Today we celebrate the morning that Martin Luther posted his
95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, the first act of the
Protestant Reformation.
I’m willing to bet you already know a little about this
whole Reformation thing, since you’re likely either a CLU grad, ELCA
seminarian, above-averagely-educated Protestant church-goer, or good enough
friends with me that I’ve mentioned it once or twice. You probably know that
some of Luther’s 95 complaints had to do with the integrity of the Holy Roman
Empire. Our main man Marty was just speaking some truth to power, y’all.
At this point, nearly 500 years later, it’s important that
we don’t look back on this solitary event and call it “The Reformation” or even
look on the life of Luther as “The Reformation” because the truth is that were
are c o n t i n u o u s l y re-forming
the church as we know it. Sure, we’re no longer Capital-C Catholic and there
are like 4 zillion Protestant denominations now, but we the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America cannot possibly sit in our pews and talk about the
Reformation as a thing of the past or a thing that has ended.
We have to keep on keeping on. We have to look our Church
square in the face and tell it what needs to change. We need to look ourselves
square in the face and tell us what needs to change, too. We need to keep
speaking truth to power. We need to keep recognizing that what we “have always
done” is not necessarily the right thing or the best thing or what we should
keep doing. We need to keep recognizing that the Church is a human institution
and can never, of course, be perfect, but can strive toward perfection in love
and justice and freedom for all who hear the Gospel.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (a person I celebrate today by name association, I guess?) told us that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. We've been bending. Let's keep bending.