Finding Faith ... in remembering that everybody is God's somebody

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodically authorized minister. The journey together these past four years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Oct. 31, Reformation Sunday.

This week's gospel: John 8:31-36

True Disciples

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

The message:

Today we gather together to celebrate Reformation Sunday, a day on which as the story goes, Martin Luther, a German monk, nailed his "95 Theses” to the wooden door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Saxony, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire.

Famously, Luther’s list of grievances with the Catholic church -- because remember 500 years ago we were all members of the Catholic church, one worshipping body -- so included among Luther’s grievances was the practice of clergy selling plenary indulgences, which were essentially “get-out-of-purgatory” cards for loved ones who had died but hadn’t yet earned their way out of purgatory.

So, yes, believe it or not, at the time when Martin Luther lived anyone could take a few gold coins down to the local priest in order to pay for the opportunity for their loved one to earn their way out of purgatory and into heaven. … And the business was good!

As you can imagine, the reforms Martin Luther was calling for at the time were pretty revolutionary, as they were controversial. … This was no mere disagreement between theologians in some academic ivory towers over a bit of wine.

Martin Luther was directly attacking the Catholic Church, the most powerful institution in the world at the time. … And Luther, and other contemporaries, were pushing for societal changes that would alter the entire world. … Forever.

It was a dangerous time in history, a time of competing ideas, and the world was rife with division and conflict. And everyone was caught up in the fight, from the very poorest of the poor all the way up to the pope and the nobility.

Division, conflict, competing ideas. … Dangerous times.

It kind of all sounds familiar to us, doesn’t it, Faith Family. … It seems that times aren’t that much different for the church body now then they were 500 years ago. … Because there are plenty of competing ideas that are attempting to tear apart not only the church body, but society as a whole right now.

Take any group of people, and one single person can burn the entire group down with the utterance of a few simple words. … Pick your choice. … There are plenty of hot button topics that will cause lines to be drawn in the sand for nearly every member of the group.

Because the trouble with being human is that each and every one of us believes we know and see the “truth.” … And if it’s my truth, well then your “truth” can’t possibly be true, can it?

We are living in a time -- although it hasn’t been the only period in history -- we are living a time ... when everyone seems to have found their own particular small tribe of similar believers. ... Each and everyone of us has found our own “Truth.”

Be it a tribe based on politics, on race, on church denomination, on gender or sexuality identity, and on and on … we cling to those who have the closest similar beliefs to ours. … Because in numbers, we find the safety of protecting our “truths,” which thus serves as reinforcement. … And it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

And because of this situation, we seem to be living through another period of reformation, one in which we can’t possibly know the effects of our actions on the future of this world.

But in today’s text, Jesus offers us a way out of this seemingly never ending cycle. … “... and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” … How many times have you heard that piece of scripture?

Now, unfortunately the verses the lectionary writers choose to exclude in today’s gospel leave out some very important context to this story.

In verse 37 Jesus continues: “I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.”

You see, Jesus is pointing out to the Jews who are following him that God promised he would deliver a savior, and it would be the messiah that sets them free. But unfortunately, the Jews present at that moment can’t see beyond the end of their nose.

“What do you mean, ‘You will be made free?’ … We’re already free people, Jesus! … After all, we’re descendants of Abraham and we benefit from all that means! … Moses led us out of Egypt … remember?”

But Jesus reminds them that “... everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

So you can sense that this gospel text is describing for us another historical moment in which competing ideas, competing “truths,” are making for a dangerous and explosive situation. … The “truths” of what 1st century Jews know to be true … versus the “truth” that Jesus is trying to get them to comprehend.

But unlike the competing ideas and truths that we humans concoct, Jesus in today’s gospel is describing to the Jews present the real “Truth.” … Complete with a capital “T.”

In other words, what Jesus is talking about is not an abstract truth, such as where any of us stand on any given issue.

What Jesus is talking about is the “Truth” … as in “The Word.” … The Word as it was delivered from God. … And we should know from our scripture studies that “The Word” is a reference to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. … Who was God made flesh to visit this world, walk on this earth, and weep tears over our tragic human condition.

And that … Faith Family … is “The Truth” to which Jesus is referring in today’s gospel. … Know it for a fact that when Jesus is speaking, this is not a two-way dialogue meant to determine what is the “truth.” … But actually, it is a one-way dialogue about WHO is the truth! … And all of what that reveals about who God is.

And that is exactly what Jesus is talking about when he says: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you.”

Faith Family, it seems that if you ask anyone today in a Westernized society, the United States included, most will agree that what is “truth” is open for debate.

We like to believe that we agree with Jesus, that we truly understand and believe him when he talks about him being the only “truth.” … But the reality is that most of us only believe that when it suits our needs.

And that can be a hard reality to face. … Trust me, I face it every time I want to believe that my moral compass is more finely in tune with God than someone else’s. … And that happens more than I want to admit.

But in today’s gospel, Jesus shatters that illusion. … He makes me realize that I’m as clueless as the next person. … And this is why.

In recent months, I have talked a lot about abiding during sermons. If you’ll remember back to earlier in the year when we were working through the Gospel of John, “abiding” is one of his principle themes of this book.

And in today’s text, Jesus calls us to continue to abide in “The Word,” which is actually himself … Christ, God’s son. … He calls us to truly be his disciples and follow him, despite the fact that we all know this is not very easy for us mere humans to do.

Jesus is telling us that despite what we believe and what we hear from others, the actual “truth” of God’s creation lies in our relationship with Christ. … When Jesus is telling us to abide in “The Word,” he isn’t talking about the scriptures. … Jesus is telling us to abide in him, the man … the incarnational God.

Faith Family ... we seem to be living in a time where we -- even as Jesus followers -- are losing the capacity to abide, the capacity to live in relationship with the larger community of folks who may also recognize our God who was made known in Jesus. … Fellow Christians.

But more damningly, we are losing the capacity to live in relationship, even more so, with the even larger community of people who do not recognize that God was made known to this earth in Jesus.

This morning, Faith Family, Jesus is beseeching us in this text to remember that the “Truth” is not an idea. An idea we can get behind or a competing one we can’t support. … But rather, the “Truth” is a person. … The “Truth” is God in the flesh.

And so with that knowledge, Jesus is asking us to think about what it means to be human. … He is asking us to think about what it means to bear the image of God in the flesh. … Each of us.

But more importantly Jesus is asking us to remember that just as we each bear the image of God in the flesh, so does every person who exists outside of our small tribes built on our human ideas of “truth.” … Jesus is asking us to remember that as we entrench ourselves in what our idea of the “truth” is … to keep in mind that everybody -- even that person who doesn’t believe like you -- everybody is God’s somebody.

And that is the Good News for this Reformation Sunday 2021. … Amen.