501 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the doors of All Saints’ Church in the German speaking region of Europe. I had heard of this and heard it mentioned again and again in different classrooms to explain how the Reformation began. However, it was not until recently that I actually read that famous text: 95 sentences, each one more polemical than the last, to condemn the practice of selling indulgences (basically, using money to be guaranteed a spot in heaven). Now, this document was not one that I was hoping would explain all of what came out of the Reformation. There is no mention of congregational singing. There is no mention of translating the Bible into
languages people actually spoke. But, I realized it was just the first step in that direction.
Christianity suffers from seizures of power throughout history, with the victors putting in their own twists in order to promote their own agenda. However, alongside those power struggles, we see people standing up for what is just and fair. Our whole faith started with Jesus, who stood up for
the oppressed against all those in power. At the start of the Reformation, Luther stood up to an institution of preachers and even the papacy to fight for the poor. Today, we have countless theologians, laypeople, clergy, musicians, and many other kinds of people fighting to open up the doors in our churches to all of those who have been oppressed for ages. We are all still doing the
work that Jesus commanded us to do from day one.
Today, we take for granted that we have a Book of Common Prayer in a language we can understand. We take for granted that we have so many songbooks with hymns and songs from our different traditions. We take for granted that we can actually play maracas and sing to our heart’s content when we are in church. It was because of the movement that Luther began, one of standing up to oppressors, that we could have all these things. But we can’t just stop there. We now have a responsibility to stand up for those who are still being marginalized in our society. We still have
congregations that say that trans people are sinning against God. We still have clergy and powerful laypeople deciding whether same-sex couples are sacred or not. We still have music directors and influential musicians who think that non-white-European voices are not worth listening to in our liturgies. There is a lot of work to be done, but by living our lives with Christ at the center, we can continue to lift up the voices of all of those around us. Jesus called us to reform our Church so that all can be welcomed. Let’s live in that teaching. Let’s be the Reformation.
