This morning, on Reformation Sunday, I preached the third message in a series based on Debie Thomas’ new book A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity (Broadleaf, 2024).Today, we focused on story.
Sermon
My message, “Living the Story” was based on Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 3:19-28, and John 8:31-36.
Story
You can watch the sermon below or read the manuscript.
Excerpt
I know many of you came to church this morning expecting me to say something like, “we are gathered here today to celebrate Martin Luther’s bold faith as portrayed in one of our favorite stories, particularly the one of him nailing his 95 theses to the door of the church.” For some its impossible to imagine this day without singing A Mighty Fortress is Our God or without hearing about Martin Luther’s daring act.
Since we’ve now done both, I am free to use the rest of my time however I like. Except that I imagine most of you would become quite uncomfortable if I chose to tell you everything that I think is wrong with the ELCA – even if that might be the most Lutheran or at least the most Luther-like Reformation sermon possible.
Instead, I’ll pause here. And I’ll invite you to know the story and to live the story. Which story? Well, since this series is focused on living a more spacious Christianity, I’ll invite you to live several stories at once.
To start at the beginning story wise is to say that we are all invited to be part of God’s story. We should live the Christian story – the story that is shared by all who follow the Way of Jesus, even if we behave and believe differently. This is what we share in common with the 2.4 billion Christians living today and billions who came before us. It’s the big picture faith that you think of when we say the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles’ Creed. And we are to be in the Reformation Story, which for us, turns into the Lutheran story . . .