Sermon Reformation Sunday October 29, 2017

(Note: this was the sermon that was written. The actual sermon was truncated due to the fact that my voice was completely shot. I tried to keep the good part.)

In 1817, the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation

was celebrated as Europe was in the midst of the Age of Enlightenment,

Such things as so-called religious superstition, belief in miracles,

were being downgraded in support of a rational Christianity,

a scientific approach to the world.

The Reformation was remembered

as the beginning of the epoch of the freedom of thought,

to liberate the world from the Dark Ages.

In 1917, the four-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation

was observed in Germany during the fourth year of World War I;

Martin Luther was cast primarily as a patriotic German figure;

the man who translated the Bible into his mother tongue,

creating the modern German language;

who liberated Germany from the encroachment of foreigners.

In 2017, there are a couple of things I’ve noticed.

First off, the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation is being sold.

It’s been a way to get tourists to ‘Luther-land,’

to Wittenberg where he supposedly nailed his Theses to the church door

and to the Castle Church where he translated the Bible.

 And I’ve been getting advertisements for about a year

to buy Reformation coffee mugs and T-shirts

and special stoles for pastors and shot glasses and beer steins

and to advertise them to my church.

I haven’t passed any of these on

because I don’t really think the Reformation is about beer steins.

But maybe I was wrong!

Maybe you would have liked a 500^th anniversary beer stein.

If so, you can get one yourself.

Just Google ‘Reformation Beer Stein.’

Hey, maybe you’ll get a few years off purgatory if you buy it!

In 2017, we have been reading in the newspapers

of the rapprochement between Rome and the Reformation churches.

At many events, Roman Catholics and Lutherans

have been commemorating the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation.

That word is chosen very, very carefully,

instead of the word celebrate.

For it is indeed one of the sad outcomes of the controversies of 500 years ago

that the unity of the church in the West was broken;

despite Jesus’ prayer ‘that they may all be one.’

How can we ‘celebrate’ the disunity of the One Church?

But we can certainly commemorate the good stuff together

and rejoice in how far we’ve come.

And yet, there are those Roman Catholics out there

who don’t like all this ‘Luther was really an OK guy’ stuff.

That’s okay, for there are lots of Lutherans out there (maybe even in here!)

who are less than comfortable with all this cozying up to Rome.

As a fellow seminarian said to me sixteen years ago,

during planning for a joint Roman Catholic-Lutheran service,

‘Whatever happened to Luther was right?’

So at the same time there are calls for unity,

there’s also more calls to strengthen our own separate identity.

And what will it be like one hundred years from now,

when the Reformation turns 600?

I wonder if Christians will really be interested.

After all, in one hundred years,

most Christians in the world will likely be African, Asian, or Latin American,

and they might or might not give much thought to an ancient European dispute.

But, then again, none of us will be around to find out!

You didn’t necessarily come to church today for a history lesson.

But you got a little bit of one anyway.

And it’s important to think about,

because what is the Reformation all about?

What should it be about?

Is Reformation Day our ‘Independence Day?’

A day to sing the Lutheran national anthem,

A Mighty Fortress is Our God?

A day to say, ‘Whatever happened to ‘Luther was right?’

Is Reformation a principle by which we may live our lives;

that we should be about abandoning tradition to embrace new thought?

That’s how some people view it.

Since Luther supposedly used drinking songs to set his hymns to music,

we ought to write pop music, or some such other thing.

Did Luther really use drinking songs, Joyce?

Yeah, I didn’t really think so.

No, Reformation was not about the triumph of reason over superstition,

nor was it about German national identity,

nor is it about proudly trumpeting our fading Lutheran heritage

with the latest commemorative bauble.

It’s not our ‘Independence Day’ as a church,

nor is it a principle by which we can live our lives.

The Reformation was –

the Reformation is –

about one thing only,

about one person only –

Jesus Christ.

Martin Luther and the other Reformers wrote what they wrote

and said what they said and did what they did

so that the people could encounter Jesus and come to faith in him;

come to call his Father ‘Our Father,’

and be filled with his Spirit,

and fear, love and trust him in all things.

Anything that obscured or prevented the encounter with Jesus,

whether it be indulgences,

or tradition, or church hierarchy,

was to be challenged.

And anything which proclaimed Jesus was to be lifted up.

In hearing the Word preached, we encounter Jesus.

In reading the Scripture, we encounter Jesus.

In the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion, we encounter Jesus.  

Jesus who died and was raised for us,

who forgives us our sins

and sets us free from the curse of the Law;

who rescues us from death and the devil

and calls us to follow him in discipleship.

When we are encountering Jesus

as proclaimed in Scripture and sermon

and mediated by the Sacraments

then reformation happens.

We as individuals are re-formed,

in that by the Spirit of Jesus we are led into newness of life,

led to faith in the God who reconciles us

and to do works that serve the neighbor.

And we as the Church are reformed,

that our life together may proclaim Jesus and serve Jesus,

using whatever facilitates the encounter with Jesus.

What was the Reformation of five hundred years about?

It was about Jesus.

And it’s still about him.

Wherever he is proclaimed, wherever he is encountered,

then the Church is still being reformed,

because he is reforming us,

as a church around him, as people into his image and likeness.

We talk about Martin Luther and the others as Reformers of the Church;

but there is One Reformer of the Church –

the one whom they and we worship and praise –

even Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.

Holy Week Worship Services

Our Holy Week services are as follows.

Maundy Thursday service: 7:30 pm April 13
Good Friday services: 12:30 pm April 14
                                       7:30 pm April 14
Easter Vigil: 6:30 pm April 15
Easter Sunday: 10:30 am April 16

We hope you will worship with us as we celebrate our God's saving acts in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Congregational Sign-Up for Photo Directory

Members of St Stephen may sign-up HERE to make an appointment to have their portrait taken for the upcoming portrait directory.

Sessions are available on Monday, May 22, and Tuesday, May 23, from 2-8:45 p.m.

If you have any questions, please e-mail the church office or contact Kathy Tarullo at 412-720-4132.

Walk for Water 2017

St Stephen Lutheran Church is hosting a water walk to support Water Mission. The goal of this walk is to raise money and awareness to support women and children in third world countries who have to walk several miles almost every day just to supply water to their families.

 Our walk will be held in Scott Township starting at our church on Sunday April 30th 2017. We will start gathering at 12:30 pm and the walk will begin at 1:00 pm. If you would like to take part in the water walk, please fill out the form below. Teams can be as small as two people, but as large as you want.

 Registration cost is $20.00 per team. Please pre-register so that we have an accurate count, however registrations will be accepted at the event.


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Sermon Christmas Day

Christmas Day 2016 – John 1:1-14

‘Full of grace and truth.’

Should not this description of the Father’s only Son,

the one who was born as a child so long ago,

fill us with awe and wonder?

Does it not resonate anew

as we reflect on the past year

and as we look forward to the time to come?

Full of grace.

Grace –

life itself as God’s sheer gift,

and not as something which must be taken;

reconciliation with God as God’s sheer gift,

and not as something which must be earned.

Grace is made tangible in the child who will grow to be man,

who will scatter grace as seed

and die to prove God’s grace to human beings.

Here is grace –

that God does not hold anything against us or anything from us.

Here is grace –

a child, born in pain into the world,

to become vulnerable to each and every one of us,

for to be in community with another is to be vulnerable to another.

Only those who wish to be in community

can become vulnerable to another person,

and so God himself must be born –

must be born and die in community with others.

Full of truth.

Truth cannot be simply equated with historical veracity,

although it is inseparable from seeking to speak in accordance with it.

To speak truth is to represent facts as they are,

feelings and emotions as they are,

God as he is,

without twisting words for personal gain or advantage.

Lies use truth as a cloak,

but truth uncovers itself,

presents itself in unvarnished form,

in flat prose or rhymed poetry.

This child in the manger is truth

because he speaks to us of who God is;

we know that his witness is true

because he did not use it for personal gain,

but gave up everything that his speech might be proved true.

Grace and truth.

How little we know of such things today!

How diseased the concepts have become!

So diseased that we cannot even begin to disentangle

grace and law, truth from lies.

And so we live in a state of perpetual doubt and desire.

In the ancient story,

when the evil one sought to come between us and our creator,

he sowed doubt in our hearts;

doubt that God’s word was truth,

that we could trust God’s word;

doubt that God was grace, sheer gift,

but instead that we should reach out and take

what we desired and what should be ours.

‘He was in the world,

and the world came into being through him,

but the world did not know him.’

This is not simply that people were ignorant

of the historical fact of Christmas,

but that the child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas

is antithetical to the world which builds itself upon the lies of the evil one.

He is antithesis to the world built upon half-truths and cynicism,

deconstruction of the creation,

cloaked power and secrecy and double-speak

and the devolution of language.

He is antithesis to the world which delights to tell young people

that they are only their test-scores and their physical desirability,

and that they must create their own reality to fit their dreams;

that delights to tell parents and parents-to-be

that they are only what they can afford to give their children;

that delights to tell old people that they are only their health

and what they have accomplished,

and that what they cannot control has meant that their life has failed.

He is antithesis to the brutality and violence

which hide under noble sentiments of every kind;

he is antithesis both to the march of progress

and the retreat to mindless tradition.

Instead, he is grace and truth.

To rediscover these things again for the first time

might mean a revolution in our thinking, in our acting, in our speaking.

To act with grace,

that one seeks to reflect God’s free giving in every encounter with others,

holding nothing against the other and forgiving the other.

To speak in truth,

that one seeks to be trustworthy in every word,

whether a hard or an easy one,

refusing to use our words as cloaks for violence or deceit.

In this time we must be known as people of grace and truth.

This can and must be our response to the revelation

that God himself is grace and truth;

for we approach the cradle and find there

nothing that we can use to our own advantage

but instead the grace and truth

that frees us to be gracious and truthful.

May this child capture you,

may he enrapture you;

for from the debt that would enslave you he redeems you;

from the foes which would ensnare you he rescues you;

from the death that would envelop you he restores you.

This is the grace and truth which we proclaim to you.

Merry Christmas!  

Sermon Wednesday Advent 1: The Four Last Things

‘The Four Last Things:’ Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven,

have been traditional themes of meditation for Advent.

This reminds us that Advent is not simply a season in which we await a celebration of Jesus’ birth,

but instead a time when we await his coming into our lives,

and his coming at the end of all things,

to judge the living and the dead.

One of my colleagues in the Society of the Holy Trinity posted this gem on her Facebook wall,

written by a Salvatorian monk:

‘Advent is concerned with the future, not the past.

Christ has already been born and all of creation was changed

when Jesus was born of Mary so many centuries ago.

If our waiting is only about looking forward

to a celebration of Jesus ‘birthday’ on December 25,

then both Advent and even Christmas will have little purpose

beyond being just another anniversary on the calendar.

But, because Advent is about looking within

and recognizing those places within us and in our world

where the darkness of sin, fear, hopelessness, and grief still flourish,

we need these blessed days

to pray and watch for the coming of the dawn of that day

when the Sun of Justice will drive the darkness away.

We watch and wait.

We light candles to remind us that the darkness is being conquered

by the One who is the Light of the World.

Above all, we hope.’

  

We human beings are not good at looking into the future,

especially when our present seems to be so attractive.

Perhaps some morbid people are plagued by the thoughts of their own death.

Most of us, however, have no interest in looking at death

until we have almost caught up with it,

or rather, until it has almost caught up with us.

Those who are Christians have the comfort of the passage

which we have just heard from John 11,

so often read at funerals for the benefit of a grieving family,

or pondered by those whose death draws near.

But to see this passage only as a reason to not grieve at a funeral,

or at least to grieve less,

is to miss out on the opportunity to meditate on death.

We fail to reap the rich harvest, as it were, of pondering our death.

We should meditate upon death for the simple reason that if we don’t,

death can have the power to subconsciously control our thoughts and actions,

Even if we believe that Christ has conquered death,

we are not immune to death’s spectre.

The threat of death makes us anxious

not simply about the threat of judgment and hell,

but about a life that is missing things.

‘I’ll die without really living.

Without really being in love,

or checking off everything on my bucket list,

or having corrected this and that in my life,

or seeing justice done in the world,

or having left a good enough legacy for others.’

The devil has been cheated, by the Resurrection of Christ,

of holding us in thrall to the power of death’s to destroy the soul,

but he instead uses the riches of the world

to increase the fear that we will die

without receiving all the world has to offer.

But if the real meaning of life is to be in union with God,

if death cannot threaten this,

then we are no longer in need of such thinking.

Indeed, to engage in such thinking is to give death back the power it does not have.

We see life as a process of accumulation instead of growing toward God.

In reflecting upon death, we cannot help but reflect

upon what we truly believe our life is all about,

and what we truly believe about God.

This is, of course, not the only thing we could say about death.

We might think about how death really is a gift to us,

in that death curbs the evil that human beings can do.

Can we imagine a world in which Fidel Castro, for example, was immortal?

Part of the plot in the Harry Potter series of books

is that Lord Voldemort has cheated death by splitting his soul into seven,

so that it makes him infinitely hard to kill.

The evil he may do is utterly unlimited,

unless the objects in which he has stored parts of his life are destroyed,

so that he finally may die, and his evil with him.

When he dies, then the spell of fear which he has cast over many is dispelled.

And for us who do not worship the darkness,

to realize that we will die is to embrace the faith

that there will come a time in which we can no longer sin,

in which our love for God will not be marred

by death-fearing inclinations and behavior.

Death becomes our liberation.

There are, of course, many more things to say or think about.

But perhaps it is good to end with that same passage which is read at funerals.

‘Those who believe in me, though they die, will live,

and those who live and believe in me will never die.’

It is through Christ that death becomes not an object of fear,

but an object of curiosity,

not a God, but a thing to be viewed in the light of God and his love.

We do not approach death by ourselves, but with Christ,

clothed in his life, robed in his love.

And we do not do battle with death,

but it is Christ who has battled death for us,

and who is victorious, so that when our death comes,

it is no longer the end of anything,

but, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in a poem he wrote in prison,

a ‘station on the way to freedom.’

‘Come now, highest of feasts on the way to freedom eternal,

Death, lay down your ponderous chains and earthen enclosures

walls that deceive our souls and fetter our mortal bodies,

that we might at last behold what here we are hindered from seeing.

Freedom, long have we sought you through discipline, actions and suffering.

Dying, now we discern in the countenance of God your own face.’