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.