Intelligent hearts: Hearty intelligence

Post-delivery version of a sermon for Reformation Sunday (apologies for the formatting which is a blogger gremlin that I can't seem to fix)

Let us pray: Living word, as we listen and learn together we pray that new light and truth will indeed break forth among us and set us free. Amen.

Last weekend we visited the excellent exhibition at the Penrith Regional Gallery in Emu Plains. Just across the Nepean river. The photographs by Greg Semu were of family groups. Pasifika families, Samoan families now living in Australia. One family required three portraits to capture their full extent and dimensions. When we think of the Reformation or the Reformed Tradition it is in some ways like thinking of a branch of a family.

And there will be some reference today to some of our tipuna, our forebears, our ancestors in this tradition (accompanied by ppt slide of Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther et al).

The Reformation is usually dated to 31 October 1517 when Martin Luther, a priest, allegedly nailed his 95 theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. It now seems more likely that he in fact mailed the theses to his bishops on this day, as a basis for discussion about his concern for the way the church was extorting money and purporting to provide indulgences rather than proclaiming the word of God.

Other women and men joined this movement in the 16^th century and continue to the present day to bring intellect and passion to their experience of faith in Jesus Christ. Idelette de Bure, who appeared on Belgian stamps much more recently, was married to the French theologian John Calvin, again in the 16^th century. Charlotte von Kirschbaum was the faithful assistant to Karl Barth, living with his family, and contributed greatly to the 13 volumes of Church Dogmatics that are credited only to him. He acknowledges her very significant contribution in the preface, and publicly acknowledged that he could never have completed his work without his wife Nelly and his assistant 'Lollo'.

And like any family, this reformed tradition has some particular values. The majesty and sovereignty of God, the importance of the scriptures, and the love of God are three that we will focus on today.

“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” The book of Leviticus, or holiness code, contains many instructions for living. It is a record of the way the people of Israel understood what it meant to live a holy life.

The emphasis on God as wholly other, as totally different from humankind, is a key reformed value. Martin Luther objected to indulgences because they represented a claim that people could ‘buy God off’. We cannot presume or buy God’s favour. We cannot enlist God to our cause. We are “utterly dependent on an encounter with the divine for any understanding of ultimate reality. Barth saw the task of the church as that of proclaiming the "good word" of God and as serving as the "place of encounter" between God and mankind.”

Yet this wholly other God chooses to be revealed to us. Today we are gathered around the table and the font. The sacraments that are celebrated in this place are outward signs of inward grace. Baptism, as we celebrated last week, demonstrates powerfully that God first loved us. Many years ago now, friends of ours were mulling over whether or not their three-year-old daughter had the understanding to participate in communion. So they asked her. Her response was immediate “When I eat the bread God’s love goes right inside me.” Our forebear Calvin talked of the ‘real presence of Christ’ that we experience in the sacrament. Not necessarily some changing of the bread itself, or the juice. But in being set aside for a “sacred use and purpose” they do indeed become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ who said,“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”. That truth is contained in the Hebrew scriptures and the stories and letters of the early Christian church that make up our Bible. The Uniting Church in Australia says that the Church has received these books “as unique prophetic and apostolic testimony, in which it hears the Word of God and by which its faith and obedience are nourished and regulated... The Word of God on whom salvation depends is to be heard and known from Scripture appropriated in the worshiping and witnessing life of the Church.” (Basis of Union Article 5).

Jesus also said “… if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” Our understanding of the word of God comes not only from text, but from the presence of Christ, the living word, among us. In Christ Jesus the word of God “became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. The reformed understanding is the word of God is the living Lord Jesus Christ, who sets us free.

The disciples were not slaves, and could not understand why Jesus said they would be free. We are not slaves, here in West Epping. We are free citizens, many of us property holders or in paid employment. The freedom that we have in Christ involves us as a community engaging with God’s mission. We are free from the forces that seek to control us, and free to live as citizens of the kingdom of God. Citizens of that kingdom are counter-cultural. Lent Event is an example. Many of you I know were busy packing materials last weekend. And Lent Event is about resisting the powers of consumerism and consumption, entering into partnership with churches beyond Australia, and together contributing to a world where justice and equity are evident.

There is a story about the theologian Karl Barth, author of 13 volumes of Church Dogmatics and often regarded as one of the best theologians of the past century. He was visiting the United States for a series of lectures. “At one of these, after a very impressive lecture, a student asked a typically American question. He said, ‘Dr. Barth, what is the greatest thought that has ever passed through your mind?’ The aging professor paused for a long time as he obviously thought about his answer. Then he said with great simplicity:‘Jesus loves me! This I know. For the Bible tells me so’ ” (Foundations of the Christian Faith, (Downers Grove/London, 1986), 331).

Conviction about the mercy and justice of God also characterise our reformers. Their powerful intellects and passion for holy living can sometimes obscure our view of their humanity and experience of love. Calvin was once described as a brain without a personality. Yet these were women and men who integrated heart and intellect. Their experience of God’s love enabled joy through what Calvin called ‘troubles’ and helped them to put aside anxieties and needless worry. Troubles for Calvin were real life events, like the deaths of his three children, his only children, in infancy, and the death of his wife Idelette which affected him greatly. In a letter to a friend he said “Mine is no common grief. I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life.”(Bouwsma p.23). Their lives were not easy. Think for a moment of Katharina von Bora. She was placed in a convent at the age of three, when her mother died, and her father did not want to financially support a female child. She became a nun at the age of sixteen, with a personal faith but also note that there were very few options for a woman of her time, in her circumstances. Somehow the writings of that early reformation movement made their way into the convent. She was influenced so much by what she read that she left the convent with a group of nuns, and eventually married Martin Luther. He was 42 and she was 26. I wonder what it would have been like, with no real memory of family life yourself, to learn to love and to raise a family. To see two of your daughters die, and then your husband. Interestingly for a congregation with a strong Methodist teetotal background, this amazingly resourceful woman bought a farm and ran a brewery, raised three sons and her surviving daughter. Managed a household despite a husband who would generously and arguably carelessly give things away. Following Martin’s death, she experienced a financial crash and injuries in a carriage accident from which she never recovered. It is alleged that her last words referred to her commitment to the Christ who loved her "I will stick to Christ as a burr on a top coat." (a burr is one of those very sticky little plant seeds that get on your socks when you are out bushwalking)

This sense of and knowledge of God’s love is inextricably linked with the majesty and ‘wholly-other-ness’ of God. Recognition of our inadequacy is a necessary prerequisite to recognising that we are loved. Barth may have responded to the American student with great simplicity – but that simplicity was born of deep experience. He once said:

In the life of every man there are shadows, deep shadows, which will not go away, so as to keep us where we are, as those who are beloved of God and can keep on loving and praising him.

The Message translation of the Leviticus passage makes it clear that holy living is not a matter of spiritual thoughts and feelings alone. It is a matter of action. Let us listen again:

Be holy because I, God, your God, am holy.

Don't pervert justice. Don't show favouritism to either the poor or the great. Judge on the basis of what is right.

God’s justice, the justice system in which we are called to live, goes far beyond our human justice systems. It is about addressing the fundamental requirements of well-being, of full life, of salvation. The historic signing of a peace treaty in the highlands of Papua New Guinea this year. The release of Pastor Berlin Guerrero from a Philippines prison. Clean drinking water in Milne Bay. Respectful care of orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia. These are signs of God’s mercy and justice in our world.

So in summary – some of the values that we inherit from the reformed tradition relate to who God is, the importance of the word of God, and God’s actions of mercy and justice in our world.

Our response: to live in that love and to stand against all that threatens that love. To know love and to know joy. The love and joy that come from knowing the grace of God, the truth of God’s word, and the life of God’s spirit.

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