Justice and Faith

Today is Reformation Sunday, the day we celebrate the reformation of the church. Reformation day is actually Tuesday the 31st of October when, as tradition has it, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Wittenberg castle church door. Although, spoiler alert, he may not have. He did send his 95 Theses to his bishop, Albrect of Mainz, on October 31. To nail them on the door would have been futile because most people in Luther’s day could not read. Until Gutenberg, and his invention of movable type, books were hand-copied and thus very expensive and few could read. I must admit that I often wonder why we celebrate the day anyhow. There were previous attempts to reform the church before Luther. But the church was able to suppress those attempts. Some of those before Luther were burned at the stake to discourage others from trying. Luther was at the right time and place for his attempt. He was able to reach a larger audience than previously with the help of Gutenberg’s invention. He also tapped into a discontent by many about the church’s overreach into their lives. Luther also was a person of the correct caliber for the task unwilling (or unable) to ignore his principles. But to pick one day centered on a single event seems to be short-sighted when we talk about reformation and the church. God is constantly reforming the church in every age and place. In fact for each of us God reforms our lives every day. That we need to be constantly reformed is that we are like the Jews in our gospel today. They had deceived themselves so well that they claimed to have never been slaves forgetting Egypt and Babylon. Just like them we are pretty good at deceiving ourselves as well. That our lives are perfect and that we know what God wants of the world and what is right and wrong. That brings us to our text from Jeremiah.

Jeremiah reminds the people that God had given them a list of what is right and wrong and they did not follow it. That is why they faced bondage from the Babylonians. The good news is that, because God’s people are unable to follow simple rules, God has made a new rule that is written upon our hearts. That is the reforming part that we seek in our lives. How we do that is the difficult part.

We turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans to examine our lives. There he reminds us that, “we are justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” So what does this all mean? My dictionary tells me that the root of Justified is jus from the Old French meaning right or law which comes from the Latin jungere meaning to join or bind. That would, if you are talking about the law, mean you are bound to the law. What, then, does it mean to say when we are justified by Christ we are set free from bondage. Can we be bound and unbound at the same time? We can when we decide to what or whom we are bound. The answer is Jesus. By his life, death, and resurrection we are bound to him by love. Love is the heart of the new covenant. We are to live our lives as imitators of Jesus. We do that by showing love to others and sharing all the gifts that we ourselves have received from God. Yes, in our selfish world among a people who so easily deceive themselves that they deserve what they have and can waste it on their own desires, we are called to show self-giving love. Look then to the reformation, look into your own life, and ask God to wrap you in God’s love and form you into the image of Christ.