John 8:31-36Reformation Sunday!!!
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Sometimes I will read stuff by this or that guy (almost always a guy) and he will be saying something about how “the Church NEEDS to go through another reformation!”
There are often 2 things that attend that call for reformation
1. They have a specific idea of exactly how that reformation needs to take place - and the attendant wrong-ness of the Church as is.
2. They irritate the crap out of me.
I suspect that - as often as not - it is the certitude (and often self righteousness) that goes with this that annoys me.
But is there not also a part of me that wants to respond...
“We are heirs of Martin Luther! Heirs of THE Reformation! Reformation is our middle name. I don’t need a new anything, (unless it is a new pair of shoes)”or some variation.
I’m not sure what any of that means but that is my blog entry for Reformation Sunday, and I think you can see that I need more help than usual so please weigh in on this.
One more thing. Why do a good many of the folks who talk about Christian freedom give me the willies?
3 comments:
Some quotes from among those I've collected:
Woe to the man so possessed that he thinks he possesses God! Martin Buber “Challenge to Christian Theology” Thought 62:247
The world takes offense and is provoked by the Gospel of Christ because it will not trust the grace of God and because he is so utterly poor and wretched. Thus is our dear Lord Christ everywhere in the world an annoying preacher. Martin Luther, sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Advent, 1544
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
- Mahatma Gandh
The Gospel is always an event. Arndt Halvorson - in a lecture
I think it’s wrong that only one company manufactures the game Monoply. -Steven Wright
One of the things I appreciate about this text is the way Jesus reveals so much about humans. It seems like this revelation is always a surprise. In this text the surprise is that we are not free, that we are slaves/sinners. This text helps me notice how blind we are.
Is this helpful? Wouldn't it be better to stay blind and ignorant of how miserable we are? Is a guy in AA any happier than the alcoholic who is out of it and unaware of the crap?
Did these Jews really need Jesus telling them about a freedom they had never heard of?
What's so bad about being a Happy Pagan, like my ancestor Leif?
Cui peccare licet peccat minus.
credo quia absurdum est
at least, I think that's as good a reason as any
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