Sun, October 26, 2014 - Reformation Sunday - Freed to Relate to God

Jeremiah 31.31-34; Romans 3.19-28; John 8.31-36

In the book of Jeremiah from our first reading, we hear Jeremiah proclaiming that God is going to put a new covenant in the hearts of people, so that they can develop a relationship with God that comes from within each person, rather than from some rules developed by someone else. Jeremiah was reacting to the pressure of the priests of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. In Israel during Jeremiah’s time, there was a tendency towards exclusivity when it came to worshipping God. Israelites were being told that the only legitimate place to worship God was in the Temple in Jerusalem. Even though there was a Temple in Samaria, and one in Elephantine in Egypt, and even though the Israelites had their own thriving religious practice in their homes, the priests of Israel insisted that the only way to worship God - the only way to have a relationship with God - was by worshipping at the Temple in Jerusalem. If you didn’t live in Jerusalem, too bad - you would have to make your way there at least once a year. That the priests demanding religious conformity of worship at the Temple in Jerusalem were working at the Temple in Jerusalem was not lost on Jeremiah, or on many of the prophets. But that didn’t stop the priests. They insisted there was only one way to worship God. Only one way to develop a relationship with God.

This attempt at what I call religious conformity is behind Paul’s writing in Romans, too. I mentioned last week that the early Christian communities were struggling with the mix of Christians who were Jewish and Christians who were Gentiles - non-Jewish. And this comes out in this letter - the Jewish Christians thought that the Gentile Christians should conform to the religious practice of Judaism - namely, circumcision - in order to be Christian. The Jewish-Christians were arguing that followers of Christ could obtain righteousness only by developing a Jewish relationship with God, Father and Son. They insisted that there was only one way to develop a relationship with God. They insisted on religious conformity - conforming to a single religious practice.

Today is Reformation Sunday, when we celebrate our Lutheran history as a denomination that protests this very thing. Our readings for today emphasize the problems that come when we try to force people to practice their religion in one uniform way. As we hear so often in the Lutheran church, early on in Luther’s life, the Roman Catholic priesthood were insisting that church services be in Latin, and that the Bible be translated only into Latin. Their insistence on this was how they controlled access to God - after all, only priests could read Latin. Regular people couldn’t read or understand it, and so they relied on the priests to tell them what the Bible said and they went to church so that the priests could perform the proper rituals - in Latin - that would guarantee forgiveness of sins and establish their relationship with God. Prior to Luther’s reformation, priests in the medieval Roman Catholic church insisted that there was only one way to develop a relationship with God.

But, thanks be to God, we celebrate on Reformation Sunday that God does not actually demand religious conformity. God does not insist on only one way of developing a relationship with God. In fact, we see God resisting these ideas. In our first reading, we hear Jeremiah proclaiming that God, in fact, is putting God’s covenant in the hearts of the Israelites, so that they no longer are bound by the rules of the priests in the Temple. God’s very own actions speak against the demand for exclusive worship at the Temple, and God resists the demand for only one way of relating to God.

And in the letter to the Romans, Paul is very clear to emphasize that the Christians in Rome are free to worship as they wish - the Gentile Christians are not bound to worship as the Jewish Christians do. Gentile Christians can have a relationship with God that is not based on Jewish requirements - their relationship is “apart from the law,” as Paul says. Their relationship with God is determined by God, and not by human interpretations of God’s words to another people.

And Luther, dear Luther, reformed the church when he proclaimed that God did not need the priesthood in order to develop relationships with Christians. Luther insisted that the Bible and the services be in local languages, so that people could interpret the Bible for themselves, and participate in worship on their own, and develop relationships with God that weren’t mediated by someone else. Luther’s insistence that individuals are free to develop relationships with God completely apart from the priesthood is at the core of our Reformation celebrations, and something that we Lutherans continue to hold dear. God resists, and we protest, any attempt to force religious conformity and any argument that says that there is only one way in which people can have a relationship with God. Go, Luther.

But. But before we launch into a rousing version of The Church’s One Foundation, it’s important to take a minute and see if we really are living out this message of religious freedom that we are so quick to claim. Because Christians, like everyone else, sometimes (often) have a gap between what we say and what we do, and when we don’t recognize that, we fall into it. Paul, for instance, despite his insistence that Christians are freed from Jewish practice to develop their own relationship with God, nevertheless was pretty clear that the only way to a relationship with God was through Christ. And Paul was insistent that everyone becomes followers of Jesus. Those who didn’t would live lives of ruin and misery. (That’s from verse 16, right before our reading starts.) But Paul is ignoring his own words that it is God who develops relationships with people - God is the one who brings people to God, in God’s own way. We are not supposed to judge another’s relationship to God, and we are definitely not supposed to judge the path they take to get there. In fact, we all know individuals who live incredible lives of good deeds and selflessness and who are deeply spiritual, but who aren’t Lutheran. Or even Christian. These people have deep relationships with God that exist outside of the church. Do we judge them? Do we insist that they must relate to God in the boundaries of the church, do we insist on religious conformity and that there is only one way to have a relationship with God?

Again, we have to look at that gap between what we proclaim - religious freedom - and what we do. The writer of the Gospel of John frequently fell into that gap when it came to the Jews. John was constantly bashing Jews, and constantly arguing that they should repent of their ways and follow Jesus. He frequently implies that Jews should worship God through Jesus - that they should convert to Christianity - ignoring that Jews actually already have their very own solid relationship with God. John insisted that the only way to a relationship with God was through Jesus, completely ignoring that Jesus himself related to God as the Jewish God - the God of Abraham and Isaac, and that Jesus himself never called his followers to abandon their Jewish faith.

Even this very Sunday - Reformation Sunday - can be a time when we fall into that gap between proclaiming freedom from religious conformity and pushing for it. All too often, Reformation Sunday, in the Lutheran church, become a day of Catholic-bashing. We can get a little too carried away proclaiming how awful those Roman Catholics were, and continue to be, with their priests and their Latin and their strict rules about baptism and communion. And we forget what we proclaim - that everyone is free to worship God in their own way - that they are free to develop their own relationship with God - even if that way is Roman Catholic. The truth is that God frees us to practice our religion in whatever way brings us closer to God, whether that way is Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or something else.

This truth of the Reformation needs to be celebrated more often than just once a year. Because we so easily forget it. We start insisting that there is only one way to worship, or only one way to have a service. We insist that only members can come to Communion, or that only Christian families can baptize their babies. We insist that Communion can only be celebrated one way, or that only pastors can preach. Even pastors forget this. We insist that only certain people can be leaders in the church, or we insist that parishioners agree with us on every theological issue. We demand religious conformity, and we establish requirements about what kinds of relationships with God are acceptable.

But that’s not how God works. Jeremiah and Paul and Luther and Jesus himself remind us that we are free. We are free to develop our own relationship with God, in the manner that is most meaningful for us. Why? Because, as Luther reminded us, God is the one at work in these relationships. God, not us, is the one developing the relationship with you. This is not the work of Paul, or John, or even Luther. Jeremiah was right - God is the one who put God’s covenant in your heart, God is the one who sent the Holy Spirit to you in baptism. God is the one who calls you to God, and God is the one who moves you to worship. Your relationship is the work of God, not of humans.

As it turns out, John was right, too - the Truth will make you free - Jesus proclaims that you are free to develop your own relationship with God, just as Jesus did, either inside or outside the institution. Paul was right - you are free to develop your own religious practices because you are made righteous through God’s work, and not your own. And Luther was right - you are free to worship God without going through the pastor, or through the congregation, or through the denomination. (Of course, the congregation of believers is a really great place to be supported in that relationship, but you don’t have to go to church to have a relationship with God.)

What we celebrate today is that God has freed you to develop your own relationship with God, however you want - either in the church or out of it, through traditional means or contemporary ones. You are free to relate to God as a Father or as a Mother, free to be Catholic or Lutheran or something else entirely. You are free to agree with your pastor or to disagree. What we celebrate today is that you are freed from the need to conform, through the work of Jesus Christ. Your relationship with God is as unique as you are, and it is called into being and nurtured by God, who calls all people to love and freedom. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sun, October 19, 2014 - When Relationships Come to an End

Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-13; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

About a year ago, the pastor of the church in California where my children and I attended retired. Pastor Sara had been with the congregation about ten years, and we had been there for the last five, and she left to move to Arizona to spend more time with her grandchildren. It was a big moment in the life of that congregation. Ten years is a long time to spend in a parish, and Pastor Sara was an integral part of that church’s identity. The congregation was glad that she was able to spend more time with her grandchildren, and she had certainly worked hard and earned her retirement, but her leaving was still a huge adjustment for everyone.

It was a huge adjustment for me, personally. Pastor Sara was my children’s first pastor. She was their first conduit to a Christian relationship with God, and she was their first church-ly embodiment of the grace of Christ. Through Pastor Sara, my children learned that church - the body of Christ - is a safe and welcoming place, and that God loves them without any judgement or conditions. I myself really liked Pastor Sara, and even though I was a pastor myself and studying a PhD in theology, I learned so much from her about grace. She was my pastor. But primarily, she was my children’s pastor, and her leaving was hard on me because of my kids. I still talk about us “losing” her. Of course, she didn’t die. We didn’t lose her. 

  But isn’t it interesting that when a pastor leaves a congregation, when there is a major transition of this kind, that we sometimes we think of it kind of like a death. After all, there is actual loss. First off, there is the loss of the relationship between the pastor and the congregation. When a pastor leaves, that relationship comes to an end. It’s no longer alive - it’s not a day-to-day thing anymore. This is a big thing to have to get used to. In California, the congregation’s formal relationship with Pastor Sara came to an end. We lost that relationship. Just like when a great-grandparent in a family dies, the relationship of that person to the family-at-large ends. It’s significant.

And on top of the rather large loss of the relationship of the pastor and the congregation, there is also the smaller losses of all the individual relationships that the pastor had with individuals in the congregation. Because of course, each member of the congregation has their own relationship with the pastor. Each of my children had their own relationship with Pastor Sara, just as she and I had our own relationship. Each member in a family has their own particular relationship with the grandparent or great-grandparent who died. And each of these relationships comes to an end when the pastor moves on. The loss of one’s individual relationship with a pastor isn’t on the scale of losing the relationship between the congregation and the pastor, but that doesn’t mean it feels any smaller. Sometimes, an individual’s relationship with their pastor is much deeper than the congregation’s, and the loss can be felt more deeply, too. So, in a way, a pastor leaving a congregation is a bit similar to an important family member passing away. A particular set of relationships comes to an end, and a process of adjusting to a new way of living begins. 

So what does this process of adjustment look like? Well, you may have heard of the five stages of grief that people go through when someone dies, and I think these are more widely applicable to the feelings that people experience during any kind of loss. From things as trivial as losing your glove in the parking lot to as major as losing someone you love. The feelings are: depression and anxiety - where we acknowledge that we will never be the same without that person, and where we wonder, and sometimes worry, about how we will carry on without them. This feeling can be particularly intense for congregations who had a very strong pastor and who feel like their identity was really dependent on that pastor. If a congregation is struggling, they might worry whether losing their pastor will cause them to decline even further. 

Then there’s the feeling of bargaining: wondering if maybe we did something that caused the person to leave and promising not to do it again. Some congregations wonder whether they weren’t supportive enough of their pastor, or if certain individuals drove the pastor away.

Then, there’s feelings of anger: sometimes when we lose someone, we feel angry. Either angry at them - how could they leave us like this? Or angry at other people - how could they have let this pastor go? Or even angry at themselves - why didn’t I do more to keep them here?

The process of adjusting to a pastor leaving can also involve feelings of denial: we’ll be fine! We’ll just get through this interim period and find a new pastor and everything will go back to the way it was! Let’s just get past all these other feelings and get on with it!

And, of course, there are also feelings of acceptance and sometimes even relief: it was the pastor’s time to go, and we’re thankful for the relationship we had with them when they were here, and now we’re going to move on to new things.

Now, these aren’t “stages” of adjusting to loss that we travel through one at a time. That’s often what’s put out there, but it’s not true. All of these feelings come and go, back and forth, at different times. Sometimes some of the feelings are stronger and last longer than others - for me, feelings of depression and anxiety were the strongest when our pastor left - how will my children ever find a new pastor who means so much to them? They’ll never find another church community like that one and they’ll leave the church forever. Sometimes some of the feelings are short and hardly felt at all - I never really had any feelings of bargaining when Pastor Sara retired. Of course, in a congregation where there are so many relationships that come to an end when a pastor leaves, there will also be many feelings, all at the same time. Some people might feel angry while others might feel acceptance while others might feel denial. My children never felt anger about their pastor leaving, or denial, although other people did. Even a single person can experience several of these feelings at the same time.

But these feelings are a normal part of adjusting to the loss of a relationship. Some of these feelings actually figure very strongly into the background of our readings from today. In both the first reading from the Hebrew Scriptures and the gospel reading from Matthew, the writers are struggling intensely with a significant lost relationship. In Isaiah, the land of Israel was invaded by Babylon, and the Israelites were forcibly removed from the land and relocated to Babylon. The first Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and with it, their primary means of relating to God. The people of Israel were struggling with that loss, and feelings of depression and bargaining were huge at that time, and profoundly shape the book of Isaiah. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Christians of Matthew’s community were struggling with the loss of their relationship with their Jewish brothers and sisters. At the place and time of the writing of Matthew, Jews were excluding non-Jewish Christians from worship. Matthew’s community felt that loss very deeply, and the feelings that the writer of Matthew felt were primarily those of anger. Accusing the Pharisees of plotting, calling them malicious, and hypocrites, that’s Matthew reacting out of feelings of deep anger. What he writes isn’t particularly Christian, but his feelings are normal reactions to loss.

So how do we, as Christians, live with all these feelings and engage - constructively - in this process of adjustment? Well, obviously that’s going to be something that - in this congregation - we will work through together over the coming months. But, as Christians, the most important thing to remember now and down the road is that God is with us in these times of loss and transition, and that God promises, as God always has, to bring new life. God is present in the midst of all the feelings being processed, God is part of this experience of transition. Amidst the feelings of depression and anxiety, God sends hope. When the Israelites felt abandoned in Babylon, God sent King Cyrus to lead them back to Israel. Amidst the feelings of bargaining and repentance, God promises forgiveness. Amidst the feelings of anger, God is present and promises peaceful resolution. When the writer of Matthew felt intense anger, God was present in those feelings and sent the Holy Spirit to bring reconciliation between Christians and Jews today. And amidst the feelings of denial, God is present in the wish to return to the way things were and then sends the Holy Spirit to reassure us that we are a Pentecost church and that change is a sign of new life. 

My children and I will always be in the process of adjusting to life without Pastor Sara. We developed new relationships with the pastor who came after her, as did the congregation, and there will be further feelings of loss and adjustments when she, too, goes. The same is true of this congregation, as well, and of every congregation whose pastor has ever left. 

The Christian life is founded on the experience of loss. As Christians, we don’t deny that death - of people or of relationships - is a reality. We accept that all things come to an end. We are a people of Good Friday. But just as importantly, the Christian life is founded on the experience of resurrection and new life. Endings are a necessary part of the process of new beginnings, and as previous relationships die, new ones develop. We are equally a people of Easter Sunday. God’s gift to us is in the bringing together of these two things - Good Friday and Easter Sunday. As we remember and celebrate in the Sunday Feast, Christ has died. Christ is risen, and Christ comes again. Thanks be to God. Amen.