Celebrating Faith: A Reformation Sunday Sermon

Reformation Sunday, 2009
Text - Romans 3:21-26

Introduction: Ancient classical manuscripts are a source of profound insights. That’s why they are called classics. Five hundred years ago, an Augustinian monk found salvation for his anguished soul from reading the passage in Paul’s Letter to the Romans that was read to us just now. But one thousand five-hundred years separated Luther from Paul. Now, two thousand years later our Bible study group is re-reading Paul’s Romans for fresh insights that were not there during Luther’s time. For, insights are not timeless truths trapped in the pages of books. Insights are fresh discoveries that have to do with today’s living. An ancient manuscript, such as the Bible, is not really the true source of insights; it is but a medium of truth. For us who consider the Bible as sacred scripture, God is the source of truth that is mediated through human means, such as human words in the scripture. It is in this sense that the Bible is called holy – the Holy Bible.

Whether new insights were historically intended by the author is of course important but not crucial or necessary. But it is incumbent upon interpreters to try to bring out to the best of their ability and with all honesty what the writer had meant, to respect it and to be true to it.

Now back to Luther and to Paul. For Luther, the core problem that Paul’s Letter to the Romans dealt with was justification, that is, a person stands before God either just or a sinner; a person either has a right relationship with God or not. So, the question is: how does a person get God’s justice? Luther thought that in order to obtain God’s justice a sinner has to appease God’s wrath with good works. This he struggled to do all of his waking moments. But each morning he would wake up with dreams of God’s fierce anger and the terrors of hell. The stone walls of the monastery could not shut out the voice of the devil taunting him, driving him crazy.

Then in the darkness of the struggle of his soul, as he read a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he heard God telling him that he had it all wrong: God’s justice is not be found in the satisfaction of divine rage; rather, it is to be found in God’s mercy and forgiveness. Suddenly, he found himself free – the burden of his soul was gone and in its place came rushing in like cool breeze from the forest, peace that has eluded him all his life. After a long night, it was morning in his soul.

Luther rose and broke out of the monastery, out of the theology of the church called scholasticism and eventually out of the church called Roman. He came out with the insight that the only thing that a person burdened with sin must to do to obtain salvation is to accept the freely offered forgiveness of a merciful God. It’s true because in that he found freedom and peace. It’s true because there he gathered courage and strength to seek controversy with the church and to defy the empire. Even the devil had no power over him for God was his mighty fortress: “the powers of darkness grim, we tremble not for them; their rage we can endure, for lo, their doom is sure: one little word shall fell them” – Luther wrote this hymn at a time when the church declared him a “wild boar” in God’s vineyard and hunted down by the empire.

Did Luther read Paul rightly? Some Roman Catholic theologians say that Luther read the Romans through a tormented neurotic lens. Meaning, Protestantism is a result of one man’s neurosis. Impartial clinical psychologists confirm a streak of neurosis in Luther’s character as may be gathered from his writings. But Luther’s mental health is of no consequence. This man wrote the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and unleashed a torrent of creativity in music and literature unequaled in power and beauty. To Luther and the 16th century Reformation, the Christian world owes an insightful meaning of “faith”.

The years rolled by, and five hundred years later, new readings of Paul’s Romans. In the light of current developments in human civilization, it seems that Luther’s reading of Paul has apparently reached a dead end. Young and progressive theologians today tend to leapfrog over Luther as though he never existed or start their thesis by first demolishing him. Now and then preachers remember him but only during Reformation Sunday. Even then, they seem to labor hard to connect Luther’s faith with modern faith.

In my higher studies I focused on the Reformation classics and tried hard to build a bridge linking the Reformers’ main insights with liberation struggles. My dissertation was published into a book. I came across couple of reviews and I thought they regarded my work as a kind of oddity. There has been no request from my publisher for a second printing. Then, I came across a refreshingly new understanding of Romans. This time I’m reading it together with others in a Bible study group with insights coming from the works of American theologian Theodore Jennings via Karl Villarmea. Ted has visited Silliman a couple of times and had a conversation with our study group.

Dr. Jennings suggests that we read the word “faith” to mean loyalty. I thought that indeed loyalty is one of the qualities of faith but it’s not at the core of faith – still based on my education on the Reformation. Then I read Romans again, and again, and I have to concede that loyalty is really faith’s core meaning – at least for me and in so far as my Christian praxis is concerned. I’m not carrying Luther’s kind of spiritual burden – his fear of hell and God’s wrath – yet as a mature person I have been viewing my faith through Luther’s eyes. Now, I find that kind of strange. Luther and I are not soul-mates, although I admire him next to Paul and Augustine.

Like Paul and Luther, I regard the question of whether I’m just or a sinner before God as primary; every other question is remotely secondary. But how do I get to be just before God? Dr. Jennings suggests that it’s by the faith of Jesus – Iesou Kristou in the Greek grammar, which is in the possessive case, of. It is by operation of Jesus’ faith that we are made just or right before God, and not only us individually but society and the whole world as well. Greek grammar aside, it’s only logical and commonsensical that since we cannot save ourselves, it has to be an external agent that can save, and this external agent is Jesus’ faith, which is the gospel. As Paul said, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, and the gospel is not our faith but the faith of Jesus Christ.

Now, how are we able to benefit from Jesus’ faith that makes us just or right before God? It is by our loyalty to that faith. By being loyal to the faith of Christ, we are made just; by humanity’s loyalty to Christ’s faith society and the whole world is going to be made just. God’s ultimate purpose is that the whole creation is enveloped, bathed, saturated in God’s justice and holiness.

Have we been true to our vows to believe, or rather be loyal to Christ? I’ve made these vows three times in my life: during my baptism through my parents, during my confirmation and when I got ordained as a minister of the church. Following Christ is a matter of loyalty to him. Loyalty to the faith of Christ as the real test of faith is a very refreshing, meaningful and challenging truth for those who seek to live justly and to make this world just. And who doesn’t? Not for fear of hell but for love of God, for love of others, for love of country.

Conclusion: Augustine said, “Love God and do whatever pleases you.” We may also say, “Be loyal to Jesus and be yourself.” This is the freedom that gave Paul the boldness to speak new things about Christ. This is the freedom that gave Luther the audacity to speak against the errors of Rome. This freedom is above all laws – the laws of society, the obligations of religions, or creeds of churches.

And this is what loyalty demands: it demands obedience to Jesus; it requires leading a life worthy of our calling as Jesus’ disciples; it challenges us to resist the powers of evil and the lure of the devil as Jesus did; it invites us to pursue justice for as long as it takes until the Lord returns to vindicate us. And when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, may he find us … loyal! Amen.