The Loneliness of Modernity and the Gift of the Church

Reformation Sunday
26 October 2025

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46 (7)
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36

There is an inherent contradiction in celebrating the Reformation. Not just that not all was good, for it caused a schism that prevails to this day. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity would look very different without the Reformation. But also that without intending to Luther made the individual the judge of that which is true. Of course, we celebrate this as the victory of conscience over power, but we have defined conscience largely as an internal agency, often as the only thing we have to answer to. And in placing the individual in this position, the Reformation became the beginning of modernity. Until the Reformation, truth was defined by the Church. Of course, we probably don’t desire to return to such scenario. The cat is out of the bag or the genie out of the bottle. And yet, there is a reason my wife – when we were still new – lovingly called me “you splitter”. That is because before the Reformation there were two denominations, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic (following the schism of 1054 brought about by the filioque formula). Now there are perhaps 45000 Christian denominations, at least according to the internet. The exact number does not matter, the tragedy of division does.

In the song “If God’s on Your Side,” the Canadian musician Danny Michel sings,

(…) your book says that mine’s a lie
If God’s on your side, then who’s on mine?¹

A few lines earlier Michel falsely associates religion with violence² yet he reasonably questions lives that fail to offer an alternative to hate and greed, and his question of absolute claims in a pluralistic culture is fair. You don’t have to be a fundamentalist to do this. During the first World War chaplains on both sides blessed troops and weaponry. If God’s on your side, then who’s on mine?

The Reformation brought about religious pluralism, even if only within a Christian family that no longer considered itself family all the while the Gospel says that God is not subject to our tribalism (Acts 10) but that God is for us (Romans 8), all of us.

Yet the pluralism that came about with the Reformation made the individual the arbiter of truth. Remember that in various disputations Luther said that unless one could convince him of error via argument from scripture, he would not recant. We admire his stance and today I wear socks into which is woven, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” Yet, biblical interpretation is subject to our own learning, leanings, and interpretation. That is why there are so many denominations.

The contradiction, mentioned at the beginning, is that this places an enormous weight on the individual when Luther’s aim was the exact opposite: It is precisely not by what we do that we are saved but by what God has done in Christ; it is by grace. And yet often doctrinal statements themselves have become a performative act, deemed necessary for your salvation. That is the what the born-again language is about, at least when framed as the question whether one has been born again. Answer in the affirmative and you are in, answer with different phrasing and you are suspect. Thus being a member of the “right” church matters.
I am not making an argument against sound theology only an argument against elevating our judgment over God’s grace.

Since with the Reformation the cat was out of the bag, we must ask whether there is something in the theology of Martin Luther that in a sea of the pluralism brought about by the Reformation can help us find the truth. And we remember that the truth has a name. The name is Jesus.

Remember Luther’s insistence that unless he could be proved wrong by arguments from scripture and from scripture alone, he would not recant? “Here I stand, I can do no other.” The medieval method of the interpretation of the Bible, the one that Luther had been trained in, was four-fold and primarily allegorical. An allegory is a story in which each part of the story represents something in the real world. Medieval allegorical interpretation aimed at locating a doctrinal meaning, a moral meaning, and an eschatological meaning. And all this was to be verified by the literal meaning of a text.
Luther would occasionally still use allegory in preaching, as expression of the pastoral relationship he had with the congregation but he would no longer use it to determine the theological core of a biblical text.³

Yet Luther’s interpretation of the scriptures was always focused on Christ. That is to say that Luther believed that Jesus was the revelation of God, that history found its fulfillment in Christ, that Christ is the goal of history, and that therefore all that had come before and would come after could only be understood through God’s self-revelation in Jesus.

In the Gospel of John Jesus says to Philip, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (14:9) And we already learn in the first chapter of the Gospel of John that … the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. That Word, of course, is not a long list of propositions but is Jesus through whom all things came into being. (John 1:3)

And what God has done in Jesus we just heard in our reading from Romans, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus …

Justified by grace as a gift has since become the tag line of our faith, though at times misunderstood as cheap grace or as the coddling of an I’m OK, you’re OK disposition. I am OK you’re OK theology forgets that while the Gospel is good news it also calls us to be what we already are yet are resistant to become, it forgets the challenge of the prophets, a tradition in which Jesus located himself.

And so we see that the Reformation has not only opened the door to a dizzying host of options as to what to believe but also to Jesus, which was what the Reformation was all about. What it means to be with Jesus we learn in our Gospel reading. Jesus says to those who believe in him If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

And so the burden of too many choices, the burden of a world that has become confusing, is replaced by the gift of abiding. “Abiding” is a better translation than “remain.” If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. “Abiding” is the word that Jesus uses frequently. Jesus abides in the Father and the Father abides in him. By abiding in Jesus we have communion with the Holy Trinity. This is not about a long list of propositions, nor is it a list of commands, but it is the gift of life in and with God. And that life directs us in a way that includes the things that are of God and excludes things that are not of God, and our default position is one of attentiveness to Jesus. It’s about abiding in Jesus, the One who came to dwell with us.

It is hard for us, whom the Reformation has made individualists to remember that we are not alone. However, that “not being alone” consists of more than the comfort of Jesus in our hearts. The comfort of not being alone includes the Church, the body of Christ into which we are baptized, the body of Christ that knows many gifts yet is one body. It is here that the Word is proclaimed, the sacraments are celebrated, and it is in our common worship and in our life together that God is present and that we are not alone. And only here can our recourse to our conscience mean something.

Amen.