It's very wrong for Protestants, either on this day or anytime, to claim that Christianity BEGAN with the 16th-century Reformation.  No, the past 2,000 years has seen MANY renewals and transformation of the Church.  Well before Luther courageous men and women, including some of the popes and other leaders, and especially mendicant friars, such as St. Francis of Assisi (first Christian environmentalist!) boldly changed Christ's Body for the better.

    But tell me, on this annual Reformation Sunday, what is the Protestant CONTRIBUTION to Christianity?

    Friends, if I had to choose just ONE WORD for it, it would be this:  'FREEDOM!"  Yes, when Martin Luther, on October 31, 1517, began the Reformation, it was BECAUSE he'd discovered God's precious gift of FREEDOM-in Jesus Christ!     Do YOU know that same marvelous liberation that Luther knew?  Surely no Bible passage expresses Christian freedom more clearly and concisely than our Second Lesson today, from the Letter to the Ephesians, chapter two.  Listen AGAIN (vss. 8 & 9):  "By grace you have been saved  through faith, and this is not YOUR OWN doing; it is the gift of God - NOT the result of WORKS, so that no one may boast."

    Tell me, FIRST OF ALL, do YOU know, in Jesus Christ, freedom from GUILT?  --For years Martin Luther himself didn't.  As a young adult he was like SOME folks TODAY-- even some CHRISTIAN folks, I'm afraid:  all bowed down with shame for sins in the PAST and perhaps the PRESENT.   Back when I was a student at Princeton Seminary, we went one evening into New York to see the Broadway production of John Osborne's powerful play Luther, based on psychologist Eric Ericson's extremely Freudian biography of the reformer, Young Man Luther.  in ONE scene of the play, Martin, then a Roman Catholic monk, tortured by a sense of his unworthiness, cries out:  "ALL I CAN FEEL IS GOD'S HATRED!"

    Oh, it wasn't that Luther was any MORE sinful than his fellow Augustinian friars.  On the contrary, he surely observed far more conscientiously than did they the monastery's many rules.  Luther would go to confession for six straight hours.  (Pity his poor confessor, to have to listen to such a monologue!)  Luther chose 21 of the saints to be his special intercessors, praying to three different ones each day of the week.  He FASTED for days at a time.  On a pilgrimage to Rome Luther even climbed ON HIS KNEES the Scala Santa, the sacred stairway, believed to have come from the Judgment Hall of Pontius Pilate. And he paused on every step to KISS it and to say the Pater Noster (Lord's Prayer) and the Ave Maria.

    Yet Luther could find no peace until the great truth expressed in our lesson today DAWNED on him:  that we can never DO anything to EARN God's acceptance.  Instead, God freely give us pardon and favor through our faith in Jesus Christ!


    When this marvelous truth dawned on Luther, he found peace for the first time, freedom from  GUILT!  And, with it, the courage to confront Church, State, and Hell itself to proclaim the truth!  Tell me, do YOU know that freedom in the Savior Christ?  Freedom from guilt?  Or are you, in some ways, like young man Luther, trying fruitlessly to EARN God's favor?

    Yes, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not YOUR OWN doing; it is the gift of God-NOT the result of works, so that no one may boast."

    But let me ask you another question, DO YOU KNOW, ALSO, FREEDOM OF THE MIND AND SPIRIT? -That's a SECOND part of the Protestant contribution:  NOT just liberty from GUILT but liberty of the CONSCIENCE!  Once Luther experienced salvation as God's gift in Christ, he was freed to live a life in thankful, joyful service to the Lord, instead of one fixed on endless repentance.  Luther married a nun who had "leaped over the wall"-Katharina von Bora.  In fact, he gloried in family life.  Like most Germans, he enjoyed hearty food and drink.  (He wrote some of his theology in the neighborhood Bierstube!)  Luther played the lute-and LOVED to compose hymns of praise, such as "A Mighty Fortress," that you and I have sung this morning.  WHAT A REVOLUTION in the WORSHIP of the Church! -For the first time in over a thousand years, CONGREGATIONAL SINGING!

    And the doctrine that Luther preached-the doctrine of God's free grace in Christ LIBERATED the CREATIVE SPIRIT of ARTISTS and MUSICIANS!  German painters and woodcut-makers like Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger ushered in a new realism suffused with the glory of God's creation.  And Dutch Calvinist artists took this Godly realism even further-as you can see supremely in the works of Rembrandt van Rijn, who lived in Amsterdam's Jewish ghetto, and who actually sought for and FOUND, in that neighborhood, JEWISH models for his paintings of Jesus and the disciples!

    And MUSICIANS! -The French court poets and masters who, for Calvin, composed the Genevan psalms, one of which you and I have sung this morning.   You know, the Genevan psalms were the first hymns ever to be sung in what is now Florida!  You don't believe me?  Yes!  When the Huguenots, the French Protestants, settled at the mouth of the St. John's River (present-day Jacksonville), in 1564-more than a year before the founding of St. Augustine by the Spanish, they taught the local Timucuan Indians their beautiful psalms in meter.  And DECADES after the St. Augustine Spanish largely SLAUGHTERED the Huguenots-"not because you are French but because you are Protestants"-- and wiped out their colony, explorers venturing into northern Florida, were AMAZED still to hear these Native Americans SINGING these psalms-in the French language!

    Yes, the Reformation restored HYMN SINGING in the worship of God's people.  Indeed, later, J.S. Bach, whose music we often hear from our organist and choir today-Bach, a devout Lutheran and the greatest composer of the 18th century,  has been called "the fifth Evangelist."  Bach based many of his greatest cantatas and oratorios on the beloved hymns sung in the German Lutheran congregations.  And upon each of his musical compositions he inscribed the words Soli Deo Gloria-"To God Alone be the Glory."

    But let's get back to Luther.  Luther's stand also liberated the human mind!  No longer was something true just because the Pope SAID it was!  It must be TESTED by SCRIPTURE and by HUMAN REASON.  In fact, the Protestant nations of northern Europe and North America TOOK THE LEAD in developing modern philosophy, science, and technology.

    HOW MUCH you and I need to PRESERVE this liberation of the mind, in Christ!  When the would-be BOOK-BURNERS today try to PURGE from public school library shelves HARRY POTTER-and even CHAUCER and SHAKESPEARE and HAWTHORNE and STEINBECK and MARK TWAIN, claiming all the while to be acting in the name of Christianity and Americanism!

    Tell me, do YOU, LIKE Luther, know that freedom of SPIRIT and of MIND that God, in Christ, WANTS you to know?  Do you know that LIBERTATED LIFE-STYLE, subject only to Christ's will, and that LIBERATED INTELLECT that, guided by the Truth of Christ, enable you to ENJOY creation to the FULLEST?  --Or are you CRAMPED, RESTRICTED, BOUND DOWN by petty, HUMAN rules and traditions?

    Yes, "By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not YOUR OWN doing; it is the gift of God-NOT the result of works, so that no one may boast."

    Friends, with THAT kind of freedom, NOTHING can ever BIND us! -No, not even death itself!

    When Luther, while only in his early 60s, lay dying, someone asked him if he still held fast to FAITH and HOPE and GOD'S GRACE.  "JAWOHL!" -"YES, INDEED!" was his clear, sure answer.  Oh, it wasn't that Luther didn't FEAR death.  He was only HUMAN.  But he simply TRUSTED CHRIST MORE!

    Faith, Luther knew, ISN'T something that you and I have to WORK UP within ourselves.  It's, indeed, as our lesson says, the GIFT OF GOD!  And no matter how FEEBLE your faith may seem to you, my friend, no matter how IMPERFECT, how FRAGILE and SHAKY, THE LORD GOD HAS GRACIOUSLY PLANTED IT IN YOUR HEART.  AND GOD WON'T FAIL YOU!

    There's a wonderful, true story about Robert Dabney, professor at Union Theological Seminary, in Virginia.  Dabney, you may know, during the Civil War, had been Chief of Staff to Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson, Presbyterian deacon and America's greatest military genius, whose textbooks of war were Napoleon and the Old Testament.  (Those two books were all he needed!)    Yes, Dr. Dabney was Stonewall's Chief of Staff.  But after the war, the clergyman migrated west to Texas, where he founded Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

    Towards the end of his long life, Dabney became BLIND and GRAVELY ILL.  He began to WORRY that, at the HOUR of his death, he wouldn't have ENOUGH faith.  And his good friend, C.R. Vaughan, tried to comfort him.  "Dr. Dabney," Vaughan asked, "When a traveler comes to a BRIDGE over a dark, deep gorge, what does he DO?  Does he turn his eye upon HIMSELF, to scrutinize his own CONFIDENCE? -OF COURSE NOT!  Instead, the traveler carefully EXAMINES the BRIDGE, and THEN crosses over.

    "Don't lay stress on your FAITH, Dr. Dabney, but on JESUS CHRIST.  Faith is only an eye to see [Christ].  THINK OF THE BRIDGE!  THINK OF THE MASTER, when you want your faith to grow!"

    Yes, friends, FREEDOM! -THAT'S the great Protestant contribution to YOU, to ME, to the WORLD! -In Christ, freedom from guilt-and freedom of the MIND and SPIRIT!

Prayers:
    God of our fathers and of our mothers: we thank you for raising up brave and able men and women, at different times, to reform your great Church.  Aware of their example, may WE ever obey your call to confess and to correct wrongs.  For the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Church Reformed always to reform it, we praise you also.  Help us to live in him and reflect the love of Christ within and without the fellowship of believers.

    By your same Spirit, help us always to enjoy the freedom that you have so graciously given to us in Christ-especially freedom from guilt and the liberation of mind and spirit.

    In our time, O God, defend your Church from all enemies of Your saving Word.  Cause the good news of the Gospel to be proclaimed to every nation and tribe on earth, and in every language and tongue to all people, and make us bold to do our part in witnessing to Christ's power and love.

    Healer of our every ill, touch the minds, bodies and hearts of those broken by sickness and injury and all those recovering from surgery, that they may be restored to health and life according to Your good and gracious will and as You best see fit. Let Your face shine upon them that they may be kept in Your peace as their strength and mobility improve.

    O Lord God, our Sun and our Shield, sustain and comfort all those who mourn the death of loved ones so that they may never lose sight of Your sure promises of heaven.  Set our minds on heavenly things instead of earthly things so that our souls long for Your eternal courts.  Bring us by Your grace to that promised dwelling place prepared in love by You for all the saints.

    For we make these prayers in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.