Sunday October 31st,  2021

Rev. Bruce Kemp

Calvin and Luther - Reformers of Faith

Today marks the 504^th Anniversary of what is often viewed as the start of the Reformation.  On October 31^st, 1517, Martin Luther posted on the door of the church in Wittenberg his 95 theses. While history has tended to romanticize this event as a declaration against the hierarchy of the church and a corrupt leadership, the reality is that these theses were posted by Luther in an attempt to open a dialogue.  Luther’s goal was not to break the church apart; rather, his goal was to begin to examine what he perceived to be as disconnects between what he read in the Bible and what the church practiced.  But Luther’s decision to post the theses was also not born out of a purely academic examination of the faith; it was born out of his own personal struggle to live his faith in accordance with the interpretation that the church upheld.

One of the key points that Luther struggled with was how his good deeds could influence God’s decision to grant him salvation from his sins.  The church leadership had long told the people that their good works were pleasing to God and that God would look more favourably on those who did what was right.  And if you did fall short, you could always cover those failings by purchasing indulgences – a form of offering designed to make you more acceptable to God and thereby guarantee that you would receive the forgiving grace of God.  Luther’s own inner conflict – in which he agonized, even despaired over his inability to adequately do good works – led him to wonder if anyone could truly be saved.  In the letter of Paul to the Romans, he found what he believed to be the answer: “The one who is righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17).   Our good works have no bearing on God’s decision to save us and to forgive us. The decision to save us is God’s alone. Our decision is to accept that salvation as a gift and in response to seek to do what is right and pleasing in God’s eyes in order that we may reveal the will of God through our thoughts, words, and actions.  This revelation brought a sense of peace and what Luther would call real “Christian freedom.” No longer did he feel bound by fear or worry, and he wanted to share that with others.

As I mentioned, Luther’s goal was not to start a whole new church but to reform the church from where it was to where he believed it should be. Much of the rest of Luther’s life would be spent not so much in theological debates but rather in political and legal debates.  Even in our own time, the re-examination of Scripture causes debates that are not always carried out with open minds and hearts. The guidance of the Holy Spirit is not always sought but rather how such re-examination may lead to a radical change in how the church understands and communicates the gospel of Jesus Christ to its own and to the world around it.

The first concern of Luther was where was the real truth of the faith.  For Luther, the lack of spirituality, the lack of real desire on the part of the church’s leadership to even consider his concerns led him to believe that the answers he sought could only come from the Bible itself. Sola Scriptura became one of the marks of the reforming movement and has remained for our denomination the most prominent component of any decisions that we make with regard to doctrine or practice.

Luther’s strong belief in the Word of God contained in the Bible led to his desire to translate the Bible into the language of his country and then to encourage all people to learn to read it for themselves.  The publication of Die Bibel – the German Luther translation of the Bible – enabled the people in the pews to not depend on the interpretation given by the priests but allowed them to hear what God had said for themselves.  This led to the need for people to become literate and raised the need for education among the general population – not just the rich and powerful.  Luther had a deep desire for all people to have faith in God and in God’s forgiving grace not out of fear and not fearful that they could never do enough to earn that forgiveness but out of a love for God and a desire to try their best to follow the will of God as a thankful response to God’s generous gift.

For Presbyterians, John Calvin is even more of an important figure in the Reformation.  Born in France, Calvin studied law. While at university, he became acquainted with a radical student movement that sought to reform both church and society by encouraging studying the Bible in its original languages. The Latin translation by Jerome had been the standard for centuries. The belief was that examining the original texts would lead to a better understanding of the message contained in the Bible.  The practice of reading the Scriptures in the original languages not only informed the translation efforts of the 16^th century but has continued to inform any new translation work even today.

In 1533, intolerance of the reform movement was growing, and Calvin went to Basel in Switzerland where there was tolerance for the ideas of the Reformers. Except for a brief time spent in Strasbourg, Calvin remained in Switzerland for the rest of his life spending his last years in Geneva where many of his reforms were adopted by the local community and from where such reformers as John Knox received their instruction.

Once again, history has tended to summarize the life and influence of Calvin while the reality is that his life and the journey he took was far more complex.  Like Luther, he struggled with the issues that he saw in how the faith had been represented to the people and the world.

Among the more significant reforms of Calvin was the change that he made in church order.  Pastors and teachers would be responsible to preach and explain the Scriptures, elders would represent the congregation and be the administrators of the church, and deacons would attend to charitable responsibilities. This order speaks directly to that order of early church life that was spoken of by Paul and others where the church was established in the first century.

Some other interesting things to note about Calvin. While it was important for the church to have leaders and followers, he did not believe that women were to naturally be subordinated to men. In his day in Geneva, the double standard of sexual morality was rejected. While it has appeared that Calvin emphasized the head because of his strong insistence on learning, he did not believe in a purely intellectual understanding of faith. Faith was a matter of head and heart. In fact Calvin believed that it is one’s experience of God that is critical to knowing God.  God needed to enter one’s heart and soul and not just be in one’s head.  Calvin also believed that each person was on a spiritual journey and that we each grew in our faith as we explored our relationship to God through study, prayer, sacrament, worship, and practice.

The legacy of the Reformation is still with us today. The struggles that Luther and Calvin had as they sought to live out their faith and come to new understandings of how to be the people of God and respond to the salvation of God are still with us today.  To somehow believe that the Reformation of the 15^th and 16^th centuries has defined our faith today in ways that cannot be challenged or debated really denies the very foundation from which that movement came. What motivated those reformers was their own questions and concerns, their own internal struggles of heart and mind that caused them to question the accepted practices and interpretations of the faith.  Expressing those struggles and concerns, asking those questions caused each of them to suffer – some more than others. But their belief that those questions needed to be asked and those concerns raised led to positive changes that made all the difference in the lives of other believers.  It is often said that the process of reformation needs to ever be before the church. That does not mean that there are not core beliefs that will not change but it means that the church needs to be open to being challenged and prepared to examine its understanding of Scripture that we might see our faith as something with a present and a future and not just something remembered from the past.

AMEN