Morning Thanks--Children of the Reformation

In ways I know, as well as ways I still have only begun to understand, I am a child of the Reformation. I didn't request that birthright; the Reformation's place in my life was no more my choice than was the town where I was born. Like it or not, I've come heir to both its considerable strengths and decided limitations.

Sometimes I'm not proud to claim its heritage. Then again, moments come along when I'm thrilled to be the apologist. My parents determinedly skipped one of the great childhood holidays, Halloween, in part because they believed it gave comfort to the enemy, the Devil, but also because it obscured history we should be celebrating. October 31 wasn't Halloween; it was Reformation Day.

My first study of the Reformation happened in grade school, Christian grade school, where the wonderful piety of the Reformers was heralded, and those despotic Roman Catholics--overweight, alcoholic priests selling crappy indulgences to stupid people--created a take on the story it took me some time to nuance.

It's almost embarrassing to say it, but I remember being in graduate school before I learned that some well-heeled German land barons were all for Martin Luther. They were men with bucks who wanted more and didn't really care for all that theology. "Saved by grace" was okay with them; what they really liked was the way that strange priest stuck a sharp stick in the eyes the powers-that-be.

It took me years to learn that there would be no American Democracy without Luther and Calvin, etc., to understand that "the priesthood of all believers" carried immense political implications those land barons didn't miss. I was so much a child of the Reformation that I had to get out of its dominion to begin to understand.

Yesterday, in a jam-packed chapel, I was proud to be what I am. It may be just my age, but I missed half of "A Mighty Fortress," couldn't sing, got choked up simply to be part of a crowd I had guessed would be about fourth of a house but was in fact so big it ran halfway to the ceiling in the back.

Just couldn't sing. "A bulwark never failing" is not a line meant for ukelele. When Luther wrote that hymn, he wasn't thinking of a flute. He heard it on a pipe organ whose sheer force could fill a cathedral. And that's what it sounded like yesterday. In the full-to-the-rafters chapel, led by a massive pipe organ, Luther's own hymn brought me back to Wittenberg.

Of course, it didn't hurt that my granddaughter was there with her high school choir. It didn't hurt because I'm proud enough of being a child of the Reformation to want her to understand that she is too; and yesterday, at worship, she couldn't help knowing it.

Neither could anyone else. We sat behind the community's newest immigrants, two rows of Hispanics, mostly young people, who sang along with Luther, led as we all were by that huge organ, all of them children of the Reformation too.

The sermon was wonderful. Don't get confused about the priesthood of believers, the pastor said. Biblical priests weren't special in any way. They were us. They were you and me in work clothes, all of us, children of the Reformation.

When we fight among ourselves I'm not thrilled to be a child of Reformation. When we pick up our worship and take it elsewhere, when we start to believe the priesthood of all believers means each of us, in our separate ways, has our own unique handle on God's truth, in those moments I wear my John Calvin t-shirt under a sweater. Where two or three are gathered, post-Reformation, there's likely more than one church.

But yesterday's magnificent celebration of all those solas, two-hours of multi-lingual praise amid wall-to-wall children of the Reformation, was blessed.

Our institutions are all suffering these days, everything from political parties and religious denominations to the American Legion and your local bowling team. As long as we're on line, who really cares about getting together?

Well, we do. Honestly, yesterday a whole chapel full of people may well have understood, some for the very first time, that we are children of the Reformation.

It was beautiful. The God of all of us had to be smiling, and that's why this morning's thanks comes more easily than most. I am deeply thankful for yesterday.