(Sermon delivered by Aniceto B. Fontanilla on Reformation Sunday at UCCP-Ellinwood Malate Church, October 31, 2004.)
by Nick B. Fontanilla, Ph.D.
The Mayonnaise Jar and the Wine
A professor in his philosophy class picked up a very large and empty jar and filled it with golf balls. He asked the students if the jar was full. The students agreed that it was.
The professor picked up a box of pebbles and poured the pebbles into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."
The professor then produced a glass of wine and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - God, Church, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your other important things -- that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he said, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important.
What this story tells us is that we should pay attention to the things that are critical to our life and that we should set our priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the wine represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a glass of wine with a friend."
Symbols of Protestant Reformation
In a way, this story captures what reformation of the 16th century has done to Christianity. Reformation opened our eyes so we can recognize what is big stuff and what is small stuff. It rejected rituals, practices, symbols, corruption, doctrines and all those things that represent the small stuff such as the elaborate altar that was common in the old church.
In place, it reformed the church so that Christians are able to focus on things that represent the big stuff. Thus, we see the sanctuary of the reformed church as a picture of simplicity with the Bible at the center, symbolizing the Christ-centeredness of the reformed faith.
Other reforms include Christian principles and doctrines, some of which are shown below:
A Catholic scholar priest acknowledged the importance of the reformation in his book A Biblical Defense of Catholicism that was written in 1991. In this book, he quoted Karl Adam who lamented the loss of Luther whom Adam described to have marvelous gifts of mind and heart, warm penetration of the essence of Christianity, passionate defiance of all unholiness and ungodliness, and the elemental fury of his religious experience.
He says, “Had Martin Luther brought all these magnificent qualities to the removal of the abuses of the time . . . had he remained a faithful member of his Church, humble and simple, sincere and pure, then indeed we should today be his grateful debtors. He would be forever our great Reformer . . . comparable to Thomas Aquinas and Francis of Assisi. He would have been the greatest saint of the German people.
It was, however, not meant to be. The Catholic hierarchy never gave Martin Luther the chance to reform the church. Instead, it pushed him out of the church and gave him the mandate to reform the church outside of the hierarchy.
The Protestant Reformation
The Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church was a major 16th-century religious revolution that ended the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope and resulted in the establishment of the Protestant churches. The map below shows how the reformation spread from Germany to various parts of Europe:
With the Renaissance and the French Revolution that followed, the Reformation completely altered the medieval way of life in Western Europe and initiated the era of modern history. The UCCP-EMC traces its roots from this reformation, as shown in the history chart below:
Reformation Sunday
Today is Reformation Sunday. It is on this occasion when we recognize the faith, courage, and perseverance of those who risked and lost their lives in their effort to reform the faith and life of the church.
There have been many great Reformers in the history of the church:
1 John Wycliffe and John Huss who initiated reforms even before Martin Luther;
2 Ulrich Zwingli who began the Swiss Reformation;
3 John Calvin, who reformed the church in Geneva and had a profound impact on what we believe as Presbyterians; and
4 John Knox who reformed the church in Scotland and is considered the father of Presbyterianism.
But if was Martin Luther who ignited the Reformation of the church. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk serving at the University of Wittenberg. Through the years, he became miserable because of what he had been taught to believe.
One night, he reflected on Paul’s letter to the Romans, the very same words we read as our scripture reading. Verse 17 says: For the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, the one who is righteous will live by faith.
When Luther reflected on Paul’s words that the righteousness of God is revealed through faith and that the righteous live by faith, he realized the omissions of the church. For Luther, this was a life changing revelation, a spiritual rebirth.
He learned that God’s righteousness is the means by which God judges sinners. In his reflection, Luther discovered that God’s righteousness was more than just an attribute of God; it was a quality of God, a grace of God that is given to sinners that makes sinners acceptable before God.
It was this radical new perspective that changed everything for Martin Luther. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the words written by Paul, he had been set free.
With this new understanding of God’s righteousness and a hope of salvation, Martin Luther composed his 95 Thesis against the practices and beliefs of the Catholic Church. And on the night of Halloween, the eve of All Saint’s Day, October 31, 1517, exactly 487 years ago, Martin Luther walked out of the front doors of the University of Wittenberg, to the front door of the Catholic Church, and there he nailed to the door his 95 Thesis. With that move, the history of the church changed forever.
For Luther, The one who makes us right before God is not ourselves; it is God, the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. That understanding remains central to our faith and should be one of the big stuffs that should fill up our lives.
The reformation started a new culture, a new form of humanity. It touched every aspect of life: work, economics, art, literature, music, science, etc. The doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone based on scripture alone released energy into a society that had previously been preoccupied with an 'other-world' piety.[2]
Reformation was so pervasive that some historians have blamed the Reformation for the rise of capitalism. The 'Weber' thesis equated Protestantism with material success. Weber claimed that Calvinism so stressed predestination that anxious believers began to seek signs of God's election in earthy prosperity, which is not true because Both Luther and Calvin attacked capitalism as unrestrained greed and called for government control of capitalism. Moreover, Zwingli and Calvin contributed to the development of modern social welfare programs, urban renewal and urban and state welfare programs. They forced governments to accept responsibility for the prevention and alleviation of poverty.
The reformation enlightened our understanding of our mission to proclaim the word. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, tells us that we have been set apart for the gospel in this generation.
In Romans 1: 8-17, Paul summarizes the reasons why we have been set apart for the gospel in this generation, that is, we should live from faith to faith. This means that as God’s righteousness is revealed to us, we become his instruments to reveal God’s righteousness to others. Paul says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who BELIEVES.
God’s righteousness is not revealed to us on the basis of our own merits. We discern that righteousness "from faith to faith." Faith is the beginning of our relationship with Christ. But it does not stop there. It goes from faith to faith. And throughout this whole cycle of faith, the righteousness of God is continually revealed – to believers and non-believers.
This is why Martin Luther wrote his famous statement Ecclesia semper reformanda, the Church is always to be reformed. Christianity always needs to be reshaped – that is to be cleansed and sharpened in terms of its theology, reformulated in terms of its culture and reorganised in terms of its practise, and to reveal God’s righteousness from faith to faith.
After all, the classic definition of theology is “faith seeking understanding. Understanding involves grasping clearly what our experience of God tells us about who God is and what God has done for us. It involves engaging in a quest to see our world in a special way from the perspective of God who has created that world and sustains it including all the stuff of theological reflection as we try to understand those experiences from God’s perspective as well as our own. Finally, it involves transformative action, calling us to be prophets proclaiming the gospel.”[3]
Radiant Faith
In our Old Testament text, Moses came down from Mount Sinai with a radiant face. Every time he came down from the mountain, his face was radiant. God’s righteousness was revealed to Moses which he discerned from faith to faith. Every time he came down, he experienced the transformative action of the righteousness of God. And every time, he shared God’s message to his people, proclaiming God’s word, and revealing God’s righteousness faith for faith. [4]
Like Luther, Moses’ encounter with God was a life changing revelation that was nothing short of a spiritual rebirth. Like Luther, he was set free.
Continuing Conversion
Today, on Reformation Sunday, let us reflect on Paul’s message to the Romans -- “For the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith’” and Moses’ encounter with God that made his face so radiant.
As we do that, let us contemplate on what it is that we have to become as faithful followers of Christ and as a congregation to be faithful to the mission and purpose of Reformation.
Many theologians believe that the critical challenge facing the church today is not how to make Christianity credible to the modern world. Rather, the crucial challenge is ecclesiological: the creation of a new and more faithful church, the transformation of the church, not through accommodation, but through conversion.
The key challenge involves thinking through the question, What kind of community are we called to be in order to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ? and to be consistent with the purpose that the reformers fought for and died for, that is to proclaim the gospel.[5]
I would like to paraphrase the recommendations of Darell L. Guder of Princeton Theological Seminary. He says,
“The church can effectively carry out its missionary calling by building a new theology of evangelism that has its focus on the church itself.”[6]
Guder says that we must not succumb to gospel reductionism, and defines Gospel reductionism as an action that reduces the gospel in all its fullness and mission to a controllable, manageable, and comfortable level. He says: "We are constantly tempted to assert that our way of understanding the Christian faith is a final version of Christian truth."
Reductionism as he defines it severely restricts church involvement as it diminishes what for him is vital to become an "incarnational witness." Here he refers to God's grace reaching out in a Christian's call and vocation.
Many mainstream churches are guilty of gospel reductionism. Our local congregations, including the big churches in LCSMC, face this dilemma, one way or the other. Cosmopolitan Church, the bright star in the UCCP LCSMC, took all of 70 years before they embarked on a program called 7x7, meaning seven daughter churches in seven years.
In UCCP-EMC, we are proud of our mission work, having produced many daughter churches in 97 years. But this accomplishment pales in comparison with many young evangelical churches. We now have a mission center that is energized by the many volunteer workers. But it took all of 10 years before it became a reality. We struggled with the thought that it possibly could not be done.
Consistent with the message of the Reformation, Guder recommends continual conversion. By continual conversion, he refers to a rather liquid, dynamic movement in Christianity without boundaries, yet constantly refining what institution is already there.
When Christians become concerned about maintenance, he says, mission is lost. Continual conversion refers to this movement back to mission.
As Martin Luther wrote, Ecclesia semper reformanda -- the Church is always to be reformed. Christianity always needs to be reshaped – that is to be cleansed and sharpened in terms of its theology, reformulated in terms of its culture and reorganised in terms of its practise. That is one important message of reformation.
[1] Spiritual Rebirth (http://www.finleypres.org/worship/sermons/20021027.htm)
[2] Mr. Bill Meischke. Building an Economy of Care. WWW.
[3] Nancy Ammerman, et at. Studying Congregations: A New Handbook. Abingdon Press. Nashville. 1998.
[4] Barbara D. Fillette, North & Southampton Reformed Church, Date: 1/28/01, Title: "Living the Highs and Lows", Occasion: Transfiguration Sunday
[5] Raymond O. Bystrom. On the Church and Our Culture. WWW.
[6] Based on an essay regarding the book Continuing Conversion of the Church written by Professor Darrell L. Guder of the Princeton Theological Seminary.
