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Sunday, October 28, 2001
Rev. James A. Todhunter

This is traditionally the Sunday on which we recall the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. History bills the German monk, Martin Luther, as its most important spokesman. The Protestant reformers proclaimed three things to the Christian world, which together constituted a direct attack on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church: 1) the priesthood of all believers (not just clergy), 2) the primary authority of scripture (and the individual believer’s access to the Bible in a new German translation by Luther), and 3) the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. All three were extremely important at the time and have shaped western culture profoundly.

But what is the relevance of the Reformation for us today? I’d like to briefly reflect on several questions related to this, and then dwell a bit on the scripture from Luke, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Protestant Reformation initiated the second major split in the Christian Church. Now most western Christians are either Roman Catholic or Protestant (though of course there are growing numbers of Orthodox Christians in the U.S.). What, really, today, is the difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant? The answer is that in practice and organization, a great deal. Theologically, not much. In the United States, while Catholics and Protestants might differ in terms of worship practice and the role of the ordained clergy and parish organization, theologically they are very close. Catholics stress the importance of the sacraments while Protestants stress the proclaimed Gospel word. Yet, in recent years, Catholics have put a growing emphasis on preaching, and Protestants more emphasis on the sacraments. In organization, the authority of the Pope and the bishops contrasts with the local autonomy of most Protestant Churches. Yet each struggles in its own way – Catholic liberals and radicals have learned to be extremely clever and adept at getting around papal authority, and Protestants are learning that the larger church structure can sometimes be good. For example, the United Church of Christ has been very helpful to us in our building program. But at the higher levels of the dialogue, Catholic and Protestant theologians and biblical scholars come to virtually identical conclusions these days.

So how important today is the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century and is there anything about it that is essential for us to remember? I think the answer is a qualified "yes." This said, we need to keep in mind that the questions that preoccupied Christians then were somewhat different from those of our own age. Five hundred years ago, Christians worried about whether God was really gracious, and if so, how do we gain access to that grace? Today we seem more occupied with whether the God of theism exists at all, and if not, where do we find meaning? Whether the questions really are different or not, I’m not sure, but at least they seem different.

One of the short-hand slogans used in that era was this: Catholics believed in salvation though works, while Protestants believed in justification by faith. That is, that the Roman Catholic Church taught that you could earn your way into God’s good graces by what you did – making offerings, paying indulgences, doing good deeds – all of which would require God to make a place for you in heaven. Protestants, scandalized that anyone could presume to make God accountable to humans, and shocked by wide spread abuses in the church, instead proclaimed that we are saved, not by works but by our faith. In the years of violence and schism that followed the publishing of Luther’s ninety-five theses, this difference got more and more exaggerated.

It is unfortunate that for Protestants the slogan "Justification by Faith" has prevailed, for that is really not what the Protestant Reformation was about. Instead Luther taught the doctrine of "Justification by grace, through faith." And in this teaching he drew heavily on both the writings of St. Augustine and the Apostle Paul. What is stressed in this view is that salvation is initiated through the grace of God. God bestows the Holy Spirit upon us – all of us, Catholic and Protestant, believer and unbeliever, like a refreshing, healing, cleansing rain. There are two important aspects of our relationship to God’s grace: 1) what it means to truly accept this love, and: 2) what it means to live in this love. That is, what it means to let ourselves be grasped by God’s grace; and what it means to live grace-filled lives. They are two aspects of one reality, and both are about how God’s love works. This is common to all Christians. In general, Catholics will stress the importance of experiencing God’s grace by participating in the sacraments and in community. That is to say, get involved, get on board, take part, and you will experience grace suffusing your life in ways that will surprise you. In general, Protestants will say that yes, God’s grace reaches out and abounds, but everybody will have to confront the personal inward reality of sin and brokenness. You can’t fully get on board the community of God’s grace until you realize the tremendous act of love and generosity that has made it possible for you to be included. The church isn’t just any community. It is a community of the inwardly transformed. You aren’t a part of this community of the Holy Spirit because God has checked out your credentials and found that you measure up. The fact is that you lack the credentials – in attitude and in deed – yet God still welcomes you by credentialing you with love and grace. Protestants have stressed this basic paradox at the heart of faith. Justification really means the same as acceptance. We know in our hearts that we feel unacceptable to God – though created good and in the image of God. Though we have botched it and we botch it repeatedly every day. We know that – consciously and unconsciously. If we don’t know it at some level, why do we feel so guilty, uneasy, and anxious so much of the time? We know we are created good, but we also know our attitudes get twisted and our behavior goes bad. Yet God says "I accept you, in spite of what is unacceptable in you." And we say, "How can that be?" And God says, "Just let my love heal your attitude and straighten out your behavior." And we again ask, "How can that be?" "Through Jesus Christ. His person, work, life, death and resurrection." God says, "Accept that you are now acceptable to me." We are called to accept our acceptability to God, in spite of the fact that we know how unacceptable we have become. That is the paradox of faith that Luther stressed. It is deeply personal and, centuries before Freud, profoundly psychological.

I think this understanding is fleshed out in the parable that Jesus tells. Two totally contrasting individuals come to worship. Each in very different ways has come to be a part of a worshipping community. The Pharisee regards himself as righteous. Why is this? Because he has done all the things he is supposed to do. He worships, he tithes, and he fasts. And he doesn’t do the things you aren’t supposed to do. He is not a thief, rogue, adulterer, or outcast, like…well, like that other man over there. He is very righteous, but he regards others with contempt. How is it that he can be so good, yet so contemptuous – that is, unloving?

The tax collector is a Jew who collects the rent for the Romans. He is about as unacceptable a jew as you can get. We don’t get the list of his sins of commission or omission but the point is clear. The tax collector knows he is a sinner and he is in no doubt about it and there is not a drop of self-delusion in him. He is honest. He is authentic in his awareness of his sin and is wretched in his sorrow about it. He is genuinely repentant and fully aware of his unacceptability. The Pharisee does everything right, follows all the rules, and no doubt receives great acclaim in the community. And is convinced that he is acceptable. At the conscious level he really believes it. But yet, unbeknownst to him, he is a sinner, too. How do we know this? Because he is filled with contempt. He has been doing all the right things, and not doing all the wrong things, not out of love, but out of the arrogant assumption that God will not only be pleased with him, God will be required to reward him. His contempt is his unacknowledged dark side peeking out. The Pharisee is without inwardness.

And Jesus says the man who cried out "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!" left worship accepted. He had the courage to accept that he was accepted by God, despite his unacceptability. Something inward has changed in him. He has turned some corner of the soul. This is the paradox of faith central to Protestant understanding.

Jesus knows how to tell a good story. He dramatically contrasts the self-righteous arrogance of the Pharisee with the abject sorrow of the tax collector facing the full reality of his sin. It is always a good spiritual exercise, when hearing such a story, to ask oneself "Which character in the story do I identity with?" Are you the Pharisee or the tax collector? Think about that. Maybe that is not such an easy choice. Are you a contemptuous, self-righteous snob, or are you a miserable, down and out, sinner? Are we allowed to say "a little bit of each?" The answer is "no." It would be easier for us to have someone in the middle, some third character who is, maybe, half good and half bad? Well, that doesn’t work. Lukewarm is unacceptable. For I think Jesus is saying that grace through faith doesn’t mean anything unless we courageously address the brokenness and sin that is in fact there.

Luke introduces the story this way: "He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt." Do we take our own righteousness for granted and regard others with contempt? Those are the two red flags. When things are going well in our lives, it is easy to drift into the assumption that it must be because we are doing something right and God is rewarding us. And at such times, it can be easy to assume that if others’ lives are a mess, it must be because, unlike us, they need to get their acts together.

And what then is our church? Are we a community of those who know what it means to fail, willfully and even stupidly, to live up to our potential? And yet thank God daily for grace? Not just a grace that keeps us going, but a grace that, welcomes us into the very heart of God and the abundance of life? If so, what a fellowship! What a gift divine! What amazing grace! AMEN.

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