Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36
Reformation Sunday
As most of you know, Pastor John & I
were out of town most of the week this week at the annual Bishop’s
Convocation. This is an annual event where all of our synod’s clergy
and rostered leaders get together for deep theological discussions and
intense educational training. I guess I also need to mention that it
is held at Lake of the Ozarks so there is also a good bit of
recreation and pastor playtime going on. Basically, it is a chance
for church leaders to get refreshed and gain some new insights. This
year, I found our topics fascinating and I’m sure you’ll be hearing
more from me about it in the weeks and months to come. One of the
things that we talked about was the power of learning and talking
about story. Good stories can make us cry, get us excited, anger or
upset us. A good story can give us chills or scare the living
daylights out of us. When you were a small child, think how important
it was for you to have your parents read a bedtime story to you or to
sit on grandpa’s lap and hear stories about your parents when they
were young. Stories come in all kinds of forms today and storytelling
is arguably one of the largest businesses in America, especially when
you consider that storytelling takes the form of movies, books, plays,
musicals, television shows, newspapers, fine art, photographs,
magazines, and even music. These are all creative ways of telling
stories and they suck us in, get us emotionally involved and often
don’t let go until we know the climax and the resolution at the end.
There is nothing quite like a good story.
So there are two stories that I
really want us to explore today. While there are many other stories
that have meaning in our life, I really want to zero in on just two
today because I think these two stories have particular importance as
we look at our lessons for today and as we think about some of the
impacts of the Reformation.
The first story I want us to think
about today is your own personal story. So I’m going to do something
very dangerous as a pastor, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes.
So everyone close your eyes for a moment. Think of your life as a
movie and rewind your lifestory to the very beginning, to those very
first memories you have as a child. Who are you with? What does your
home look like? What kinds of things do you like to do when you are a
child. How did your parents act?
As you slowly advance
the film, think about those times in your life that brought you great
joy and happiness…maybe it was a new puppy, maybe it was heading back
to school in the fall, maybe it was going off to college or dating
your current spouse. Where are those times when you were just
thrilled to be alive and tried to soak up the goodness of
life?
Now, as you slowly continue to
advance the film, where are those times in your life where you were in
pain? What has brought you sorrow in your life? Where have you felt
the brokenness of this world in real and tangible ways? When have you
cried in your life? When have you felt alone?
Now slowly open your eyes. And check
the person next to you, make sure their eyes are open too, you know,
just to make sure they haven’t fallen asleep. Alright, what you have
been thinking about is your own personal story, some of those
experiences and memories that are uniquely yours and that no one can
ever take away from you. These memories have shaped you and molded
you. They have helped make you who you are. Sometimes through joy,
sometimes through pain.
The people that Jeremiah was talking
to in our first lesson also had their own stories. They had their own
memories of pain and of joy. They had their own experiences and
memories, particularly of what it meant to be a Hebrew in the 700s and
600s BC. They knew what it was to have wars going on around them, to
lose loved ones in those battles, to go to the Temple and hear about
how to be the people of God in the world. And the people that Martin
Luther came in contact with in the 14 & 1500s also had their own
memories, each one having a story of their own – of losing loved ones
to the plagues and war, of seeing a printed book for the first time,
of hearing about the discovery of a New World, of listening to the
priests talk about being God’s people in the world. Each one of us
has what we’ll call “My Story.” It is the sum of our own individual
thoughts, memories, and experiences.
The other important story I want to
talk about this morning is God’s story. This is the story that is
revealed in Scripture. God’s story is introduced with the beautiful
creation narrative, but quickly jumps straight into the main conflict
- the fall, the entrance of sin into the world. The main conflict
plays itself out through the stories of the patriarchs – Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. God’s story continues with the formation of
the people of Israel, of Moses and the judges. It continues with
God’s presence with the kings and the prophets of Israel and Judea.
God’s story tells of the people going into captivity in Assyria and
Babylon and then being released by the Persian king, Cyrus. God’s
story builds and gets increasingly interesting with the birth of God’s
Son, Jesus Christ. As we hear of Jesus’ story, we begin to see that
this story contains a great deal of hope and promise. God’s story
comes to a frightening climax as Jesus is betrayed, arrested, tried,
sentenced, and crucified on the cross by the Roman authorities. Yet
the beautiful surprise of God’s story is that the story didn’t end
there. Jesus rose from the dead, signifying the truth of God’s
promises and solidifying the hope for all who hear the story and
believe it. Ever since since this glorious climatic event, God has
continued to resolve his story, even today.
Two stories – God’s story and My
Story. Both incredibly interesting, both fun to tell and to hear
about, yet both are completely meaningless if they are told and
understood separately. The real power and meaning comes from these
two stories only when they are connected to each other.
This is the dynamism & power of what
God is saying in Jeremiah. The people Jeremiah was talking to knew
their story and they kind of knew God’s story, but the real change
happens when God decides to overlap the stories, to make God’s story a
part of their story. “I will put my torah within them and I will
write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be
my people.” Only when God overlaps his story with their story could
they really understand the fullness of God’s love, mercy, and mission
for them. And while God has been overlapping our story with his since
the beginning, we as Christians believe that this became abundantly
clear through the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom God has been
writing his story on our hearts ever since.
Now, in the times leading up to the
Reformation, for lots of reasons, people tried to make this separation
between our story and God’s story again. As Martin Luther struggled
mightily to figure out how we, as humans, could reconnect to God, he
began studying God’s story as never before. Thankfully, as he studied
the Bible he began to realize that it is not we who do the
connecting. It is always God who overlaps and smashes into our
story. It is always God who breaks into our story, shatters the
separation between us, destroys the sin keeping us apart, showers us
with grace, and grants us faith. God enters our story because we are
powerless to overcome that separation ourselves. We can share in the
life of God only because through Jesus Christ, God has entered into
our lives. The Reformation wasn’t about reconnecting our story to
God’s story. The Reformation was about realizing that God has already
reconnected us to himself through our faith in Jesus Christ.
As we think about the power of story
in our lives, as Christians, we have some opportunities in front of
us. My hunch is that we know our own personal stories pretty well.
Each of us knows what we’ve gone through and experienced. One
incredible opportunity that we have as Christians is that we can learn
about God’s story. We all have Bibles at our fingertips and, like
Luther, we can study and learn about God more and more through
studying God’s story. And perhaps one of the most fascinating things
we can do as Christians is to explore the overlap, discover those
places in our life where God is breaking through and making himself
known. Where is God intersecting your life? In your joys? In your
sorrows? Where is God trying to break through, but you are unaware of
his presence? For when God enters our lives and our stories are
combined, it is here where we are called, gathered, enlightened, and
made holy. As you explore this overlap of God’s story and your story,
as you grow in your faith, and as you look deeper at God’s presence in
your life, I think you might discover that this little Mastercard-looking
symbol isn’t really accurate. Perhaps a better picture is the one on
the screen now because God is always with you, no matter where you are
or what you’re going through. Through God’s grace, God’s story of
peace, love and forgiveness encompasses and penetrates every part of
our story.
