Prepare
Today is Reformation Sunday, a day when the Lutheran church tends to celebrate Martin Luther and us not being part of the Catholic Church. For many congregations, this becomes “Lutheran Pride” day. But Martin Luther was a sinner as much as he was a saint, and in recent years, as much as our church wants to celebrate the Reformation, we also need to be aware that a lot of Luther’s writings were problematic. Plus, while many new denominations were created in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Luther actually wanted to remain Catholic and reform the church that he grew up in.
Today’s conversation will be focused on how the church has and will continue to change. At the same time, we must be aware of our past in order to continue to listen to the Holy Spirit and discern where She is guiding us as we continue to be a reforming church.
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Our reading from Jeremiah reminds us that God will make a new covenant with God’s people inviting us to imagine our relationship with God to be something greater than it currently is. Meanwhile we also do not want to end up like the Jewish people in the reading from John who forget their past. This revisionist history keeps them from understanding Jesus focusing on being made free instead of knowing the truth. If we forget our past, reformation cannot happen as the root is reforming – changing into an improved form or condition. Jesus was not asking the people with whom he was talking to become new people entirely, or even to create a new church, but to hear scripture they have heard all their lives in a new way.
Note: You will need two sets of post-it notes in different colors for today’s lesson.
Opening Exercise
In groups of two or three, talk about how you have seen the church (be that your individual congregation, the ELCA or the church universal) change in your lifetime or how you have heard it has changed in your parents’ lifetime. That could be different leaders including pastors, different styles of music, how worship practices changed during and after the pandemic, new or no longer existing activities or groups, etc. Write each of these changes on one color of post-it notes and post these on the door or a wall of your learning space.
Text to Read Aloud
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Today we are celebrating Reformation Sunday as the church. This is to commemorate the day in 1517 when Martin Luther, a Catholic monk, nailed 95 theses, or ideas, on how the church should change to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He did this on October 31, knowing most people would be attending church the next day for All Saints’ Day services. He did this not as an act of rebellion or wanting to split from the Catholic Church, but as a way of sparking academic debate (Wittenberg was home to a large university) in the hopes of reforming the church. These were 95 ways he thought the church could and should improve in order to be better aligned with Jesus’ gospel and better serve the people.
Instead, this event sparked the Protestant Reformation, and four years later Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Afterwards many of his followers left to form what is now called the Lutheran Church, even though this was not Martin Luther’s intent. The Lutheran Church’s theology is mainly influenced by Martin Luther’s writings on faith, including these ideas, which were considered breakthroughs:
- We are simultaneously sinners and saints.
- All believers are part of the priesthood of sharing the gospel of Jesus.
- We are saved by grace through our faith and not works.
- God is with us in our tragedies and sorrows (aka Theology of the Cross).
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Our readings today were picked for this festival Sunday to lift up core Lutheran teachings. But they also have us looking forward and looking back. In our reading from John, we see the Jewish people forgetting their history – that their ancestors were slaves in Egypt. This reading, on top of reminding us that Jesus is the focal point of scripture, also reminds us to not forget our past, even the painful parts of our history, because that history has helped make us who we are.
And in Jeremiah we look to the future, to this new covenant that God is bringing to us. This reminds us that we cannot remain the same in the future; we must change and reform. As we grow with God in our faith, we will be changed and reformed as we gain new insights about Scripture, God, our community and our own selves.
On Reformation Day, in our congregations, many people want to remember how the church was changed over 500 years ago by Martin Luther and his contemporaries, so they are not making the same mistakes found in John 8. But often those same people don’t want to look forward to how the church will continue to change in the future. However, our readings today remind us that we must do both – remember the past while looking forward to the future – in order to be the church. We cannot and should not do one without the other.
Reflection Questions
- Jeremiah writes about God creating a new covenant with God’s people. What do you think Jeremiah means? What is this new covenant?
- The ELCA often uses the phrase “always being made new.” How is God making a new covenant with you and with your church?
- In John, the people Jesus is talking to forget their past – that their ancestors were once slaves. What are parts of our history that you would like to forget? What are parts that are really hard to forget?
Closing Activity
On the different color set of post-it notes, write at least one way you hope the church will reform or change in the future. How can the church improve in order to better be aligned with Jesus or in order to better serve the people?
Post these alongside your other post-its as your theses on how the church is a constantly reforming church. Spend some time reading each other’s answers to both sets of questions and write new theses if ideas are sparked.
Final Prayer
God of our past, our present, and our future,
Help us to remember who we are and who we have come from.
And help us continue to grow and change as individuals and as the church
in order to better serve you and your people.
Amen.
Bio
Becca Middeke-Conlin serves as the bishop of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod. She loves being able to interact with young people and looks forward to watching and participating in how they and the Holy Spirit will reform our church. She can be found on Sunday mornings wearing liturgically appropriate earrings (today’s most likely are red) and many Sunday afternoons enjoying ice cream with church members.
