Another year and Reformation Sunday has come and gone – and with it the ongoing debate of whether or not we should commemorate, celebrate, or grieve the events of the Reformation.
The Dilemma of Memory
On the one hand, there are those who say we should celebrate all things Luther and Lutheran on those days.
Martin Luther did say and teach things worth celebrating and remembering. His career is a turning point in the history of the Western Church, and he wrote some beautiful expressions of faith that continue to shape generations. This is most certainly true.
But if we stop there, we have done a disservice to both the memory of Martin Luther and the future of the church.
And so we have the other hand. Those who say we should bypass Reformation Sunday entirely because Martin Luther did such damage with his anti-semitism, his oppression of those in poverty, and more.
We wrestle with this in our civic lives too. How do we remember people who both proclaimed beautiful ideals of freedom and liberty, and also brutalized, kidnapped, and enslaved people? How do we remember leaders who changed the world for the better, while they also demeaned women?
Scripture provides a clear and powerful way forward that is neither about demonizing or lionizing.
Faithful Memory
We tell the truth.
Faithful memory is not about turning people into heroes or villains, it is about recognizing that we all carry both.
Scripture tells us of the faithfulness of Abraham to God’s call, and also his abuse of Hagar and Sarah. Of how Moses committed murder and also how he lead his people to freedom. Scripture remembers people with a memory that is complex and complicated.
Telling the truth is the first step toward reconciliation and healing – within our nations, within our churches, and within our families.
We CANNOT move toward an honest future without an honest past. A faithful memory.
We must tell the truth about our religious “heroes” – that they are, to use Martin’s own words – both saints and sinners. We must hold on to what they did well, and repent of the past mistakes we share as the Body of Christ.
So too with our civic heroes. We need faithful memory. A memory that certainly holds up the contributions individuals have made to our society, but also looks with unblinking eyes at the damage they did to other children of God.
And so too in our personal lives. We need to hold on to the positive lessons learned and values taught by our elders and those who came before us. But we also need to take the skeletons out of the closet and be honest about our flaws.
A Reformation Remembrance
Martin Luther had some amazing insights into God and our life together as people of faith. I continue to return to his writing and his life for inspiration in my own life.
But every time we lift up Brother Martin, we also need to remember the damage he did to so many.
There is a direct line from the sermon of the first German national hero titled “On the Jews and Their Lies” and the antisemitism of the Nazis in the 20th century.
Yes, we can give thanks for Martin Luther’s bold proclamation of God’s grace. But when we do so we must also renounce his words of hatred and violence.
Silence implies approval.
For the sake of our Jewish siblings. For the sake of our witness to the world. And for the sake of our own faith and well-being, we must faithfully remember with rigorous honesty.
Follow Through
Once again this year, we talked about Martin Luther in the context of our remembering of the Reformation. But we remember faithfully.
- Martin Luther said horribly antisemitic things. Atrocious and indefensible. With other Lutheran leaders I renounce those words, and repent of the generations for which our corner of the Body of Christ failed to speak out against them.
- Martin Luther aligned himself with the wealthy and powerful of Germany against the peasants who were fighting for a way out of poverty – betraying his own commitment to the values of justice and reconciliation. With other Lutheran leaders, I renounce these actions, and repent of the ways that the Church has aligned ourselves with the powers of this world.
- For generations, our church was silent. Silent about injustice, silent about sins of our past, silent about the hatred that lived among us. With other Lutheran leaders I will be silent no more, and I repent of the ways our silence has empowered oppression, injustice, and prejudice to thrive.
Join me in creating a faith community that is not silent, and that looks at the past with faithful memory.
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You can read the statement from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community (pdf) renouncing the antisemitism of Martin Luther.
Images above:
(1) Judensau image on the Town Church of Wittenberg, mocking the Jewish community and faith. A female pig (unclean in the Jewish faith) is depicted over a mis-rendering of the Divine name. Luther spoke approvingly of this image. In 1983 the space was modified with the Mahnmal on the pavement next to it. There is once again a movement to have the offensive image removed.
(2) The Wittenberg Mahnmal located just below the Judensau. A Mahnmal is a monument to past events that serve as a tragic reminder and a warning to future generations. This one has four blocks of paving, that are being pushed up and out by bubbles. It is a reminder that no matter how much we try to cover over injustice, it always bubbles back up to the surface.
Luther’s treatise On the Jews and Their Lies is a 65,000-word tome. You can read some pertinent excepts here.