The first farewell sermon I remember hearing from a Pastor was Easter Sunday, 1996. Dr. James Lamb was preaching his last sermon as Senior Pastor of my home church, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Garner< Iowa, as he had accepted a call to become Executive Director for Lutherans for Life. I will never forget that sermon, watching as he stood in the pulpit to begin his sermon, he simply said this:
“Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia! Death has no hold on Him, and it has no hold on you, either! Your sins are forgiven and you have the promise of everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ! That’s all I need to say.”
And then he proceeded to step out of the pulpit for a brief moment, only to step back in, and said: “But, since this is the last sermon you will hear from me as your Senior Pastor, you all don’t get off the hook that easily!” and proceeded to continue with the rest of the sermon.
While yes, it made for a memorable final Sunday, and while over the years since, I’ve had the opportunity to hear Pastor Lamb preach several more times both at our home church in Garner when he returned as a guest speaker, or in other places, the point he made at the beginning of the sermon was right. When it comes to our faith, our lives of discipleship, our life together in this congregation, it’s really all about one thing: it’s all about Jesus! Jesus Christ has died for our sins, risen from the dead to defeat the power of sin and death, and He is our only source of forgiveness, life, and salvation! He is the way, the truth, and the life! Jesus is the only reason that this congregation has made it this far over the past 141 years, and He is your only hope as you look to your future beyond today as my call as your Pastor comes to an end. Thus, I cannot encourage you enough: stay centered in Christ, crucified and risen for you, in everything you say and do, and allow Him to make you through the power of the Holy Spirit into a new creation in Him! As Jesus Himself says in today’s Gospel reading on this Reformation Sunday: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free…Truly truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (v.31-32, 34-36) Amen! That’s all I need to say, friends!
But, just as with Pastor Lamb on that Easter Sunday 24 years ago, since this is my final sermon as your Pastor at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church-Vilmar, you don’t get off the hook that easily, either. You see, today is Reformation Sunday. It’s the Sunday every year when we know the paraments are red, one of the hymns is going to be “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, you’re probably going to hear about Martin Luther at some point in the sermon, and the focus of the day is going to be the necessity to stay centered in the Word Alone, which points us to Christ Alone for our forgiveness, life, and salvation. When my family and I made the decision to accept the call to Hope and Glen Flora Lutheran Churches a few weeks ago, we didn’t intentionally plan that our last Sunday with you was going to be Reformation Sunday. Granted, Lindsay will be one of the first to tell you that Reformation is one of my favorite Sundays of the year because of its importance in the life of the Church and our ongoing witness in the world today. In some ways, it seems like an odd Sunday to choose for a Pastor to end a ministry with a congregation. But as I’ve thought about it, in particular over this past week, what better message is there for me to leave you with, than the message that the Reformation proclaims? That in our past, our present, and our future, we are called to be Christ-Centered, Mission-Driven, Traditionally Grounded disciples of Jesus Christ, who seek to abide in Him and in His Word all the days of our lives in every area of our lives.
I know in years past on Reformation Sunday, you’ve heard me say in the sermon something that Martin Luther himself once said: there is an ongoing need for reformation in the life of the Church, and in the life of the individual Christian. Indeed, in many ways, the life of discipleship is a life in which we are reformed for a purpose! That is very clear in this conversation that Jesus is having with some Jews who had been following Him for a while in our Gospel lesson for today from John 8. They have heard Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, speak His life-giving Word. Earlier in this chapter, they have heard Jesus say of Himself “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12). And now, He is telling these Jews, and anyone else who would follow Him, what it truly means to be a disciple of His: abide in His Word. What does it mean to abide in His Word? To abide in something means to stay in it, not to stray from it. To live within it. To hold it as having authority in all matters of your faith and your everyday life. And why? Because it is only in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that we have hope of forgiveness of our sins and everlasting life.
It doesn’t take very long in our reading before we start hearing objections. Remember, these are being spoken by Jews, people who should be extremely knowledgeable about the Word of God, and about its promises of a Savior. These are the people who, more than anyone else, should be able to see what Jesus has been doing with His miracles, and hear His teaching with an authority that no one else has, and be able to recognize that Jesus is who He claims to be: He is the Savior. He is the one they have waited their entire lives to encounter. He is the One they are to follow all of their days, and follow His Word. And here, Jesus has some good news for them! “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (v.31-32)
And what is their response to this life-giving Word of Jesus? Where He’s saying “Just follow me, live in My Word, and you will be free from your greatest enemies of sin, death, and the power of the devil?”
“We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free?’” (v.33)
With that answer, we see their blindness. It’s not a physical blindness, mind you. We’re talking about a spiritual blindness. That’s what happens when we try to put ourselves at the center of matters of faith and everyday life, instead of Jesus Christ and His Word. Now let’s think about this claim that these Jews are making for themselves. First of all, as they refer to themselves not as people of God, but as descendants of Abraham, they indicate first of all where their focus is: it’s on things of this world. TO them, their identity is their lineage, which in this case, goes back to Abraham. Not as redeemed, forgiven children of God. Second, they also seem to forget about their own history, which of course there was that period of 400 years of slavery in Egypt. And when that happened, did the Jews free themselves? No. It took acts of God to free them from the shackles and chains of slavery in Egypt. It took acts of God to keep them alive in their wanderings in the desert, and to deliver them to the Promised Land. None of that was their doing. It was all God’s doing. And here, the Word made Flesh is saying “Abide in Me! I’m the one you have waited for and that all of Scripture has pointed to,” and in their own selfish pride, they refuse to recognize Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Thus, the need for Jesus to speak some “Reformation Words” to these Jews who fail to recognize their spiritual condition apart from him:
“Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (v.34-36)
If you want a picture of how ridiculous the claim these Jews are trying to make happens to be, imagine prisoners who were unable to free themselves from their chains and their prison cells have a liberator enter the prison, overcome the guards, unlock the cell door, flings it wide open, calling for the prisoners to follow Him to freedom, and yet, the prisoners refuse saying “no thanks, we’re doing fine on our own” as they continue to try to chip away at the cinderblock wall of their cell with a plastic spoon in a feeble attempt to gain their own freedom. It makes no sense, does it?
Yet that is the picture of how much sin, when we allow it to turn inward toward ourselves and away from the life-giving Word of the Lord, can blind us to the truth. And the reason why Jesus continues to call us to return to Him as the source of our life and salvation.
Now a person would think, after hearing the good news of the Gospel from Jesus Himself, that He is the One who sets us free from our bondage to sin, that the Church would never lose sight of the good news of the Gospel, and would abide in Jesus Christ, and that individual Christians would do the same, right? But of course, as history tells us, that hasn’t always been the case. By the time we get to the 16th century, the message of the Gospel had become obscured. The Church was teaching that in order to attain salvation, you could, but you had to “balance the scales” of your sin and your good works through a system of paying, praying, and obedience to whatever it was the Church told you to do. For a young Martin Luther, when he heard the phrase “the righteousness of God” from our Epistle reading in Romans 3, He didn’t hear that as a good thing. IT was a source of fear. He saw Jesus not as a loving Savior, calling for Luther to draw near to him, but rather as an angry judge, waiting for Luther to slip up one too many times and cast him into the abyss of hell. Thus, Luther tried to do everything he could think of to try to make himself righteous with God: he became a monk. He said a lot of prayers. He conducted mass. He tried to be faithful in his service to the church. And yet, the more he did, the more he fell into despair. It wasn’t until he returned to the Scriptures, and began abiding in the Word of the Lord, that the word of Christ changed his life. It was there he came to understand that the righteousness of God was a free gift through Jesus Christ, and His life, death, and resurrection. It wasn’t up to Luther to atone for his sin. It was up to him to live in the forgiveness and new life that Jesus Christ had provided for him. The Christian life was not about finding your identity through yourself and your works, or any human being for that matter, but the Christian life was about finding your identity and your source of life in Jesus Christ.
Thus, the spark that created the Reformation of the Church, as Luther called for the church of his day to abide in the life-giving Word of the Lord, and for individual Christians to do so as well. So that they would know what true freedom is, and that it is found in Jesus Christ! And Luther continued to proclaim that truth, and would continue to abide in His Savior, Jesus and His Word, for the rest of his life.
And now, that brings us to today. October 25, 2020. Reformation Sunday. The last time that I will be in this pulpit as your Pastor here at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Vilmar. What does the Reformation have to do with us, as we look to the past couple of years we’ve shared in this pastor-parish relationship, and as we look forward, as beginning next Sunday, you begin a new chapter in the history of this congregation, and soon, I begin a new call with Hope and Glen Flora Lutheran Churches?
Let’s go back to that statement that Luther once made regarding the role of Reformation in the life of the Church and the individual Christian. You see, one of the reasons we celebrate Reformation Sunday every year is simply the fact that the Reformation really wasn’t a one time event that is simply a part of our past. Reformation Sunday isn’t an unofficial “Lutheran Pride Sunday” where we get to dust off our Catechisms, sing Luther’s hymns, and beat our chests about how we Lutherans got it right theologically and other Christians didn’t. Reformation Sunday is a reminder to us that the daily life of discipleship in Jesus Christ is really a life of continual reformation. Indeed, as we abide in the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is at work within our life to continually reform us! He reforms us from being centered in ourselves, boasting in our works, our comfort, how much money we put in the offering plate, the fact we can trace our family’s heritage to the founding of this church 141 years ago, the time we’ve given to this church to serve on Council, teach Sunday School, or do whatever else you’ve done in the life of this church, all those “religious” things we put so much pride into and even find our identity within, but do not have the power to deliver us from sin, death, and the power of the devil, and instead, the Holy Spirit, as we abide in the Word of the Lord changes us. The Word of God calls us to leave our sinful pride behind, just as it does with the Jews in the Gospel lesson for today, to repent of our sins, and instead, center our entire lives in Jesus Christ, as we find our identity in Him! An identity in which we are called redeemed, forgiven children of the heavenly Father who seek to follow Jesus all the days of our lives.
You see, my dear friends here at St. John’s-Vilmar, that’s the whole purpose of why I’ve been here in your midst these past couple of years. I haven’t been called to point you to yourselves. I haven’t been called to keep you comfortable in your sin. I haven’t been called here to help you find excuses for sin, or point you to anything within yourself. I’ve been called to point you to Jesus Christ, and to be His messenger who calls you to abide in Him and His Word all the days of your lives. And on this day in which we go our separate ways, that’s the same message I leave you with. In many ways, it reminds us of words that the apostle Paul spoke in a farewell message in Acts 20 to the leaders of the church in Ephesus, a church he helped to bring into existence, when he encouraged them with a word of warning, and encouragement, about what lied ahead for them in their lives individually and as a church once he left:
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert…And now, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” (Acts 20:28-31a, 32)
In other words, be on guard always, dear people of God of St. John’s Lutheran Church of Vilmar as you look to the future! There are all sorts of people, saying all sorts of things about God and about Jesus out there! Many of whom can threaten to lead you astray in your walk of discipleship, in that they threaten to take Christ out of the center of it, and replace it with yourself, your desires, and what makes you happy or comfortable. As you begin your own process of discernment regarding your future of ministry, and who it is that God is calling to become your next Pastor, remember this: you call is to abide in Jesus Christ, and find your identity individually, and as a congregation in Christ and His Word. Because, as I soon begin a new ministry with the people of God at Hope Lutheran Church in Ladysmith and Glen Flora Lutheran Church at Glen Flora, it’s going to be the same thing for me, too. I’m also called to continue to abide in the life-giving Word of Jesus. The message that I’ll be proclaiming won’t change. What is changing for me is the setting: the circumstances in which I’ll be going about that work will be much different than it has been here. And likewise for you, as you discern your future in this congregation, you may discover that God is calling you as you abide in His Word to do some things differently, too. And while it may be frightening, and while not knowing for certain how long this upcoming vacancy will last, or what ministry might look like can cause you to focus on fear, remember: your identity is not found in yourselves, or in the fact that your name is on a membership roster in this church, or even that you have the right letters of the Lutheran alphabet soup on the church sign: your identity individually, and as a church, is only found in Jesus Christ! You have been clothed with His righteousness that covers your sins! Why would you want to go back to the slavery of sin, when you have been set free to live in the freedom of Christ? Dear friends, in the unchanging Word of the Lord, you have something powerful and life-changing to share with the world out there, starting right here, in rural Butler County, Iowa. So friends, abide in the Word of Christ! Abide in your Savior, Jesus! Allow Him to transform you and to be the center of your entire life! Because it is in Christ, and Him alone, that you truly have freedom and life!
I guess it was appropriate after all, for my time as your Pastor to come to an end on this Reformation Sunday. I sincerely hope and pray that God will richly bless the ministry of Word and Sacrament that will take place in this historic location for many years to come. And most of all, I pray for each one of you, that from this day forward, you would abide in the Word, abide in Jesus Christ, so that you may have life in His name, and be lights of the good news of the Gospel in this dark world in which we live. As another of my favorite preachers, Dr. Oswald Hoffman, would say, “there is nothing more for me to say, but Amen! Let it be so! Amen!”
