"LUTHER — THE RADICAL"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday October 29, 2000
Text: Romans 5:1-8
I don't know if any of you have ever gone on a tour of a public building only to find in the first few minutes that it is going to be an excruciatingly boring experience. When you've already gone through five artifacts and the particular guide is enthralled but nobody else seems to care, you know that this is going to be a very hard sojourn. I think back when I was a young boy taken to the Tower of London. I was particularly excited to be going for two reasons: first of all to see the Crown Jewels and secondly, for a young boy more especially, to see the place where people had been beheaded! I went to the Tower of London and after two or three minutes I realized that I was going to be bored to death by the guide and so decided to take a little detour on my own leaving my classmates to follow the guide. There was a chain rope covered in velvet crossing a pathway and I thought it would be nice to jump over that and see what was beyond — maybe the guillotine on which people had been beheaded I thought! So I climbed over the barrier and up the stairs and entered a big dark room. I was greeted by a security guard who said to me, "Who are you and why are you here?" I had no credentials of my own so I thought I would use my father's name. "I am the son of the Reverend James Stirling," I said. With a typical Cockney wit and speed he looked at me and said, "I don't care if you're the son of the bleeding Aga Kahn, you're not coming into this room!" With that, he carried me down the stairs and placed me back in the lineup for the boring tour and I never did see where people were beheaded. I was robbed.
I've thought back to that many times because there is a sense in which I needed some credentials. I needed some right for myself to go into places which were somehow barred for the ordinary. In many ways the apostle Paul, writing in the Book of Romans, is talking about the same thing. He is talking about what credentials we need to enter into the presence of God. What things must we desire, what things should we own, what characteristics should we possess that we might be able to go where others are unable to go, namely into the presence of the Almighty? Paul reaches the conclusion, a radical conclusion for his day, writing to the Romans he says 'since therefore we have been justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ we have access to God's grace'. For the apostle Paul these were radical words; they were words which spoke of freedom and reconciliation and of peace. They were words which were full of hope and ultimately for Paul, were the source of all gloria, from gracia to gloria, (from grace to glory); it was through the gift of Jesus Christ that Paul felt that we had access to the very presence of Almighty God.
I want to look at those words because often through the history of the Church great biblical passages somehow are submerged and lost in the clamour of religion and in the desires of humanity to assert their own religiosity. Very often words of grace, words of faith somehow get left behind and the great Martin Luther, who we're going to be looking at was one person who looked at the words of Paul and at the church around him and said, "Here you are. This is what is needed again to be discovered; that we are justified by faith, that we are saved by grace, that we have access to God through something that God has done, not something that we do by merit." I want to look at this word access in two ways: first by looking at it as if it is access to a great big court. The word that Paul uses is prosagoge. This word literally means within the time that Paul was writing, the credentials that someone would need to be introduced into a royal household, or into the line of the monarch. You couldn't just go and knock on the door of the castle or temple and go and see a king. On the contrary; you had to be introduced just as ambassadors today have their credentials announced when they go to see a monarch or head of state. Paul's thinking about God in those terms. He is saying that we have this prosagoge, we have this access, we have this introduction to the very grace and power of God through our faith in Jesus Christ.
When you think of the time in which Paul was writing these were radical words. The religion of his day had become dead and exclusive. You had to meet certain religios criteria, fulfill certain rituals, be of a particular style of character, be anything but a Gentile in order that you might be able to enter into the Holy Sanctuary of God. So Paul is saying something radical. He is speaking to a Gentile audience in Rome and saying, "Don't worry about that, you can come into the presence of God through something that God has done in Jesus Christ. Therefore the only criteria you need for access is faith in that Christ." Martin Luther, therefore, when looking around at the state of the medieval church in which he lived, saw similar words of freedom and liberation in that great passage from Paul. For in many ways the dead scholasticism of the medieval period had sort of crushed the church and made it almost a source of oppression within society as a whole. There was a belief within scholasticism, for example, that one could have a knowledge of God apart from God's revelation. In other words, through some religious ordinances, through the power of the church, one could actually have access to God but that access was determined by an intermediary body, the Church. If you fulfilled those obligations, if you were able to live up to the power of that reason, if you were able to subscribe to those doctrines, then you could have access to God. If not, you were to be damned. Luther looks around this church and he says, "The only way that I can know God is not on the basis of what the church tells me or what I myself might be able to earn or do, my access to God is given through God himself, through God's son Jesus Christ, in whom I have faith, and through whom I have access to the Lord." This was radical.
It was radical because the church in which he was living had become a dark, foreboding and serious place. It had stressed obedience as a way of access to God. Obedience to a series of set dogmas or rules, a series of beliefs and confessions, a series of rituals that one has to carry out in order that one might come to God. But even more especially, the church that Luther addressed had also become so oppressive that if you didn't follow those ordinances and if you were disobedient then you would be destroyed and removed from the church itself. In the early medieval period there were the Cathars in southern France who themselves believed that the church had become rich and stuffy and authoritarian. They were looking for another way to access God. It was agreed they were somewhat dualistic; they believed that the flesh was evil and that all desires had to be put to one side. They didn't believe in the elements of bread and wine in the Communion because they felt that they were perverse. But the church, in realizing that the Cathars existed, persecuted them and drove them out and the Inquisition judged them because they weren't obedient to the power of the Church. The Waldensians were another group who followed a man named Waldo. The Church went looking for Waldo and tried to track him down because he believed in poverty, he believed that the Church should renounce its power and prestige and lay down its life for the sake of society and take on itself the mantle of those who were poor, in the image of Christ. Of course, those who were rich, the robber barrens, the leaders of the church, those in positions of power could not stand the danger of the Waldensians and again the Inquisition drove them out. In Britain, because of the leadership of John Wycliffe, a Yorshireman who was an Oxford scholar who believed in the authority of scripture, and defined the term sola scriptura, he and a group that followed him, known as the Lollards, were similarly driven out by the Church because of the threat of bringing the bible into the hands of ordinary men and women who might find the freedom and the word of Christ in that book and so again they drove the Lollards out. Wycliffe was persecuted for what he believed. The church had become dark and heavy and authoritarian.
It had also placed on people severe obligations. If they didn't fulfill the obligations of purchasing their own salvation through indulgences, if they didn't subscribe to a particular set of beliefs or purchase certain relics or worship in certain places or give money to St. Peter's Church in Rome, then they would be excommunicated and banned. Luther looked at this and said, "We are not obedient to these forces, we are obedient only to one and that one is Jesus of Nazareth and it is Jesus of Nazareth who justifies us and there are no conditions for coming into the grace of God except that which has been set by God himself and that is faith." But undergirding all this there was something more — something even more devilish. That is undergirding obedience and obligation was the threat of Hell, the threat of damnation. Many of you may have read the wonderful work of Umberto Ecco, The Name Of The Rose. and if you have or seen the movie, you know it is a chilling account of that medieval church in its struggle with heresy. The continued threat that keeps coming throughout this book that all those who deviate from the norm that the Church has established will somehow bum in eternal fire and damnation. Is it any wonder, thought Luther, that people have no passion or love for the gospel if they live under this constant threat and word of judgement? The threat was very powerful. Nietzsche had a warning: "Be careful lest in fighting the dragon you become the dragon yourself." The church in its desire to stamp out evil often used evil means to oppress people so much so that Jesus Christ had little or no role in every day piety of people, for there was no need in a natural religion that said you can work your way to God, there was no need for the justifying grace of the cross of Christ. Luther comes into the midst of this and says, "No! The just shall live by faith. The righteous shall live by faith." Access to God, the grace of God is not something that is earned, it is something that is freely given from the beneficent heart of a loving Saviour.
So often we try to climb in the back door, try to think our religion and our own particular virtues are enough to be able to get us in. We are like the two men who were walking their dogs one afternoon and came upon a Pub and they looked at the Pub and thought it would be nice to go in and have a drink. But they noticed a sign which said, "No Dogs Allowed". They looked at their two dogs, the one a Labrador Retriever and the other a Chihuahua. The man with the Labrador Retriever says, "I think we should pretend we're blind and they'll let us in with our dogs." The other man agreed so they put on their sunglasses and walked into the Pub. The owner, the landlord, came over to them and said, "Excuse me; no dogs allowed." They said, "Oh, we beg your pardon, but we need these dogs for without them we cannot manage to get around." So the landlord looked at the one with the Labrador Retriever and said, "That, I can understand in your case." But to the man with the Chihuahua he says, "I'm sorry, but I don't believe that that Chihuahua is a guide dog." The man says, "You mean to tell me that they gave me a Chihuahua to take me around?!" Oh, grace by the back door.........! The church with its natural theology, with its beliefs that you can go from nature to grace, that you can earn the grace of God, continually goes through the back door and the apostle Paul and Martin Luther and all those who have read their bibles since say, "No, we understand that the righteous are justified by faith", and that is the way to have access to the grace of God.
There is a second meaning to the word prosagoge. It is the word harbour. Paul had in mind that there was a safe harbour for those who were hungry and seeking. We have access to the grace of God and therefore we have a safe place. Even though we might suffer, that suffering will actually end up producing endurance, and endurance character, and character hope and then we will be able to dwell in the presence of God. But we need that safe harbour because on our own, because of who and what we are as sinners, we cannot earn it ourselves. Some years ago a friend invited me to go fishing with him in one of the most beautiful villages on the south shore of South Africa in a place called Knysna along the garden route. We got in his boat with a local guide and sailed around the lagoon in Knysna and didn't catch a single thing. After a while the guide suggested that it would be a good idea to go out into the ocean itself through the head of the lagoon, dangerous waters, where there would be an abundance of fish. So we did and I was terrified! We went and were sitting with our rods and reels with lots to eat and drink (the only reason I ever go fishing!) and suddenly there was a terrible thump from under the boat. I looked at my two friends in terror and said, "What on earth was that?" Then it happened again. Another thump. "Oh, don't worry," they said. "It's only one of the Great White Sharks that are around here." (After last week's story you'll know that I was lucky to have survived Africa!) I said, "A Great White Shark?" My knuckles went white, my face went red; I was terrified. The guide looked at me and said, "From the perspective of the shark, Andrew, you are the beast." More sharks are killed by humans than the other way around. Luther wrote, "Man cannot by his nature desire that God should be God; on the contrary, he desires that he himself might be God and that God might not be God." Martin Luther understood that sometimes we are the beast. Sometimes humanity sets itself up as if it is God and tries to justify itself on its own terms. Sometimes when religion takes hold, religion of humanity that is devoid of the cross of Christ becomes an exceedingly dark and foreboding thing. If I look at our culture today there is a deep fascination with what I call the dark side, the underside of human religion and spirituality. There is a fascination with the occult and the dark things. That is what happens when humanity sets itself up as if somehow it is God rather than the understanding that it is God who draws us to himself and justifies us. Our religion can become the beast very quickly. Luther understood that. Contrary to that darkness, and contrary to that sort of mysticism that tries to find God apart from how God reveals himself, there is for Luther a great joy. The Book of Romans and the writings of Luther are not the writings of someone who was just so burdened with guilt that they can find no way out, they are written by people who have found that the way to freedom and peace and reconciliation is through the power of this very faith and therefore they have a sense of glory, joy and celebration. At the heart of the Reformation there is a transformation from a dark and sordid faith to one that is bright and alive and full of grace.
In writing his book Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky gives one of the sermons of Father Zossima. The priest is writing at a time when Russia is torn in the class wars between the rich and the poor, when the church has sometimes sided with the rich and there seems to be no hope for the poor. He is crying out for his land and he wonders about how there is a possibility that his country will ever have freedom and hope. In the sermon of Father Zossima, Dostoevsky sends a very strong message to the religion of his day and to a nation that had become with the obsession of darkness and oppression. He wrote these words: The equality of the Russian people is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man. That will be understood only among us. Let there first be brothers and there will be brotherhood also and before we have brotherhood there can never be any fair share. We preserve and celebrate the image of Christ and it will shine forth like a precious diamond over the whole world. It will be so. It will be so. Dostoevsky looked at the darkness of the world around him and knew that if his people would cleave to Christ, if they would understand that their justification, their freedom, their life, their equality are found not in some dark religion, but in a living faith in Christ, the nation that he loved would be transformed. That is the power of the Reformation. That is what had grasped Dostoevsky.
I wasn't sure whether or not to mention this today but I thought it was probably a good time to do so. Eighteen months ago I told you a story about a friend of our family. He was a young man named Trevor who had stolen, gotten in with a crowd in the East End of London, who had spent fifteen years in prison and finally when he came out of prison, because of the love of Christians when he was in prison and by the grace of my uncle who had been his high school principal, finally ended up becoming an Anglican minister. Trevor was a wonderful man and just eighteen months ago I was playing golf with him near the lovely village of Bury St. Edmonds. This past week Trevor was arrested. His name was in nearly every British newspaper; he had stolen money from his parish and had accepted gifts that he never should have accepted. Last night my uncle phoned me to tell me the sad news of Trevor and to ask me to pray for him. I asked, "What hope is there for a man like this who in a life of revolving door of crime and grace and crime and grace now finds himself humiliated before the national press in Britain?" My uncle paused and said, "Why are you asking me for that answer? You of all people should know what the answer is. Surely you are the one who is always espousing that the just shall live by faith." For Trevor, even though he has sinned again, there is always hope. By the world's standards he probably won't be perceived that way, by the church's way absolutely not, by those who are his parishioners who he has corrupted and defiled probably not, but in the grace of Almighty God and in the depths of the cross of Christ there is still more I am sure, to the story of Trevor. This is the freedom that Paul experienced. This is the freedom that Luther experienced. This is the joy of knowing that reconciliation and the bank book suggests that even when the debits are so great against you, the credit of the cross of Christ standing on the other side gives you hope and gives you another chance.
We're going to be singing my favourite hymn in a few minutes. Many years ago there was a concert in Wembly Stadium in England to raise money for South Africa. Seventy thousand people came and many of the great rock bands of the day from Guns and Roses to Fleetwood Mac were playing and everyone was ecstatic and young people were roaring up and down and Wembly Stadium had not seen such excitement since the World Cup in 1966. There was great joy and it was a good cause. The roaring beat came on and one for three hours until the final performer rose to sing. It was Jessye Norman. She just stood there and began to sing acappella Amazing Grace. Nobody listened. The crown whooped it up, they beat their drums and asked for more of Guns and Roses and Jessye just continued to sing Amazing Grace, over and over again until there was a hushed silence. You could hear a pin drop. The crowd of seventy thousand people began to sing along with Jessye Norman. John Newton who wrote these great words had been a slave owner. He'd written some wonderful hymns while standing on the coast of Africa while picking up his black slaves to take them to America. Gradually over time, John Newton came to the understanding that what he was doing was wrong. But he did so not by virtue of his own force but only when he realized that he was gripped by the grasp of grace. So much so that some tunes that we sing now, as Jessye Norman has said, were probably originally black African tunes that the slaves might have sung and that Newton adopted. Here was John Newton, a man who was outside of the pale, a man using the exploitation of people of colour for his own political and financial gain, but by the very power and grace of God in Jesus Christ was so changed that along with William Wilberforce, started to bring about the end of slavery. You see, John Newton knew that he could only rest in the harbour of God, he could only dwell in the access of God. Not through himself for he was beyond the pale, but by the amazing grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. Luther believed that with his soul. Luther was radical. May the church learn that lesson. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.