Sunday Stretch: Vol. 99, Reformation Sunday

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

In seasons like this one, when the world seems to be going through near-constant upheaval (between hurricanes and 80-degree late October days in the Upper Midwest, not to mention a political and cultural news cycle dominated by greed, grift and conspiracy theories - I can’t tell whether I’m right-side-up or upside down most of the time. In these very moments, I find the comfort and tradition of the church calendar and lectionary to be a balm for my frenetic soul.

In that vein, I’m glad to share with you again today some special reflections on our traditional Lutheran texts for Reformation Sunday, as well as a brief explanation of the day. I also want to send a special congratulations and a note of joyful celebration to all those who are celebration the rite of Confirmation today, especially at the congregation where I serve, Lake Nokomis Lutheran Church. Your commitment to study and community over the past few years is one that gives me great hope for a future marked by kindness, truth, and faith. And a massive thank-you and moment of silence, too, for all the pastors and small group leaders and youth ministers and parents and - everyone! - who supports confirmands on their journey to this day.

Brief schedule note: I’ll be joining (via Zoom) Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisc., this morning at 10:30 for a forum on The Healing Power of Conversation. Thanks to Pastor Lauren Wrightsman for the invitation!

Now, let’s get to the Reformation Sunday background and texts!

Isn’t it like the church to take a fun secular holiday focused on candy and make it into an academic exercise? In case you didn’t know - Oct. 31 is also known as Reformation Day in the Lutheran Church. That’s not purposefully to conflict with Halloween (though pastors are known to enjoy the occasional Martin and Katie Luther costume) but instead because it marks the actual day that Martin Luther, then a Catholic monk, famously nailed the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany - challenging the church’s commitment to the Gospel and crying out against the rampant corruption of its clergy and its pursuit of wealth and political power (hey, sound familiar?)

Most American Lutheran churches (and some other Protestant churches) commemorate Reformation Day on Reformation Sunday, which is the Sunday prior to Oct. 31 - also known as today! Tradition often suggests that people wear red to church, sing “A Mighty Fortress” and also recognize the rite of Confirmation for teenagers in the church.

Now, it might be easy for Reformation Day to merely become a celebration and remembrance of the past, assuming that Luther’s work was done long ago. But as I mentioned above, the very same claims Luther made against the Roman Catholic Church in 1517 very much still threaten the witness of the Gospel in our world today. We just call it the Prosperity Gospel instead of Indulgences and build megachurch campuses instead of cathedrals.

The best defense against the ongoing theology of glory is the proclamation and teaching of the true Gospel of Jesus, rooted in the theology of the Cross. For that reason, I think it’s important to invest in and celebrate every single person who goes through Confirmation on this day, and every single Confirmation teacher, parent, volunteer, and Sunday school teacher. As well as to celebrate investment into ongoing Christian education.

For all of these reasons, on this special edition of the Sunday Stretch, I want to re-share with you some reflections on the Reformation Day texts as well as Confirmation from last year. This day is important - as is being a church that is always reforming (stealing that one from the Calvinists).

From Reformation Sunday 2022

Today is Reformation Sunday in the Lutheran Church, which also means in my church that we’re celebrating Confirmation Sunday with our Confirmands. For those who aren’t familiar with the rite of Confirmation, it’s also called Affirmation of Baptism. In Lutheran theology, we affirm infant baptism (as well as adult baptism), because we believe that baptism is about God’s love for us, not our decision to follow God. So in some ways, Confirmation functions in similar ways to adult baptism in other churches/denominations.

Central to the rite of Confirmation is catechesis, or religious education through Luther’s small catechism. Churches do this in a variety of ways, but many meet in small groups on Wednesday nights. In my current church, I meet with our Confirmation students (grades 7-8) on Wednesday afternoons. When I first started there, the public school bus actually dropped them off at the church — but that practice ended during COVID.

Still, as you can see, in areas of the country where Lutheranism is predominant, this is highly cultural - and some families end up seeing Confirmation almost like graduation from church. Pastors do try to discourage this notion!

But it’s a big commitment. And after spending so much time with my 7-8th grade students, I’ve gotten lots of insight into middle school, and we’ve also learned and grown in really critical ways together: both through biblical study and through the many challenges of the past few years, processed through a middle-school lens, and also through the lens of our shared faith. These discussions haven’t always been easy, but they’ve been so important, and I always end up proud of our students and their willingness to learn and grow in their faith, in different but all valid ways.

That said, I see the real value of this shared commitment to study, pray, and grow together — and I’ve found myself adding more time just for fellowship and snack, too, as I know it’s equally important that the students create trusting relationships and friendships with one another, so that they’re more comfortable when we get to the Bible study and catechesis.

There’s no shortcut to this kind of faith work. It’s inconvenient at times. It takes many weeks. Preparation. Commitment on the part of students, families, and pastors.

And yet there’s also no substitute for this kind of faith commitment on the part of the church. It reminds me that sometimes the church doesn’t grow or thrive exponentially or in a flashy way. Instead it grows slowly, week after week, in the hearts and minds of maturing middle schoolers, their families and their pastors/church leaders.

Let’s get to the (Reformation Day) texts!

Bible Stories

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Jer. 31:31   The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.  33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

I’m reminded every Reformation Sunday that while I call myself Lutheran, Luther didn’t set out to create a new church. Instead he wanted to reform what he still (at least at the start) believed was the one true church. One of the slogans of the Reformation is Semper Reformanda, Latin for Always Reforming.

How exhausting! To be committed to a church that is always reforming. Yet as we’ve been reminded unequivocally in these past few years, the world itself is always changing. In this passage, we see God’s willingness to reform God’s covenant with God’s people, too. A new covenant was possible: even in the days of Exile and suffering, documented throughout the prophecy of Jeremiah. God’s promise endures. We are called to adapt, to be willing to be wrong, and to change - knowing that as we reform, we do so responding to God’s ongoing revelation and God’s enduring promise.

Questions to Ponder

Why was God willing to make a new covenant with the people of Israel, even though they’d broken the last covenant?

What does it mean that the Law would now be written on their hearts and live within them?

How does this passage make you feel? Does it bring reassurance and comfort?

Romans 3:19-28

Rom. 3:19   Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  20 For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Rom. 3:21   But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets,  22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction,  23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;  24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,  25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed;  26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

Rom. 3:27   Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith.  28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

Romans 3 is a revolutionary text. It is the Apostle Paul at his most fiery and risky,