One could rightly say, that we Lutherans probablay (sic), find Reformation Day, a little passé (Look, I made a rhyme!). That rhyme may be the most exciting aspect of this tedious contribution to the October 2026 Parish Rebuilder, or maybe not. You decide.
For roughly 500 years, Lutherans have marked the 31st of October as Reformation Day. On that day in 15?? (do you know which year?), Martin Luther posted in Ninety-five Theses against Indigestion (how many of them have you ever read?) because he suffered from a steady diet of bratwurst and sauerkraut. Contributing to this situation, while in the monastery Brother Martin distinguished himself by taking all that monkey business so seriously that it probably exacerbated his troublesome tummy. This ailment grew ever worse, and finally Luther decided that he could no longer stomach the mayhem in the church. So, gaining renewed intestinal fortitude, Luther developed the Reformation Diet of Worms and launched the now renowned celebration of Halloween! See, so boring.
Of course, the Lutheran understanding of the Reformation encompasses much more than Luther publishing his Ninety-five Theses. When posting them, Luther was seeking to correct an abuse of church theology and practice which the pope and some bishops were using to line their pockets with payments for penance which seemed much more satisfactory for sinners than actually doing their penance.
In the Roman Church, then and now, committing sins has two aspects. First, one has broken a commandment of God or of the church, and second, breaking a commandment meant that somehow somewhere damage has been done. So, to address both problems, one first goes to a priest to confess one’s sins and to receive absolution. Then, the priest assigns some task to do to compensate for the damages caused by sinning.
In my standard example, if you steal Billy’s basket ball, you have broken (which?) commandment, and Billy is deprived of his basketball. So, to address this mess, you trot off to church, confess your sins to the priest, received absolution from the priest, and then, it is up to the priest to prescribe penance. For penance, he could instruct you to return Billy’s basketball or to buy Billy a new basketball or perhaps to say ten Hail Mary’s, which is actually more appropriate for stealing Billy’s football (do you remember this example from last year? – so boring). If you should kick the basketball (die) before doing your penance, you end up in purgatory not passing Go and not collecting $200 to buy indulgences to reduce your time in purgatory.
As we know, Luther challenged this and many other unscriptural notions which had infested and still infest the Roman Church. Through the word of God in both law and gospel, however, Luther rediscovered the gospel-filled doctrine that sinners are justified before God by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, thus demythologizing the church. In other words, because we pathetic sinners had completely sabotaged our relationship with God, only God could save us by sending his son in human flesh to recreat our relationship with him. God did and does this purely as a gift.
That is why Reformation Day is so boring. There is nothing for us Lutherans to do to effect our salvation. Nothing! As a consequence, we Lutherans just sit around looking at each other wondering all the while, now what? That is when the mischievous sinner in us says, “Well, since it is the 31st of October, we could do something exciting like dress up in ghoulish costumes and go trick-or-treating, right?”
While passing out free sweet treats to tots, would we not rather prefer to give the gift of God’s word which creates a living faith in sinners? When was the list time you affixed a slip of paper with a Bible verse to those pieces of candy for trick-or-treaters on Halloween or maybe even one of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses against Indulgences?
If you were freed from a great burden or debt or injury or malady with no cost or effort on your part, what would you do? Among the many possibilities, it is probably highly likely that you would tell someone about this great happening in your life. We human beings speak, and we find it almost impossible not to tell someone when something bad or good has happened to us.
For centuries, the church buried the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone under a monolith of mendacity. Luther’s rediscovery of the gospel, that we are saved on account of Christ as a free gift, is an amazing reality which we find almost too good to believe. The secular world and even many “Christian” denominations bury this truth again and again in one exciting way or another by turning the gospel of salvation into something which we need to do, earn, achieve, or prove.
For us Lutherans, however, knowing that there is nothing which we can do towards our salvation is both a relief and a release to share this same gift of God’s word and love with others. Whereas we cannot earn salvation by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, in such sharing we are giving God’s gift of salvation to others. Give it a try. The recipients might actually find this good news quite exciting. If so, there is no need to worry. In due course, we can help them become boring, do-nothing-for-our-salvation Lutherans like the rest of us.
Archive for October, 2025
Reformation Day, Again? How Boring.
Counting Our Blessings?
We often hear the phrase “count your blessings,” but what does that mean? Upon reflection, it can be taken positively or negatively. For example, “counting one’s blessings” could be an expression of gratitude for the good things which we have received in life. Alternatively, it could refer to a sense of relief when one realizes that others have experienced greater loss or misfortune that we have experienced. Either way, when was the last time that you “counted your blessings”?
Even with the best of intentions, that might be a hard questions to answer. After all, what exactly is a blessing? The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines blessing as: “1) God’s favor and protection, 2) a prayer asking for blessing, 3) a beneficial thing for which one is grateful, 4) a person’s sanction or support.” In addition to these various meanings, defining this term can be particularly problematic if the blessing is “a blessing in disguise”!
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to us counting our blessings is not a matter of definition but of disposition. According to the formal definitions above, a blessings is primarily something which is given to be received by another. In that respect, a blessing is a gift, is something granted, and perhaps that makes counting them difficult. This may be so because we take just about every aspect of our lives “for granted.” This disposition often leads to a sense of entitlement, and when our sense of entitlement is called into question, then our sinful sense of envy frequently takes over.
This dynamic of envy is as old as humanity itself. “In the beginning …,” after God created Adam and Eve, God gave them a glorious garden filled with every living thing. Everything creaturely was granted to them. What more could they want or need?
The crafty serpent, however, came up with an idea for envy. He led Adam and Eve to believe that God was withholding something from them, namely his divinity. In reality, God was doing nothing of the sort. A creature is a creature made by a creator. A creator does not make another creator. Thus, by their very natures as creatures, Adam and Eve were complete. God had given them their existence, life, and a universe in which to live in relation to God, to one another, and to everything else. In other words, all of reality was created as God’s pure gift to humanity.
When Adam and Eve, however, started listening to the serpent and stopped listening to and trusting God, their whole perspective was distorted and destroyed beyond belief. When they stopped believing God, they started to assume that God’s gift was now their possession to which they were entitled. Furthermore, this sense of entitlement extended to wanting to be like God himself (Gen. 3:5). Humanity continues to maintain this disposition; so hopelessly possessed by its sense of possessing that God is perceived not as their creator but as their enemy, even as the devil himself (Mt. 12:22-24).
So, when we wake most days, we take it for granted and “earned” that we wake up in our beds. We take it for granted that we get dressed in our own clothes, in our own homes, in our neighbourhoods, in our towns, in our country, etc. Beginning each day with such grandiose entitlement, when was the last time that you stopped and thought that each breath which we take is a gift of the atmosphere which is part of God’s grand creation? Unconsciously, minute by minute, breath by breath, our bodies inhale and exhale in rhythmic fashion free of charge our atmosphere which provides us with the life-giving and life-sustaining oxygen for the entirety of our lives. Yet, we take each breath thoughtlessly and thanklessly for granted.
So, when was the last time that you stopped and considered that each breath is a blessing? Likewise, almost entirely unconscious of its continual efforts, when did you last thank God for every heartbeat which brings that life-sustaining oxygen to the thousands of cells in your body? Sadly, we probably worry instead whether our stocks are up or down, whether our cars are new or not, whether our clothes are out of fashion, or whether our cell phones now being twelves months have reached obsolescence! In a life plagued with envy, the breathing and beating which keep us alive remain taken for granted.
Instead of thanking God for each and every breath which we take (from his creation) and instead of counting each breath as a blessing, our sin has so warped our perception of God and of the reality created by his breathed word that we not only take his creation for granted, but we also expect God to fulfill our godless fancies and fantasies. Then, when God does not do so according to our wishes, we write him off as no God at all and withhold our belief. In this, our sinful derangement, we like Adam and Eve exhibit our blindness to the fact that the “god” of our fancies only exists as an atheistic figment of our distorted imagination.
Into such idolatrous godlessness, God’s son, the second person of the Trinity, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. After roughly 33 years, our sinful godlessness caught up with him. While hanging on the cross, “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” Then, “… calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46).
Even with the best of intentions, that might be a hard questions to answer. After all, what exactly is a blessing? The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines blessing as: “1) God’s favor and protection, 2) a prayer asking for blessing, 3) a beneficial thing for which one is grateful, 4) a person’s sanction or support.” In addition to these various meanings, defining this term can be particularly problematic if the blessing is “a blessing in disguise”!
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to us counting our blessings is not a matter of definition but of disposition. According to the formal definitions above, a blessings is primarily something which is given to be received by another. In that respect, a blessing is a gift, is something granted, and perhaps that makes counting them difficult. This may be so because we take just about every aspect of our lives “for granted.” This disposition often leads to a sense of entitlement, and when our sense of entitlement is called into question, then our sinful sense of envy frequently takes over.
This dynamic of envy is as old as humanity itself. “In the beginning …,” after God created Adam and Eve, God gave them a glorious garden filled with every living thing. Everything creaturely was granted to them. What more could they want or need?
The crafty serpent, however, came up with an idea for envy. He led Adam and Eve to believe that God was withholding something from them, namely his divinity. In reality, God was doing nothing of the sort. A creature is a creature made by a creator. A creator does not make another creator. Thus, by their very natures as creatures, Adam and Eve were complete. God had given them their existence, life, and a universe in which to live in relation to God, to one another, and to everything else. In other words, all of reality was created as God’s pure gift to humanity.
When Adam and Eve, however, started listening to the serpent and stopped listening to and trusting God, their whole perspective was distorted and destroyed beyond belief. When they stopped believing God, they started to assume that God’s gift was now their possession to which they were entitled. Furthermore, this sense of entitlement extended to wanting to be like God himself (Gen. 3:5). Humanity continues to maintain this disposition; so hopelessly possessed by its sense of possessing that God is perceived not as their creator but as their enemy, even as the devil himself (Mt. 12:22-24).
So, when we wake most days, we take it for granted and “earned” that we wake up in our beds. We take it for granted that we get dressed in our own clothes, in our own homes, in our neighbourhoods, in our towns, in our country, etc. Beginning each day with such grandiose entitlement, when was the last time that you stopped and thought that each breath which we take is a gift of the atmosphere which is part of God’s grand creation? Unconsciously, minute by minute, breath by breath, our bodies inhale and exhale in rhythmic fashion free of charge our atmosphere which provides us with the life-giving and life-sustaining oxygen for the entirety of our lives. Yet, we take each breath thoughtlessly and thanklessly for granted.
So, when was the last time that you stopped and considered that each breath is a blessing? Likewise, almost entirely unconscious of its continual efforts, when did you last thank God for every heartbeat which brings that life-sustaining oxygen to the thousands of cells in your body? Sadly, we probably worry instead whether our stocks are up or down, whether our cars are new or not, whether our clothes are out of fashion, or whether our cell phones now being twelves months have reached obsolescence! In a life plagued with envy, the breathing and beating which keep us alive remain taken for granted.
Instead of thanking God for each and every breath which we take (from his creation) and instead of counting each breath as a blessing, our sin has so warped our perception of God and of the reality created by his breathed word that we not only take his creation for granted, but we also expect God to fulfill our godless fancies and fantasies. Then, when God does not do so according to our wishes, we write him off as no God at all and withhold our belief. In this, our sinful derangement, we like Adam and Eve exhibit our blindness to the fact that the “god” of our fancies only exists as an atheistic figment of our distorted imagination.
Into such idolatrous godlessness, God’s son, the second person of the Trinity, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. After roughly 33 years, our sinful godlessness caught up with him. While hanging on the cross, “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” Then, “… calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46).
