“The ’Solas’ and Stewardship”
A Sermon for Reformation Sunday Preached by the
Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, October 30, 2011
First Congregational Church of Stoughton, United Church of Christ
Text: Romans 3:21-26, 11:36; 1 John 4:16b-19
I have mentioned to some of you that this month my daughter Elizabeth has a job playing a ghoul at a haunted house in Salem. October is a crazy month in Salem, the self-proclaimed “Halloween capital of the world,” and the city has turned the unfortunate history of its witch trials into a cottage industry and the focus of its tourist trade. And the craziness hits a crescendo this weekend with Halloween tomorrow, Salem’s equivalent of Christmas.
But while the secular calendar focuses on ghosts and goblins this weekend, the church calendar calls this Reformation Sunday, when Protestants remember and celebrate our particular Christian faith tradition. Five hundred years ago, an Augustinian monk in Germany named Martin Luther came to realize that the church of his day was not faithfully living out the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. Back then, there was no “Catholic” Church and “Protestant” Church; it was all one church, and Luther – who wrote our opening hymn, “A Mighty Fortress” -- thought it could be a better church. And so, on October 31, 1517, Luther marched up to the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and posted 95 theses on how he thought the church should be changed, igniting the Reformation and changing the world forever.
One of Luther’s declarations was “scripture alone” – known in Latin as sola scriptura – the understanding that the Bible, not the Pope, was the authority as the word of God and that every person had the right to read and interpret the scriptures themselves. In this church, we understand the bible as the living, breathing, dynamic word of God. As Pastor John Robinson said to the departing Pilgrims in Leyden, Holland: “God hath yet more light and truth to break forth from his Word.” Or, to put it another way, “God is still speaking.”
Luther also believed that every person could ask God for forgiveness, and pray to God directly, and have a direct and personal relationship with God “through Christ alone” – solo Christo – without a human intermediary.
One church practice which Luther found particularly objectionable was the selling of indulgences, which were actual certificates people could purchase which absolved them of their sins and assured their salvation. The money raised was used to complete the construction of Saint Peter’s Church in Rome. While selling God’s forgiveness might make for an effective stewardship campaign, Luther knew it was unbiblical theology. He declared instead that God’s love is ours by God’s grace alone – sola gratia – and that we are put in right relationship with God through faith alone – sola fide.
Luther based these tenets on the passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans which serves as one of our scripture lessons this morning: “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;” [yet] “they are now justified” – that is, put right with God – “by God's grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” Grace is the free, unmerited, unearned gift of God’s favor; we cannot do anything to earn it, we cannot buy it from the church; all we can do is gratefully accept it.
God’s grace is beautifully described in our lesson from First John, “we love because God first loved us.” Note which comes first – God’s love. We humans do not initiate an action in hopes that God will respond to us. Not we first love God and then God will love us. Not we love first so that God will love us. That’s bad theology; that’s what purchasing indulgences in hopes of buying God’s forgiveness was all about. No, God initiates and we respond. That’s grace. And our response is a critical, because if all we humans do is receive from God without then responding to God, it’s what theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace.” In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer writes, “cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession… cheap grace is grace without discipleship…”
As this country enters year four of a financial downturn, during which many Americans have lost jobs, lost houses, and lost hope, it is easy to adopt an attitude of scarcity. In fact, scarcity is the fall-back position many people take when considering matters of stewardship and giving, and the current economic environment feeds into fears that we will not have enough money to pay our bills, much less find any extra to give to the church.
And for those fortunate enough to have money left over after paying the bills, it is tempting to give ourselves the credit, to see our abundance as resulting from own talents, abilities, and intelligence.
But in perhaps his most important “sola,” Luther suggests a different attitude, the foundational belief by which the church stands or falls, he declared -- Soli Deo gloria -- “to God alone be the glory.” We are not to give credit to ourselves, or other human beings, or the clergy, or the church hierarchy, or even canonized saints for our blessings. Rather, as the Apostle Paul writes in our lesson from Romans “For from [God] and through [God] and to [God] are all things.” And it is because all things really are from God, and to God, that we say, “to God alone be the glory.”
This concept is foundational to Christian stewardship, which begins with the premise that all we have is a gift from God. And in gratitude for all that God has given us, we are to respond by reflecting the magnanimous heart of God by giving generously back to God.
We each have the opportunity to respond with gratitude to God’s gracious love through our giving to the First Congregational Church of Stoughton, United Church of Christ. I hope you have by now received the 2012 Stewardship Campaign packet in the mail; if not, we have plenty of extras in the back of the sanctuary.
In discerning how much we will give to Christ’s church this coming year, may we remember the blessings of God’s Word, may we remember the blessings of faith, and of God’s gracious love, and our relationship with God through Christ -- and then may we respond generously from our hearts, remembering most of all that from God and through God and to God are all things. To God be the glory forever. Amen.
