“ If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and the truth will make you free.”
What is truth? Pontius Pilate famously asked Jesus.
We might might add what constitutes the freedom of disciples?
Freedom and truth are big ideas, both liberating and disturbing. Freedom come with choices, and the probability of making decisions in the name of seeking truth which changes everything.
Today we are three years shy of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s commitment to truth and freedom when he nailed 95 theses on the German church door in Wittemburg.
Back then the printing press was a new-ish invention, and the internet was half a millennia away. Bibles, pamphlets and books were circulated as this new invention transformed the communication of ideas, both religious and political.
Martin was a monk, a scholar of the Bible, and a teacher of theology. His reading of the scriptures and teaching led him to the conviction that the Catholic Church was rotten to the core. Nailing his 95 theses to the church door was the formal way of seeking a debate in his times. He had no idea he would be the spark lighting the Reformation which transformed Europe and England, and rippled out through the world.
Today we are here – worshipping, praying, singing, exploring, discussing and questioning because of what erupted in 1517.
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We live in the slipstream of that revolution which exploded with voices who gathered around Luther, reading his polemics and insights with great enthusiasm.
Alternative historians may imagine what our world would have been like without this explosive act of reform and renewal. But, like all explosions and revolutions eventually the dust settles down and people get on with rebuilding their lives and communities in new circumstances.
Lutheran, Church of England, Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational, Methodist churches all followed in its wake. Priests, pastors and lay people sought to give shape to expressions of church in the name of truth and freedom. Many more were to come ….
Mostly they were inspired by men whose names have gone down in history: Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, John Calvin, John & Charles Wesley, George Fox to name a handful. Inspired by their message and passion others continued their vision for religious freedom & truth. The seventeenth to nineteenth centuries was awash with religious fervour.
Each of these movements were aspects of reform and renewal. Diversity and differences became the norm, rather than unity or uniformity. It was this capacity to morph and adapt that allowed the reinvention of the church in many, and various circumstances.
In the aftermath of reformation the Uniting Church was born a short 37 years ago. Its foundational document “The Basis of Union” begins by using phrases which echoed the history it had inherited … “ continuing renewal”, “ sole loyalty to Christ”, “remain open to constant reform”. These were Reformation phrases, the idea of the Church being reformed and always needing further reformation.
Think of the word, what is implied: Re-form, reshape, change for the better. Renovate, reorganise, take something old and reimagine its use. It’s the dream of all visionaries – religious or secular – changing something for the better, whether that aim is achieved or not.
Rev Dr Davis McCaughey was one of the great visionaries of the UCA. He was deeply infected with ecumenism, reclaiming something the ancient unity of the church despite historic fractures and division. People gathered this dream as they began to explore creating an Australian, Protestant, ecumenical church
“In this union these Churches commit their members to acknowledge one another in love and joy as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, to hear anew the commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations and daily to seek to obey his will.” (Para 1)
These 20th century reformers recognised the Uniting Church was both reformed and it should remain open to continuing reform. However they did not glimpse the tsunami of changes – as the late 20th and early 21st century entered what can be called the Age of the Spirit.
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We live with constant upheavals, challenges & changes undreamt a couple of generations ago. Everything is in flux. A new world is being born and we are in the midst of this change.
I’m going to show a short video clip featuring Phyllis Tickle, a lay commentator about this change, she calls the great emergence, or a great rummage sale! Back in 2012 a discussion group spent several sessions exploring her analysis of what is changing, and why.
“The Great Emergence” video clip 2’40”
The church is changing – though it may seem glacial to us – and certainly when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door he, and those who joined with him had no idea they were on a hinge of history, changing the world. No one knows what the Christian landscape will be like in 50 years when perhaps this time of change has settled down for a period. However we do know that it will not be like the past for that world is already long gone, something is emerging out of the rubble, the prayers, debates and transformation of the churches and world.
Her brief sketch ends by claiming “God is doing a new thing among us … called emergent, or emerging Christianity. But like in the Reformation there will be many, diverse expressions.
Around the world Christianity is growing at a phenomenal rate – in South America, China, Korea, Africa far dwarfing the decline in Western countries. The majority of Christians now live south of Timbuktu, in other words Christianity is now a Global South phenomenon, not focused in Europe.
Churches which are reformed and being reformed are not in charge of change. We sail on tides of change, as no boat is designed to spend its life lives moored. Rather churches living into God’s future seek to respond faithfully through the winds of change tacking this way and that, sheltering from the storms when necessary, but also being willing to risk the journey to a new world.
“God give us a future/ daring us to go/ into dreams and dangers/ on a path unknown.”
We should not cling onto the past, but embrace the future of truth and freedom in the name of Jesus, the Risen One
Let us recall that vision as we affirm our journey together. Amen.
Rev David Carter
Reformation Sunday, 26/10/14