October 27, 2024
Reformation Sunday
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36
The Truth Will Make You Free
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Our director of youth and family ministries, Grace, is currently enrolled at UW-Stout. She’s working towards a master’s degree in their counseling department. The two of us huddle on Monday afternoons to go over the week. I like to ask her what she’s been studying. Each week in her classes they learn about a different therapy technique. I’d been a psychology major in college, so I kind of live vicariously through hearing what she’s studying!
This past Monday, Grace told me they’d reviewed Narrative Therapy. That was a new one on me; I hadn’t heard of it. But what Grace told me about it really captivated me. In Narrative Therapy, the counselor tries to guide their client in changing how they view their identified problem by reframing their life story.
What does that mean? We all have a story that we tell about ourselves. It’s how we’ve come to understand how all the pieces and winding pathways have come together to form us into the people we are. But perhaps we’ve shaped that story along some unhealthy narratives. Like, maybe we’ve experienced a lot of hard luck and abuse. And we’ve come to perceive ourselves as a victim of these circumstances. So maybe we could reframe all the hardship that’s come our way by focusing instead on the fact that we’ve prevailed. This would mean that we’re not victims, we’re survivors. One narrative frames us within powerlessness while the other points to strength and resolve and inner character.
Or maybe there are aspects to you that are quite different than other people. And through persistent teasing and criticisms, you’ve come to believe that you’re a freak. Well, maybe a new self-narrative can lift up the very thing that makes you so different – not condemn you for it but lift it up. After all, this characteristic is part of what makes you you! It’s your unique gift, it’s your “special sauce.” So rather than shaping your narrative around shaming, you understand that you’re exactly the unique creation God intended you to be. You have a gift to share with the world.
The hit movie “The Help,” is based on the book of the same name. The main character, Aibileen Clark, is an African American housekeeper working for a white family in Jackson, Mississippi. The year is 1962. Besides cleaning their house and cooking, Aibileen also takes care of the family’s little daughter, Mae. She’s devoted to Mae, and Aibileen has a phrase – a mantra – that she repeatedly tells Mae: “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.” In a world of negativity and mixed messages, Aibileen wants to plant this blessing seed in little Mae’s heart. She wants to shape the self-narrative of this little girl on this positive message. “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.”
There are so very many false narratives in this world. Especially in election season, we’re not sure what to believe with so many half-truths and outright lies. You’ll see one ad on television that completely skewers a certain candidate. And then you’ll see their opponent’s ad that sounds like the reverse. Frequently you’ll see these ads back to back! What are we to believe? What news feed do we watch? What narrative do they tell? It’s just dizzying.
Society tells us false narratives about ourselves, too. They tell us how we are judged and ranked. They tell us if we’re winners or losers, important or invisible. And if we hear them frequently enough, we come to believe them.
Political narratives and social narratives aren’t the only ones out there. There are religious narratives, too. What story do we tell about God? What does that story reveal about how God relates to us? Does our narrative tell of an angry God who judges us harshly? Or is God aloof and so high above us that we’re like an insignificant speck in the wide universe?
This Bible that we ponder holds many stories in it. And if you search its pages, you can find passages to validate your particular narrative. You can proof text just about anything with the Bible.
But there is a greater, overarching narrative in, with, and under our Bible. It stretches from cover to cover. And it tells a definitive story, a story about God and about ourselves. This is the story that Jesus was trying to explain to his listeners in our reading from John. He tells them that his word, the message he proclaims to them, stands within this foundational narrative of the scriptures.
If you want to understand God, if you want to see clearly the true nature and character of God, then listen to the narrative Jesus is telling! His message, the story he himself is woven into, that his very life is telling: it’s so crystal clear that you will be able to see YOUR true self reflected within it. And when you understand yourself within God’s true narrative, then you will experience a freedom like you’ve never known!
Jesus’ listeners took issue with what he was saying. “Free? What are you talking about, we’ve always been free! We’ve never been slaves to anyone!”
Now, this just isn’t true! The descendants of Abraham were slaves in Egypt for 400 years! And then they lived in exile in Babylon for 70 more! And even now, even as they insist that they’re completely free, they’re living under the boot of Rome.
Personally, I gain comfort in the denial of Jesus’ listeners. It’s good to see their humanity. It lets me know we’re not alone as we also struggle, groping in the dark for truth.
These false narratives we tell ourselves, they can be VERY persistent! We cling to them because they’re what we know. We’re invested in them, even if they’re crushing us!
Today is Reformation Sunday, and we lift up the legacy Martin Luther has left for us. Now, Luther understood full well just how persistent a false narrative about God can be, even when it’s killing you. Luther was crushed by guilt. It was debilitating. Try as he might to live righteously, he could only see how he always, always fell short. To say that Luther was tortured was an understatement.
But Luther was a relentless student of his Bible. And one day, he was sitting in his study in Wittenberg, sitting at his large desk, beside a big, sunny window. And he was engaged in a deep dive study of a certain passage found in the book of Romans. He was examining the phrase “righteousness of God,” “dikaiosune theou.”
Righteousness of God: this was the very heart of his tortured narrative! God was righteous and he was not. Nor could he ever be. God demanded righteousness, and that was the one thing Luther could never, ever attain. He was damned.
But then, it happened. A new understanding of those words came to him: righteousness of God. Righteousness – all of it – it all comes from God. No one else but God can make something righteous. How could something corrupt generate righteousness? It can’t! Only a righteous being can create it!
And when Luther realized this, that God is the source of all righteousness, he was freed from his relentless self-torture. It transformed his narrative.
For the first time, Luther understood the loving nature of God’s heart. God so loved the world that our Lord Jesus Christ entered into our human story. Jesus’ narrative was woven into our own. He dwelt among us, he merged into our reality to reveal the loving truth about God. And in his final act, in his crucifixion, he transmitted God’s righteousness to us.
Sitting at his desk, hunched over his Bible, Luther realized that this righteousness was his, too. He understood that the righteousness of God has been realized apart from the law. It came through Jesus Christ. Luther didn’t live under the law; he lived under Jesus Christ. He, Martin Luther, was justified by this grace as a gift! In that moment it was like the scales fell from his eyes. He was wholly acceptable before God! Moreover, he was BELOVED by God! This knowledge changed everything. It set him free.
In our worship today we’ll celebrate the confirmation of our youth. My friends, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the journey we’ve been on for the past three years. We’ve been digging into matters of our faith. Together, we’ve considered Luther’s Small Catechism. We’ve explored the Old and New Testaments. You’ve shared your faith statements with me, and I’m always humbled to read them. And now we are here, today.
What happens today is part of your holy narrative. That story began on the day you were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And in that moment, God claimed you. Since then, and with each passing sunrise, you and God are writing another page in your life’s narrative.
May this truth set you free.
