REFORMED ALWAYS REFORMING JOHN 8:31-59

Today is Reformation Sunday, and we all know what that is. It is the day
when we rejoice and sing with great gusto from the bottoms of our hearts
and souls, celebrating the marvelous gift of God that we are not Catholics.
Well, I do hope you noted just a touch of cynicism in what I just said.
Honestly, I think that is basically what I think Reformation Sunday is
supposed to be all about, but I certainly have no great sense of pride in not
being a Catholic. I suppose the only reason I’m not a Catholic myself is that
in the little southern town my family hailed from there was no Catholic
church. We Protestants were left with no alternative but to criticize each
other. Personally, I see Catholics as simply one more group of brothers and
sister in Christ. They do things a little differently from the ways we do them,
actually a lot differently, but, well, OK. Let them go ahead. I have no doubt
that you can get to the right place in a Catholic church as easily as you can
in a Protestant church. Maybe easier, I don’t know. (I hear the have pot-
luch dinners, so that tells you all you really need to know.)

The fact is, though, at the most basic level, unfortunately, that is who we
are. We are Protestants. We are the “not Catholics.” Again, this is
Reformation Sunday. The Reformation came about as an effort to “reform”
abuse in the Catholic church 500 years ago. So, we are “Protestants.” We
are protesting. What are we protesting? The Catholic church. That’s what
our name means. Protest-ant. Personally, I think we need another name.
I’m not protesting the Catholic church, and I suspect you aren’t either, but
for 500 years that the label we’ve been stuck with. That’s where things are
and, I suspect, where they will remain for a long time into the future. I don’t
know how we could even begin to change the name, and I susect a lot of
Protestants wouldn’t want to.

We Presbyterians are “Reformed” Christians. As much as it sounds like it,

the name doesn’t simply mean we are heirs of the Reformation. In fact, the
name “Reformed” Christian might not mean what you think it means. We
Presbyterians are Reformed. We are not Lutheran. We share a lot with the
Lutherans, but there is a difference.

Martin Luther was the great catalyst that sparked the Reformation. He
started a movement and the churches of that movement came to be called,
as you might expect, Lutheran churches. But Luther was not the only
Reformer. Among others there was a Frenchman living and working in
Geneva, Switzerland named John Calvin. Calvin and the others started a
movement that was different in some important ways from Lutheranism.
The churches in their movement came to be called “Reformed” churches.
In some places in Europe the Protestants were mostly Lutheran, in other
places they were mostly Reformed. In some places there were both.

When people began to emigrate to North America, they brought their

churches with them. When the Lutherans got here they formed, again as
you might expect, Lutheran churches. When Reformed Christians from the
continent of Europe got here they formed Reformed church, such as the
Dutch Reformed Church, the oldest denomination in the United States, now
called the Reformed Church of America. When Reformed Christians from
Scotland came to North America, they formed their churches and called
their Reformed churches “Presbyterian” churches. (The word
“Presbyterian” comes from a Greek word, “presbuteros,” which means
“elders.” It means that the Presbyterian church is governed by elders, not
by a hierarchy of clergy, which is part of the Catholic church they were
protesting.)

In some parts of the country you see more churches with the word
“Reformed” on the church sign than you do around here, but there are
Reformed churches in our area. There are Presbyterian churches, of
course. And there are United Church of Christ congregations, and
Congregational churches, although these days most of them are also part
of the United Church of Christ. The Reformed influence is also present in
many other denominations and independent churches. We Reformed
Christians are by no means alone. Our denomination, the Presbyterian
Church (USA), is part of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. It has
233 member denominations in 110 countries. It is the third largest Christian
communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern
Orthodox Churches.

We Reformed Christians owe a lot to Martin Luther. He is a brother, he is

one of us, but we trace our heritage not primarily back to him but back to
John Calvin – which does not mean that we are duty-bound to follow
everything in Calvin’s teachings. If it did mean that, honestly, I would be out
of here. There are things in Calvin that make me want to say, “Wait –
what?”

Well, there is a little history lesson, but what does it mean to be a

Presbyterian here and now? I could spend most of a day talking about the
problems of the Presbyterian church, things that need fixing, but every now
and then it might be helpful to talk about some of the positive things about
us, too.

First of all, to be a Presbyterian means to be rightly proud of our heritage

and all that has been accomplished for the cause of Christ by the
Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church has had a very significant
impact on the life of our nation and on the world. Some go so far as to draw
a connection between the system of representational government
developed by John Calvin and the government our founders drew up for
our new government after our independence from Britain. The only
clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence was John Witherspoon,
a Scottish Presbyterian teaching at the College of New Jersey, now
Princeton University. One of his students was James Madison, who went
on to write the US constitution, with its form of representative democracy
reflecting that of John Calvin. Also, it might be interesting to note that King
George III called the American Revolution the “Presbyterian Revolt” –
probably because he found Presbyterians so revolting. Actually, it was
because no one could find a Presbyterian minister who did not support
revolution, and Presbyterian churches were always centers of revolt in their
communities. The first church I served after seminary was out on Long
Island. It had been established in 1660. If you watched the television series
Turn, about America’s first spy ring, you saw the church depicted, and how
the British fortified the church and stabled their horses in it, and how the
colonists attacked it. Interestingly, one of those patriots who attacked the
church came back later and was the church’s pastor for fifty years.

A significant contribution of the Presbyterian church has been to education.

As the church spread throughout the colonies, almost everywhere it started
a new church it also started a school. From there it became a strong
supporter or public education, and remains so.

The Presbyterian Church has long been a major player in world missions. It
moved around the world, building not only churches but schools and
universities and hospitals. Doing so it sometimes paid the highest of prices.
On the entryway of the student center at Princeton Theological Seminary
there are brass plaques, memorializing some old grads. One says, “Beaten
to death by a mob in Punjab, India.” Another names two grads, with the
words, “Who, with their wives, were tossed by pirates into the South China
Sea.” Another tells of James Reeb, a graduate who was beaten to death in
1965 in Selma, Alabama.

Nine presidents of the United States have claimed membership in the

Presbyterian church, second to the Episcopal church. Some years back in
one of the presidential primaries, I forget which one, there were about ten
candidates running for the nomination. All but one of them were
Presbyterians. The influence of the Presbyterian church far outstrips its
membership numbers.

I don’t know exactly how many Presbyterian denominations there are in this
country, but it may surprise you to know that there are more than twenty-
five. Most are very small. Ours, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is the
largest. It may not remain the largest for long, though. It has taken a
number of major hits in recent decades, and that has shown up in
consistent membership losses with no end in sight. There are many
reasons for this. One is increasing secularization, and Christianity’s
continued loss of influence in American life. We are not the only
denomination experiencing the kind of losses we’ve seen. Most, if not all, of
the traditional denominations are in something of the same boat we’re in.

Also, American society has moved in ways our church has declined to
move in. In fact, some would say we have moved in opposite directions
from those our society has gone in. Our church has struggled with difficult
issues for as long as I have been one of its ministers, and I suspect it has
been doing so much longer, perhaps for its whole history. In recent years it
has made difficult decisions and taken controversial position, some of
which have caused people to leave us, as a denomination and this local
church. I have not tried to convince you either way on those issues and will
not now, but I hope, if nothing else, the church’s courage in making those
decisions, even if it meant not paying primary attention to its own welfare,
will engender some respect for it.

In case you have any doubt about it, and I hope you don’t, to be a
Presbyterian means to be a member of a denomination firmly committed to
the historic Christian faith, to Christ and to the working of the Holy Spirit. It
means to accept the Bible as the “unique authority to Jesus Christ,” and to
be prayerfully guided by it as we seek God’s will for the church these days.
It means to be a member of a church committed to acceptance and justice
for all God’s people, even going so far to open our communion table to
others who may disagree with is in significant ways, but agree on the need
to come forward and to commune with one another and with God through
receiving the bread and the cup.

To be a Presbyterian means to belong to a church where you are not

spoon-fed bite sized portions of truth and be expected to believe them.
Hopefully you will be taught and guided, but your faith is your own and you
are responsible for it – another result of the Reformation. Faith is often
difficult and comes as the result of a struggle, but that is the only way it can
be authentic. You have freedom, within the constraints of the Christian faith
itself, to believe as you feel yourself guided. We do not all have to agree
about everything. That is why I became a Presbyterian and have remained
one.
In the most significant way, what does for us to be a Presbyterians? It
means to be joined, in one way or another, to this local church. For us, this
congregation is what it is all about. Here is where it all happens, where we
put our faith on display and at work. Here we worship together, fellowship
together, and reach out to our community and the world, together. We take
seriously any threats to the unity of love we experience here. We are a
connectional church, which means we have connections beyond this local
church, to our presbytery, to our synod, and to our General Assembly, but if
they do things we don’t agree with, well, let them, as long as they don’t
interfere with the warmth of our fellowship here and the ways we serve God
here. It feels a little weird saying what I am about to say, but at the same
time feels very Presbyterian. We’re Presbyterians. We don’t like bishops,
we don’t like kings, and at our very heart we tend to distrust authority. So
presbytery, General Assembly, we’ll give you your due, just don’t mess with
us.

It’s been more than fifty years ago now that Bob Dylan told us, “The times
they are a’changin’.” He was right. They were. And they still are. They
always are. We don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know where the
current trends will take us. More than likely when we get there we’ll be
amazed and say, “I could never have guessed this was how things would
turn out.” That’s the way it has been so far in my life and my career as a
minister. Certainly in the church things have been a’changin’, things are
a’changin’ still. In fact, the rafters are shaking. The foundation is rumbling.
It has been noted that about every 500 years the church undergoes a re-
formation. If so, we’re about due, and re-formation may be happening
again. While it looks to some of us that everything about us, about the
church, our church, everything we knew and everything we depended
upon, is crumbling. Fear not. This is not finally our church it is God’s
church, and God may be in the process of bringing about an entirely new
Reformation that will change the church in such ways that the whole world
will be blessed in ways that none of us could have ever guessed.

We simply must be ready, and willing, to go along with the will of God. The
motto of our church is, “Reformed – Always Reforming.” We have changed
and we are going to change again. Change requires courage. It may mean
danger. It might require sacrifice, sacrifice of the old ways that gave us
comfort for so long.

Still, let us watch. Let us be aware. Let us be willing to accept the moving of
the spirit, believing that God is with is now and will be with us in the future,
as God has always been with us in the past.