"He's a Nut"

I will be out of town for a few days addressing the Catholic Church's recognition of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in Slidell, LA. I will not be able to blog as freely, so I will share with you some of what I will be speaking about.

I can't help but to say, with a sly sense of humor, that when I think about Martin Luther I hear Barney Fife's voice in my head saying "he's a nut!"

I'm sure the Roman Catholic authorities, princes and Pope also felt Luther was a nut. And, as a Lutheran (for just a few more weeks), I still have some claim to poke fun. Luther was a brilliant, highly anxious, nervous, passionate, and cantankerous personality.

I wanted to share with you some of what I will share the next few days of the centrality of Luther's theology which sparked a re-formation of the Church and which has influenced all those who have sought re-formations since then. Though I will become an Episcopalian soon, I will retain my conviction that ecclesia semper reformanda est: the church must always be reformed.

As we are all prone to do when we are young and idealistic, Luther joined the Augustinian monastery and thought he was set. He thought surely if he did this and that according to the rules and prescription, he would feel holy, justified, and surely saved. Only, he didn't. 

In fact Luther was tormented with his feeling of failure, with his feeling of the weight of his own sin. He would beg his confessor, "what must I do to be saved?" His confessor, a gentle and wise man, knew that Luther was suffering from an overdose of scrupulosity and compulsion. So he sent him on a pilgrimage to Rome; after all, some fresh air and a long walk would probably do him some good.

Unfortunately Luther came away more disillusioned and very discouraged by the immorality and corruption he witnessed there. Upon his return to Germany, he enrolled in the University of Wittenberg in an attempt to suppress his spiritual turmoil. He excelled in his studies and received a doctorate becoming a professor of theology at the university.

Through his studies of scripture, through lots of sleepless nights and a lot of anxiety, Martin Luther finally stumbled upon some religious enlightenment. While preparing a lecture on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, he read, “The just will live by faith.” He dwelled on this statement for some time. Finally, he realized the key to spiritual salvation was not to fear God or be enslaved by religious dogma but to believe that faith alone would bring salvation. This marked a major change in his life and set in motion the flames of Reformation. 

Luther became known for reducing weighty theological discussions of salvation down to three Solas: scripture over tradition, faith over works, and grace over merit.  Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.

Meanwhile, Pope Leo X announced a new round of indulgences to help build St. Peter’s Basilica. On October 31, 1517, an angry Martin Luther nailed a sheet of paper with 95 theses on the university’s chapel door. Though he intended these to be discussion points, the Ninety-Five Theses laid out a harsh critique of the indulgences as corrupting people’s faith as well as expounding on other items that Luther felt needed to be addressed. 

At its best I think the core of Luther's theology and his passionate convictions remind us that sin is bigger than simple immorality. Sin, according to Luther, is being curved in on self without a thought for God or the neighbor. In any case, sin is missing the mark and it is all the ways we put ourselves in the place of God. 

Sin can be the hateful things we think but never say; or it can be that feeling of superiority when we are helping others.  Sin is the fact that my ideals and values are never enough to make me always do what I should, feel what I should, think what I should.  And anything that reveals those “shoulds” to me is what Luther called The Law, the Law being the very thing Paul in his letter to the Romans said reveals sin.  

As Pr. Nadia Bolz-Weber explains eloquently: the “shoulds” in our lives are the things that make us see how far off the mark we are. No matter what we think the “shoulds” are – personal morality, family values, niceness, recycling or eating local …there is always, no matter how hard we try, a gap between our ideal self and our actual self.

Martin Luther knew what it felt like for the Law to convict him, to accuse him, and to leave him with nowhere to rest.  And if you want to know what really sparked the Protestant Reformation, it was Luther feeling as if he was near despair and convicted to his core, without hope, and then he read this passage from Romans and saw it in a whole new light: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Grace as a gift!

When Luther finally heard this, not just in his head, but in his heart, he finally came to see that God’s grace is a gift and to realize the beautiful relationship between Law and Gospel. The medieval church had confused all too often Law as Gospel and Luther dared to challenge that: he decided to become a preacher of grace.

But here’s the caveat: confusing Law as Gospel isn’t just a medieval thing and it’s not a Catholic thing. It’s a human thing and we do it all the time. The church does it, we do it, society does it.  It’s like a disease.

As I often tell my students in Reformation classes, Luther offers us a way to spot the difference between Law and Gospel: You can tell the Law because it is almost always an if-then proposition – If you follow all the rules in the Bible then God will love you and you will be happy. If you lose 20 pounds then you will be worthy to be loved. If you live a perfectly righteous Green eco lifestyle then you will be worthy of taking up space in the planet. If you never have a racist or sexist thought then you will be worthy of calling other people out on their racism and sexism.  

The Law is always conditional and it is never anything anyone can do perfectly. When we treat Law as Gospel there can never be a sense of life abundant. Under the Law there are only two options: pride and despair. When fulfilling the “shoulds” is the only thing that determines our worthiness we are either prideful about our ability to follow the rules or we despair at our inability to perfectly do anything.  Either way, it is still a kind of bondage.

And that’s why the Gospel is different.  The Gospel is not an if-then proposition. It is mysterious and freeing; it is pure gift. The Gospel is a because because because because proposition.
  

• Because God is our creator and because we rebel against this idea and insist on trying to be God for ourselves;

• Because in the fullness of time when God had enough of all our wandering in the wilderness, He became human in Jesus Christ to show us who He really is; 

• Because when God came to us and we received him not; and 

• Because He would not be deterred, God went so far as to hang from the cross we built and did not even lift a finger to condemn but said forgive them they know not what they are doing; and 

• Because Jesus Christ defeated death and the grave and rose on the 3rd day and 

• Because we all sin and fall short and are forever turned in on ourselves and forget that we belong to God, and 

• Because none of our successes guarantee salvation and none of our failures exclude it; 

• And Because God loves us so very much, He refuses to let our sin and brokenness to be the last word...

THEREFORE you are saved by grace as a gift and not by the works of the law and this truth will set you free like no self-help plan or healthy living could ever do.

This radical grace is the heart of Luther’s theology and at the same time it is why we typically have a confession and absolution in the liturgy. It’s Law that puts us in the position of hearing Gospel.  It is a moment when truth is spoken, without apology and without hesitation and perhaps for the only time all week, and it will take you apart and then put you back together.  It re-forms us.  

And this is the true essence of what good Reformation (and Lent) is all about. May we all consent to the re-forming wonders of the Holy Spirit today and every day.