Today is Reformation Sunday - the birthday of the Protestant Church. And, as with all birthdays, our celebrations carry memories, ritual and music. We’ve heard some of that music this morning (from Reformer Martin Luther’s hymn Ein’ Feste Burg and music by J.S. Bach, one of the foremost Reformation musicians). Tonight, in honour of this important church festival, the choir and Collegiate Orchestra will present one of Bach’s well-known Cantatas – Lobe den Herren – best known to us through the Reformation Hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation”. It’s a day when the church colours are celebratory red, beginning the season of celebrating the saints. It’s a day to wear proudly the Presbyterian name – and the name of John Knox, our ancestor who sits in beauty in our glorious stained glass window at the back of the Church. It’s a day for celebrating the gifts of the past, which have made us who we are.
It’s on Reformation Sunday that Protestants are most likely to recall the great protestant motto: Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda! “Even to this day, these ancient words are a rallying cry for Presbyterians and other Reformed Christians. It is a motto that reminds us of who we are and who we intend to be.” The Church reformed and always being reformed.[1]
On this day I invite you to pause, to ask ourselves how true we are to our heritage.
If Luther, Calvin or Knox were to step into this church today, I think we could guarantee they would be shocked by the adornment, the ritual and the lack of decorum; things have changed mightily since the 16th century! So have we abandoned our heritage? And should my sermon today be calling us to the ways of our re-forming ancestors – keeping to the letter of the Re-formed way - nailing to the church door our challenges to the established church, shaping our faith lives on the sermons of Calvin, Luther and Knox - even holding to their particular prejudices against women, Catholics and Jews; singing only the music of Bach and his contemporaries? Or does this motto of the Church reformed and always reforming call us into a place of change – perhaps challenging us to abandon all the old ways and adopt the new? Whatever the answers to those questions, Reformation Sunday provides an opportunity for the 21st century church to ask serious questions about its directions.
Anna Case-Winters, an American Presbyterian explains “Our Reformed motto, rightly understood, challenges both the conservative and the liberal impulses that characterize our diverse church today. It does not bless either preservation for preservation's sake or change for change's sake. In the 16th-century context the impulse it reflected was neither liberal nor conservative, but radical, in the sense of returning to the "root." The Reformers believed the church had become corrupt, so change was needed. But it was a change in the interest of preservation and restoration of more authentic faith and life—a church reformed and always to be reformed according to the Word of God.”
...One of the serious charges church authorities hurled at the Reformers was that they were "innovating." In response, John Calvin wrote[2] "We are accused of rash and impious innovation for having ventured to propose any change at all [in] the former state of the Church." But, Calvin counters, these Reformers were not "innovating," but were restoring the church to its true nature, purified from the "innovations" that riddled the church through centuries of inattention to Scripture and theological laxity.... By submitting themselves to Scripture, the churches of the Reformation movement were purging themselves of these unwanted "innovations" and returning to a more ancient and therefore purer form of church life”[3] – closer to its source, the Way of Jesus.
This important Reformed-Presbyterian motto ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda summons us to our roots so that we too may be transformed to the likeness of Christ. Like our ancestors of the 16th century, we are invited to shed our blinkers, to cast off that which blinds us, and to trust the Holy Spirit to lead us into a new way of being. All our rituals, all our traditions, all our ways of being are challenged by the Living Word so that we might become more faithful pilgrims on the Jesus Journey.
So how do we as Reformed Christians – reformed and always reforming – open ourselves to the radical movement of the Holy Spirit? How do we each on our daily life-journey ensure that the treasures we hold on to are of God-ness and not the corrupt ways of a human institution which has lost its way?
Macrina Wiederkehr[4] offers a perspective on this dilemma. “The most exasperating stranger I’ve had to walk with is myself” she writes. I go through life juggling my tourist pilgrim heart. There is a part of me that longs to be a pilgrim. I was born a seeker. I want to travel to all the holy places of the universe, including my own poor heart. I long to stand barefoot on holy ground. ... But alas my tourist mentality begins to take over and the lens of my eye is not enough. The memory of my heart is insufficient. My albums fill up with pictures just in case my heart forgets. My backpack turns into several suitcases as I begin to accumulate treasures from all these holy places. I begin to plan for new trips and regret all of the things I’ve missed.” She tells the story of a man visiting Niagara Falls, who took out his camera, “snapped a few pictures and then rather impatiently turned to his wife and said, “OK Mabel, we’ve seen it. Let’s go.” ... In sifting out the tourists from the pilgrims, Wiederkehr suggests “By their cameras you shall know them” (by the way we see, we will be known)... The true pilgrim is the one who has no need to capture every piece of beauty (every past tradition). I’m always a bit envious, she reflects, as I see them sitting quietly receiving the beauty instead of trying to capture it. They pray with the lens of their eyes and their hearts. They are able to gaze upon, to reverence and adore. They serve as wondrous models for those of us who find it easier to clutch, to possess, to collect. I believe, she writes, there is a hidden pilgrim in every tourist. I constantly juggle these two seekers in my life. On some days the tourist wins out. But there are many times when the pilgrim in me feels at home. Maybe I have to settle for being a tourist pilgrim.” [5]
As tourist pilgrims, we look back and forward at the same time – drawing on the wisdom and biblical interpretations of the past – and at the same time – doing in our day, what our faith ancestors have done in theirs – we travel with a spirit of pilgrim-“openness to the Word and the Spirit that formed and continues to re-form the church.”[6]
“There is a power in you, a truth in you that has not yet been tapped.
You are blinded with a blindness that is deep for you’ve not loved the pilgrim in you yet. ...
To be a pilgrim means
to be on the move, slowly
to notice your luggage becoming lighter
to be seeking for treasures that do not rust
to be comfortable with your heart’s questions
to be moving toward the holy ground of home with empty hands and bare feet ...
There’s a road that runs straight through your heart. Walk on it.”[7]
[1] Anna Case-Winters “What do Presbyterians believe about ‘Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda?’ Our misused motto” Reprinted from the May 2004 issue of Presbyterians Today http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/today/reformed/
[2] John Calvin "The Necessity of Reforming the Church”
[3] Anna Case-Winters
[4] Macrina Wiederkehr Seasons of your heart, 1991
[5] Macrina Wiederkehr “Tourists or Pilgrims?” Seasons of your heart, 1991 p.183-185
[6] Case-Winters
[7] Macrina Wiederkehr, Seasons of your heart, 1991 p.185
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