Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Oct/85

Contributor - Paul Nulton

Title - Meditation

Topic - Reformation

At the beginning of the second decade of the 16th Century (1510 - 1520) two great scholars, John Colet and a Dutchman named Erasmus, visited the Shrine of St. Thomas 6 Becket at Canterbury, England. They were aghast at the riches they saw. Erasmus commented they were "as before which Midas and Croesus would seem beggars." Colet observed St. Thomas i Becket would have preferred the "whole lot be given the poor." He refused to give the customary "reverent kiss" to the prize relic on display, the arm of St. George, and was contemptuous of another relic, a cloth soaked in the blood of the martyred saint. Something was beginning to happen to the old Medieval Church imposing its grip on all society through mechanical religion. Two of the most respected and widely read scholars in Europe refused to do it obeisance.

Johann Geiter of Strasbourg, the great preacher of the decaying Medieval Church, said in his last sermon before Emperor Maximillian, "Since neither pope nor emperor, Kings or bishops will reform our lives, God may send a man forth at purpose." (God sent many.) What was happening in this era, at least among those who were perceived as the "shakers and movers" by the intellectual celebrities - the emerging middle class merchants and tradesmen - was that they were starting to think and slowly there emerged in European society a spawning chasm - on one side Church Historian Paul Johnson writes were the powers of old, those insisting on the religion of old based upon authority, the Roman Catholic Church and its chief support, the Holy Roman Empire. On the other side, an emerging half-Reformed group beginning to base their spiritual thinking on the exclusive leading of Holy Scripture as printing presses were getting it into the hands of thousands of non-clergy.

Most Reformation Day meditations cite the contributions of Martin Luther, John Calvin and perhaps Zwingli. We need to realize in our peculiar Protestant penchant of personality cults and interpreting Church history through the lives of certain individuals, that the Protestant Reformation was something far deeper and more widespread than the actions of a handful of men. It started as a crack of time even as Shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night some 1500 years before. Something new entered the human scene and spread among thinking men yearning for something better, something more meaningful, something which would set hearts afire for God. The mechanical religion of the middle ages was tired, laboring for its last few breaths. It lost vitality. Most of all - it lost life. It became nothing more than another layer of government - another form of social organization completely ritualized and legalized. Tradition reigned supreme. To many it became something evil which in many cases it was. Let us realize that evil is live spelled backwards. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck writes in "People of the Lie" that evil always seeks to destroy life. Whether we or the Church turn from life - we become evil.

The church in the middle ages had turned from life-turned from Jesus Christ who alone is the life and for Whom it was responsible to live its life. It had created a life all of its own. In turning from life it became evil. Upon this new fertile ground of understanding, and walking in the valley of spiritual discontent, men like Zwingli, Luther and Calvin and a host of others were able to forge a new spiritual direction.

If I assess Canadian, indeed North American and European conditions correctly - we live in a similar age as the Reformation's. All sorts of cults and millennial groups springing up and flourishing however briefly. A general confusion as to the future pervades these societies. Evil in the forms of various types of music, entertainment and occultism mushroom and the Church appears powerless to break the trend. It appears to have lost its peculiar function of guiding society towards loftier goals. It too clings to the materialism of its culture to save its life despite a failed theology and thereby appears to be losing its life. The traditional Church has lost vitality and is losing its life. It may be quite different from the Catholic Church at the dawn of Reformation - but it clings to 500 year old models.

Certainly our youth and younger generations express a great deal of discontent with what they regard "as the mechanical religion of the traditional Church." It is perceived as little more than a place we go, sit down, sing a few hymns, listen to finely researched sermons, put some money in the plate, go home for another week and if we're fortunate, being able to do the latter without saying good morning to anyone. 9:30 or 1 1:00 Sunday mornings, in their own way today, are as mechanical and ritualistic as the relic worship of the Medieval Church. There's no life in it. It lacks meaningfulness. It always happens when men put their traditions ahead of the life-giving Spirit of God and will not allow the Word of God to be integrated into their personal lives and living. The traditions become earth-bound and the transcendent encounter with God lost.

Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly." He came that we may enter into the fullness of life. He gives life as a gift. He gives it to us more fully as a process. Why do we appear to be so afraid of expressions of life in our Churches? A raised hand. A children's skit. A personal Psalm or testimony as to what Christ is doing in a person's life. Sharing the Sacrament in more intimate surroundings and ways. Confessing our sins and faults to one another and praying for one another. These are the Biblical signs encouraging life and encouraging it more abundantly. These are some of the signs that God is truly in our midst - God living life.

We need to become celebrating Churches - Churches which celebrate the life Christ gives and calls us to share. But if we keep that to ourselves we will lose it and we become the relic.

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