Today is Reformation Sunday. 446 years ago an insignificant Roman Catholic monk, in

fhe relatively insignificant German University town of Wittneburg walked inconspicuously to

the village Church and nailed to the large oaken doors a manuscript. lis was no great thing
he had done. | Early wood cuts of theevents show the usual crowd of villagers milling about
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the church steps; seemingly unaware of the monk. \ the act in itself had no special significance.

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{t was the practice of the day for scholars at the University to present their ideas in this
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manner. \ anyone who was interested could read the manuscripts, and if there was disagreement
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a public academic debate would ensue.

It wasn't long, however, until the 95 thesés of brother Matin were read by the right

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men and recognized as containttng thoughts and ideas that could become grave heresy against
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the Roman Church. | Soon thegg&gd/ figure of a humble monk aailing his theses to the door

became the picture of aman called of God, standing at the very foundations of the miedeval

church and shaking for all he was worth.

Our time today could easily be spent retelling the dramatic and interesting story of

Martin Luther. |ous | feel that there is more to say--more to think about on Reformation
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Sunday-—than the biography of the man who started it ai.\ In fact, | have the feeling,

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that to make too much of Martin Luther and the Reformation of the I6th century, is to betray

the nature of the Reformed church. \ the Reformation made a clean break with the past; to dof

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nothing but revere the past on Reformation Sunday is perhaps the least appropriate thing

we could do.
In the Oth chapter of the Gospel according to fMatthew, we hear our Lord speaking words

that very well might be the theme of the 20th century church of the Reformation. (‘Ne one puts

a piece of unshrunk clothon an old garment, for the patch tears wway from the garment, and a

worse tear is nade. | Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is,the skins burs$,

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and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wine
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skins, and so both are preserved,"
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At the time this saying embodied many of the same thoughts that were the motivating power

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of the Reformation. | A piece of unshrunk cloth, used as a patch on an old garment, would

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shrink the next time the garment was washed, thus putting a disastrous strain on the old
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Fibers. \ no one would bottle new wine while if was still fermenting; but even after bottling

some fermentation is bound to occur, and ohly é@lastic, new skins could stand the peessure.
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Jesus was talking about Judaism when he used the image of an old garment, and old wineskins.\ P

was a reference to the sprawling, legalistic, structure that the faith of Israel had become

in the first century. \ te referred to a rigid religious system of priets, pharisees, scribes

and laws; a system that would not--and could not change. \ The old was not capable of containing

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the new. \ Jesus Christ called men into a new relationship with God and with each ~teihlmeice.

He announced that, in him, a new kingdom--a new era _in God's history of redemption, had

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been' ushered ine\ te called men to a new response; he demanded that they do things unheard of
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to the legalistic Jen\ He demanded sacrifice and love of enemy, and unlimited forgiveness,

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and selfless dedication; and he knew--as those about him, did not-—that these responses-
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this new_faith—-cold not become just an adiition to Judaism. \To superimpose the new on the old

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would be disastrous for both; like putting new wine in an old skin--it simply wouldn't work.
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The old traditions of Judaism could not be stretched to contain the new gospel of the new

Kingdom,

And so, from the very beginning, the Christian faith, in a sensd, oas been anti-traditional

untragi tional | one of the keynotes of the Faith begun far the appearance of Jesus Christ
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was its shattering newness.\ His presence was new; he said and did new things; he cal ledskn
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people to a new response; he called them into a new community-— a new Israel—-that soon came
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To be known as the church.

The keynote of newness followed the church for the first one hundred years. \ in one

hundred different locations, men heard the gospel of Jesus Christ-—and having heard, devised

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new ways of response. \in |,0CO different cities, towns and villages, new Christians had

to discover brand new ways of being the church Each was different; as each local situation

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differed~-so did the way the early Christians went about being the Church of Christ. If you

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will escuse the borrowed and well worn cliche--it was truly a new frontier; the only guide

was God/s Holy Spirit-~the only tradiftion--the presence of the living Christ and his earthly

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example,

xkdd sadly and unfortunately fhis refreshing newness was quickly dissipated and

exhausted.) A short [OC years after the ministry of Jesus Christ—-his new community of]

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belfevers had begun fhe trek down fhe same old path of tradi tional ism. wits the Spetpten GC

of Rome _as the captial of the gretest empire the world had ever known; the church in that

city began to assume undue importance. A hierarchy of church officers was in the making;

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followed logically that chlef among the chiefs was ihe Bishop of rome. | Power was

centralized, Yraditions were established, preserved and soon ‘revered and adored;| the newness of

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Christianity was forgotten; the new covenant communi fy, the nds Israel, began to be moee

and more like the old garment of Judaism; a sprawling, legaslistic power structure—~that knew =

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nothing of the newness of Christ--buft only of peeserving its own existence. \ For 1,00
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dark years the church of Jesus Christ did not change; | ir-tssee-yoors it was transformed from

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a community of believers, on fire because of their newly found faith, into a stagnant ,creaky

institution that thrived on repressing anything and ever thing new.

A subtle change had occurred to the Christian raitn.| At first the church was men's way

of responding; having heard and believed they went out and béecame the community of God. {But

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over the centuries of entombment in the Roman Church the gospel lost its identity; in fact

- over the centures, the gospel was absorbed by fhe tradi tions :and structure of the church; and
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to be a Christian no longer meant discipleship--with Christ @s master; but membership wi

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the Pope as the Christ's vicar. | a subtle change, stretched over 15 centuries; but one that sti

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: plagues fhe church in al! its forms.

The middle ages saw the birth of the Enlightenement, the Renpasaince and tre Reformation,

Newness was in the air as humanity awakened from its 1,000 year sleep and sef out in new
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directions. \act, literature, science, medécineg#, philosophy+—were reborn and expressed the
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new found freedom by siriking out on unexplored paths. | The Reformation was part of this great

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movenent | [tf caught the fresh msell of newness; If awakened: the spirit of Iman to the

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newness of the gospel--and for a moment in history men allowed Jesus Christ fo confront

them anew; | they allowed the newness of the gospel to call then into a new faith. | And_there

was born, slowly and painfully a new church. \ This was a church that could and would change ,

a church unafraid of the unknown challenges of the future;\a church thatoutrightly denied

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fhe authority of tradition and put G whole faith in the guidance of God--as he speaks through
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the Bible.

The Reformation, then, was an attitude; a moving of the Spirit-~and a new_answer-~

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a new response.\ It was a calling to new witness and new seryice\ As such, we Protestants
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of th20th century. should not say we are of the Reformed Faith--but of the reforwing faith. ™

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For the Reformation, once begun-- etd never end. | once men realized that in every age, In every

decade and every year, God calls men imto a new relationship with him and demands that they

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respond in new ways--a process, or way of thinking was initiated that could not cease\ When

it ceased; when the church ceased being a reforming church-—it could no longer claim to be
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the child of Martin Luther, John Calvin and the Reformation.
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As you know, however, medieval Christians proved that they were no different from 4th

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century Christians--and little different from Ist cent. Jeug.\ The Church of the Reformation

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put its roots down in the new_cul tures of Germany, France, Hol laa, England, Scotland and

the new world beyond the sea.\ {t cultivated a new crop of traditions and rigid structures tha’

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solidified and pooven impermiable to change. \In short the Protestant church wasn't long in!
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sloughing off the freedom of the Reformation; it wasn't long in relinquishing its very

nature as a “reforming church,"

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To quickly bring us up to date, | believe it can be fairly said that today we still

forget the keynote of newness. Today we have our traditions; we pour the new wine into the
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same old skin--and more often than not it spills all over the ground.

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We sing "Give me that Old Time Religion®. we sentimentlize tha® church isn't what it

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used to bef and what we are really saying is; we want no part of a reforming church’, we

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want no part of a new community-- a new witness a new church. The old was good enough for /\os

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etc. etc. it's good enough for me. \ Well, if might be good enough for us-—buf if wasn't

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good enough for iMartin Luther and be assured that it wasn't, and isn't good enough for Jesus

encists\ 14 you pour new wine into old wineskins, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled,
and the skins are destroyed. )

We live in an age of rapid change. \ changes press in upgn us every day.\ old traditions,

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old conceptions are shattered with gleeful abandon.\ The church reformed itself druing the

gfeat awakening of the rinnaisence. \ sut in aur age; in the past 50 years we have experienced m

change than occurred in the previous 5,000. \ Janes Russel Lowerll said; (Tine makes ancient

good uncouth.# )His wise words ought to thrust us face to face with the brutal reality;
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that what was appropriate 50 years ago Is no or a appropriate today; that especially in

the church of Jesus Christ=-what was an effective witness in the [9th century is possibly

totally ireelevant today.

Our age makes stringent demands on the church of Jesus cnrist.\ It is an_age of the

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industrial giant, the suburban exodus, the lonely crowd, the status seeker. \it is the age

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of millionaries, and hopeless slums \ the age of American democaacy and inhuman discrimination.|

We live in the age of the United Nations-—-and the threat of nuclear wer,\ We live in what has

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been called the age of fear--the age of anxiety, the angry and beat generation--the age

of man's inhumanity to man. \ This is life today. \ These are all words and concepts that are

part and parcel of the new_a ot they are the worlds the world the church of Jesus Christ has

been called upon to heal and serve and redeem.

But by and large the church has backed off the uncomfortable crisses of modern |i fe--

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and retreated to its soothing traditions of yesteryear. Like the church of the [3th cent. manc

we stand, figuratively if not physically, outside of the village proper, away from the

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busy heart beat of life. \The church today, and Christians today, make a virtue of staying

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clean-~of not getting involved int the nastiness of the wor td. \ And the church, all foo

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frequently, has become--in the stinging words of one critic(the soldier of Christ, lounging

in a stained glass U.S.0,, watching the battle rage in the streets.)

Bln the 44 chapter of Isaiah we hear the stirring words recorded by the prophet (“Behold,

| am doing @ new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive ite) God is calling his chur
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today--jto be a new tning:\ od is constantly at work in his church; pushing men out the

front door and into the streets, to be the church in new and. more effective ways.\ Jesus

Christ confronts men anew in every age—and demands that they get involved in the wortdsin

his world; and there, not here, be the kind of disciple the world so desparately needs.

A nuclear war cannot be fought with bows and arrows; and neither can Christ's mission
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of redeemption be carried on today using traditions that weré born {00 yrs. ago.

The Christian faith never changes; the message of salvation and jove that our Lord

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taught his band of disciples is the same today, yesterday, tomorrow and forever. | fiartin

Luther poured out his soul in the hymn (MA mighty Fortress is our God—-A bulwark never

failing! But our response to that message——te that mighty fortress—cen never solidify;

it must be ready to change course-@and meet the challenges of the new wor d~~regardless _ of the

direction they would take us—with open and loving ams. \ Today. we celebrate the Reformation ;

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but jet us celebrate in mind and spirit; by affirming that. a iS @ process never ending;

tha? weChristians an great, new worid--—are brothers in a fai th constantly reforming ~

never failing,

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