Reformation Sunday

This coming Sunday, October 28, 2012, is Reformation Sunday. While the annual recognition that the United Church of Christ owes its identity at least in part to Reformation theology is part of our corporate memory, we must admit that the occasion barely matters.  I imagine that the lack of interest in Reformation Sunday, and in Reformation theology, is part and parcel of the contemporary church's tendency to remember events but ignore the impact of those events on the present.

 

The contemporary church has thought that Reformation Sunday was a means to remember the past, to wave the memory flag over names like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. It is a way for us to honor the heroes of the faith, without really considering why those great leaders did what they did, what it cost them, and what they would have us do today.

 

Reformation Sunday is not so much about the 16th century Protestant Reformation in Europe as it as about the willingness and need of the contemporary church to continue the effort of ongoing study, investigation and self-examination. As we learn more and more about the ministry of Christ Jesus, as we more deeply encounter him and his message, we experience the need for new avenues of ministry and service. When our institutional orthodoxies, formal and/or casual, do not allow us to alter actions based on those investigations, then we reject the Reformation spirit. We cling to traditional values and practices, even ones that counter what we have learned about Christ Jesus.

 

Therefore, Reformation Sunday is a challenge for the contemporary church. It dares us to keep alive the spirit of faithfulness to Christ Jesus, as a movement that follows him, wherever his ministry leads us. As we learn increasingly more about Jesus, our practices and traditions must be altered in cooperation with that which we have come to know. Anything less is hypocrisy.

 

Join us this Sunday at Shiloh Church for a look at Reformation spirit, what we have learned about Christ Jesus in through the past few decades, and how that information changes everything that we do as a church.

 

See You Sunday!