Reformation in Catechesis

This is the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in John 8:31-32. Jesus claims that His word is truth and this truth sets us free. Free from all our sins and free from our slavery to sin. Free from the burden of the law, which would crush us with its demands that we could never meet. Free from our bondage to death and the grave. Free to live forever! Yes, if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.

This is the gospel freedom that God, by His grace, led one man, a monk, by the name of Martin Luther to understand in the fullness of Jesus’ choice of the word ‘free’. Luther’s insight was then passed on to others so that today, we are the heirs of that heritage. But this was not received with open acceptance by his peers. Instead, what it took for that great gospel teaching to take hold within the church and then in the hearts and minds of the people, Luther learned that what it took was “A Reformation in Catechesis”. This is where I wish to take you on this Reformation Sunday in 2016.

The Reformation began with a return to Scripture. Luther wanted us to find out what the Bible really says about God, about man, and about how we are put right with God. Again, Jesus says in John: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Martin Luther tried very hard to understand God’s Word. He entered a monastery, thus dedicating himself to a life of religious devotion. In spite of how hard he tried, the more he realized that he did not measure up to God’s standard. He failed miserably to rid himself of sinful thoughts. He believed he was unable to bring himself to love God wholeheartedly. Luther was so consumed with his inability to conquer his sinfulness that he painfully punished himself as he tried to overcome it and still failed!

But Brother Martin was a very gifted young man. His high intelligence was noted by the Church so it put him to work as a professor. With this commission Luther drove himself to study the Bible so that he could teach it. During the next few years, what Luther discovered revolutionized his thinking about the righteousness of God and how to attain this righteousness. He found that what the Bible taught was not what the Church was teaching or practicing. Instead of proclaiming while practicing the righteousness and freedom won for us by Christ, the Medieval Roman church was putting people under a burden too heavy to carry. In addition they piled on demands made by the law, offering people false hope with merits and thus raising doubts about their own salvation.

What Luther discovered within the Bible were passages like our Epistle reading for today, from Romans, Chapter 3. The works of the law cannot save anyone. We can never do enough to earn our salvation. Instead, God gives us His righteousness freely in our Savior Jesus Christ, as a gift. God’s own Son whose holy blood, shed on the cross pays for ALL of OUR sins; in Christ they are covered COMPLETELY! God justifies us declaring us NOT GUILTY for Christ’s sake. Trust in Him, and not in yourself or in your personal striving. Justification is by grace through faith – faith apart from works of the law. Faith in the saving person and work of Jesus Christ! Only this is what sets us apart from our slavery to sin and death! The more Luther studied the Bible, the more he understood and believed this great Gospel truth - this liberating truth which jumped out at him.

And yet, what Luther saw happening within the Church disturbed him as it did NOT practice what he found in Scripture. The freedom in Christ’s death was not being preached, taught, or practiced. Instead, merits, relics, indulgences, pilgrimages were offered to the people. True repentance was bypassed with buying a plenary indulgence from the Pope to get a family member or themselves out of an imagined purgatory. This DEFINITELY did NOT agree with the biblical teachings.

Luther felt duty bound to speak out against this travesty and did so on October 31, 1517, which is why we, as Lutherans, observe Reformation Day the last Sunday every October. Dr. Luther posted ninety-five thesis, ninety-five theological prepositions on the front door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, demonstrating the wrong practices of indulgences in the Roman church. Luther’s brave action was the beginning of the Reformation, a movement that led to increasingly deeper insights into how the Church had gotten sidetracked so reforms were needed to correct the errors.

As a result, Luther continued to write as well as speak openly with personal conviction for restoring the Gospel to its rightful prominence in the church. Many other religious leaders, churches, and territories were influenced by Luther’s teachings. The Reformation spread quickly! But a problem surfaced in the form of a question. Was this Reformation teaching getting down to the level of the people? What was happening at the local parish level? Luther had presented doctrine according to the Bible but was it getting into the hands of the people?

Therefore during 1527-1528, a visitation was undertaken throughout the Saxony region in the local parishes. The doctrine being taught and preached was looked into and how it was being practiced within each church. What Luther discovered was not encouraging. Many of the local priests were poorly versed in sound scriptural doctrine; thus, the people did not know the Gospel so their lives did not reflect it.

The result led Luther to fill the need with a reformation in catechesis. So in 1529 Luther published his Large and Small Catechisms. We read in the preface to the Small Catechism: “The deplorable, miserable conditions which I recently observed when visiting the parishes have constrained and pressed me to put this catechism of Christian doctrine into this brief, plain, and simple form. How pitiable, so help me God, were the things I saw: the common man knows practically nothing of Christian doctrine, and many of the priests are almost entirely incompetent and unable to teach. Yet all the people are supposed to be Christians, have been baptized and receive the Holy Sacrament even though they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments and live like poor animals of the barnyard and pigpen.”

What would such a visitation uncover in St. Mark’s? How is it with us? Do we need a reformation in catechesis? In other words, do we need to be better grounded in the basics of the Christian faith? In the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Holy Sacraments? Do we have an understanding of these major teachings of God’s Word? Do we practice and live out these basics? I would say that I hope we do! We never stop learning no matter in what phase of life we are presently living.

Just so you know, Luther knew the Word of God very intimately, yet he wrote the following regarding himself: “I act as a child who is being taught the catechism. Every morning and whenever I have time, I read and repeat word for word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, and such. I must still read and study them daily. Yet, I cannot master the catechism as I wish. But I must remain a child and pupil of the catechism, and I am glad to remain so.”

So this is why Luther wrote the catechism – to let the word of Christ dwell in each of us richly so that we will indeed abide in Christ’s word. So on this Reformation Sunday 2016, I encourage each of you to continue in the catechism, always growing sin your knowledge, your understanding and your practice of the chief parts.

Do this, not because you ‘have to’ as if you are under the burden of the law. Remember, the truth of Christ has set you free, this is how you can abide in Christ’s word as one of his disciples.

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” That’s what the gospel of Christ is all about; therefore, this is what Lutheran catechesis is for us. It is nothing other than a solid grounding in the Christian faith. It is meant to sustain and orient each of us in our daily living throughout your entire life. AMEN

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.