11-16-14: Talent

Talent

Matthew 25: 14-30 (NIV)

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. “ ‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

If you've ever worked with money or investments before, then the parable Jesus tells his disciples in the morning's Gospel reading will make a lot of sense to you.

Like with last week's Gospel reading, Jesus is trying to get his disciples ready for the near future, when Jesus won't be with them anymore, and they will need to carry on his ministry without him, prepared for an ultimate day when Jesus returns.

So Jesus is trying to explain to them what exactly it will mean for them to carry out Jesus' ministry in his absence, and be ready for him to come back.

Last week, Jesus talked about something most of us can relate to: a wedding. This week, Jesus is relating to his disciples with something even more common than weddings: money.

We all have it, we all need it, we all spend it. Like it or not, money is so common we can all understand this story.

So this story is about a master and three servants. We really don't know what it is this master does for a living, just that he is super wealthy, and he's made his incredible wealth through excellent returns on his investments.

Now, for some reason, he has to go away for a while, and he needs to leave not only his land, but also his work, in the hands of his servants. So he leaves each of his three servants with a ton of money. It's worth noting that even though the translation I read from this morning, the NIV, says that the master left his servants with "bags of gold", other translations say the master left his servants with a specific form of currency called a "talent".

The master goes away, for a long time, and then comes back, and immediately wants to judge what his servants accomplished in his business while he was gone. One servant had five bags of gold, and invested it, so he could return to his master ten bags of gold. The second only had two bags of gold, but also invested it, and doubled it, returning to his master four bags of gold. But the poor third servant was entrusted with one bag of gold, and was so afraid of his master, and so afraid he would lose his master's money, that he didn't do anything with the money but bury it. The master, Jesus tells us, was ecstatic with the first two servants, and commended them on their good work, but was furious with the third servant, and took his bag of gold away and gave it to the first servant, the one who had ten bags of gold, effectively kicking the third servant out of his business.

So those are the facts. But what are we supposed to learn from this Gospel story?

The unfortunate truth is that this story has been seriously misinterpreted and misunderstood, by some. Some people have gotten hung up on the fact that Jesus talks about money in this story, and a number of outspoken televangelists have proclaimed that Jesus teaches us through this text that God blesses rich people. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just do a Google search for "prosperity Gospel".

No offense to those preachers, but I don't think that's what Jesus is getting at with this parable. So let's get past the symbol of the gold bags, and get to the real meat of this story--the work of the servants.

Yes, Jesus is telling us a story about three people working with money. But the more important detail here is what the master actually asked his servants to do while he was away. He asked them to do three things:

• Continue his business
• Act like him
• Take a risk

So let's talk about where we fit into this story. If you haven't figured it out, we're the servants, and Jesus is the master. Jesus, over the course of a year, planted a strong ministry with many very dedicated followers. He did as much earth-side as he possibly could. Then he died on the cross, and went on to heaven. Now he's left his life's work, his ministry, with his servants--us. He's entrusted his ministry to us.

And, like the master in this story, he's done the work of dividing his ministry up amongst us, rather than leaving all the work in one piece and making us divvy up the responsibilities. Not everyone has been entrusted with the same thing. Jesus has entrusted some of us with a ton, and some of us with only a little.

But, from now until he comes back someday--whenever that is--he expects us to take what he's entrusted us with and do three things with it:

• Continue his work, his ministry
• Act like him
• And take risks

And, since we're not really dealing with money here, what was it that Jesus entrusted us with? Talent.

And the scripture says that master left his servants with certain amounts of his gold "according to their ability", so the first bit of Good News is that Jesus only expects us to do our personal best, what we can. The master in this story was just as impressed with the servant who raised up 2 more bags of gold as he was with the servant who raised up five more bags of gold, because they both worked to their own potential. They both gave it their all and did what they could.

The master in the story had a business of making investments, and he wanted his servants to continue that business by doing exactly what he did to make that fortune--invest the money and get a big return on that investment. If you've ever made any kind of an investment before, whether it was buying a savings bond, or starting a business, or buying a house or paying college tuition--any kind of investment--you know you're risking what you're putting inin the hopes that you'll get much more out of it.

Jesus' business was planting the seeds for the Kingdom of God in this world. Jesus' business was changing the way we all treat each other, and changing our priorities. His business was to radically love the people who had nothing to offer him in return--to cure the sick, to befriend the people no one liked, and to stand up for the people who couldn't stand up for themselves, like women and children. By doing this, he wanted to make a world ruled by love, justice, and servanthood, with no one in charge but God.

That's the work he's entrusted us with until he comes back. That's a very tall order, so rest assured that he doesn't expect any one of us to take all of that on. The master in Jesus' story was fabulously wealthy, but only handed out a few bags of gold to each of his servants. In the same way, Jesus has entrusted each one of us with just a very small part of the work it would take to bring about the Kingdom of God, a world that's ruled by God and reflects God's image.

That's what Jesus wants to see when he comes back. And he's entrusted us with our own unique abilities, or with our talents, to do what we can to minister to this world the same way Jesus would. We can't all do the same kind of ministry, and we can't all take on the same amount of ministry work, but we can all do something, and whatever that something is, Jesus expects us to do it.

He expects us to risk our time and resources to do what he would do: to take care of the sick and the hungry, to be a friend to someone that doesn't have one, and to speak up for people who have been silenced.

However you do that in this life, you are doubling the talents Jesus entrusted to you. But when we fail to bring that kind of love to the people who need it, we take the precious gifts Jesus' trusted us with, and we bury them so they can't help anyone. Don't bury your talent. Use it.

And when you do, know that someday you will see Jesus face to face, and he will say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Amen.

11-9-14: Be Ready

Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25 (NIV)

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.” Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.” But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.” Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.” On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws.

Matthew 25:1-13 (NIV)

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ “ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

Earlier this week I did an online search for material related to this morning's Gospel passage, hoping to find some commentaries on this passage that would help me in writing this sermon. I found several excellent commentaries about this and several other readings from the last three chapters in Matthew where, like in this one, Jesus tries to prepare his disciples for his second coming. But I also quickly found, as I searched for material on Jesus' second coming, a good dozen different websites where I could buy a bumper sticker for my car that says "Jesus is Coming--Look Busy!" Now, I like a good Bible joke as much as the next person, so that's not what bothers me about these bumper stickers. It's that there's a lot of people out there that really don't take the idea that Christ will come again all that seriously. The phrase itself has started to lose its meaning.

Even two thousand years ago, Jesus realized we'd have some trouble with that one. That's why we find him where we do this morning, coaching his disciples on what will happen and how to be prepared. But it's not that Jesus will come back someday that's so hard for us to handle. It's when. It's that we don't know when Jesus is coming, and we have no idea how long the wait is going to be.

But this abstract notion of waiting indefinitely for the end times is way too vague to have any meaning to anybody, so Jesus helps us out by telling some relatable stories, some parables, about what it will be like when he comes back. This is one of them.

It's a story about a wedding. We've all been to one of those, so we know what they're like. And we know what it's like to get ready for one. We know about the months of preparation you might need to plan even a simple wedding. We know about all the details that need to be attended to. We know that feeling you have when you're getting ready for either your own wedding, or the wedding of a family member or a close friend. That combination of excitement and anxiety that translates to a whole lot of nerves.

Jesus knew about all that, too. For the purpose of this parable, what he appeals to the most is the anxiety a lot of us can relate to of what happens when you're planning a wedding and something goes wrong.

Gosh, I've never been to a wedding where nothing went wrong. Something always goes wrong, and it's very stressful. At my wedding, the organist forgot his music. At my sister's wedding, the vendors started squabbling with each other after the ceremony. At the wending of a friend of mine, she tripped while she was walking down the aisle.

At this wedding, half the bridesmaids neglected to bring oil for their lamps. See, Jesus' friends and neighbors were very poor, and they didn't get to go to a lot of parties. They couldn't afford them. So weddings were a big, big deal. They weren't just a one-day event, either. The festivities of a wedding spanned over several days.

Jesus is telling us about a wedding that's just about to start. The bridesmaids are waiting for the groom, lamps in hand. This community had a very special tradition where a procession of bridesmaids, all carrying torches to light up the night sky, would lead the groom from his house to the bride's. The groom would make a grand entrance, go meet his bride, and then the whole wedding party would go to the banquet.

The bridesmaids are all dressed and ready to go, lamps in hand. But, as happens at some weddings, the groom is running late. So, no big deal, they go to sleep and wait for him, leaving their lamps running. Finally, there's an announcement: he's ready! Half the bridesmaids take the oil they have in their flask, re-light their lamps, and they're all ready to go. The other half let out a big collective uh oh--they didn't bring any oil. They had enough residual oil to light their wicks for just a few minutes, and now that's all used up. They can't light their lamps.

Now, this is the point where the five wise bridesmaids might look kind of mean. The five oil-less bridesmaids turn to them and ask to use some of their oil. The wise bridesmaids say, No, go get your own.

Keeping in mind that Jesus commends the actions of these five young women, you have to wonder what the message is here. Aren't we supposed to share? Aren't we supposed to help others in need? How is this Christ-like? These bridesmaids sound selfish.

Well, turns out they're not selfish, just reasonable. They can't part with any of their oil because they need it. If they tried to share their oil, then all ten of them will be processing with dead lamps. They're better off just going ahead with the procession with only five bridesmaids.

And they do. The other five bridesmaids scramble to find some oil of their own in the middle of the night, and miss the procession. They run over to the banquet, and plead to be allowed to join the party, but no dice. They had one job, and they blew it. They can't make up for their absence during the most important part of the wedding, and if they couldn't do the one thing that was asked of them, their presence is no longer desirable.

Jesus warns us, keep watch. Because we don't know when Jesus is coming back, keep watch. But what does that mean?

The key is to be like the five wise bridesmaids. They weren't in a state of hyper vigilance, on the lookout for the groom. They nodded off and went to sleep with everyone else. But when the groom came, they were ready. And they didn't have to do all that much, either. They had one job, and they were prepared to do that one job.

The truth is, the idea of Jesus coming back sounds a bit abstract. What does that really mean? When is that going to happen? What will that look like when it happens? How will we know Jesus has come back?

We don't need to worry about any of that. We just need to be like the five wise bridesmaids. We have one job, and we need to be prepared to do that one job.

We can chuckle when we see someone driving down the street with a bumper sticker on their car that says "Jesus is Coming, Look Busy". But we also have a question we should be asking ourselves: if Jesus walked in here today in cognito (so we didn't know it was him), what would he think of our church? Would he be pleased? Would he be disappointed? Would he think we were doing the right things? What would he want to change about our way of doing ministry to make it reflect his mission?

We have just one job: to carry out Jesus' ministry, here in our local church. And if we reflect his image to the world, then we're doing our job, but if we don't, then we're like those five unprepared bridesmaids, standing next to our extinguished lamps with no oil.

Whether Jesus comes again in our lifetime, or a hundred years from now, or ten thousand years from now, if we have a Church that reflects him, then we will be ready to meet him whenever he arrives.

Amen.

11-2-14: Breath

Breath

John 6: 35-51 (NIV)

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

What is a soul?

Over the course of this weekend, our Church observes two important days: All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. All Saints Day is officially on November 1st, and All Souls Day is officially on November 2nd. Most of us Protestants tend to focus more on All Saints Day than All Souls Day, and we observe All Saints Day generally on the first Sunday of November. So today, we celebrate the Communion of Saints--all believers, joined as one in our love for Jesus, both here on Earth and in Heaven. But, being that today is November 2nd, I invite us all to spend just a little time thinking about All Souls Day, this day that the Church sets aside in particular to remember our loved ones who are already in Heaven. The souls that are now in the care of God.

What is a soul? What does it mean to have one? What do we mean when we say that God is taking care of the soul of someone who has gone to Heaven?

For me, when I think about how God created us and where we go at the end of this life, it comes down to one Hebrew word: ruach.

Ruach. Ruach is a complex word that doesn't translate well into English because no one word in our vocabulary fully captures what ruach means. In spite of that, a lot of you have heard me use this word ruach before because it's just such a deep, meaningful word. The best way to try to translate ruach for you is to say that ruach means two different things, both at the same time: breath, and spirit.

Ruach is used 389 different times throughout the Old Testament to describe God being present among his people. But the reason why this word is so important for me, and the reason why this word helps me understand who we are to God and how God cares for us, in this life and after we pass on, is because this word is used in Genesis to describe God's creation of our world.

Genesis 1:2 says: "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (‭Genesis‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬ NIV)"

The word we translate as "Spirit" here is ruach. Ruach is God, hovering around our planet before we even had a planet, delicately crafting our world into being.

Then ruach gets used again, later on.

Genesis 2:7 says: "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (‭Genesis‬ ‭2‬:‭7‬ NIV)".

The word used for "breath" is ruach. God made Adam's body from the earth, but made him a living person when he breathed his ruach into him.

This is where each one of us came from. Our bodies are a thing of this world. They come from this earth. But we become living people, we become us, when God breathes his ruach into us. The very air we breathe is the spirit of God, and we are filled with it. And during this whole earthly life we hold onto that ruach, that breath, that spirit, of God with these bodies, and we use our bodies and everything we have here on this earth to show the spirit of God to other people. Other people can see God within us because God is within us. God dwells in us.

From the moment of our birth, God offered God's self to us, so that we could live. In this morning's Gospel reading, Jesus starts to teach all the people listening to him that he offers the same thing. Jesus reminds us of Moses taking the Hebrews through the wilderness, and he reminds us that when the Hebrews were struggling so greatly to get by, God gave them bread to eat every day. He gave them manna. Jesus says, I am that manna. The difference is that manna expired at the end of the day. But Jesus stays with us forever. Jesus nourishes us our whole lives. By breaking his body for us on the cross, he is the broken bread that feeds us.

When we join together in communion today, we will nourish our bodies and spirits with the bread of life. We will remember that we survive by the daily bread that God provides us, and that that bread is Jesus. We will remember that it is because of Jesus that we live.

Your soul is the ruach. Your soul is the breath that God breathed into you, the breath that both gave you life and made you you. And during this life we sustain that ruach, the breathing spirit of God, by depending on Jesus, the bread of life, to nourish our soul.

These bodies come from the earth. They are a thing of this world. We need them here on earth. They make us look like us, but it's that your body that makes you you. That's the soul. That's the breath that God gave you that makes you you.

We don't keep our bodies forever. We have a temporary lease on them, and we keep them just as long as we need them. Genesis tells us they're dust. Ecclesiastes 12: 6-7 tells us:

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭12‬:‭6-7‬ NIV)

Like you hear on Ash Wednesday: Remember, mortal, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. This body will return right back to where it came from someday.

But what about your soul? What about that ruach of God, the spirit dwelling within you?

A woman by the name of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who specialized in end of life issues, once said,

"Death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like a butterfly shedding it's cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow."

When you're ready someday, there will be a day when you don't need your body anymore, and you will shed it, just like a snake sheds its worn out skin. And that body will return to the dust God made it out of.

But that spirit within you, that ruach, that breath of God breathed into your lungs that makes you you, at the end of this life that ruach also returns to where it came from--to God. And in eternity, that piece of God that once dwelled within us goes back to be with our creator, and, at last, you will be perfectly at one with God.

Today, on All Souls Day, may be remember and celebrate that ruach of God that we saw in those we loved, and may we trust that, as surely as God brought us here, someday God will bring us back home.

Amen.

10-26-14: He Never Meant to Start a Church

He Never Meant to Start a Church

Matthew 23: 1-12 (NIV)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others. “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Over the last two years a lot of you have heard me talk about a gentleman by the name of Martin Luther. You've even heard me preach about him on occasion. You'll hear me talking about him today, since this is a Sunday when we remember what he did for our Church.

Martin Luther never meant to put to motion what he did. He never meant to ignite the Protestant Reformation, and he definitely never meant to start a whole church tradition of his own. He was just fed up.

Luther was a very devoted, pious, studious German Roman Catholic monk, and he loved his Church. He loved his Church so much that it hurt him to see what was happening to it. He loved his Church so much that he couldn't just sit around and see what was happening to it and do nothing.

Luther was starting to take issue with a lot of the Church's practices. He was afraid the Church was alienating its own believers. He thought the Bible should be available in languages that people actually speak, and not just Greek and Latin. He thought that the Bible was all anyone needed to get to know and love God. He thought that having faith in Jesus was so powerful that that faith alone was all a person needed to be saved--he thought your works weren't anywhere near as important as your faith. He thought people should pray directly to God, and that people didn't need help praying from their priest, or from the Pope, or from Mary, or from a saint.

His ideas were revolutionary, and he was in an institution that did not approach change well. Still, his ideas weren't enough for him to break from the Church he loved. That moment didn't come until the Church decided to do something so corrupt that Luther knew he needed to take a stand, even if it costed him everything.

And that happened when the Church sent a papal commissioner to Germany to start selling something called indulgences. Indulgences worked like this: Let's say you did something you weren't too proud of. You made a mistake, one that will look sinful in the eyes of the Church. You're really worried that your mistake is going to hurt your relationship with God. So you go to church and confess that mistake to your priest. And your priest tells you, It'll be okay. You know what, if you give me $20, I can talk to God and clear this whole thing up for you.

The Church was advertising that you could buy forgiveness for your sins, and that money was going toward building cathedrals and generally bolstering the wealth of the Vatican. For Brother Martin, this was the last straw.

He never meant to start a new Church. He never even meant to protest against the Roman Catholic Church. He was a scholarly sort, and he was hoping that if he drafted a critique of the sale of indulgences, and if he brought his concerns to the attention of the public, and especially if he got the attention of those in a greater position of power than him, then maybe some things could change. He never wanted to leave the Church, he just wanted to change it.

So on Halloween of 1517, he posted what we now call his 95 Theses on the front door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenburg. He never meant to start a whole new Church, he just wanted to reform the problems in the Church he was in. But it didn't work out that way. Brother Martin was ousted from the Church, excommunicated, and started a wave that eventually and inevitably led to a whole new way to worship God: Protestantism.

The Church sets aside this day to remember Brother Martin, and what he sacrificed so that we could worship with integrity. And even though the date of Reformation Sunday is set because of this pivotal moment in Martin Luther's life, today we should remember all the people who never meant to start a Church--but did.

Because Luther was in very good company. Luther stands in the company of Paul, who never meant to plant Christian churches, just home-based congregations of Jewish people like him who worshipped Christ. Luther stands in the company of John Wesley. Wesley was an Anglican priest all his life, and never meant to leave the Church of England. He just wanted to reform it--he wished that people would spend more time practicing personal spiritual disciplines like prayer, reading the Bible, and fasting. He was insulted as a Methodist, but a combination of those convictions and a desire to go out to the streets of England and evangelize set a huge spiritual revival in motion, and the more he did in the interest of improving the Church of England, the further away he drifted from it. Eventually, his congregants broke off from the Church of England entirely, and today here we are, in the United Methodist Church.

In the history of the Church there's been a lot of people just like Martin Luther. People too numerous to name who never meant to start a whole new Church. They desperately loved the one they belonged to, and they just wanted to reform and revive it.

Jesus was one of those people. Jesus never meant to start a whole new Church. It sounds kind of funny, but it's true: Jesus Christ wasn't a Christian, and he never meant for there to be Christians. He was Jewish. All of his disciples were Jewish. All of his friends and family were Jewish. Judaism was his world, and he never meant for it to be any other way. He told his disciples, I came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. God his Father was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That was his tradition. He never left Judaism, and he never meant for us to. He just wanted to see God's love lived out to its fullest among God's people.

But here we are. And that's because the other really important thing Jesus and Luther had in common was that the institutions they hoped to change didn't tolerate change well, and were run by people who had no reason to want change.

Just like how Luther had to deal with the Roman Catholic authority in Rome, and how their decisions were alienating ordinary people from the Church, Jesus had to deal with the Pharisees, and their practices that we're alienating the rest of the synagogue community--Jesus' followers.

And just like how Luther was getting fed up with Church leaders who were abusing their authority to get money out of people, Jesus' was getting fed up with the Pharisees, who used their authority in the Temple not to help anyone, or to improve the spiritual life of the congregation, but to stroke their own egos. Neither man ever meant to start a whole new Church. But just like Luther's protests got him excommunicated, Jesus' subversive teachings eventually got him killed.

That's the depressing side of this, but lucky for us there's more going on here. All of these people I've talked to you about--Luther, Paul, Wesley, Jesus--sacrificed and lost a tremendous amount for us to be able to worship as we do now. But that's not why we celebrate these people. We celebrate them because they had a faith that was on fire. We celebrate these people because, even though they never meant to start a Church of their own, they stirred up a love for God within the people who followed them that was so great that the traditions they came from could no longer contain them.

That love for God brought us here. So let's have this day be a day when we remember that in everything that we do here as a faith community, in all the ways we connect with God and all the ways we worship, let's kindle the flame of a love for God so great that no one church can contain it all, and let's never let that fire burn out.

Amen.