Reformation Potluck, Reformation Sunday, 10/30/16
When you have a potluck, ideally everybody brings what they cook best. So, if we are putting together a meal, don’t ask me to bring the bread. I am not a baker; my breads are nothing special. If I bring the bread you are likely to get something in a bag from the Kroger deli. No, if you want my best you’ll do much better to ask for chili, or Cajun shrimp and grits, or maybe lasagna.
Likewise, when we are thinking about putting together the strongest expression of the Christian faith for the world, we want everybody to bring out their best. The various traditions within the broader Christian church have different gifts which together form a feast. Today is Reformation Sunday, a day celebrated much more in Lutheran congregations than in other denominations. It’s a not a day for congratulating ourselves on how we were right about certain theological truths and others were wrong. Instead, let’s ask, “What do Lutherans bring to the great ecclesiastical potluck which delights and nourishes everyone at the table?”
I hope one thing when we bring is the willingness to appreciate the gifts of others. It is an arrogant cook indeed who believes only what he or she prepares is worth eating. So, for example, the free church traditions, such as Baptists, remind us that no creed or confession is ever big enough to encompass the mystery of God. They have a noble tradition of championing religious liberty against every effort to substitute coercion for invitation. They keep before us the call toconfess Christ in no uncertain terms and make disciples.
On this day in particular it is good to remember that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters offer a witness which emphasizes, as the word catholic suggests, that the gospel is universal and not the property of one nation or culture. In a time when we are tempted to think of faith as simply personal piety which fits us like a custom made suit, the Catholic confession is that the gospel belongs to a community which began in the past and will endure long after we are gone. At its best the Catholic confession has proclaimed God’s sovereignty over all spheres of life, across time and space.
These are just two examples of dishes others bring to the theological potluck. We Lutherans can serve them up too, but certain traditions have made these emphases their specialties.
So what do Lutherans bring to the table. Many scholars would sum up the distinctive Lutheran witness in three statements: sola scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fide—scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone. Leaving aside the logical questions of how you can have 3 “alone” statements, I want to talk just a little bit about what we mean by these phrases and why Lutherans have deemed them so important.
If we were hiking together we might come to a point when we were unsure about which way to go. One of us might say, “Well I’ve heard that the moss grows on the North side of the tree, so let’s head thataway.” Another might pipe up, “I am pretty sure there’s a highway to the North of us and I think I heard cars over there, so let’s head that way.” But if we are lucky somebody will reach into her pack and pull out a compass and tell us once and for all which way is North.
That is a bit like what Lutherans mean when they say “sola scriptura.” When you come to a crossroads, when you are looking for guidance, there are many ways you might navigate. But scripture, not opinion, is the compass by which we ultimately orient ourselves. Sometimes we have misunderstood what the Reformation writers meant by “scripture alone.” They did not mean that we can’t learn from the past or from what others have thought about the faith; Luther often cited others when trying to interpret Scripture. They did not mean that citing the Bible magically removes all ambiguity from our choices; Scripture always requires interpretation. Just as a compass is useless if you do not know how to read it, so reading Scripture well is a skill which needs to be cultivated.
“Scripture alone” means that our choices and confessions are anchored in the Bible, not in what our culture or politics prefers. When we say “God desires….” we need to be able to show how our proclamation is linked to what Scripture reveals. Scripture alone is the original “back to basics” movement. The Reformation was grounded on the radical notion that people could and should study for themselves what God reveals in Scripture, rather than depending on the filtered interpretations of others.
Periodically we need to reinstall and reboot the operating system on our computers because the hard drive has accumulated mistakes, useless add-ons, and cyber-garbage. So too we regularly need to reboot our faith asking whether what we are calling the gospel of Jesus Christ does indeed reflect the witness and priorities of the Bible, or whether cultural assumptions have corrupted our reading.
The second Lutheran specialty which we take to the ecclesiastical potluck is “sola gratia,” grace alone. This is at once the easiest and the hardest concept for us to grasp. The idea is simple: we are made right with God as gift, not because we deserve it. In Christ, God has taken the initiative to bridge the gap between us and God. But we resist “grace alone” because we think it is too good to be true. There is something in us which thinks there must be a catch. Nobody gives anybody anything for free. We figure that somehow we have to do enough to deserve God’s favor. Grace is free, so somehow we think it is cheap.
We resist the idea of grace in part because we do not understand our situation. A famous painter was driving through the countryside when he stopped for lunch at a roadside diner. The food and service were not particularly good but waitress looked like she was having a rough day, so the artist pulled out his sketch pad and pastels and gave her a small painting just because he wanted to. “It’s not right for you to just give me this,” she said, “let me pay you.” So she plopped down a $5 bill and walked away, confident that she had paid for her picture, even though it was worth 1000 times that much.
God’s grace is like that. It is given to us, but we think our relatively meager efforts somehow make us square with God, somehow deserving of great blessing. In fact we can not do enough, nor need we, to merit what comes to us as pure gift. This was Luther’s liberating insight, that if we are depending on ever deserving God’s love, we are doomed—we are just too flawed. But God does not need our $5 bill; God just wants to give us something beautiful we could never pay for.
How do we receive such a wonderful gift; that is the third course which Lutherans take to the potluck—sola fide, by faith. God’s blessing does not come to use because we do enough holy, kind, or just things; it comes simply when we trust that God desires to love and accept us just as we are. That does not mean that God has no interest in lives which are transformed and filled with fruitfulness; it means that our good works are a response to God’s outpouring of love, not the reason for it.
Let me try to illustrate the difference. Why do parents feed, clothe, and house their children? Is it because they make up their beds on time, feed the pets, do their homework, or take out the garbage? I suppose there are some parents who think of their relationship to their children as a contract, where food and clothing are exchanged for services rendered. But I daresay that most parents give the basics to their children simply because they love them. Parents may hope their children will do all those chores I mentioned out of gratitude—but it is not a condition for loving them. As painful as it is to a parent when children do not respond to love, all that is required of children to receive blessing is the willingness to trust in the parent’s love.
There is no doubt that our lives are richer and our world a better place when Christians give themselves in actions which they believe are pleasing to God. But on those days when we are keenly aware of not responding to God’s love with faithfulness, it is good to remember that all that is needed to receive God’s love is to trust that is offered.
Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide—these are the best dishes which Lutherans have offered to the world. We are not the only ones who confess that scripture is central, grace essential, and faith the only condition for receiving God’s love, but these are the things on which we say the gospel hangs. These are core truths which we believe make the gospel a message of love freely given and not just one more set of rules.
My first bishop once addressed a group of pastors around Reformation Sunday. He said, “If we could be sure that the central confession that we are justified by grace through faith would never be lost the universal church—then Lutherans could and should go out of business tomorrow as a denomination.” Then he paused and added, “But that is not going to happen because churches are constantly tempted to change God’s unconditional love into a scheme where doing enough good things ensures God’s love. So, Lutherans will have a word to share for a long time.”
Today when you receive the bread and the wine at the table, imagine you are at the great potluck of the universal church. Taste the incredible generosity of god and remember it comes to you, not because you deserve it, but because you need it—not because you have been good enough, but because God is just that good.