Don't Listen to the Crafty, Stingy Virgins

 Matthew 25:1-13  November 8, 2026

 

Wise and Foolish Virgins
Ain Veris

Be Prepared!

That’s what I’ve always heard this

parable was about. Being prepared.

Make sure you have enough oil in your lamp.

Don’t be caught with your lamp unlit.

Be like those Wise Young Women.

 

This parable is only in Matthew.

And it’s a nice, easy to visualize, memorable image.

Ten women waiting for a groom at a wedding.

Five wise and five foolish, the foolish forget to stock

up on oil, and the wise tell them to go and get their own.

The foolish ones do, and while they’re gone,

they miss the bridegroom and miss out on the whole wedding.

And the moral of the story is always Be Prepared!

Right? I have preached about that.  The first time I did was 2002

I talked about my own wedding which happened only a month earlier.

 

To quote my 33 year old self:

Jesus was not talking about a preparedness that we can see,

Jesus was talking about a preparedness that we cannot see,

Jesus was talking about an inner preparedness

one in our hearts and our minds.

Ahh, Senior seminarians.

 

I am annoyed with myself as first year and second year seminarian,

but senior seminarian me I just feel sorry for because they’re

still so idealistic, but they’re about to get thrown into the cold

water of reality very soon.

 

Anyway, senior seminarian me was apparently doing some

guest preaching somewhere and told everyone to be prepared.

Which is what most people get out of this parable.

 

I mean it’s okay, but it has always just left me kind of limp.

Is that what Jesus was telling his disciples?

This understanding always stressed me out.

And it seemed to permit and encourage the easy- to-fall

back on element of Christianity.

The part that doesn’t really need to be encouraged.

The kind of spiritual self-help Christianity, that’s focused

on me and on my spiritual well-being worship festivals

and burnt offerings, and solemn assemblies,

which has its place, but it just never hit me that Jesus 

was talking about that at this moment in Matthew.

 

What if Jesus isn’t telling us to be prepared at all in this parable?

What if Jesus isn’t telling us to stock up on oil,

or food, or prayers, or spiritual resilience or

whatever that metaphor is.

What if he was not telling us to be like those Wise Young Women

What if those Wise Young Women

were not the heroes of his story at all?

 

If you notice, “be prepared” is not even what Jesus

tells us at the end of the parable.

Jesus doesn’t say, “be like the wise young women”

and he doesn’t say be prepared with that oil.

He tells us “Keep Awake”.

And in the story, “ALL of the young women got drowsy and slept.”

So all of them were not doing what they needed to do.

The “Wise” young women are not the good examples in here.

I don’t think there are any good examples here.

 

It’s important when reading a parable to understand

the context that it’s being told in.

Here, Jesus is talking to his disciples,

He’s not talking to the religious leaders this time.

  

The lesson that he’s telling them actually starts out in chapter 24

He tells them that there will be wars and rumors of wars.

That all sorts of distressing stuff would happen.

He says that people will come claiming to be the false

Messiah, and he says, “Beware that no one leads you astray.”

 

Then in 25,

He and the 12 have left the temple and Jesus tells them that

there would be a time when the temple wouldn’t be there.

And then they’ve asked him to tell them about that time,

“how would they know?” Of course, he doesn’t answer that.

He tells them this story about a wedding.

 

As I told you before, weddings were different than now.

People didn’t send out invites 6 weeks earlier,

there wasn’t a definite time for a wedding.

In Jesus time, weddings were kind of surprises.

The exact time was not known in advance.

The community kind of knew something was brewing

that a couple is engaged and about to be married 

and they needed to be ready and the weddings happened after sundown.

 

The young women, or the bridesmaid’s job was to 

light the way for the bride and the groom to go to the wedding party.

There’s lots of other fascinating things about weddings,

but that’s all we really need to know for this parable.

 

So the young women are doing their job, waiting for the bride and groom,

But in this story the bridegroom is late.

None of this would have mattered if they bridegroom wasn’t late.

But he was, and instead of staying up, the young women fell asleep.

All of them. Not just the ones called foolish, the wise ones too.

  

And important part of this parable is how the words are translated.

The translations we have are really excellent and are based

on the original manuscripts in the original Greek,

but translation is not an exact science.

There’s a lot of input that a translation team can have.

 

I can always rely on the fact that someone who knows 

more than me has looked into the little quirky words in the bible,

and sure enough someone has with this one.

The word that is translated as “young women” is actually “virgins”, 

which is interesting for a variety of reasons.

and I don’t know why the translators made the choice 

to call them “young women” but I’m not sure what to make of that.

Maybe it’s closer to the spirit of the story.

Which is more about their youth than about their sexual status.

Or maybe the translation team didn’t want to give their mothers the vapors. 

I’m not quite sure what to make of it. So moving on.

 

But what I kind of do know what to make something out of,

 is that the words that are translated a little more gently in the story

as “wise” and “foolish” are a little harsher in the Greek.

What is translated as “Wise” is better translated as “crafty”.

It’s the same word that’s used when Jesus says in Luke

“be as crafty as serpents”.  So more than wise, they’re cunning.

Or maybe even “devious”.

 

And the word that’s translated as “foolish” is probably

better translated as stupid. It’s actually pronounced morai 

which is where we get the word moron from.

So more than foolish, it’s actually dull or slow-witted.

 

Now obviously, the disciples wouldn’t need that subtlety

of language translated for them.

They would have just known from the words

that Jesus was calling the virgins with the oil crafty,

and that maybe they were up to no good actually.

And the virgins who ran out were stupid.

  

So back to the parable, everyone has fallen asleep

and when the tardy bridegroom comes,

the stupid virgins realize they don’t have enough oil

and their lamps have gone out.

And they ask the crafty virgins if they could have some oil.

 

One thing that always bothered me about this parable 

in the traditional understanding of it, is about those Wise virgins –

the ones that the parable was supposedly telling us to

be like and emulate – Why don’t they something as simple as share?

They say they won’t have enough, but really?

 

Jesus talks about sharing in lots of other places.

In the wide scope of the story of Jesus, he is all about sharing.

So if these wise virgins were actually the heroes of our story,

why wouldn’t they share a little of what they had?

That would be a swell story.

 

I think the answer to this conundrum is actually that the

crafty, now stingy virgins are not the heroes of the story.

The crafty virgins take advantage of this opportunity

of the sleep-dazed, dopey virgins.

When the stupid virgins ask for some oil, the crafty virgins tell the foolish ones, 

“no, there won’t be enough,

Why don’t you go to the gas station up the road

and get you some more?”

 

And here’s where, I think, the real problem comes in,

and why the stupid virgins are stupid.

The stupid virgins believe the crafty, stingy virgins and they leave.

They are led astray by these false prophets.

They go off on a hunt for whatever they feel they need

to stock up on they went off to get more prepared,

and they miss the whole party.

 

 Where the foolish virgins went wrong in this story is that

they believed the crafty virgins.

They trusted the myth of scarcity of the kingdom of God.

They believed that there wouldn’t be enough oil.

They believed there wouldn’t be enough light and that the bridegroom was  

not going to be happy if they weren’t prepared because – what? 

there wouldn’t be enough light?

Here’s the thing about light, just because I’m holding the light

it doesn’t mean that other people can’t use the light I’m holding.

If five of those virgins had lamps that were lit --even if just one were lit – 

that would have been enough for that whole bridal party.

 

The reality is that those crafty virgins wanted the bridegroom

and the party all to themselves, so they sent the

stupid virgins on a wild goose chase down

to the Circle K for some more oil.

In this parable, the stingy, crafty virgins 

that seem to have all their stuff together are really just the false prophets

trying to lead us all astray.

 

Those five stupid virgins without enough oil, didn’t actually need to be worried about it. 

They didn’t need to go the store.

Their worry actually led them astray and they missed the main goal 

which was to see the bridegroom into the party.

 

So what I think Jesus was saying to his disciples 

is actually what he says, “keep awake” and don’t believe in those crafty religious people ,

don’t believe in the ones who want to lead you on a different path.

Don’t believe in the ones who tell you need more to qualify.

He’s warning them about all those false prophets that

would eventually come and to lead Christianity astray

for the next couple thousands of years.

Those who would try to manipulate Jesus way into

a method for their own wealth and power.

 

Jesus is telling them and telling us:

Don’t believe those who tell you that the kingdom of God

is only for the select few, that the blessings of God

are only for those who  worship Jesus in a certain way.

Who tell you that God only wants a certain narrow definition

of good and holy in God’s kingdom.

 

Don’t believe the voices that say that the poor

are wholly to blame for their situations.

That they’re cursed and not blessed.

Or rich people are better or more favored.

 

Don’t believe the loud voices telling us that

Jesus was for destroying our enemies instead of praying for them.

Don’t believe the voices saying that empathy is sinful

and cruelty is what God wants from us.

Don’t believe the voices that say that women are second class citizens 

and that their only worthy job is to support someone else.

Don’t believe in the voices of racism and white supremacy.

Don’t believe the voices that say that the Kingdom of God

is not a vision of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

 

Don’t believe the voices that says that God hates

gay and lesbian people or transgender people,

or that God hates Muslims or Jews or Hindus or any other

multitude of religions that make up this beautiful country

and this awesome and wonderful world.

 

Don’t let those false Messiahs

distract you from what you know Jesus has taught us.

Don’t let them distract you from Jesus way.

Don’t let them distract you with their lies of scarcity

that say that there is not enough God to go around.

  

These voices have been so loud and so persistent,

and so many people have listened to these voices

and left their faith because it’s not aligning with

who they know God and Jesus to be.

 

They’re thinking, “I’ll never have enough oil.

I’ll never have enough holiness or faith or dedication to God.

I’ll never be what those voices tell me I need to be.”

So they’ve just moved on from church and faith

to find their fill elsewhere.

Jesus is saying, “Don’t believe in those 

crafty, stingy virgins who tell you need more. 

They are just trying to lead you astray.”

 

When the disciples ask Jesus “how do read the signs?

how do we tell when you’re returning to us”

Jesus answer is, “don’t sweat it.” Stop worrying about it.

Just keep awake. Keep doing your work.

Don’t get distracted by those voices and false messiahs.

There will be many of them who will come and go.

Just remember that you are invited to the party

no matter if you’re prepared or not.”

 

Just stay awake and wait for God.

Keep alert to all the good things God is doing in our world.

Wait for the party.

And don’t worry about the lamps if you run out of oil,

there’s enough light to go around for everyone.

 

 

Saints Among Us

Matthew 5: 1-12  

November 1, 2026 

All Saints
John Singer Seargent

All Saints Day

 

My home congregation is in New York in Manhattan,

and the neighborhood that it’s in on the upper-upper

West Side was going through a kind of re-building in the 1950’s,

like a lot of neighborhoods in New York did.

They were taking down old single family houses,

like brownstones and small apartments houses,

and tenement houses and putting up new high rises

and massive housing projects.

 

For at least 6 blocks around the church, everything was torn down

We had pictures of the neighborhood, everything that you could see

was torn down to the ground. It looked like a bomb had it..

Except for one structure, Trinity Lutheran Church,

stuck up in the middle of all the rubble.

The church was going to be torn down, the city developers and the

American Lutheran Church, and I believe even the church council 

agreed that it would be the best decision. 

The church building was over 50 years old and was having problems since day one. 

So the bulldozers came to knock it down, and the ladies of the church, 

the Lutheran Church Women of the congregation 

sat on the steps of the church and refused to let the bulldozers do it.

I was told this story a little while after 

becoming a member at the church. 

I was told that Lydia Schneider, Anna Klein, and Katherine Krider 

were three of those women that sat on those steps.

I was told details about them: they were strong and stubborn,

that they were dedicated to the church. 

Two were widows. One of them baked the best sweet rolls. 

There was a picture of them in the office area. 

It was like a portrait of them and a few other women from like the 1930’s. 

They were sitting stoically, intimidating, no smiles.

I was told that their bravery and hard-headedness was,

for better or worse (depending on who you talked to)

what kept the church standing.

So I asked the person who was telling me this story for the first time, 

(Sharon, who would become a big influence on my faith),

“Did you know these women?” 

I didn’t think she was a part of the church until the 1970’s. 

She said, “Oh, no. They were all long gone by the 1960’s. 

She looked around. I don’t think anyone that’s here right now ever met them.” 

She said, “Now we never met them, but that doesn't mean we don't know them.”

 

In my years at Trinity, I would get to know these women too.

And I would tell this story to other people who came to our church.

These ladies - and many other people - were the legacy that we lived under and with. 

Their strong will and stubbornness were part of the spirit of that church, 

they were still active parts of the congregation.

I never met those women, never looked at them or shook their hands

or tasted their sweet rolls,

But I knew those women as part of my church.

 

This is one of my favorite parts about belonging to a church.

There is a connection with people, even beyond death.

Even though members from years ago are no longer with us,

they are still part of our community, part of our lives,

part of our conversations, part of our present.

 

Today is All Saints Sunday.

Originally, All Saints Day was a time to remember saints:

specific people who had attained some sort of religious holiness

and prestige and were therefore named “saints” by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

Martin Luther rejected the idea that certain people

were some how different or contained special powers

that they should be honored for. 

Luther believed that all of us were made Saints

just by hearing the word of God.

  

Luther wrote:

“At whatever time God’s Word is taught, preached, 

heard, read, or pondered, there the person, the day, and the work is hallowed,

not on account of the external work

but on account of the Word that makes us all saints.”

 

Think of the countless number of people who have heard,

read or pondered the Word of God here at Christ Lutheran

All the people who have been inspired to do works

of justice and mercy, all those who have cared for one another.

All the people who have been welcomed into sainthood.

 

It’s a crowed place here in God’s Kingdom!

Some of them we have met, some we remember by name.

But all of them have made up the fabric of this community

therefore we know them they are a part of us.

 

This year, since the last All Saints day, we lost

two important people to our community:

Ingrid Low and Doris Stickel.

We feel their absence.

We miss their physical presence, their voices,

their personalities, and the things

that made them who they were.

 

And yet, their lives haven’t simply come to an end as far as

this congregation is concerned.

Their faith, their love, and their dedication

continue to flow through this church.

 

As someone said, “their fingerprints are all over this community.”

And the fingerprints of so many countless others who came before them too. 

Their influence continues in the people they touched,

the kindness they offered, the faith they shared,

and the example they left behind.

 

And our Christian faith promises us

something even greater than the

ongoing presence of those who have died.

It promises that God's love joins us beyond death too.

 

When we are baptized,

we are joined to Christ and welcomed

into a family that extends far beyond

the people sitting beside us in church.

We join all the saints who have been baptized at Christ Lutheran

we also join the countless people who have been baptized in 

fonts, pools, and rivers, and oceans around the entire world.

And also the millions of saints that have been baptized

in the name of the triune God throughout history.

 

And we join with all the saints of this century,

and through the previous centuries,

back through Renaissance,

through the middle ages,

and back to the birth of the Christian Church

and to Paul and the original 12 apostles

and to Jesus himself in the Jordan.

 

And as a part of the Church throughout the ages,

we’re more than just friends, we are even more than just family.

We are linked together by a stronger bond than blood or affection.

We are joined together by God and God’s love.

A never ending bond.

And we are on a journey together.

 

We are joined together with all the poor in spirit,

with all who have mourned, with the meek,

those who have hungered for righteousness.

We are joined with the merciful, the pure in heart,

the peacemakers and the persecuted.

 

That is what All Saints day is about.

As Christians, we believe in eternal life,

we believe that God’s family doesn’t end at death.

And that we belong to a large community

that doesn’t just include those people who are with us now,

but those people who are no longer with us.

 

The people that we named are still with us today.

Along with the people who started this church

on October 28^st, 1973, and all those who have

been part of this congregation over the years,

including Ingrid and Doris.

All of them are still with us today as well.

 

The church is bigger than the people we can see.

It is bigger than the people sitting in these pews today.

It is bigger than the people whose names

we remember and the lives we celebrate.

It includes those who have gone before us,

those who worship alongside us now,

and those who will come after us.

And all of us are held together by the love of God.

 

In the end, we celebrate All Saints Sunday,

not because we believe that the dead

are somehow more powerful

or more holy than the living.

We celebrate All Saints Day because we know

that God's love is more powerful than death.

Celebrating Reformation

 John 8: 31-36

10-25-2026

Reformation Sunday

 

So it’s near the end of the month, so let’s take an inventory.

Have you sinned this month?

Have you sinned in thought, word, or deed?

Did you take something that wasn’t yours?

Did you covet something that wasn’t yours?

Did you yell at someone? Brush them off?

Did you say many bad words when someone cut you off in traffic?

Did you wish someone harm? Did you gossip? Did you judge someone?

Did you avoid someone who needed your help?

I think everyone in here has sinned, probably more than once.

 

So in the Christian church through the 16^th century,

which most everyone in the western world was a part of,

for every sin that you committed, you had to go through a process:

 

First Contrition: You had to consider your sin and feel true sorrow 

for offending God and fear the consequence of hell or purgatory.

Second give a private Confession: The sinner had to go to an ordained

priest in a confessional and name their sins. The priest then exercised

the power to grant absolution, forgiving the guilt of the sin.

Or not, depending on how they felt that day.

Third, you had to do your Assignment of Penance:

The priest assigned a "satisfaction" or penance—

such as multiple prayers, fasting, or good works—

to pay off the spiritual debt left by the sin.

If you completed all that, you were absolved. Mostly. There were catches.

And all that was for one sin.

I mean you could bunch them up and confess a few at the same time,

but still for each and every sin you had done, you were supposed to follow this process. 

And what if the priest was not there when you went?

Or what if he wasn’t in a good mood that day?

What if you forgot a sin? What if you missed one?

And what if you didn’t have time to do assignment of penance?

The sins just kept piling up.

 

If you didn’t keep up, then you’d have to work this all out in purgatory—

that place between death and heaven where you’re purified of all the sins

you forgot to confess or didn’t confess, and also some of the ones you did confess 

but were too major to be absolved by confession and penance.

Like intentionally missing church on Sunday without a good excuse.

 

Imagine the time and the psychological energy involved in all this.

Every sin counted, every thought word and deed was

getting you closer to hell or closer to centuries of purgatory.

And every bit of God’s forgiveness was brokered and dictated

through the church and church leaders.

Ignoring all this was not an option at this time, the Church had a hold on every facet of life then. 

People were very concerned every day about the state of their souls 

and what would happen after death.

I’m sure some people mentally checked out, or gave up being loved by God.

But it was still a big part of everyone’s life.

And the most faithful one were the most plagued.

 

These threats were drilled into people inside the church and outside.

That had been the religious situation for hundreds of years.

 

Until some relief was found – in the form of indulgences.

So, the truth is, the very wealthy

could always absolve their sins by and going on a crusade,

or making a pilgrimage to Rome,

or building a church or palace for a bishop.

But what if you couldn’t do those things?

 

The church offered a bit of grace to the people with indulgences.

People could pay a small amount and get their sins –

or the sins of their relatives, dead or alive – forgiven

and get a little more time taken off their time in purgatory.

The logic –slim as it were— was that monks and nuns 

who lived in monasteries and had plenty of time to pray and do penance,

had accrued extra absolution from their sins. 

They were like penance factories. 

And they could share that penance with others.

For a price of course.

  

This must have felt like quite a relief to those who were

concerned about their souls and their time in purgatory.

And we know it was, because people jumped at the chance to

take advantage of it, and the church made a lot of money.

 

Selling indulgences for forgiveness had actually been a thing

for hundreds of years, but it wasn’t promoted much.

Over the years, there were a lot of scammers

who sold their own sell indulgences to people.

One of Chaucer’s Canterbury tales written in the 1300’s

was from “the Pardoner” who was portrayed as a huckster, 

selling indulgences just get “silver, wine, and cheese”, not save souls.

 

And then local priests and local bishops realized that they could make

a pretty penny off of selling forgiveness to the wealthy.

But the Pope decided that he wanted the church

to reap some of the benefits of this practice too.

And in the 1500’s with a big construction project looming in Rome,

they decided to really push these true, pure papal indulgences.

 

And Johann Tetzel – part monk, part flea market sales person –

was promoted to the position of “commissioner of indulgences”

for the diocese that included Wittenberg University, (not in Ohio.)

And he spent a lot of time selling indulgences to the people.

Tetzel’s little slogan he gave at the end of his sales pitch was:

“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Which I happily found out this week, rhymes in German too.

 

Father Tetzel was real good at selling these, and the money

poured in for him, and for the church, and for the reconstruction 

of St. Peters basilica in Rome, and for paying off the enormous debt the

local Archbishop had taken out for his lavish office building.

 

Tetzel also got into selling indulgences for future sins.

Once you paid enough for sin you committed in the past, you might want

absolve yourself for sins you might commit, or plan to do commit,

in the future. Which even the Church at the time couldn’t stand behind.

 

 I mean this is a mess, right?

You needed an Excel spread sheet to keep track of all your sins, 

and where you were in the process of forgiveness, and you could never keep up.

Or you could give the priest some money,

if you were rich, then forgiveness was easy.

But if you were poor, forgiveness was limited. People were opting not to buy food, 

they were giving up their last savings, 

and selling their livestock and other things in order to buy indulgences.

Like many plans that enrich institutions,

this plan preyed mostly on the poorest people.

 

It was a mess for the average person to deal with on a daily basis,

And it was also a mess because of what it conveyed about God.

God became this ruthless dictator instead of the merciful

creator, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

God was to be feared at all times (and not fear in the honor way,

but fear in the be very afraid way) and Jesus was his enforcer.

And God’s favor and forgiveness was sold to the highest bidder:

The rich were absolved, and the poor were guilty and condemned.

 

And this is where Martin Luther came in.

He was a professor at the Wittenberg University (not in Ohio)

He was a monk in the church, and he was a professor

of theology at the University. And in studying and translating

the bible, he realized what the church’s doctrine and practice

about sins and forgiveness did not match with the

what he was reading in the bible.

 

Martin Luther said that during his time as a monk,

even with most of his time spent in worship and prayer and confession

and forgiveness, he felt alienated from God.

Because of the church doctrine, the more he prayed, 

the further away from Jesus he felt. He said it was a time of deep spiritual despair.

He said, “I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter,

and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul."

 

He realized through his studies and teaching of the bible, that it was not

God or Christ who were making him and others feel this way.

It was the church, and its oppressive rules and doctrine.

 

As a professor, he started to preach against the church

and what it taught, and what Tetzel taught, and the practice of indulgences.

He came up with 95 arguments against this practice

which were called the 95 Theses. People didn’t do that then.

There were grace consequences for people who spoke publicly

against the church, especially about the way it made buckets of money.

 

Luther understood that forgiveness didn’t come through payments to the church, 

or through endless cycles of guilt and fear and penance,

it didn’t actually come through the church at all,

but only through God’s grace.

Number 62 of the 95 theses, was

“The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel

of the glory and grace of God.”

 

If we can imagine the mental pressure that people were

experiencing because of the church’s doctrine at the time,

and the way they were now going broke because of it -

these kind of words from a professor and priest of the church

must have been comforting, and revolutionary. And it was.

Hundreds of years of anxiety relieved, knowing that God loved us 

and didn’t hate us. It was an emotional and social revolution

that went hand in hand with all the other social

revolutions happening a the time.

 

On October 31^st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed these

95 theses – or as it was titled,

Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences

on the door of the church at Wittenberg for anyone to read.

From there it was translated from Latin into vernacular

that more people could read and understand.

And they were printed in bulk on the printing presses

which was actually invented in 1450 – 100 years before,

(Which the church had ironically used mostly to print indulgences with)

but were becoming more widely used outside the church at the time.

 

So lots of regular people started to read these copies and

these statements and questions reflected by Luther

reflected their concerns and complaints.

And their complaints and concerns became viral

and became a movement and the doctrine was written down

and eventually formed a denomination that became separate 

from the church in Rome. And 509 years later, here we are celebrating that day again.

Reformation Sunday.

 

I give you all that background

and history because I think it’s important to remember,

But I also want to say that we are not here today

to celebrate Martin Luther, or just one day in history either.

 

If anyone does a little bit of diving into history,

Martin Luther, the namesake of our Lutheran denomination,

is both a hero and a problem. He did what others didn’t

have the courage to do at the time, he was driven by

a deep love of Christ and the gospel and the people of God

which he served. And he also said and wrote and advocated

for some things which we realize now were seriously flawed

and had serious repercussions.

 

Martin Luther as both theological saint and sinner

is an apt model of the revolutionary that he was.

It’s the story for many revolutionary leaders.

But that’s okay.

Because, as I said, we’re not here to venerate Martin Luther.

We’re not here to remember just one moment in history.

We’re not even here to celebrate the Lutheran Church.

We’re here to celebrate Reformation.

 

We are here to celebrate the ongoing Reformation of the Church.

We’re celebrating the fact that we can, and should,

call the church to task when it stops representing

God’s will and Christ’s cross.

  

We celebrate the fact that the Reformation meant

that God’s love and grace and forgiveness was

again shared with a world aching to hear it.

 

We’re here to celebrate the fact that God heard the groaning

of the people and remembered his covenant with them,

and sent someone to release them.

 

We celebrate the knowledge that Christ’s

message and God’s love does not need to be

brokered by religious leaders.

 

We celebrate the truth that God’s forgiveness

is not a grueling task that no one can complete,

but a constant comfort that undergirds our whole lives.

 

We celebrate the fact that being loved

and forgiven by God is not

just for the rich and privileged.

 

We celebrate the knowledge that the gospel

of Jesus Christ can be found and uncovered,

rediscovered and opened anew in

every age and time.

 

We celebrate the understanding that

the message and sacrifice of Jesus can, and does,

still change lives over the centuries.

 

And we celebrate the fact that with

understanding scripture, and with prayer

and with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,

that this church and so many other

churches are being reformed in the image

of Christ today and every day.

 

We don’t just celebrate history or person today.

We celebrate that through those things,

we know about the grace and forgiveness of God.

Today, like every Sunday, we celebrate God’s love.