“”SPARK-IT”

 Oct. 25, 2020  Reformation Sunday

Matthew 11:16-19

16-19 “How can I account for this generation? The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents, ‘We wanted to skip rope, and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk, but you were always too busy.’ John came fasting and they called him crazy. I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riffraff. Opinion polls don’t count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

The people of Jesus day did not want anything to change.  They wanted the promised Messiah to be according to their liking, not someone who would challenge them to change their way of thinking about God and about living in God’s love.  They wanted an exclusive God who would favor them and be harsh on others.  They wanted to” have their cake and eat it too.”

There was no room for change in their thinking or believing!

The Reformation is about change.  We don’t like change either .  We even use the Bible to keep us from change.  God wants to make a new covenant with us.  We don’t want it.  We want the old covenant where we know what to expect and are more in charge.

God’s Word is an instrument of change and will, if we let it, change the way we look at things. It “is the source of all that is creative in the life of the Church.”  (Luther) It sets us free to be new and different people.  People who put love at the center of life and let nothing keep it from doing its thing.

Today, for us, the Reformation has to do with our attitude towards all who are different, be the difference color, race, creed, sexuality, or any other differenced we can think of.  White supremacy is an evil in our midst created in part because we refuse to believe that “You cannot own a child of God.”  (Movie - “The State of Jones”)

That is, no one is superior to any one else!  We are all equal before God!  

The reformation we need, in our hearts and in our country is the rejection of exclusivity and the acceptance of inclusivity as God’s will - to put love at the center of our lives and let it lead us into redemptive change in our living.

Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, you have included me in your love.  Help me to be inclusive in my heart and mind,  doing that which is well pleasing in your sight. Amen”