Reformation - "This is the voice of a god, not of a man."

It is recorded in the 12^th chapter of the Book of Acts:

On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

Shockingly, this is one of only two times that worms are mentioned in the New Testament.

The other is in the 9^th chapter of Mark.  It is an apocalyptic text, that quotes from the last chapter of Isaiah, and refers to the place of shadows; where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

Now before, I continue, and since those who have already been offered worms to eat have gone on to other things, I am instituting a sermon snack for this morning. We will take a moment to pass out the snack – please help yourself to one paper cup, and you can exchange with your neighbours if you want to.

The people listening to Herod say, “This is the voice of god, not of a man.”

Herod does not give praise to God. He fails to correct the people. He is stuck down, eaten by worms, and dies.

How appropriate is this on Reformation Sunday?  A day when Lutherans reflect on what it means to be a people of Word and Sacrament; a tradition that began because a monk had a conviction that the Church – was acting like God, or in the place of God, or at least stepping on God’s toes. The message of the Gospel was being overshadowed by the will of the Church.

People listening to Luther and the Reformers said all kinds of things about them; at the time, none of them were compared to God --- although people in later years, this past century for certain, have put Luther on a pedestal; others have taken some of what Luther said and used it as the “word of God” for their own evil purposes.

Today, in a humorous way, we have given nod to the Diet of Worms.

Bulletin insert, meal worms the object of the kid’s corner, gummi worms as the sermon snack

The place where Luther stood by his writings and refused to recant his words unless someone could show him from God’s Word, from scripture, that he was wrong. The Imperial Diet decreed, this is the voice of a heretic, not a man of God.

The tradition to which we belong followed the voice of a heretic.

It must have been quite complicated, downright confusing to the people of the time -the Church was considered the authority of all things spiritual and all things God – and yet there were those, growing numbers in fact, that were willing to risk their lives to voice another opinion. A voice that had God saying something different from the voice of the Church.

It must have been complicated, downright confusing to the people of Rome that the Apostle Paul wrote to.  As Jesus had spoken to the religious leaders and the politicians of his day, Paul spoke against the Emperor and religious of his day. Followers of Paul’s heretical speech ---that is the word of the Gospel --- ended up in the prisons of the Roman Empire; dying as martyrs because they would not recant their belief in Jesus, or their faith in God.  They died at the hands of gladiators or in the teeth of lions and tigers.

Despite the possibility of excommunication or death, the voice calling in the wilderness was calling the people to a new found freedom. Freedom from Roman control, freedom from good works and merits and paying for eternal life.  Freedom from sin. Freedom to hear that God loved them for who they were, that they couldn’t buy that love, it was gift. Freedom to hear that God’s grace was outpoured through Jesus’s death and resurrection. 

Freedom ---freedom is a difficult topic in the Western world, particularly North America.  Freedom is understood as an individual’s right to live personal choices.  That is not what the voice of the winds of reformation that spread through Europe in the 1500s. The voice repeated that which the Gospel of John expresses, freedom is freedom in Christ; Christ who remains in God’s house and abides by the rules of the house.

The proclamation of Freedom was used by the reformers to leave the church; well the earthly authority that had been acquired by the Church and the human rules that abounded in the institution. This did not mean that the Reformers took on a North American idea of freedom.  Quite the contrary. Because they were in Christ, and Christ remained in God’s house and abides by the rules of the house, the Reformers were free to be obedient to God. The catechism continued to teach the Ten Commandments with longer explanations of “What does this mean for us?”

The voice of the heretics, echoed the voice of Jesus, echoed the voice of Paul, who addressed the religious and political authorities of their day – authorities like Herod who considered themselves gods--- and proclaimed another way.

After 500 years, what is our voice? Whose is our voice? Do we even have a voice?

Surely, we do not think we have what the public sphere would proclaim as “the voice of god, and not a human?” Do we have the voice of a heretic? ---one who has beliefs or theories that strongly vary with established beliefs, claims, or customs of the world around us. 

I wonder what happened to the Christianity of the early church where people risked their lives for the Gospel, encompassing the poor, the widow, the prisoner, the sick, women; speaking truth to power --- how did it change so much that Church of the Middle Ages became concerned about itself and not the people who made up the church?

Where were the bookworms who studied the scripture and philosophy – and entered a world of wonder about God and God’s creative and redemptive work in the world? What had happened to the curious who wormed their way through matters of faith, teaching, preaching, healing?  Were where the ones transformed by the Jesus story or those who experienced walking the way of Jesus – of sharing the Gospel through their every day lives?

How many worms had been put underfoot, squished, trodden down, to keep them silent so that the Church could play God?  How could the Church become so rotten, that in the Middle Ages even the worm turned; reformers with God’s word changing their hearts, came out of the woodwork. The way the story is told it sounds like it was all at once. … It wasn’t.  There had always been reformers, those seeking to speak truth to power, to redirect people to their purpose, to remind the population of their relationship with God. Like the earthworm, where there are a million in an acre – mostly going unseen; so too was the Gospel to be found in good earth: in remnants, in colonies – in questions rarely asked, in experiences not share aloud, in scripture hidden in Latin text. Until there were enough, enough people who had had enough and were ready to take a stand. Enough to stand together and risk being labelled “heretic.”

Getting ready for today, I did a fair bit of reading about worms.  I came to the realization that they are a good example of the voice of the Church.

Earthworms are good. They are part of creation’s composting system, devouring fallen leaves and soil, and depositing potassium and nitrogen in their wake. Their burrowing through the earth aerates and loosens the soil, allowing a speedy passage for water through the soil. All of this is of great benefit to farmers and gardeners.

The voice of the Church has been the voice of God. The Good News has been proclaimed, planted, grown. The Word of God has changed peoples’ lives. The voice of God has warmed hearts, directed living, comforted the forgotten, unconditionally loved the unlovable, spoken truth to power, fought for justice, cured the lame, and corrected vision to hope for and live into a transformed world.

Earthworms, are also detrimental, especially to the Northern Forest eco-system and its plants. The actions of worms, damage sugar maples, trilliums, goblin ferns; which allows invasive species to choke out oaks. Earth worms do this by eating “duff,” a slowly decomposing layer of leaves and organic matter on top of the soil that leaches down through the soil over time. The appetite of worms has caused the duff to disappear. Plants can no longer thrive and small duff dwelling creatures like salamanders are in decline.

The voice of the Church has been detrimental, it has not always been the voice of God.  There have been times through history that the Good News has been only half preached, or manipulated to suit the pleasures and needs of those in the pews. There have been times when the Word of God, as it has been expressed, has not changed peoples’ lives.  The voice of God has not been in the voice of the church and hearts have not been warmed, wars have been fought, people excised, others forgotten, not welcomed, or pushed out; the church has failed to risk their life to speak truth to power, to stand up for the vulnerable, to care for creation, to believe God’s vision of a kingdom that the Church can help accomplish – a place where all are welcome, all are free.

Since the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation, since the voice of a heretic was caught by the wind of the spirit and blew across the Holy Roman Empire--- there have been 26,000 Sundays. That is 26,000 Sundays where the voice of the Church has been forward moving with an emphasis on the grace of God.  A focus to proclaim the Gospel through Word and Sacrament; where God comes to us, free, with the free gift of grace.

“This is the voice of god, not of a man.” Commemorating the Reformation is not about a man named Luther, or any other reformer; today is being reminded of the Word, the voice of God through the ages. Sometimes this voice is heard as the voice of the Church, sometimes it is heard as the voice of a heretic.  It is the voice of God, when it is a voice that worms its way into our hearts and changes us such that we will never be the same again… a voice that speaks of justification by grace through faith. A free gift, for you, for me, for all.  Thanks be to God. Amen.

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