You’ll notice I’m wearing a different stole this morning. This is the first Sunday I’ve been with you that hasn’t had the color green, so it’s the first time I’ve gotten to venture out a bit in my stole wearing. This stole is particularly special to me because it is my ordination stole. It was a gift from my parents and it was the stole the bishop laid over my shoulders at my ordination.
This stole is also special because it was hand made for me. A friend my parents know from their church is a weaver, and he wove it for me. While it was in progress John taught my parents to use the loom so they could add a couple of rows. He also invited anyone from their church, the church I grew up in, to come to his home to add a few rows. The gold threads that weave through it are from thread he bought to make a stole for a dear friend and mentor of mine. So in addition to being beautiful, this stole makes me feel tied to the many hands that worked on it, the church that raised me, and my friend who wears the same thread when she leads worship.
The sort of funny story about this stole was, since it was an ordination present, it was supposed to be a surprise. Trusting that John wouldn’t lead my parents wrong, I told them I didn’t want to see it until my ordination. Well John thought that was a nice plan, but his partner Neil couldn’t handle the wait. So the summer after I graduated seminary, Neil discovered I was in town visiting my parents and invited the three of us to their house. John gave me a tour of his studio and showed me how the stole was made. Then we sat in their living room while Neil, excited as a kid at Christmas, handed me a wrapped box. Inside was the stole. I tried it on, Neil opened a bottle of champagne, we toasted my graduation, and many pictures were taken. And in the long two years that I waited for ordination, the memory of that evening in John and Neil’s living room was such a gift. Because in Neil’s enthusiasm and John’s bringing together of so many people, I remembered that people believed in me, in my sense of call, and in the work the Holy Spirit was doing through me. And that support was priceless.
We wear red at ordinations, Pentecost, and Reformation Sunday because red is the color of the Holy Spirit. There are many images of the Spirit, the color red comes from the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire that descended on the disciples at Pentecost, sending them out into the world. Fire is a good image for the Spirit I think because fire, like the Spirit is unpredictable. Fire can be a destructive and terrifying force. Growing up in wildfire country, I know the terror of an uncontrollable burn. But it is also life-giving. In the forests, fire clears out the dense underbrush that prevents new life from taking root. Some trees, like the Giant Sequoias, require the heat of the fire to germinate their seeds. Fire’s reason for existing is not as a destructive force but as a creative one, clearing out the clutter and allowing space for new life to emerge.
We celebrate Reformation Sunday with the color red because that same movement is what the Reformation did. It cut through the laws and restrictions that were holding the people of God captive and brought them back to the heart of God’s message of grace, truth, life, and forgiveness, while shaping that message to be understood in a new way for a new time. The Holy Spirit doesn’t change God, since the Holy Spirit is God, but the Holy Spirit’s continual movement provides the lens for us to see the timelessness of God in the midst of our time-limited existence. In systems designed for a different time, the message of God can be obstructed by restrictions, so through Luther and the Reformers, the Holy Spirit blew through the church so that God’s love was again clear.
The one problem I have with Reformation Sunday is we say we are celebrating The Reformation, as if reformation was a single moment in history. But the truth is, the Holy Spirit is continually reforming, continually moving, continually blowing through our human structures and bringing new life. In fact, I think Jesus himself is about Reformation in our Gospel reading for this morning. You may have noticed a pattern over the past few weeks of the religious leaders testing Jesus. This week, it’s the Pharisees. They ask Jesus, what is the greatest commandment. They ask him this to try and trick him, to catch him in false teaching, or to somehow prove that his priorities are off. No matter which of the ten he chooses, a case could certainly be made that one of the others is truly more important, so there is plenty of space to make him look the fool.
But Jesus doesn’t play their game. Instead he responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Instead of picking one commandment over another, as the Pharisees had asked, Jesus boiled all the commandments down into their core purpose, love. Love God, love neighbor. Love. It’s as simple as that.
The Pharisees saw the commandments as rules for who got to be in the church. Their intentions were good; to protect the holiness of the people of God, but the problem is they missed the purpose. The Pharisees used the commandments as a fence for keeping people out, but the commandments were intended as a guide for keeping people in. God knew that in order for relationships to flourish, people would need guidance. So God gave them the commandments, do not lie, to not steal, do not murder, do not covet, not to keep some people out, but in order that everyone would be able to stay in. God knew that lying, stealing, etc., would break apart the community, and God did not want that. The Pharisees minds worked to be exclusive, do this or you are out, but the reign of God is always about being inclusive, here are rules to help your community thrive. The reign of God is always about trying to bring more people, offer more forgiveness, create more healing. So when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to draw the lines a little closer, Jesus instead went to the heart of the commandment and looked out. Love God, love neighbor. If you do that, everything else will fall into place.
I wish this missing the heart of God problem was unique to the Pharisees, or to the medieval church, but it’s not. The painful truth is the church is made up of people and people get it wrong sometimes. People get fixed on laws or rules, people seek to figure out who is in and who is out, and what we remember on this Reformation Sunday is that the work of the Holy Spirit is to be always blowing through the church, cutting away the things that hold us captive and drawing us closer into the very heart of God.
The church is not perfect. It can break your heart. Maybe it has already, maybe you know some of the painful ways that the people of God can get the message wrong. But the promise of our Gospel text and the reminder of the reformation is that while the church might get it wrong, Jesus never does. God is in the church, but God is not contained by the church. God is always bigger than the church and because God is bigger than the church, God is continually about drawing the church closer into the heart of God’s love. Being church in the reign of God is about being a place where forgiveness is practiced, where grace is experienced, and where love is made known. And if the law doesn’t do that, it doesn’t mean the law is wrong, but it does mean we are interpreting it wrong.
The church, this church, our national church, the universal church, like each of us, is a work in progress. And because it is made of people, it can let you down. I will not show up when I’m supposed to, or I’ll say something stupid. Someone else will be focused on something and will hurt your feelings or make you feel unwelcome or let you down. But here’s something else to add to that. Because God is in the church, as much as we have an incredible capacity for pain, we also have an incredible capacity for grace. And if we can hold on to that promise, that the Holy Spirit is always at work among us, like the Spirit did through the words of Jesus to the Pharisees, through the writings of Paul, through the teachings of the fathers, the words of the reformers, and through our work and prayer and praise today, we will discover that in the midst of our communities, the reign of God is indeed at hand. Thanks be to our always reforming, ever-loving, judgment breaking God. Amen.
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