I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do no understand why it is part of the church year. Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.
Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ”˜Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.
For example, note what the Reformation has done for our reading texts like that which we hear from Luke this morning. We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God’s free grace. And therefore we are better than the Catholics because we know they are sinners. What an odd irony that the Reformation made such readings possible. As Protestants we now take pride in the acknowledgement of our sinfulness in order to distinguish ourselves from Catholics who allegedly believe in works-righteousness.
Unfortunately, the Catholics are right….
Stanley Hauerwas is never boring – he is often insightful, often irritating, but never boring. He is the one theologian I always look forward to reading. I love the final paragraph of this sermon, and I love the stress on telling the truth. In the contemporary Anglican world, it seems that truth-telling has all too-often been cast aside in favor of advancing an agenda and compelling dissenters to acquiesce.
What I’d like to know is, how can someone who preached that sermon 12 (sic) years ago go on to join The Episcotarian Church?
Perhaps Hauerwas is right about some things, but this sermon ignores the abuses and corruption widespread in the Roman Church in the centuries leading to the Reformation. Luther’s disputation was but the culmination of decades, if not centuries of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, facilitated by the newly-developed printing press. Indeed, the very word “reformation” expresses that ideal. Luther’s objectives were the reform of the Church, not a split. Protestants did not protest the Church Catholic as expressed in the Roman Catholic Church, but the wide distance between scriptural truth and what had become universal practice which was directly contradictory of scripture. Today’s Roman Catholic Church is not the same as in Luther’s and Calvin’s time. I was reared in the LCMS. I remember reading Luther’s claim that the papacy itself (not the Pope) is the antichrist. However, as I age I have mellowed, and perhaps my experience in the Episcopal Church has created in me a more accepting attitude towards the RCC. I have even toyed with the idea of swimming the Tiber, whereas 10 years ago I would never have entertained such an idea.
#2 Watching,
Because of statements like this, Hauerwas could join TEC:
[i]I think Catholics are able to do that because they know that their unity does not depend upon everyone agreeing. Indeed, they can celebrate their disagreements because they understand that our unity is founded upon the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that makes the Eucharist possible. They do not presume, therefore, that unity requires that we all read Scripture the same way.[/i]
Unless I missed something Hauerwas has not officially joined TEC, though he does worship at an Episcopal Church with his wife. One could allow his own words to speak for him. This is from the preface to his collection [i]Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence[/i]:
[blockquote]Paula and I now worship at the Church of the Holy Family (Episcopal). No one will be well served by trying to explain how we found our way to Holy Family. However, our being at Holy Family helps explain why I have dedicated this book to our Anglican friends Darlene and Timothy Kimbrough, Patricia and Keith Meador, Louise and Bruce Kaye, Jo and Sam wells, and Jane and Rowan Williams. Darlene, Timothy, Keith, and Patricia are friends from Holy Family. Bruce and Louise are Australians. Jo, Sam, Jane and Rowan are English (though Rowan is Welsh). Paula and I have many Anglican friends, but these friends have reached out to us from near and far helping us remember that the Christian family makes possible friendship across time and space.
After all the jokes I have told about Anglicans, I suspect it is God’s little joke on me that I now worship with Anglicans. Paula and I are well aware that Anglicanism, like all mainstream Protestant denominations, lacks coherence. But that same incoherent church continues to produce people like Louise, Bruce, Sam, Jo, Timothy, Darlene, Patricia, Keith, Jane, and Rowan who help Paula and me have some intimation of what it might be like to live our lives as Christians. We live in dark times, but god gives us friends who make it possible to see through the darkness. Thank God for friends like these.[/blockquote]
So there you have it…maybe that answers some of the questions.
That passage gives the impression that a Methodist is attending Episcopal services for the fellowship, which is certainly counter to the conventional jokes. 🙂