 |
| Come, Holy Spirit! |
Reformation and Confirmation Sunday – October 27, 2013
Texts: Ephesians 2:8 (Ryan) and Romans 8:38-39 (Laci)
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
+
INJ +
Grace and peace be with you, from
God our Father, and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we have this combined remembering
of our history as Lutherans in Reformation Sunday, and celebrating as two of
our young people, Ryan and Laci, affirm their baptismal faith. And so it is a
day upon which we spend time looking backward at our history, but also looking
forward with great hope.
Reformation Day actually falls on
October 31st – aka Halloween – aka the day before All Saints’ Day.
It was on this day in 1517 that a monk named Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses
to a university church door in Germany. This was common practice of the day –
the church door was sort of like a community bulletin board.
Much like some of us might go
online nowadays to ask a question about faith or health or dogs or to ask
what’s the best way to hard boil an egg, Luther had these things he wanted to
discuss and question about the Church’s practices and the pope and how God fit
into it all. So he wrote these things down as 95 Theses – or points of debate -
and posted them to the community bulletin board, then sending copies to other
leaders in the Church.
His concerns created a firestorm
almost immediately. The new technology of the day helped with this – things
could be printed and copied faster than ever before because of the invention of
the printing press. So his theses went viral – spreading throughout the Church
and academia.
Now, Luther had a lot to say – I
don’t have time to repeat it all this morning. But the root of his basic
concerns was that the Church of his day focused heavily on what we were doing
to keep God happy. The concept of a gracious and loving God wasn’t preached,
wasn’t really talked about much like we might talk about it now. And because
most people in Luther’s day were illiterate, they relied heavily on what the Church
told them to believe about God.
Most of them couldn’t sit down and
read the Bible for themselves – because of their own illiteracy, but also
because the Bible wasn’t available in languages spoken by the people. And so,
one of the greatest gifts that Luther gave was to translate the Scriptures into
German – a language people could understand – and also to encourage education
so that people could learn to read.
So, what happened? Well, from the
work of this one man and many others, the Church began reforming. Word began to
get out that God is gracious, that God is loving. And people who lived in fear
and captivity began to hear marvelous words of grace like this: “For by grace
you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the
gift of God”[1] –
which is also Ryan’s Confirmation verse today.
Imagine living your whole life in
fear and in captivity to the idea that I must do all these things in order to
make God happy and to avoid the tortures of hell – only to hear these beautiful
words from Ephesians read and preached: “For by grace you have been saved
through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…”
It was life-changing. It was
world-changing.
It also wasn’t easy. This change
uprooted long-standing structures and there was theological disagreement and
the ending of relationships and even war – it was a deeply difficult process to
endure. But they did endure, and what became known as the Lutheran faith began
to take root in Europe, and then to flourish. And time went on, and as
Europeans began to come to the Americas, the Lutheran faith traveled with them.
And so it was the Luther’s basic
teachings about God’s love and grace began to take root and flourish here in
America – eventually coming to Texas and to Grand Prairie and to Our Redeemer
Lutheran Church, and those of us sitting in this room (as well as countless
others).
And this grace-filled and hopeful
faith is the faith into which you were baptized, Ryan and Laci, and it is the
faith in which you have been raised. And so now, with all this history
behind us, we say that we are looking forward because today is a step in your
journeys of faith - journeys that will continue on, because to be confirmed is
really more about you affirming something – saying “YES!” to something that has
already been given to you at your baptisms: faith in Jesus Christ and the gift
of God’s Holy Spirit.
But something else has been given
to you, as well: a covenant, between you and God, and one the things you’ll
agree to today is to continue living in this covenant:
to live among God's faithful people,
to hear the word
of God and share in the Lord's supper,
to proclaim the
good news of God in Christ through word and deed,
to serve all
people, following the example of Jesus,
and to strive for
justice and peace in all the earth.
And so that is why we say that today, we look to our past,
but we very much look forward, too, because these are things you will continue
to do as you continue to grow as the people God has made you to be.
Here’s something else for you: look around you, at these
people who surround you. Today, we all make a promise to you, too, to support
you and pray for you.
Now, I’ve got a question for you – you’re getting confirmed
today – so does that mean that from here on out, everything’s going to be easy
as pie and you’ll never face any challenges again, ever?
And that's where your confirmation
verse comes in, Laci – “For I am convinced,” Paul writes, “That neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[2]
One of the things Ryan and Laci did
to prepare for this day was to come up with some goals for themselves. When the
time came for them to show me their goals and for us to discuss them, I was so
pleased that, among their goals, for each of them, was a sense of serving
others – a sense of living out that very same love of God.
And so, Ryan and Laci, if you hear
nothing else that I say today, hear this: You do not move forward alone – ever.
You have all of us, today, and in the future, and there will be others – who
will love you and support you and pray for you. But more than all of that, you
have the love of God, which endures forever.
Amen.
+
SDG +
No comments:
Post a Comment