"Chancel activists, martyrs, and other saints and sinners" Reformation Sunday 2022
Sermon for
Reformation Sunday
30 October
2022
University
Lutheran Church, Harvard Square
The Rev.
Carrie Ballenger
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON THE UNILU WEBSITE
It was late one evening in 1964 when five young bandits brazenly breached the walls of the Lutheran fortress in Harvard Square and did the unimaginable: they moved things around inside the church.
The deep red brocade banner behind the altar: gone. Altar
rails: removed. Choir stalls: also moved. By cover of night this band of
outlaws (later to be known as the “chancel activists”) boldly disrupted a worship
space sacred to the Lutherans of Harvard Square for 13 whole years!
Not only did these heretics move things around, they
also took pictures of their crimes! And then, stranger still, they put it all
back together the way it was before and snuck away before the dawn.
This isn’t the plot of a Dan Brown novel, of course, but
rather a piece of this congregation’s history. It’s a story I have heard
straight from the mouth of one of the chancel bandits. (Hello to Wayne Welke, if you are with us on
Zoom today!)
I’m certain I got many details wrong in my retelling
of this story, but as we are gather this day to commemorate the great
protestant Reformation of the church, I think it is good and right to remember
that reformation was not a one-time event. It neither began nor ended with the
nailing of 95 complaints to the door of a church in Wittenberg in 1517. By the grace
of God, the institution we call the church has been changing, evolving, and
reforming ever since another small group of bandits met in the upper room on
the evening after Jesus was raised and asked themselves: “Well, now what?”
Well, now what, dear people?
Ecclesia semper reformanda est.
The church is always to be reformed. The church is always reforming! Or as our
denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has said: We are
always being made new.
I must say that for me, rather than being a day of
Lutheran pride, Reformation Day has become a reminder that living things
change. Living things grow. Living things also die! But they never remain the
same.
Did you know that human beings shed approximately
200,000,000 skin cells an hour? That means
none of you will be the same when you leave this worship service, even if you do
sleep through this entire sermon, thanks be to God.
One reform often honored on this day is the fact that our
brother Luther translated the Bible from Latin into German. But why? We could
assume it was because he was held in captivity in Wartburg Castle for many
months and needed something to do. However, having just lived through a pandemic
during which I neither wrote nor translated a book, I doubt boredom or free
time were Luther’s sole motivations.
Rather, we know that Luther translated the Bible into
his mother tongue, German, so that his neighbors could read Jesus’ parables for
themselves, so that not only the priests but also the shopkeepers and fishmongers
and artists and women could encounter the one God whose expansive love is
revealed through the cross and the empty tomb—a God who is both human and
divine, both crucified and risen, a Living God whose Spirit moves through the
church today just as powerfully as she did 500 years ago, thanks be to God.
Luther, with all his many faults, gave us a gift when
he made holy words available to the holy masses. If there is such a thing as
Lutheran pride, for this I am proud. Thanks be to God.
But Reformation was not a one-man show. Reformation also
was not and is not a one-time event. Reformation was and is a movement. More to
the point, Reformation is a manifestation of God on the move.
Today, right now, God is on the move, in our world, in
our church, in our hearts.
One of the ways I would often describe my work as a
missionary to visiting church groups in Jerusalem was this: My job was not to
bring Jesus to Jerusalem but rather to ask the question “What is God already doing
in this place, and how can I get involved?”
What is God already doing, and how can I get involved?
Where and how is God moving in this place?
Friends, how might we answer this question in Harvard
Square? What is God doing here, and how can we get involved?
Over the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to
meet with Andrew Sidford, the architect who has been helping UniLu consider and
study and plan for a necessary building renovation. I notice that Andrew often
talks about our building as a small city.
Like a city, UniLu has neighborhoods. There is the
shelter on the lower level, which today we will be blessing in preparation for
its opening on November 1st. There is this main level, which is
worship and office space, and in recent times, the Floor Lords dance studio and
the DuBois orchestra and the Oriana Consort choir.
There is also the upper level, which was at one time Sunday
School, and sometimes music offices, and most recently a home for Ana and her
family when they needed sanctuary from deportation.
And let us not forget there is also the exterior of
our building, which has been a refuge for several people experiencing
homelessness, and because of our rainbow chairs is often a popular place to
enjoy a piece of pizza between classes.
Andrews words remind us that UniLu is alive. It may
look like a mighty immovable fortress in the middle of Harvard Square, but it is
also alive. It is a refuge. It is home. It is a center of activity. It is beautiful
and it is flawed. It is always changing. In other words, it is a city.
And the psalmist says:
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be shaken;
God shall help it at the break of day.
The nations rage, and the kingdoms shake;
God speaks, and the earth melts away.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Hear that again, dear people:
God is in the midst of the city
God is in the streets
God is in the shelter
God is in your office
God is in your kitchen
God is on your commute
God is in our midst
There is no place you can be where God is not.
Thanks be to God for that.
And, yes, God is a mighty fortress.
A bulwark never failing, whatever that means.
Friends, do you know why we wear red and decorate our
worship space in red on this day? It’s actually in honor of the reformers who
died, who were in fact martyred for saying radical things like “people should
be able to read the bible for themselves” and “for we are justified by grace
through faith apart from works”
The red in our worship space today is in honor of the
blood of these martyrs.
On this day it is good to remember what they died for.
They risked everything, not for liturgy, for hymns or for culture, but for
truth. These martyrs gave their lives for the sake of the Gospel truth which sets
us free.
Hear again that Good News:
God, who came among us as a child
Who moves among us as wind and fire
This God is alive.
And therefore we shall not be afraid.
Therefore we shall take the next step
Therefore we shall not lose heart
Therefore we shall pray
And sing
And hope
And vote!
As
you go out into the city and into the world today, I pray you will be
strengthened and encouraged through the Living Word, through this living
community of
faith, and through the bread and the wine. I pray you will go out knowing that
the love of God in Christ Jesus embraces you always.
And to that end I will send you out with an image
from another famous hymn, called St. Patrick’s Breastplate. You are invited to
repeat the words after me:
“Christ
be with me, Christ within me,
Christ
behind me, Christ before me,
Christ
beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ
to comfort and restore me.
Christ
beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ
in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ
in hearts of all that love me,
Christ
in mouth of friend and stranger.” Amen,
let it be so.
Comments
Post a Comment