Reformation Sunday: The Truth About the Truth
Dear Partner in Preaching,
I suspect that the Gospel doesn’t mean very much to the self-made man or woman.
Do you know what I mean? We define “Gospel” in a variety of ways – salvation, grace, forgiveness, life, and so on. Today Jesus adds another way to speak of the Gospel – freedom. Good words, all. But the common denominator among them is that they assume need. The one who values salvation knows that he or she needs saving. The one to whom grace is important is aware of the need for grace. Forgiveness implies sin. And so on.
No wonder Jesus’ interlocutors are offended. Jesus says, apparently to persons who already believe in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The promise of freedom – awesome! Except it’s not, at least not to those to whom Jesus makes this promise. They are pretty much the opposite of excited by or grateful for Jesus’ words, as they answer, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
Do you see what I mean? No, “Thank you, Jesus.” Or “Praise God.” And definitely no “Awesome!” Instead, just a rather offended, “What do you mean?” or, probably even more, “Who do you think you are, anyway?!?” And, truthfully, I understand. By offering them freedom, Jesus implies that they are not free.
Now, there is admittedly a certain absurdity to their reply: “We are the descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone.” Really? Did you somehow forget the Egyptians? Or the Assyrians? Or the Persians? Or – take a look around, folks! – the Romans? As the old saying goes, “Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
But here’s my question: are we really all that different? How good, that is, are we at naming and admitting our need, our hurt, our brokenness, even our mortality? Not in a “poor me” kind of way that invites pity or lends itself to manipulating the sympathies of others. But rather in the sense of honestly admitting that we aren’t perfect, that our life isn’t perfect, that there’s room not just for growth and improvement but also for help, repentance, and forgiveness.
That’s not terribly easy to do. Especially not today, when there is so much cultural pressure to act as if you have it all pretty much together – a great life, great job, great relationships, great future, great…more or less everything. And the thing is, we’re often contributing to our own problem. For while social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter have proven for many to be a great way to keep in touch with people and share greetings and experiences and the rest, they also and increasingly have proven to be vehicles that demand greater and greater levels of effort and, ultimately, pretense that we are the ideal person living the ideal life. And because it is pretense – “We are descendants of Abraham – or Washington or Zuckerberg, or Luther – and have never been slaves to anyone!” – it takes a toll. In fact, a recent study indicated that four of the five most popular social media platforms increase negative feelings in users, particularly among teens and young adults.[1] It turns out you can only look at so many pictures of someone else’s wonderfully happy and exciting life on Facebook or Instagram – even if most of the pictures and posts are relatively artificial – before you begin to feel like yours doesn’t compare very well and feel even more pressure to pretend you’re perfect.
So what do we do? As we approach this Sunday and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I’m struck by the fact that the first of Luther’s 95 Theses is about repentance: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” We’re not all that big on repentance these days, but some of that might be our confusion about what it actually means. And that’s not new. Luther goes on to say that by repentance he’s actually not talking simply about confession and penance as administered by the clergy (2nd thesis), or an inward, cathartic kind of feeling-really-bad moment (3rd thesis). Rather, true repentance for Luther is a kind of truth-telling that allows you to be honest about how you are deceiving yourself, or letting yourself be deceived by the world (or both!), that gives you an opportunity to think and speak and act differently. Or, to put it another way, to live in freedom.
Jesus’ invitation to freedom however, demands an act of repentance as truth-telling before it hits home and does its saving work because it demands that we come clean about our need, which isn’t easy for self-made men and women to admit. Or, to put it another way, just as with Jesus’ earlier conversation partners, the truth of which Jesus speaks is actually two truths, first about us and then about God’s response to us. Which means that his promise of freedom will sound more like bad news before it’s good news. Another old saying that rings true, this from alcoholic recovery literature of the 70s (and later adapted by Gloria Steinem): “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you feel miserable.”[2]
Because, Dear Partner, the truth of the Son, the truth that makes you free, the truth at the heart of the 95 theses which Luther nailed to the door at the Wittenburg church, the truth of the Reformation that we remember and celebrate this Sunday, is that we are sinners – God’s fallen, at time flailing, regularly confused, and always imperfect children – from birth to death. Sinners that no amount of indulgences or good works or good intentions or status updates or creative social media posts can redeem. But – and here is the (second) truth which finally sounds like good news – we are also those sinners who are simultaneously God’s beloved children, those sinners who God calls blessed and holy and perfect, those sinners for whom Christ died, those sinners whose futures are not determined by their regrets and mistakes but by the possibility created by resurrection, those sinners whom God loves above all else. We are not perfect…and we don’t have to be in order to be loved. But it’s hard to trust that we’re really loved – let alone the experience of freedom that comes from knowing you are loved and accepted – if we’re not honest first.
So perhaps the best way to celebrate the Reformation is not to celebrate it at all, but rather to repeat it. To remember both halves of Paul’s mighty words, first the difficult truth that “all have sinned and fallen short” in order to hear the blessed news that “all are now justified by God’s grace as a gift.” For here, indeed, is a truth that sets you free. And it is a truth that still has the capacity to change lives, the church, and indeed the whole world.
Blessings on, and gratitude for, your truthful proclamation and the mighty ways God will use it this week and always.
Yours in Christ,
David
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/popular-social-media-sites-harm-young-peoples-mental-health
[2] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/04/truth-free/
Dear David,
The church I serve is dying. I have witnessed church after church close in the metro area (Kansas City, Missouri) over the last 16 years since I moved here.
I am afraid that stating the same old “good news” of being made free by the death of Jesus will be familiar to the 55+ year-olds who populate our little church, but it does NOTHING to make the church relevant to the younger generations who see the bible and the atonement theory as ridiculous and archaic.
We are a dying church and I wonder, when (not if) this church closes its doors (most likely sooner than later, will the church be missed by the community around us? Will this suburb, the city metro, miss this church and its presence?
I guess what I am saying is that the church, historically, has been self satisfied in its good news while not having much (if any) impact on transforming our neighborhoods and the world around us. The young people (who are rejecting the church and religion in general) see the evidence of a self centered theology that has trained the masses for centuries that their “salvation” (and how it happens) was the most important aspect of their lives while letting the so-called “secular world” go about its business (literally as in Capitalism = Profit= Inequality).
Just my opinion, but I think the facts support it. Thanks for your work.
Brad –
I’ll be 30 in January. The majority of my good friends don’t go to church regularly. Yet they celebrated with me at my ordination in September because they knew that it was an event in which I affirmed that my vocation was about living out good news of unconditional love and grace, and they think that’s pretty great.
You’re right. Stating the good news only does so much. Perhaps acting it out in your worldview and actions and responses and life can do even more.
I currently serve a stable church right now so I know that I cannot fully empathize with what you’re going through, though I’ve been witness to death in churches at work in my 20s so far. I just also want to encourage you not to end the story before its over. I wonder what the actions are that your church can take to engage the community and metro area right now – no matter how small. I wonder, as you say, when death comes for the congregation (as it will come for all of us), what new life will be possible afterwards.
I’m just getting started in this path, and I know things will be different for me then for previous generations. But I also know I could sure use some good news. And I think a lot of people can.
Thanks for your comment and observations, Brad. These are real issues. To be honest, though, I’m not sure I hear clearly the alternative(s) you might be suggesting. Not preach the Gospel? (Probably not what you meant.) Preach the social Gospel? Invite the young to a greater level of activism? These last two have merit, but also have been tried – and deserve more effort! – but haven’t necessarily solved things either. Demographics and societal change are hard to overcome, and that’s a lot of what the church is facing right now. Yet the Gospel is the one thing we have that is distinctive and still, I think, comes as good news to people if we find a way to preach it to their life situation. In many ways, I don’t think the pressure to justify oneself has ever been greater. I should be clear, though, that I’m not advocating simply “stating the same old good news” and regret it that’s what it sounded like. Nor do I want to reduce the Gospel to a kind of “moralistic therapeutic deism.” And I don’t think the Gospel excludes throwing ourselves into our communities either – indeed, I think it calls for us to do just that. But absent the distinctive Christian gospel that first promises that despite our best efforts we still need God and then goes on to promise that God is still at work caring for and redeeming the world and accepting us by grace, I’m not sure I see a particularly vibrant or hopeful alternative. Thanks, again, for the conversation.
David I agree with you. I think that the history of our churches clearly shows that being faithful to the God of truth and grace will in the end bring salvation to people as we grow in our Christian lives and continue to witness regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. After all, things did not look too good for a while when Luther began his journey to find in the way of the cross of Christ the light that relit in human hearts brought freedom to the whole Western world.
Brad, as a pastor of a small aging church myself I’m so grateful for your candor and honesty — and equally frustrated with the seeming reluctance of many of our congregation to include the wider world (especially politics) in their personal discipleship.
Brad,
No easy answers, yours is a tough place to stand in. But to tomorrow’s gospel, what if the Truth isn’t some objective personal declaration about salvation, but rather a lived relationship? (Butch and Sundance illustration at the end) Jesus was talking about himself, which, at the time and In the context, was a divisive issue as well as a person. The Truth is their lived relationship with him. These are his followers…he is showing them the risk they are taking. Freedom is scary. It’s much easier to be the coddled slaves … no thinking or trailblazing required. Known rewards for practiced behaviors. Freedom implies responsibility. Luther did not just critique the church of his day, he built a new system including public schools, the community chest (state and church working together for the welfare of the vulnerable), hymns set to popular tunes, etc. He got stuff wrong, but kept at it, firm in his foundation of nothing to lose because it’s already won.
In a dying church setting, rather than wonder if the neighborhood will notice, ask the congregation how they would like to be remembered. No timelines because miracles do happen, but some part of the congregation’s Mission/purpose statement or favorite bible story could suggest an epitaph.
Most Everyone over 50has had to settle someone’s affairs after death, and is at least back of their mind thinking about their own. Invite that conversation into the open, and extend it to the church. Sounds simple, but eight million strings and sensitivities and discomforts are attached.
There is nothing wrong with a comfortable death. Well done good and faithful servant. But even a comfortable death can lead to new life/leave something to the community for the future. And the good news Is that the Truth which sets us free is a relationship with one who has been through death, and resurrection. God’s been there. God is there. With us even when we deny our own situation.
There is a scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (I betray my age) where the only way Butch and Sundance can get away from the law on their tail is to jump off a cliff into a white water stream. Sundance can’t swim. But they rush off the cliff together (screaming one of my favorite prayers) (they survive that escapade).. I doubt either one would have done something so scary alone. That’s What I think of when I hear God with us. If we stay and die fighting, God with us. If we jump into the unknown, God with us. That relationship, enfleshed in Jesus, is the truth that will both make us free and get us into a world of trouble. And it is most precious.
I am reminded of Luther, Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. – Martin Luther You and this church are in a tough position… but don’t give up hope. You never know where that apple tree will grow.
What I heard in Brad’s plea is an undertone of individualism. So many of our established members (and the Church, as a whole) have approached salvation as a exchange between God and the individual. Part of the reason, I think, that this doesn’t ring true for younger generations is that they aren’t convinced of the individual evil/sinfulness in the same way that our older generations were. They don’t see the need for forgiveness in the same way. So, a gospel that preaches individual absolution so that one feels better about their eternal destiny just doesn’t feel very True.
And I would agree. If the gospel is to be truly good news, it is not about individual Sin but communal/systemic Sin. Not having the Greek in front of me, I am only guessing that Jesus’ statement in verse 31 involves a plural ‘you.’ “If ya’ll abide in my word, ya’ll are truly my disciples; and ya’ll will know the truth, and the truth will make ya’ll free.”
I suspect that younger generations are less concerned about individual salvation and more concerned about what salvation means for the sake of the larger picture (not that older generations aren’t, but the focus seems to be different). Obviously, we won’t save or undo the decline in our congregations just by preaching a darned good sermon about the salvation of creation. We won’t bring in the young ones by singing more relevant music. But perhaps we shouldn’t worry so much about who we reach and simply preach and live and worship with as much Truth is given to us—preaching discomfort and hope, living into the community, and showing authentic care for those who are less interested in church dogma and more in need of healthy relationships.
I have served two congregations that were or are in the process of dying. Both were introspective in their lives. One heard politically activist sermons about others, but worked toward caring more for themselves and a seriously ill pastor. The other was afraid of those who had moved into their neighborhood, and the neighbors often didn’t even know the congregation existed despite its large sign and position in the middle of the neighborhood.
Many times I have stood at a bedside as a person lay after hearing a terminal diagnosis, and after hearing some sort of confession of distance from God, I ask what might be standing between that person and God. Sometimes I get an answer, but more often hear about later phone calls to estranged family and friends, and then a renewed life even as death draws near. Perhaps our congregations can name that wall of division, and just need some prodding to discover the joy in telling the Good News to those who think they deserve to stand opposite our protective walls. I’ve seen this, too, and it’s what helps keep me going. We all need grace, we all need forgiveness. Admitting that truth can help us reach out to others. And just maybe admitting that we have no other answer than our own need, and finding our need met by grace, is what sets us on the road to new life.
On the subject of sin: what if the younger generation heard the older generation admitting to the sins of racism and white privilege? That would take humility. Might it open new conversations? Could these conversations open to new ministries?