Meggan Manlove

St. Paul, Chewelah

John 8:31-36

It’s an honor to be with you for this Reformation Sunday. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. In the world of grant writing, when you approach a foundation about funds for additional staff there is an industry term—capacity building.  It’s called capacity building because the foundation hopes that instead of returning to its well of financial resources, your organization will hire a staff person who will raise money and create programs. He or she will increase your capacity.  

Reformation Sunday lends itself well to considering what capacity building does the Lutheran church, specifically the ELCA and churches like St. Paul, have at its disposal for the next 5-10-50-100 years? We can provide safe places for people to ask questions and have discussions—about scripture, faith, science, economics, literature. This is pure gift for a community, the nation, and the world.  And it is a natural part of who we are. At the same time, we are not a place where anything goes. Like Martin Luther, there are still some non-negotiables we confess and then declare, “Here we stand.”

Also, part of our capacity is our affinity to Ecumenism. Breaking up the church 500+ years ago is not something to celebrate. We continue to build relationships nationally and locally with other Protestant denominations. This coming week the Lutheran World Federation will celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the signing of the Joint Declaration of Justification, the culmination of rich Roman Catholic-Lutheran dialogue.  Several years ago, Pope Francis and the leader of the Lutheran World Federation celebrated a Service of the Word together in Sweden.  

A leader in our church says that the second great gift of the Reformation, after being saved by grace through faith, is the understanding of vocation.  People who encounter Jesus want to connect their faith, with their daily living and our tradition gives us the language. Every person has multiple callings—parent, child, mentor, teacher, doctor, accountant, custodian and others.  

And, our greatest capacity lies in the text from this morning’s gospel.  Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” These are well-known and oft-cited words, though increasingly people do not know the source. They are literally inscribed in stone on many educational buildings, including the Bond Chapel attached to my alma mater—the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, but also the headquarters of the CIA. These words have sometimes been turned into a kind of loyalty oath in Christian circles. But using Jesus’ words as a motto for knowledge and power or as a demand for right belief completely misses the mark. We can easily fall into the trap of believing our effort and our understanding will bring life. We hear a demand for our work and miss God’s word of promise.

What does Jesus mean by “truth” and “freedom”? Does it mean, if we just know enough and behave well enough, we will attain freedom? And isn’t freedom the problem after all? We have been given free will, the argument goes, and that is what has gotten us into trouble. Free will is blamed as the source of evil. Salvation is found in somehow escaping from freedom, as “surrendering to God’s will” which usually becomes a set of moral obligations. It can force us into trusting only right knowledge…right doctrine…right behavior. 

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ has a different way of telling the human story: Humankind is not free despite what it might think about its proud lineage or powers. Humankind is deeply, hopelessly in captivity to sin and death. Jesus and his promise open a way to freedom, forgiveness, grace, and life. It is God who makes you free. It is not up to you. You do not have to live your lives constantly in fear of punishment, constantly trying to do the right thing. Paralyzed by your own fruitless, exhausting attempts at self-justification. Always looking over your shoulder.

A favorite scholar [Robert Capon] writes this about freedom, “If we are ever to enter fully into the glorious liberty of the children of God, we are going to have to spend more time thinking about freedom than we do. The church, by and large, has a poor record of encouraging freedom. She has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes that she has made us like ill-taught piano students: we play our songs, but we never really hear them, because our main concern is not to make music, but to avoid some flub that will get us in trouble.” 

Think of the systems we have erected, and been trapped in to keep us all in line. We can’t hear the music. And what heavenly music do we miss because we cannot hear? The promise of freedom. You miss the reality that your freedom has been realized through the death and resurrection of Jesus. In our bondage, it has become all about us. Luther’s definition of sin, “the soul curved in on itself” traps us in our own echo chamber.

Pontius Pilate famously asked, “What is truth?” By our definitions, the truth Jesus announces that sets us free leads us to ask the same question. Is truth right doctrine? Is truth right knowledge? Is it something we must attain? The truth that comes through Jesus is not moral instruction or the right thing to do or even behavior, but God love and mercy. When Jesus promises that you will know the truth and the truth will make you free, he was speaking of a person who is true, who remains true. 

The one who remains true is merciful, forgiving love brings life and freedom to the world. This truth is not information that can be taken and used to exploit and betray others, nor is it a secret code. It is Jesus’ promise to be true – true to God’s love and true to you despite all of your betrayals. When Jesus announces, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus is telling you that he is the embodiment of God’s compassionate mercy, true to the very end. Even truer than death.

Here is the good news. Here is the Gospel that Martin Luther discovered and that set him free. This is the truth that forms you into God’s liberated people. It is God’s promise that the former things are past. That the new covenant means not just a fresh start or another try for humankind, not just a little tweaking or a new page on a report card, no keeping account of future sins, but a sovereign promise pure and simple. In Christ, the one who is true, you are free.

Breathe that in for a moment. Free from the domination of sin, free from self-justification and self-righteousness, free from excluding people, free even from being Lutheran. And, since this freedom has been given by the one who is truer than death – you are free from death and freed for life. You are free to live in this truth and dare – dare anything – dare everything. And listen…you can hear the music of the one who loves us and is true.