Sermon Title: "What If Martin Hadn't?"
Date: October 31, 2010
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Psalm 46

There are moments in life when you just have to speak up.  There are moments when so much is at stake, something so egregiously wrong is taking place, that the option of keeping your mouth closed and your opinion to yourself just won’t do.  In these specific moments, you know someone is going to be upset, but you just have to say something!

If you can relate, then you know exactly how a little-known Catholic pastor and college professor in the modest town of Wittenberg, Germany felt after tacking his 95 Theses to the main doors of the local Catholic church.

The man was Martin Luther (1483-1546).  The day was October 31, 1517, All Hallow’s Eve, the precursor to what we celebrate today as Halloween.  Luther knew that on this day the villagers, students and fellow college faculty would file through those church doors for a special mass and that, while entering, some would stop to read his pastoral thoughts on problems in the Catholic church at large.

It was not unusual to post things in this manner.  While we wouldn’t think of putting a nail in our solid mahogany sanctuary doors today, back then church doors were commonly used as a community bulletin board of sorts.  Today, Luther might have pinned his theses on the Concert Hall kiosk, printed them in the Carillon, posted them on Facebook, written a blog, or Tweeted.

Today is the 493rd anniversary of Luther posting his 95 Theses on the doors of Wittenberg’s Castle Church, an event that sparked that we know as the Protestant Reformation.  Luther wasn’t the only figure of the Reformation of course; Ulrich Swingli and John Calvin were among others.  However, Martin Luther is the man and name most commonly associated with the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.  But Luther certainly couldn’t have imagined his actions would spark a revolution that’s still ringing loud and strong nearly 500 years later.

Something that may be difficult for us to understand is that the Christian church in Luther’s day was a much different organization than today.  While we live in a world where there is a size of church and style of worship as varied as Baskin-Robbins’ 31 flavors, especially here in Southern California, 500 years ago Catholicism was the only game in town.  Plus, church and state were so closely mixed that the church at the time had significant political power in almost every town.  Lastly, rather than a common understanding that God’s Word was to be upheld as the highest authority, in Luther’ day, the pope was often given the last word.

If you were to read Luther’s 95 Theses, you could tell that he had become increasingly concerned that amidst the church’s massive influence, something of massive importance had gotten lost, or at least obscured.  It was the Gospel.

In Luther’s day, pastors did little preaching, and there was almost no Bible study among the people.  In the 16th century, most pastors were ill-trained or not trained at all.  Knowledge of the Scriptures was considered something for university professors, so parish pastors were seen as largely perfunctory, best used for walking the public through mass and hearing personal confession.  Likewise, literacy was rather uncommon among everyday churchgoers, and even if one could read and write in German, the available Bibles were only in Latin.

It’s no wonder the message of God’s work on behalf of the world through Jesus Christ had become more frighteningly hidden than children will be underneath their Halloween costumes tonight.  With the Scriptures largely unpreached and the people mostly unaware, the focus shifted off of Jesus and onto us.  That is, rather than a message of grace that glorified God’s Son, it became a message of works that put the burden of salvation on God’s people.

Church officials sold indulgences, claiming they set sinful souls free from purgatory and into the arms of Christ, and used the money to build fancy structures.  The sermon was a mix of metaphysical mathematics and personal morality:  Grace plus good works is what gets you in the door.  Yes, Christ died on the cross, but in order to be assured of salvation, people also had to do their best.  The whole matter of salvation by faith versus works, begun by Paul in the first century, became the thorn that festered into the Reformation.

The true gospel is this:  We’re too broken and messed up to stand in God’s presence, but he makes us worthy to walk in his love.  We’re weak and unable to do what’s right, but God, with goodness, provides us with power.  We don’t deserve such gifts, yet God showers us in grace.  Most of all, none of it can be earned.  Hard as it is to comprehend, Christ has claimed it for us through his death on the cross.  God does all the work.  We reap all the reward, and Jesus gets every ounce of the glory.  Salvation is ours to receive, but it isn’t ours to earn.  Sola fide.  By faith alone.  Our right standing with God as members of God’s family is given to us as a gift; we are passive receivers, not active earners.

Studying these words and reflecting on this point in history should give us pause.  Are we the kind of church in which people feel safe to share their opinions?  I think those of you who have participated in Rev. Susie’s Bible or book studies or current study of Islam would find this to be true.  Are we a safe place for members and guests to raise their hands and ask “why” we teach certain things, why we worship in a certain way or what we believe about a particular topic or issue?  That’s always a question I ask our prospective new members when I meet with them.  ‘Is there anything we do you’d like to ask about?’  How would we, as a church community, respond if someone pointed out flaws in our ministry or our preaching, a truth we’ve neglected or a people group we’ve forgotten?  Would we welcome constructive criticism with dialogue?  Would we shut it down out of a closed mind?

For Luther, such questions were essential for ensuring that the Church universal — and we, as the church local — are walking in the freeing light of grace, not under the evil burden of believing that God’s love is contingent on our works.  And while some people argued that such a Jesus-centered, grace-alone view of salvation would lead to lazy and licentious followers of Christ, Luther rightly proclaimed the opposite.  In fact, he would later teach that such an understanding was key to the works that give the greatest glory to Jesus!

I’ve often wonder what would have happened if Martin Luther hadn’t posted those 95 Theses on the church door on Halloween Eve?  Would I be a Catholic priest, not married, no daughters?  Would we be in competition with St. Bart’s across the street?  Or would Bay Shore Church and Belmont Heights Methodist and Gloria Dei Lutheran be non-existent, for if one man had not stood up against the Catholic church, the diverse group called Protestants might very well not exist today.

What happened to Luther?  After posting his list on the door of his local church, Luther would later be forced to appear at hearings and give numerous accounts of all he believed.  The pressure weighed on Luther who — at the Diet of Worms in 1521 — was told to recant his teachings or face the prospect of death.  This was his response:  “Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience.  Here I stand.  I can do no other.  God help me.  Amen.”

Luther’s refusal resulted in his excommunication.  He was forced to live in hiding, under the condemnation of popes and emperors, as well as the constant threat of execution at the stake.

But a funny thing happens when even one person is willing to stand up and speak the truth as he or she sees it.  Even if the people to whom you’re speaking don’t agree, the rest of the world standing near you still hears it.  Others saw the message Luther had rediscovered in the Scriptures and the abuses he noted in the church.  Suddenly, what began as a lengthy note from one pastor to a powerful pope became a massive movement championing the message of grace.

Excommunicated from the Catholic church and its priesthood, Luther was free to marry.  He had long condemned celibacy on Biblical grounds, and in 1525 he married a former nun, Katharina von Bora.  Less than a year before, he had written to a friend:  “I shall never take a wife, as I feel at present.  Not that I am insensible to my flesh or sex (for I am neither wood nor stone); but my mind is averse to wedlock because I daily expect the death of a heretic.”  The Luthers had six children.  Living a peasant’s life in a former monastery, Katharina helped earn the couple a living by farming the land and taking in boarders.

Though in hiding for most of his remaining years, Luther kept on writing.  He saw to it that the truth of Christ made its way into the hands and hearts of everyday people.  He went on to translate the entire Bible into German and coordinated a German-language mass, both firsts.  His greatest joy was the completion of a catechism — an overview of Christian doctrine and life — that was intended to help fathers teach the basics of following Jesus to their children.  That same catechism, Luther and others would eventually take from house to house in an effort to personally pastor the people.  He modeled in the 16th century what the Protestant church by the 20th century would evolve into Sunday School, confirmation, Bible studies and the church as we know it today.

What if Martin hadn’t posted those theses?  I wonder where we would be sitting today?

Some sermon content adapted from resources for Reformation Sunday, and specifically Martin Luther, found in Homiletics, September-October 2010, pp. 69-72.  Background information on Luther and the 95 Theses (actually called the “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”) is available on Wikipedia.