(This Sermon is given in the first person by Martin Luther)  Let me first say how good it is to be here at Reformation Lutheran Church on Reformation Sunday – with those wonderful brass instruments and this amazing organ and the choir leading in singing the great hymns of the church – wonderful.  Of course your church name is itself a reminder of what I had hoped to do and a testimony of what actually happened.  I wanted a reformation – to reform the church – to correct some abuses and draw it back toward the center of the Gospel from what I was convinced were unhealthy detours.  And because you bear the name Lutheran – something I did not want to happen – it means that at one level I failed and the result was a split in the church that we are still trying to heal.  I pray, as our Lord did, that we might one day return to the unity of the church on earth – for I can assure you, there is unity in heaven. 

But what about this center of the Gospel that was revealed to me as I studied the scriptures and that captured me for life.  I had read the book of Romans hundreds of times, but somehow I had never seen or properly understood this critical passage.  It is part of your second lesson today – “For no human being will be justified in God’s sight by deeds prescribed by the law. . .”   I had been trying to do that my whole life – and had not convinced myself that I had done enough or been good enough.   “So what’s the answer, Paul,” I thought to myself.

“For there is no distinction,” Paul says, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by God’s grace – as a gift . . .”  There it was right in front of me – GRACE – God’s gift.  And an expensive gift it was – for it cost God the life of his son.  And, it changed my life – which is what Grace is designed to do – change lives.  Sometimes I think that Grace is not totally understood today – that people think it’s like a get out of jail free card – so that it doesn’t matter what you do.  That might be comforting as we try to discount or rationalize those things in our lives that we do and know are not right, or fail to do.  But it doesn’t work with the really atrocious crimes – that’s where grace is tested.  It’s like the story Pastor Smoose told me on Thursday night when we were enjoying a beer together at the Boathouse. 

He had been to Rotary and in the weekly newsletter was a segment written by a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar who had traveled to China and Cambodia.  He was writing about his visit to the Phnom Penh Killing Fields in Cambodia– and it was not for the squeamish.  It is one of 388 known mass graves in Cambodia and the entrance is a tower that bears the skulls of 8000 victims. Large pits puncture the ground as the narrow dirt paths that weave around the grave sites have bones jutting out of them, so many, the author said, that you could not avoid stepping on some.  A sign on a tree says “Killing tree against which executioners beat children.”  I won’t go into some of the more gruesome details.

But,  “How does grace operate here,?”  Pastor Smoose asked me.  Here grace cannot be a cheap forgiveness that says what you do does not matter.  Yes, I said, what was done does matter – and if you break societies laws, then you need to bear the consequences of your actions.  Those involved in such atrocities have had their hearts captured by pure evil – the same evil that crucified Jesus.  His skull is one of the ones hanging on that tower – he was crucified at the place of the skull. 

Grace reveals to you and holds before you the full extent of and impact of your deeds – and then the love of God embraces  you and absorbs the evil – absorbs it into the love of God – into God’s self.  It is a love that overwhelms us and humbles us and changes our lives.  Old behaviors are not acceptable to us and not desirable in us, for the love of God now controls me life.

That’s what Bishop Tutu did in South Africa with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Hold up before the perpetrators the full impact of their actions.  Require them to confess.  Bear the consequences.  Then know the forgiving love of God.    That is why John Newtown could write that hymn “Amazing Grace.”  I wish I had written that hymn – it is one that comes from the heart of a changed man.  Many had suffered because of his slave trade and alcoholism.  His own life had become meaningless – all of it starkly held before him – and then the love of God embraced him and changed him.  “How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me” – he was talking about himself.  That’s not a get out of jail free card.  Grace changes you. 

But grace does not only operate when you are the perpetrator of something wrong or evil.  It also operates when you are the victim.  In my own life I experienced terrible tragedy when my little daughter Lieschen got sick and died – I was distraught for months, and trying to outwardly be a pastor of faith and conviction while inside I was hurting so bad and so angry with God.  And I experienced terrible illnesses of members of the congregation – and had my own bouts as well.  Disease, death – these are real forces of evil in our lives, and those suffering almost always wonder why they are going through such torment – and there is no good answer. 

But Grace is still operative.  It did not take away the pain of Lieschen’s death, it did not remove my bouts of gastric distress – but in ways I could not fully understand God’s grace – the love of God – was with me in my suffering.  It was as if God’s own loss, the suffering and death of his Son gave him an understanding and compassion that embraced me in my suffering and helped absorb the pain – weeping with me – helping me endure and get through it.  Others in my congregation who had experienced loss or suffered illness would from time to time give me encouragement or comfort – as if they were instruments of God’s grace – transmitting God’s love and compassion to me. 

And just as the forgiving love of God is humbling and life changing, so this compassionate love of God is humbling and made me more tender – more understanding of what those who suffered loss or illness were going through.  Grace.  I don’t know how Paul was able to grasp it so beautifully and express it so succinctly, but it reveals the righteousness of God – not of us – of God.  And that’s why we can’t boast.  In my worst moments, I am human full of Adam’s sin.  In my best moments – God’s grace operates in me.  God’s love controls me.   No one here is so terrible that they are outside of the perview of God’s grace; and no one here is so good that they do not stand in need of that grace.

We have the most precious treasure in the world – God’s grace which when unleashed in the lives of people changes them and can change the world.  This is what we have to give away – People need it! why are we so hesitant to share it?  Grace – accept it in your own life;  give it as a gift to those around you; proclaim it to the world.  That’s the way to commemorate the Reformation.

Amen.