day come together again in the mighty power of God. A belief that because all of us are fallen, we might all view one another as redeemed. A belief that we might all leave our burdens at the foot of the cross, but also that we might go out and invite others to come back here and do the same. A belief that we are all called to the Great Feast of Heaven with Christ as the host. A belief that God truly calls all the children home. May we, like all those who came before us, take this message into a world in need of knowing of Christ again and anew, of his love and redemption, of his grace and hope. Alleluia, Amen.