“…ing.”

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 29, 2006
The 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reformation Sunday

“…ing.”
Mark 10:46-52
Acts 15:36-41

I am preaching;
you are listening;
we are worshiping.

The verbs are in the active voice:
we are actively involved in the actions:
you are listening here and now,
we are worshiping here and now.
An hour ago I would have said, “I will preach.”
An hour from now I will say, “I preached.”
But now, I am preaching.
Active voice, active involvement:
I am in the moment, doing it.

So when we read in our Book of Order
that we are not just the church reformed,
but the church reforming, (G-2.0200)
we have to interpret that as active voice,
that we are actively involved here and now,
that our Reformation did not happen,
but is something that is happening,
something that will continue to happen.

We speak of the Presbyterian Church as being part of
the Reformed tradition,
the tradition that sprang out of the Reformation.
But what the Book of Order helps us to remember is that
the Reformation was not a historical point in time,
something that happened some 500 years ago.
The Reformation is something that started in the 16th century
and is continuing here and now,
as we continue the reforming process in our church.

We are the church reforming,
not the church reformed,
but the church reforming.
Which means we are a work in process,
our work is not done.

Reformation Sunday provides us with an opportunity
to look back over our history since that day in 1517
when a Roman Catholic priest named Martin Luther
wrote out a list of things that he thought
was wrong with the church.
It was a list that focused on corrupt practices
that he thought directed the faithful away from God,
away from Christ,
away from what Scripture taught.
Luther’s list was long: 95 different concerns and complaints.
Legend has it that he tacked his list to the door of his church
in Wittenburg Germany.

Luther was quickly condemned for his actions:
a parish priest who had the audacity to question authority,
to question his superiors,
to question the institution that he was part of.
His loyalty was questioned;
His faith was questioned;
He was dismissed as a drunkard
who would, church leaders hoped, realize the errors of his ways
once he sobered up.

A few years after posting his list
he was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church --
tossed out for his views.
But he stood firm in his convictions
that the church was in need of reform.
He was soon joined by others,
including a French lawyer and theologian named John Calvin.
It was Calvin who laid down the foundation
for what we now call the Protestant tradition.

Luther and Calvin both argued that the church had become
built more on man-made thoughts and ideas
than on what the Lord taught through scripture.
They argued that the church needed to be
brought back to the basics.
Calvin was hardly tactful or diplomatic in giving his opinion.
His writings are strong, often angry.
As just one example, he wrote of worship
as it was practiced in the churches
in the mid-16th century, as having “been deformed
by a diverse and unbearable mass of superstitions.”
(Institutes, 4.2.2)

The sale of indulgences was a particularly
sore point for the Reformers.
They argued that it was completely faithless to suggest that
you could be forgiven your sins by paying the priest a fee,
that you could in effect buy yourself out of trouble.
Forgiveness is ours from God through Jesus Christ --
that’s what we learn through the Scripture.
None of us needs a clergyperson to intercede for us,
because we all have Jesus as our mediator.
That is the biblical teaching that the Reformers
argued should be followed.

The Reformers raised questions about the Sacraments;
They asked why the church observed 7 Sacraments.
The Reformers argued that a Sacrament, a holy mystery,
should be only something Christ instructed us to do,
ordained us to do.
After reading carefully through the Scriptures,
the Reformers made their case that there were but two practices
that ought to be considered Sacramental,
that our Lord ordered us to do:
the Lord’s Supper and
the administration of Baptism.

They were not saying that the other practices were not important;
all they were saying was that they were not sacramental,
that Christ did not tell us to “do this”.
So, in the reformed tradition, marriage is a “gift given by God,
blessed by our Lord Jesus and sustained by the Holy Spirit.”
Marriage is something to be held in honor and esteem.
But marriage is not a Sacrament.
Confirmation, with its public profession of faith,
is an important step in the life of our young people,
a wonderful rite in the faith journey of our young adults.
But Confirmation is not a Sacrament.
The ordination of men and women to the office of Deacon,
Elder, or Minister of Word and Sacrament is important,
indeed vital to the church,
but it is not a Sacrament.

Luther, Calvin and others grounded their arguments in Scripture:
The Reformers looked to the Bible for answers.
So, for example, in the case of worship,
as we talked about a few weeks back,
Scripture teaches us what the core elements are
that we must have in a worship service.
If we are faithful to Scripture, we can be confident
that Calvin would not refer to what we are doing
as an “unbearable mass of superstition.”

But even when we think we have found the answers
grounded in Scripture,
we have to remember that if we are always reforming
it means we have to be willing to go back constantly
and take a fresh look at what we do.
Two hundred years ago we believed
there was ample support in the Bible
for the institution of slavery.
A little more than fifty years ago we read the Bible and concluded
that there was ample support prohibiting the ordination of women
to the office of Deacon or Elder,
or Minister of Word and Sacrament.

In a church that is Reforming,
we look at the Bible as a living book;
not something written in stone 2000 years ago,
but the living words of men and women
inspired by God through the Holy Spirit,
that we read with the help of the Holy Spirit
so that we can put the words
into practice here and now.
Scholar John Leith reminds us that
“reformed theology has always been intensely biblical”.
(Lieth, 100)

The book of Acts tells us the story
of the birth of the church of Jesus Christ.
As the apostles fanned out
and took the gospel out into the world,
small groups of men and women who heard the word
and responded to it began to gather to worship.
They gathered secretly in the predawn hours
on Sunday morning to remember the Resurrection.
Every Sunday was Easter for the early followers of Christ.
But even as they gathered, even as they worshiped,
we have to remember that Jesus left no instruction manual,
no Book of Order,
so every group that gathered
tended to do things their own way.
It was the apostle Paul who tried to bring some
systematic thinking to how the churches were organized
so that things would be done not only faithfully,
but also decently and in order.
His letters to churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae,
Thessalonica, Philippi, Rome,
and throughout the region of Galatia
each are a little different,
each a response to how the men and women
in each community were worshiping
and practicing their faith.
Some of the letters praised the followers,
while others rebuked and chastised
those to whom Paul was writing.

In our lesson we heard that Paul was eager to
“return and visit the believers in every city where [he had]
proclaimed the word of the Lord
[so that he could] see how they [were] doing.” (Acts 15:36),
He knew that every group, no matter how well intentioned,
needed continuous help,
needed to work continuously at reformation.
And, as we learned in our lesson, his follow up visits
served to strengthen the churches further,
served to help them with their reforming.

That idea of ongoing reformation,
of being reforming, and not reformed,
faded quickly, though, after the death of Peter, Paul
and the original followers of Christ.
Before the end of the first century, churches were going off
in as many directions as there were churches.
At the beginning of the last book in the Bible,
the book of Revelation,
we find letters to seven churches,
each short letter a plea for reform,
each with the final line,
“Let anyone who has an ear
listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches”
(Revelation 2:29ff)

We need to keep our ears open and listen constantly to the Spirit.
But the reality is, we don’t.
We get comfortable with the way we do things,
with our traditions, our practices.
The answer to the question,
“why do we do things that way?”,
ends up, “because we have always done it that way.”
We continue down that path, no longer a reforming church,
and we open ourselves up to trouble, including
having “light bulb” jokes written about us:
“How many Presbyterians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Seven: one to change the bulb
and six to complain about how much better
they thought the old bulb was.”

We become as blind as Bartimaeus to the need for change.
And only Christ himself can open our eyes.
The Catch-22 we find ourselves in is that
if we are Reforming, we will know when we are blind,
and know when to ask Christ to open our eyes.
If we are not reforming, we won’t recognize our blindness,
we will deny it,
convinced that we are just fine as we are,
and unable then to ask Christ for help.

It was Augustine who wrote that our hearts are restless
until they come to rest in God.
A Reforming church is always filled with a sense of restlessness
as we seek to be more attentive to God’s call
to us through the Spirit.
We are always called by the Spirit to
be looking anew and afresh at what we are doing
at how we are doing things.

We will never reach perfection,
never a place where we can say our work is done.
The words Calvin wrote five hundred years ago are timeless:
“The Lord is daily at work in smoothing out wrinkles
and cleansing spots [in his church].
From this it follows that the church’s holiness is not yet complete.
The church is holy, then, in the sense that it is daily advancing”
(Institutes, 4.1.17)

Our job is to be part of the advancing,
part of the reforming, part of the growth.

So the question before us is:
Are we a church reformed?
or are we a church reforming?
A Church Reformed is more comfortable;
a Church Reforming is more faithful.
A Church Reformed is easier;
A Church Reforming is more work.
A Church Reformed is a church for you and me;
A Church Reforming is the church of Jesus Christ.

Three letters,
three little letters at the end of the word,
three little letters, “i-n-g”
AMEN