Celebration
of the 500th Anniversary of
the Protestant Reformation
Sermon preached on Sunday, Oct 1
The
Reverend Rob Hartley
I was baptized in a church in Columbia as an infant in
Jan, 1948. My parents and godparents
took the baptismal vows on my behalf and vowed to raise me in the Church. They
and my church family did just that. 12 years later in a church in Mt Pleasant,
SC, I confirmed those baptismal vows, making the Faith my own. The Faith that was planted in me in those
years took root, shaping my relationship with God, my understanding of the
world, and my purpose and place in it.
I was given my first Bible in those days by my
Godmother. This Bible, tattered and old
like me, continues to be a symbol of the what was planted in me. My roots were sunk deeply into the biblical
worldview- a worldview that I was to find to be unambiguous, sure and
true. I may not have always walked
faithfully the path that my feet were first placed upon back in those days, but
I knew where the path was and how to find my way home. Interestingly, over a half-century later, I
was to serve as an ordained clergyman in the same church in Columbia in which I
had been baptized those many years earlier.
Today, my bishop, under whose authority I presently function, is
resident at the parish in which I was Confirmed. By the grace of God, I have not strayed far
from my roots.
In our Epistle reading this morning, 2
Timothy 3:14-17, Paul writes to Timothy about this sort of faith that is rooted
in Scripture and which I received as a child:
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and
have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and
how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are
able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All
Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man
of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
In October we are launching into our celebration of the
500 anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. One of the marks of the
Reformation was a renewed emphasis and sensitivity to the primacy of
Scripture. This had been largely lost in
the medieval Church and displaced with other sources of authority; moreover,
the Bible was almost totally inaccessible to the common person. The Protestant Reformation was largely a
reaction to this and to other deviations from the Apostolic Faith that had
encrusted the Church through the centuries.
In my growing-up years I was also given, along with my
first Bible, my first prayer book. The
Book of Common Prayer was first composed in 1549 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
at the dawn of the Reformation in England.
This book placed both worship and Scripture in the hands of the people. We will learn more about the BCP in weeks to
come, but let me read to you once again the opening collect we prayed this
morning. It was composed by then
Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer for the first Book of Common Prayer as
an expression of this return to Sola Scriptura as the foundation of our
Faith. Here it is in old English as
Cranmer pinned it:
BLESSED lord, which hast caused all holy Scriptures to
bee written for our learnyng; graunte us that we maye in suche wise heare them,
read, marke, learne, and inwardly digeste them; that by pacience, and coumfort
of thy holy woorde, we may embrace, and ever holde fast the blessed hope of
everlasting life, which thou hast geven us in our saviour Jesus Christe.
Thomas Cranmer, along with other bishops and clergy of
the English Church, had long kept one eye on the reforms on the Continent led
by Luther, Calvin and others. We will be
learning more about the history of what would become known as the Protestant
Reformation in this month ahead. Cranmer
grew into his awareness that reform was necessary in the English Church. As King Henry VIII’s archbishop, however,
Cranmer had to bide his time. The
English Church had been separated from Rome a number of years earlier primarily
due to Henry’s personal needs and greeds, but Henry largely kept his thumb on
any changes to the piety and practices of the Church, except where it served
his purposes. Upon the death of Henry in
1547, Cranmer moved forward with his reforms under Protestant King Edward VI.
During Edward’s Reign, three things were published in
English under Cranmer’s leadership: A Book of Homilies in 1547; the first Book
of Common Prayer in 1549; and Articles of Religion in 1553. These documents defined the broad reforms to
take place in the English Church, mirroring what was taking place on the
Continent.
We have already talked a bit about the Cranmer’s prayer
book- let us look at these other two Reformation documents in relation to our
topic, Sola Scriptura:
Cranmer’s
Homilies:
Homilies were written to be read in all English parishes. The very first homily is titled “A Fruitful exhortation to
the reading of holy Scripture.” Cranmer writes,
“To
a Christian man there can bee nothing either more necessarie or
profitable, then the knowledge of holy Scripture, forasmuch as in it is
conteyned [contained] GODS true word, setting foorth his glory, and also
mans duety… Therefore
forsaking the corrupt iudgement of fleshly men, which care not but
for their carkasse: let vs reuerently heare and read holy Scriptures,
which is the foode of the soule (quoting Matthew 4.4). Let vs diligently search for the Well of
Life in the bookes of the New and Old Testament, and not runne to the
stinking puddles of mens traditions (deuised by mens imagination) for our
iustification and saluation.”
Articles
of Religion: Article VI-
“Holy Scripture
containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not
read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man,
that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought
requisite or necessary to salvation.” [Article VI goes on to describe which
books make up Holy Scripture and are canonical and authoritative.]
The Reformation, therefore, recovered for us Scripture as
the sole and ultimate authority for Christian living. This does not mean that tradition, or the
teaching offices of the church, or the power of human intellect and reasoning
are not useful and edifying to the faith, but all must be tested against God’s
written Word. The Holy Spirit, who
inspired the writing of Scripture, is also intimately involved in guiding the
individual Christian life and illuminating Scripture for the believer. We can test to see, however, that we are
indeed listening to the Holy Spirit and not some other spirit (such as the
Spirit of the Age). The Holy Spirit will
not lead the believer contrary to the Word of God.
Why all this talk about authority? Because we are all going to listen to some
voice of authority in our lives. God is
a God of revelation, revealing Himself and His will to us. He speaks into our history; He acts in our
lives. God speaks into our lives through
the Written Word. What better source for
living could there be than the words of Almighty God who created us.
Finally, let me draw your attention to both our Old
Testament and Gospel readings for this morning.
In our reading from Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-5, we hear the story of God having
created mankind places them in the garden and tells them they are to work it
and keep it. His Word to them: “You may
surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat
of it you shall surely die.” The humans disregard God’s Word and listen to
another voice- that of Satan… “Did God
really say…”. They eat; sin, corruption
and death enter Creation, and the man and woman are driven out of the garden into
the wilderness to toil against a Creation now tainted by their disobedience.
In
the Gospel reading today (Matthew 4:1-11), we
have another story of listening or not listening to the Word of God, that of
Jesus, not in a garden, but in the wilderness fasting for 40 days. In contrast to Adam’s disobedience, the New
Adam, Jesus, the new prototype for humanity, obeys the Word of God: “The
tempter came to Jesus [as he does to Eve in the garden]. Satan says, “If you are the
Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But
Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Thus Jesus, as
the new model for humanity, opens the way from the wildernesses of our lives
back into the Garden, reversing the curse of the fall, and allowing us to once
again walk with our Heavenly Father in cool of the evening, to use the imagery
of Genesis. What is contrasted here in
Genesis and Matthew is the disobedience of Adam and obedience of Jesus’s to the
Word of God.
So, today we celebrate the great Reformation theme, Sola Scriptura. We are to live, not by cleverly crafted words
and ways of this world, “but by every word
that comes from the mouth of God.”
To God be the Glory! Amen.
