Where Was Your Church Before. . .?
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
24th Sunday after Pentecost-Reformation Day – October 26, 2008
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Deuteronomy 34:1-12/Matthew 22:34-46]

The Reformation was a turbulent time in history. The question of Church Reform, and the attempt to achieve it, created a great amount of havoc in society at large, as well as in the Churches. It was, of course, a deeply personal and emotion issue and, unfortunately, we have many recorded incidences of less than respectful and sometimes outright violent behavior done by followers of the Prince of Peace on other followers of the Prince of Peace. Yes, there are times when being a Christian has been even more difficult than it ordinarily is and the midst of a Church fight, alas, is one of those times.

One of the favorite questions the apologists – the defenders, because to be an apologist doesn’t mean to say “I’m sorry,” but rather offer a defense – of the Roman Church liked to ask those seeking reform was, “Where was your Church before Luther?” Their obvious goal was to point out that what was going on was absolutely new and that the Protestants had no claim on historic Christianity. The answer, most often, was, “Where was your face before you washed it?” Which, of course, made the point rather powerfully that the Church has been there all along, what the reform was trying to do was to clean it up.

I came across a different answer, given by someone in the Anglican tradition, that I thought was fairly powerful. Sir Henry Wotton was asked this same question in Rome – “where was your religion before Luther?” Rather than answering in the same old way, he responded, “My religion was to be found, then where yours is not to be found now, in the written Word of God.” There, in essence, is the nature of what it means to be in a Reformed Church. At the heart of it is the Bible and everything we do and everything we’re about has to revolve around our study, our understanding and our practice of what we learn there. At the core of the Reformation was a concern to return to the source, to return to the essential part of what it meant to be a follower after Jesus Christ. It has been said that the church is always reforming (ecclesia semper reformanda) and so it should be, because our striving should be to become more and more conformed to the Word – the Incarnate One, who is Jesus the Christ – and communicated to us through the written Word, which is the Bible. Thus, Congregational divine (theologian) John Owen would call us to recover, “the old, the beautiful face of Christianity.”

Jesus was challenged by the scribe to get into a tangle over the Law. There were, scholars tell us, 613 laws that governed every aspect of Jewish life. Now, Jesus is being asked to pick the greatest of them. What the scribe hoped was, obviously, that they would get into an argument over this and head into the thicket of the law. Almost as the character of Thomas More talks about in the play “A Man for All Seasons” says when he talks about being able to go deep into the law and hide there as in a deep forest. However, Jesus doesn’t bite, he’s not drawn in. Rather, he goes right to the heart of the law, the underlying reality on which it is based – love. John Shea puts it beautifully when he writes: “Jesus does not choose one commandment. And, in a sense, he does not choose two commandments. He articulates the underlying structure of love that all law and all prophecy is built on. Living in relationship of love to God and neighbor is of the essence. Love is also an interior reality and so there is a stress on the inner space from which an action comes. If you can structure your awareness around love of God and neighbor, you will be able to make your way through the labyrinth of laws and the demands of the prophets.” How true and Karl Barth points out in Church Dogmatics it is in Jesus Christ that we meet both God and our neighbor.

Augustine, writing in the 4th century would say that it all comes down to this: “Love and do what you will.” Now, when he says this he is mindful that the love to which he refers is nothing less than the absolute self-giving love demonstrated by Christ on the cross. If all of our actions are driven by that kind of love, then we’re truly living as a follower of Jesus Christ and we’re demonstrating right where our church, our faith, our life is coming from – God and God’s Word.

Furthermore, this tells us that we should be acting in this manner for all the right reasons. Let me illustrate using a story from Shea:

“One day a certain man hurriedly headed out the door for work. In his path was his three-year-old son playing with blocks. The man patted the boy on the head, stepped over him, opened the door, and went outside. Halfway down the walk a guilt bomb exploded within him.

‘What am I doing?’ he thought to himself. ‘I am ignoring my son. I never play with him. He’ll be old before I know it.’ In the background of his thoughts he heard the pounding rhythms of ‘Cat’s in the Cradle,’ Harry Chapin’s ballad to lost fatherhood. He returned to the house and sat down with his son and began to build blocks.”

After two minutes, the little boy said, ‘Daddy, why are you mad at me?’”

The man was doing the right thing for the wrong reason – and the little boy picked up on it, as little ones are apt to do. He was playing blocks because of the “guilt bomb” that went off inside him. There’s a big difference between doing something out of guilt and doing something out of love. It is one thing to do something from the heart and an entirely different thing to do it because it is expected. That “from the heart” part is what Jesus emphasizes here and insists on when we forgive our brothers and sisters.

The point of the Reformation was to get the Church to come, again, from where it started – the heart, from love. How we live out our Christian faith, how we express our stewardship toward God and the people with whom we live in covenant relationship has to come from love and not from guilt, not from expectations, and not from dread of “what will people think?” If guilt is our motivator, if our only concern is making sure we “look good” – whether to God or to others – then we’ve missed the point and the dirt is still on our face.

We’re living in a tough time, a scary time, an uncertain time – compounded and heightened by the ability to communicate every tick of the stock market or shift in politics almost instantaneously. Obviously, this is not the best time – and I’m just going to be honest – for a Church or any organization to be looking for money. A survey has said that the two things that go first when money gets tight are donations to charity and trips to the dentist. Well, I’m here to tell you that what we do to support the Church isn’t charity – it’s a loving act of support. (And don’t neglect your teeth!) The last thing I want to do is set off a “guilt bomb,” so what I’m asking you to do is to look into your heart, look to what Jesus teaches. If we love God with all our “heart, soul and mind,” we’ll give to God’s Church what is right and not what is left over.

Where was our Church before … where it always is in the teaching of the law of love. “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 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.’” There is the Church always reforming – in the law of love.