According to what I have read, Martin Luther died within view of the place where he was baptized. For those of us who will not be able to return to the place we were baptized, or much less die within its proximity, I find that small piece of trivia kind of interesting. That baptismal place being also the site of the end of Luther’s life suggests that the world in which Luther lived was peaceful and almost quaint. But that was not the case.
You see, during his life, Martin Luther had come to see the entire world change. We may think that our world, particularly in the last few weeks with all this financial turmoil is going through profound change, but we will have to let historians decide that. What ever the future may hold, historians agree that Luther’s life was during a time of profound change. Born on November 10, 1483, Martin Luther entered a world dominated by a view that the world was ….. flat. You though I was going to say Roman Catholic didn’t you?
We forget that by the time Luther was nine, Christopher Columbus in his bid to reach Japan and China, instead reached what later became known as the Americas. And as Luther lived and died, Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors had conquered vast areas of what we now call Mexico, Central America and South America.
As Luther studied, taught, and sought to reform the church, colonies were being established, gold was being stolen and slaves from Africa were being imported, all in the search for and creation of wealth.
At Luther’s death, the general view was that world was no longer flat but round. This point about Luther and his timeline I had never really though about until I became acquainted with a Pastor who served a small Native American congregation and ministry in Wsiconsin. Of course for him, as a Native American Pastor, those simultaneous events were life changing. On one hand, as a full blooded Cherokee, his birth was in a place in the United States called Oklahoma, but his roots were in a part of the United States where his people had been uprooted and forcibly moved. Much about his life was tied to that event of this Italian Columbus setting sail from Spain.
Well, how do you feel about being linked historically to a protest, not the Native American protest … but the Christian one? Possibly you have never thought about that, but you may have some reaction. When he said that he was part of protest movement, my first thoughts turned to the demonstrations that occur in our society today.
You can probably recall at some point seeing on TV or reading in the paper or in a magazine, some group organized to walk the streets or rally in dispute against one side or the other of an issue. The one that comes to my mind right now are the ongoing demonstrations in Thailand. Your image of protest may be influenced by your life experience either having been part of a demonstration, seen or even been inconvenienced by one.
As you know, some of those actions stay within the bounds of decency and legality, but others turn illegal, possibly offensive and/or even violent. Can you imagine Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Knox walking down the streets of Rome singing that 1960’s protest tune, “We Shall Overcome” in Latin? But in one notable scene, all Martin Luther did during a long meeting was to say, “Here, I stand!”
That was then; this is now. To us today, the reformers demonstrating on behalf of the following issues: authority of Scripture, that every person could pray directly to God on his or her own behalf, and that we are saved through faith and not through good works, may seem quaint and we may well ask what significance, if any, it has for us. Yet, no matter how things have changed, or remained the same, we are here and are part of a protest --- a protest that is based on one sole purpose the positive witness to hope in Jesus Christ.
There is so much that is evil and destructive in this world. A look at the national and world news on almost any day provides us with more than enough evidence of that. But united with bad news is the conclusion by some that there’s therefore no meaning to life, or that goodness is weaker than evil, or even that there is no God.
Against that, there’s the positive protest of our faith in God’s promise that in Jesus Christ, sin, destruction, evil and hatred are all “worldly,” meaning they are doomed for ultimate obliteration, while righteousness, goodness and God’s love are eternal and will prevail in the final outcome of this world.
We belong to a movement born in witness to the positive power of hope and faith in Jesus Christ. We continue to have the privilege of making that witness, dissenters to the world that hope, faith and light was given to us by God to a world in turmoil and darkness. Furthermore, we share and provide hope not only in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ but also because we follow Jesus using our gifts and talents, seeking justice knowing that God’s justice will reign.
When Martin Luther began to protest his mission was: not to create a new church, not to introduce newfangled teachings, not to give people time to replace worship with doing whatever they want, not to introduce new hymns and songs, not so that pastors can get married or that we do not have to struggle with a confession that included penance. Luther’s mission was to bring back true Catholicism, true Christianity from what held it captive. The freedom that Luther and the other reformers proclaimed was not the freedom of the individual, not the freedom of the mind, not political freedom from oppression, not even the freedom to preach – but rather the reformers championed the freedom we have in Jesus Christ.
We are freed from sin, death, the devil, our flesh, and hell itself. And we are free to worship. We are free to receive the bread and wine in Communion. We are free to hear the Word of God preached in our own language. We are free to do good works. We are free to live out God’s saving grace, the good news of Jesus Christ.
When Martin Luther was born, the Roman Catholic Church was the dominant and for all intent and purpose, the only Church. By the time of his death, that Church had changed and so had the world That was due in no small part to this lawyer turned monk turned protestor, Martin Luther. In his zeal for reform, Luther pried open the lock that the hierarchical Roman Catholic Church had on worship, the sacraments, religious life, and especially the gospel.
In doing so, Luther pointed the church back to its foundation of God’s word and the gospel, the words of hope; we are justified by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Luther was one of those who laid the foundation for what is know called the Protestant Reformation that would encompass events and people around the world including Ulrich Zwingli’s efforts in Zurich, John Calvin’s in Geneva, and John Knox’s in Scotland.
Now this is our timeline. This is our moment in this world, in our own places with our gifts and talents. Our world also is going through profound change. How we provide that protest message of hope is less important than the fact that we are part of a message of hope to a dying world. It is how we conduct our lives. It is by how we vote as citizens in democracies. It is by how we conduct our business and treat each other. It is how we face our disappointments and failures. The list goes on but the opportunities are constant to provide the life giving water of Jesus Christ. Because the way of cross is one of protest.
Today, as I gathered with that group of Japanese Christians, certainly a small group in this nation, yet, I am thankful that I could join with them as a fellow protester of hope in this place and this time. Amen.
