Seeing by Faith
First Congregational Church of Evanston
October 29, 2006 , Reformation Sunday
Mark 10:46-52; Psalm 46
Rev. Dr James E. Roghair, Interim Pastor
Reformation Sunday
October 31 is Reformation Day on Protestant calendars. Some churches make a great deal of this day, but others forget it. Perhaps we think more about Halloween or changing the clocks than about Reformation Day. I invite you to celebrate Reformation Sunday today. We have already begun to do that with the magnificent hymn by Martin Luther.
It was the last day of October 1517 that Martin Luther, a rather young Roman Catholic priest, did something quite normal. A conscientious young man, Martin Luther was concerned about some of the policies of his church. He wanted to start a discussion. So he did started a web blog. He might have, but the current version was to nail a list of things to discuss on the church door.
He wasn’t trying to be overly provocative. He wasn’t even trying to challenge the authorities in Rome. He wasn’t trying to begin a social-cultural-political movement that would change the world – or start a revolution. He was just putting up a list of ideas he thought needed to be discussed.
He didn’t do it behind the backs of his superiors – he even gave them a copy of his questions. Luther didn’t ask anyone to translate his questions from Latin into German. He didn’t expect his questions to be of interest to the village folks – these were strictly theological questions. They were addressed to his fellow clergy.
Nailing the theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittneberg was a way of making a statement of his own belief – he was defining himself. And Luther’s self-defined beliefs seem to have been a prophetic vision that the world around him was looking for. The printing press had been invented. Someone did translate the theses into German and distribute them. The political climate was ripe, and “the Reformation sort of burst forth...” as a historian described it.
It would be several centuries before Luther’s 1517 act would be called the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was not the first or last time someone set out to get people to talk. But Luther’s act became the symbolic start of a movement – a protest movement. Not protesting as we know with placards and marches, but protesting in the Latin meaning of the words: Pro means ‘for;’ and testari meaning ‘witness.’ A Protestant is someone who is a witness for something! So what in particular did Luther protest for?
Luther’s protest became more and more certain of as time went along. He moved from asking questions to get discussion started to standing firmly on biblical principles. He came to firmly believe that some of the teachings and practices in the church of his day were wrong. He became clear that there is nothing any of us can do that will put us in a better position with God. We don’t buy salvation in any way, shape or form.
Indulgences were wrong! Officially indulgences were not supposed to be forgiveness-for-sale. But that is pretty much what they had turned into. Indulgences were, however, supposed to be a way to commute a part of the penalty the church leaders said was due for sin. So indulgences were prescribed as penance to keep one from having to suffer in purgatory. Luther challenged the premise on which the indulgences were sold. It is not what we do, but only the grace of God that saves us. And we are saved by faith alone.
Luther challenged head on the Vatican’s Johann Tetzel who was selling indulgences in the area. (Really it was a capital campaign for Rome.) But Tetzel made extravagant claims that the indulgences could help the dead. Luther raised questions: How could a faithful Roman Catholic Christian go along with that? That’s one of the things Luther wanted to talk about.
When he couldn’t get the officials to talk about it, Luther became more and more convinced that we are all saved only by the faith in Jesus Christ, and that that faith is a gift of God’s grace. There is nothing at all that we can do to be saved. Jesus Christ has already done it all on our behalf.
When Luther nailed his ninety-five questions to the door of the Wittenberg Church. They became the seeds of a whole new Reformed understanding of Christian faith. The seeds sprouted. They took root. A few years later a philosopher of the Reformation emerged in Geneva named John Calvin and the Spirit was as work in England, too. We are all children of Luther’s witness – the Reformation. I encourage us to take the opportunity to witness to a reformed understanding of God’s gifts.
Relating Reformation to the Scripture
Martin Luther and all of the Reformers thought their beliefs were simple and straight forward right out of the Scripture. We might compare them to the simplicity of the faith of the blind man in today’s Scripture reading. We don’t know this man’s name except that he was called Bar Timaeus – Son of Timaeus. Timaeus’s son was a beggar along the roadside. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t do anything else. He was trying to make it the best way he could.
So, when he heard that Jesus was coming, the Son of Timaeus recognized his opportunity. He called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People of Jericho wanted to make a good impression on Jesus. They didn’t want this no count beggar getting in the way. So they told him to shut up.
But, Jesus singled him out, called to him, and asked him directly, “What do you want?” And Timaeus’s son knew: “My teacher, let me see again.” It was so simple. Not dressed in any fine language or philosophy! He believed he could see again if with Jesus’ help. And Jesus response was simple and direct, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Nothing more or less.
It was this kind of simple faith that Martin Luther saw as the basis for God’s gift of salvation. Nothing more or less. Luther didn’t assume he had all the answers, but he thought they could be discerned by getting back to the simple faith in Jesus. “Go; your faith has made you well,” is the sort of expression that has become the standard for the Protestant reformation. Faith alone! Nothing else.
William Tyndale -- Another Reformer
Let me tell you a story about another reformer, William Tyndale an Englishman. Tyndale wasn't someone to make trouble for trouble’s sake. He wasn’t a personality that looked for confrontation. He really wanted to avoid hostility and live at peace. But he couldn't. He got in trouble with many of England’s famous people in the 16th centurey. A case in point was Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's many wives. She flaunted her promiscuity -- and Tyndale spoke out. Also, Thomas Wolsey, a cardinal of the church, sworn to celibacy, but was father of at least two illegitimate children, drew Tyndale's fire. Thomas More, known to us as A Man for All Seasons, said that Tyndale was leading people away from the kingdom of God and would hurt their salvation. Tyndale argued back.
William Tyndale graduated from Oxford University in 1515, 2 years before Luther nailed up his Theses. He pursued graduate studies at Cambridge which became known as hotbed of Lutheran theology and Reformation ferment. Tyndale heard his call to be the translation of the Bible into English. The ignorance of the Bible in England was great. He felt that even farmhands and city workers should be able to read and hear the scriptures and understand. But not even the clergy in England knew the Scripture. So Tyndale set out to bring the comfort and faith that he found in the Scriptures to the common people of England.
The church leadership didn't agree. They banned any translation of scripture, except of course the Latin, thus prolonging the ignorance of the people and the church's tyranny over them. Tyndale was determined. He wanted only a quiet, safe place in England where he could begin his work. But it was not possible. So, he left for Germany in 1524, and he never got back to England again.
He went to work on the New Testament in Hamburg. A printer in Cologne printed the pages as fast as he could. But there were church spies everywhere, and shortly the printing press was raided. Tyndale escaped with what he could carry to Worms, the German city where Luther had debated vigorously only four years earlier and where he confessed, "Here I stand, I can do nothing else. God help me." In Worms Tyndale managed to complete his English New Testament. Six thousand copies were printed, but only two have survived to this day. English bishops confiscated them as fast as copies got back into England. In 1526 the bishop of London piled up the copies he had and burned them all.
Worms was a dangerous a place in which to work, so Tyndale moved on to Antwerp. English merchants there protected him. As he finished the entire Bible. But in May 1535, a young Englishman in Antwerp who needed large sums of money to pay off gambling debts betrayed Tyndale to authorities. Immediately Tyndale was jailed in a prison modeled after the infamous Bastille of Paris. It was damp, dark, and cold throughout the winter. He had been in prison for 18 months when his trial began.
There was a long list of charges. The first two charges: 1. He had maintained that sinners are justified or set right with God by faith; and 2. He had said that to embrace in faith the mercy offered in the gospel was sufficient for salvation. These charges are a summary of the Protestant faith – the gospel in a nutshell.
August 1536 Tyndale was found guilty and condemned as a heretic. Labeling him "heretic" was expected to humiliate him publicly and break him psychologically. But he didn't break. He was assigned another two months in prison. When taken to a public square and asked to recant, Tyndale cried out, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." Immediately the executioner strangled him and ignited the firewood at his feet.
But Tyndale's work could not be choked or burned up. Within 3 years King Henry VIII required all churches of England to have a copy of Tyndale’s translation of the Bible available for people to read. It was quite a turn around – partly fueled by Henry’s own trouble with the Vatican which was surely not theological!
But Tyndale’s work survived. Tyndale's translation underlies the 1611 King James Version which became so important in all the English-speaking world! Tyndale had promised God, "If I am spared I shall see that the common person knows ... God's Word, God's Truth, and God's Way ..." Tyndale's work is without peer.
(This section is based on an excerpt from "A Note Concerning William
Tyndale: 1494-1536," a Reformation Sunday 2004 sermon by Victor Shepherd,
Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Tyndale Seminary, and
Adjunct Professor of Theology at the University of Toronto. (Used with permission
of Victor Shepherd. http://www.victorshepherd.on.ca/
Sermons/reformation_sunday.htm)
The Congregational Way
The Congregational Way of following Christ is a tradition that draws much on the work of Luther and Tyndale. When King Henry VIII broke with Rome he took control of the Church of England. Although that was a change many appreciated, there were still many in England who were not satisfied with the reform. (And even in our own time Anglican – or Episcopalian – Christians are not certain whether to call themselves Protestant or Anglo-Catholic.)
Some set out to purify the Church of England from with in, and others who became known as Separatists, left the state church and formed local groups bound together by mutual covenants based on Matthew 18:20, where Jesus says, "where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
One of these covenant gatherings came together in the village of Scrooby, England in1606. They met on Sundays in the home of the postmaster, William Brewster, for Bible study and prayer. Such gatherings were banned by British law, because all subjects of the king were required to belong to the Church of England and no other.
Since this was 5 years before the King James Bible, they surely had at least one copy of Tyndale’s Bible for their worship. But the little Scrooby church was threatened with persecution. So, led by their pastor John Robinson, they fled to Holland and after a few peaceful and prosperous years in Leiden, the Scrooby congregation set sale in 16 20 on the Mayflower to establish a Separatist colony in America.
These original Congregationalists were Separatists – they separating themselves from the theological and moral corruption they saw in both the Roman Church and the Anglican Church. But they were not separating themselves from the movement of the reformation. They were a part of the whole movement – Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Tyndale, and many others.
When the Scrooby group came to New England, before stepping ashore, they drafted an agreement as the basis for the civil government of their colony. This Mayflower Compact is said to be the first written expression in history of a social contract, in which the people agree among themselves to form the state. It can be seen as a civil counterpart to the covenant by which they (like others in England) had formed their church in Scrooby. These people have been called Pilgrims by later generations. (This section is relies heavily on “The Congregational Way” at www.naccc.org)
Because of the relationship of this Congregation here in Evanston with the original Congregationalists this church displays a piece of stone from Scrooby – a part of the original place where the church met. Stop and take a look at the Scrooby stone on your way out of the sanctuary today, if you haven’t looked at it for awhile.
Conclusion
May the presence of the Scrooby stone in this church be a reminder of our tie to that little group of determined congregationalists. May it also be a reminder of the heritage of the whole reformation.
May the stone be encouragement to us to be bold and clear about what we believe. What we believe does make a difference. Tyndale and others gave their lives for the right to read the Scriptures in our own language. For us, he Bible remains a best-seller. We all have a Bible (perhaps several), but it is not a book that many read.
Reformation Sunday might be a day to resolve to read the Scriptures. A look at the Scrooby Stone might remind us of the theological themes for which people risked their lives and died: The God’s gift of grace is free. We do nothing to deserve it. We cannot save ourselves. But it is by faith that we are saved.
How do we hang onto that saving faith? How will we learn to share our faith with one another? And how will we proclaim our faith to a world that is badly in need of good news?
At this time of transition, I remind you to look back, and by looking back, you will also look forward to where God leads you in the future. And may Jesus say to us as he said long ago, “Go, your faith has made you well.”
Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008