“Re-forming over and again” Orange Congregational Church UCC, October 25, 2026 (Matthew 22:34-46) Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost/Reformation Sunday
Today is Reformation Sunday. In Protestant churches we often commemorate the Protestant Reformation on the last Sunday of October. This is a day where we remember that the Christian Church is at our best when we are open to the dynamic movements of God both in our lives and in the lives of our local congregations. As we like to say in the United Church of Christ, God is still speaking! It becomes up to God’s people in each generation to discern where the Holy Spirit might be leading us. Because we are called to be a reformed and re-forming church.
The lectionary text from the Gospel according to Matthew is Jesus sharing the greatest commandment. When a legal expert questioned him about this, Jesus responded, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”[1] Jesus combined the commandment to love God from Deuteronomy and the commandment to love your neighbor from Leviticus. Jesus was asked to identify what the greatest commandment was, and instead Jesus places these two commandments side by side—love of God and love of neighbor. For Jesus, we need both to understand what God desires for humanity. It is next to impossible to practice the Christian faith in complete isolation. Because we are called to love God with everything we are and everything we’ve got and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Loving our neighbors helps us to love God. Loving God helps us to love our neighbors.
It strikes me that it was partly the love of his neighbors that inspired Martin Luther to challenge those in power. Because when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church on October 31st in 1517, he did not know that this would lead to a split within Christianity and eventually the formation of hundreds of Protestant denominations. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic priest and professor of theology at Wittenberg University. We can think of his critique as a critique from within the ranks. Luther was opposed to the Roman Catholic Church selling papal indulgences for the forgiveness of sins. People would literally give what little money they had to the Church so that their sins would be forgiven, and they would supposedly be guaranteed a place in heaven. A quote was going around in Medieval Europe (credited to the papal agent Johannes Tetzel), “When the coin in the coffer rings/the soul from purgatory springs.”[2] St. Peter’s Basilica was being constructed at this time in Rome, and that glorious basilica was funded in part from the sale of indulgences.
So the poor kept getting poorer, and the Church and its leaders kept getting richer. Martin Luther saw this corruption for what it was and felt that the leaders of the Church were becoming further removed from their own flock. He wanted to do something. Luther posted the 95 Theses as an invitation to have a scholarly debate about selling indulgences. Remember that he was a professor of theology and the theses were written in Latin! However people in power do not always react well when motivations are questioned. That is as true today as it was in 1517.
Now why should we contemplate the beginning of the Protestant Reformation that happened almost five hundred years ago? What does this have to do with us, and why should we care? Well, because we aren’t done reforming as followers of Jesus Christ. The Christian Church remains in need of reformation over and again. After all, the simple meaning of the word “reform” is to make changes in something in order to improve upon it. Usually this is something social, political, or economic. In our country we talk about education reform or prison reform, legal reform or justice reform.
Do we think that the Protestant Reformation happened 509 years ago so we’re all good in the Christian Church and nothing more needs to be done?
In fact, there is this theory of church reform movements put forth brilliantly by the late Phyllis Tickle, who was an authority on religion in America. She came to Andover Newton when I was a student and presented this way of thinking about church movements that was very impactful. Phyllis Tickle explained that nearly every 500 years the Latinized cultures of the world go through a major cultural upheaval. Five hundred years ago, it was the Protestant Reformation. Suddenly, we had humanism, nation-states, a middle class, capitalism, translating the Bible into our spoken languages and printing them to eventually have in our homes to read. It has become a tradition in Protestant churches to give Bibles to our young people (as we did in giving Bibles to our confirmands today), to encourage our young ones to read our sacred stories for themselves. With the Reformation we also had Protestants coming onto the scene, claiming that religious professionals were not the only people with direct access to God. God is accessible for everyone. And we are saved by our faith and God’s grace which we cannot ever earn.
Let’s go back further. In 1054 we had the Great Schism of Eastern and Western Christianity. Now we had Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics who disagreed on nuanced theological issues and split over these disagreements and so much more. Fifteen hundred years back we had the Great Decline and Fall, when the classical world of the Roman Empire fell away and ushered in the Dark Ages. Ordered governments were no more. Chaos ensued in the Latinized world for a while there. Really the monasteries and convents were some of the only institutions that rose from the ashes to save some culture.
And if we go back one more time, around two thousand years ago, we had the Great Transformation. The world fell apart in some ways and came back together in new ways. Rome moved from being a kingdom to an empire. The known world that was once scattered and disconnected became member-parts of a cultural and economic and political whole. All roads led to Rome. In this chaos was born a humble Jewish teacher who, because of his impact, would one day change the very way we date and mark time itself in the West! Think about it—we now use the terms Before the Common Era and the Common Era to not be so Christo-centric in our multicultural world. Though our dates once read (and still have as their starting place) Before Christ and Anno Domini (In the Year of our Lord.) The Great Transformation indeed!
So now we are in this time period that Phyllis Tickle (and others) called The Great Emergence or The Age of the Spirit. Some folks predict that changes we are undergoing in the Christian Church and in our global society will be equal to The Great Transformation itself in its impact on changing everything we have always known to be true.[3] But how can we predict what this is going to look like and what this means for our beloved Church? Tickle wrote, “We find ourselves alive and Christian in a time of almost unprecedented upheaval.”[4]
Did you know that the fastest growing expression of Christianity in the world is Pentecostalism? Christianity is growing the most in the Southern Hemisphere, not in America and not in Europe. Pentecostalism has at its center the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals are known for being open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing direct and personal experiences of God. It is not a coincidence that the fastest growing expression of Christianity is known for spirituality and direct personal encounters with God.
Maybe this is truly the Age of the Spirit. And we can be part of a renewal movement in our expression of Christianity to get back to meaningful spirituality which is what makes us grow and thrive not just as the Church but as people. This doesn’t mean that we all convert to Pentecostalism. Though this can be an invitation to be open to the movements of the Holy Spirit. To be open to new ways that God is still speaking.
In our expression of Christianity here at Orange Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Orange, Connecticut on this Reformation Sunday in the year of our Lord 2026 we can remember to use both our heads and our hearts. Because personal experiences of God can bring about transformation. People rooted and grounded in God’s loving kindness can co-create a more loving world. And if we take the charting of history to heart on this Reformation Sunday, we can wonder if we are due for another reform movement. Church may not look the same in the future as it does now. Sometimes we face these changes with fear and trembling, with a longing for the glory days of old and the way it used to be. Yet what a time to be alive and Christian in this moment. We cannot know what the future holds, but we know who holds it. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Matthew 22:37-40, NRSVUE.
[2] David B. Morris, “Martin Luther as Priest, Heretic, and Outlaw: The Reformation at 500,” The Library of Congress European Reading Room, https://www.loc.gov/rr/european/luther.html
[3] Phyllis Tickle and Jon M. Sweeney, The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy is Shaping the Church, 9-13.
[4] Tickle and Sweeney, The Age of the Spirit, 20.
Photo by Victor Serban on Unsplash
