Large House, by Berit Ringo. A digital image from the Grace Gallery Collection.
Click here to watch a recording of this sermon.
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My position is wrong.
I’m wrong about almost everything. I think I know who God is, and what God is – and I think I know that those are two different questions, that God is in some sense an object, a Something, but God also is a subject, a Someone. But really – do I know what I am talking about?
I think I know how we should worship, what songs we should sing, which prayers are the best, why bad things happen to good people, and what happens after we die. I think I know whether Grace Church is healthy, and I think I know that Grace Church is healthy. I am pretty sure my congresswoman is a person of integrity, and I think I was a polite and attentive dinner companion last evening. I think I know a lot of things.
But my position is wrong.
My worship and music opinions are grounded in my social and family upbringing, informed by vigorous training and hard work, yes, but also informed by my unearned privileges and long-held biases. Why do bad things happen to good people? What happens after we die? Well I do have good answers for those eternal questions, but for all I know you have better answers. A newcomer can probably tell you more accurately how healthy Grace Church is, and just this week my congresswoman did something unwise: she released a letter about Ukraine that did not help our diplomatic efforts in that crisis. So does she have integrity? Sure? Probably? And as for last night’s dinner, well like I said, I think I was a good companion, but I actually don’t know what everyone at the table really thinks about that.
But I do have one consolation in all of this ignorance, wrong as I may be about everything. I am consoled by the fact that I am not alone.
Your position is wrong, too.
You think you know how church should be, who God is, and all the rest, but really: do you really know? You have your social formation and your upbringing, you have your good education and long years of experience, yet you also have unearned privileges and biases, and so you, like me, may think you’re right about all kinds of things. Except you aren’t. Your position is wrong. We are all prone to error. We are all hemmed in by our limitations. We are all fallible.
But don’t worry, you and I, we’re not alone. The entire Episcopal Church is wrong. So are the Roman Catholics, and the Lutherans, and the Eastern Orthodox, and everyone else. Do we understand God and ethics and how the Church should be, and do we make good decisions? No. I mean, okay, maybe. But how do we really know?
This problem – that everyone’s position is wrong – explains why the Church is always and forever in need of reform. We need to question our assumptions, challenge our beliefs, read what our opponents write about us, swallow our pride, admit we were wrong, fix what’s broken, and build the church anew. And then, next year, we need to do it again.
But we don’t just have wrong positions or beliefs. We make wrong choices too. We make mistakes, we cause problems in the world, we even sometimes cause injury. It happens. Sometimes I can see myself making a mistake in the moment that I’m making it, but I’m just a second too late to stop it, or a little too low in personal integrity to resist it. Other times I realize later that I messed up, and I am startled by how foolish I was. “If I had only known,” I would say to myself, “then I could have prevented this from happening.” Except like I said, sometimes I do know better, and I still make the mistake.
So the Church needs reform for two reasons: we draw the wrong conclusions – our position is wrong – but we also can behave in ways that cause trouble and even harm people.
But here’s the good news. We stand on a firm Rock, a solid Stronghold, a mighty Fortress. God is our Rock, and so we shall not be moved. The Church is buffeted by howling winds and rising waves – and that metaphor is becoming all too literal in this age of climate change and global crisis – but we are standing on God the Rock, and we shall not be moved.
Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Jesus is the Rock beneath our feet. We are freed from ignorance and error by Jesus himself. Jesus, the Word of God, gives us our grounding, holds us firmly, protects us as the bunker of truth, God’s fortified tower, God’s keep.
Here is how Martin Luther said it, on April 18, 1521. He was on trial for heresy and at risk of being burned at the stake. His offense was saying to the authorities of the Church – in my four-word summary of his many writings – he essentially said, “Your position is wrong.” In his own defense, Luther then said this:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”
Luther was freed by God’s truth as found in the Scriptures, yet his conscience remained captive to God’s Word. He was free, yet held captive. He was not infallible – no human being is, and Luther has written things, particularly about the Jewish people, that are distressingly, even violently, wrong. But he stood on the Rock. He pledged his faith in God’s Word. He continued to ask questions, challenge authorities, and even provoke controversy, and he took seriously our dependence on the Word of God to correct our errors, to amend our ways – to reform the Church.
The Word of God – the Logos – evades our full understanding. We will probably explain it wrong. It is too flat and incomplete to say that the Word of God is the Bible, though yes, God speaks through Scripture. It is mysterious but again incomplete to say that the Word of God is the second Person of the Trinity, present at creation, the Wisdom of God hovering over the chaotic waters, though that also is true. It is even incomplete to say that the Word of God is the Rock beneath our feet, because God’s Word can never only be that, and God’s Word is not ultimately about us.
Here is how I see it, and again, know that I offer this from my own limited perspective, all too aware that I might be wrong, or at best just incomplete. God’s Word is beneath and around us whenever we gather here as the Body of Christ. When we gather to open the Book and break the bread, the Word is here, on our lips and in our hearts.
My therapist sometimes has me stand up, shoes off, my feet firmly planted on his office floor, on a rug with swirling fabrics that mimic a leafy forest floor. He asks me to dig my toes into the carpet and become conscious of the earth beneath me. He then asks me to straighten up, to breathe deeply, to become aware of the strength I receive from the earth, the support, the energy, the power.
In this stance, I remain prone to error, yet responsive to correction. I remain mortal, yet filled with God’s wild and flourishing life. I release old narratives about myself, about my adversary, about all things, and breathe in the deeper truth, the spark of divine insight, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. The earth holds me fast.
This is how we stand, all of us, when we gather each week to open the Book and break the bread. This is the center of the labyrinth. We are safe here, and we are free: safe from our own shortsightedness, and freed of our many limitations. Here we open the Book and break the bread, and when we do these things, the Word of God is here, beneath our wiggling toes.
We’ll be wrong again, and need correction. We’ll make mistakes again, and need repair. But we stand on the Rock, together. Our conscience is captive to the Word of God. Our feet dig into the earth. Our shoulders move back, and we breathe, together.
Standing on this firm foundation, we can safely and freely ask ourselves this question:
What might we still be wrong about?
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Preached on Reformation Sunday, October 30, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington. (See below for a note about Reformation Sunday.)
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36
About ‘Reformation Sunday’
Reformation Sunday is a Lutheran creation that commemorates Martin Luther’s decision on October 31, 1517, to issue a public invitation to religious and theological debate. His 95 Theses, sent to the Archbishop of Mainz, were also (perhaps!) posted on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenburg, Germany, as was the custom when an academic such as Luther wanted to begin a debate. Luther’s intent was not to split from the Roman Catholic Church, his spiritual home, but to initiate vigorous discussion. Luther is remembered as a Doctor of the Church – a serious intellectual and moral theologian who argued forcefully to correct and reform the worldwide community of faith.
The first members of Grace Church shared with Luther a reformer’s conviction: they consciously chose to remain Episcopalians, even as they imagined a new way of doing and being an Episcopal church. They examined the texts and music of their tradition, and re-formed them into a new, innovative expression of Episcopal spirituality on Bainbridge Island. They were not traditionalists, but neither were they iconoclastic: they wanted to remain true to their heritage, even as they charted a new course.
‘Reformation Sunday’ is potentially a problematic celebration, particularly if it devolves into a repudiation of Roman Catholics or Jews. It must be celebrated carefully and consciously for what it is, and for what it is not. In 1999, the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America signed an agreement titled Called to Common Mission (CCM), establishing full communion and reinforcing our deep bonds of kinship and fellowship. CCM is but one more reformation – or re-formation – of God’s Church. It affirms our oneness in Christ, and our awareness that in Christ there is a new creation: the Church is always reforming, always re-forming, yet grounded eternally on the Rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ, who prayed most fervently that we all may be one.