Politics and Luther

We have had a wild and wooly week in politics.  Steve announced his Interim study on Fracking and Ground Water about a month ago.  Papers wouldn’t print our press release, so we took out ads and ran a “Straight Story From Steve” as we often do to get a story out.  Then suddenly the Oklahoma Environmental Quality guys were investigating fish kills along the Salt Fork River south of town and Steve was right in the thick of the news story.  Today he did interview for a radio station that will go on air tomorrow.  This next week is both the County Fairs for Kay and Osage and Tuesday is the Interim study on Oklahoma City.  Whew!

            But there’s still room for a little humor.  You know how Bill Clinton told us how he once tried Marijuana but didn’t like it and he didn’t inhale.  Well Joe Biden just announced that he once tried a marijuana brownie, but couldn’t keep it lit.  The feds proudly announced that the border is sealed and they had corraled all the illegals out in the Nevada Desert.  We’re talking about Cliven Bundy’s cattle you know.  And the IRS says it was all a silly incident and they never really targeted conservatives or tea partiers.  Oh?  I dare you to wear a Don’t-Tread-On-Me teeshirt or Fair-Tax hat to your audit. 

            And some serious stuff.  I wrote about this last year but it bears repeating.  Glenn Beck often points out that the Reformation was also a Catholic thing—that many people wanted the medieval church reformed and eventually got it done in 1563.  (Beck had Catholic upbringing.) And of course there were many who contributed.  But the stunning break-up into Protestants is traced to 1517 when Luther posted his 95 theses or arguments on a church door.  But where did he mentally break with Catholicism and what were the circumstances?  It is called the Tower Experience.  Here’s the story. Do you remember what the world was doing 500 years ago last night?  In a quiet room in the tower of a college dormitory, a scholar-monk , sat preparing lecture notes on the Psalms.  He had always struggled with Romans 1:16-17, “For I am  not ashamed of the Gospel.  It is the power of God to salvation for anyone who believes. For in it the Righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, ‘the righteous shall live by faith.’”   Luther knew the gospel story and knew it gave salvation, but what was the meaning of the Righteousness of God?  Isn’t that a terrifying thing to encounter--God’s absolute perfection and wrath? How did one know if you ever had enough faith, had confessed enough and been genuine in confession, reformed your life enough?  And what was this thing about ‘to’ and ‘from faith’? 

            As Martin Luther toiled on the lesson of Psalm 31 (or Ps.71, we aren’t sure) it states, “Deliver me in Thy righteousness.” Suddenly he realized that God’s Righteousness is also His unfathomable love that comes after us to deliver.  And that God’s deliverance is entirely His doing.  At which point, Luther said, “Then the entire Holy Scripture became clear to me, and heaven itself was opened to me.”

How’s that? Well, if we didn’t even see Deliverance (i.e. Salvation) coming, it is an utterly free gift--Grace.  And if by grace alone, God’s righteousness is given and credited  to us, then that righteousness is evidenced (revealed)from faith (as the quoted Habakkuk 2:4 passage says). Moreover it inspires us “to faith”.  And as faith and grace are entirely an interaction between the believer and his Lord, Savior and Lover/Friend, two things are true. No church council or bishop or canon can alter it.  And we know the gospel from the very expression of God in His Word.  Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone.

What date did this happen? Well, it was one night in early autumn, since Luther said he had just started the first fire to ward off the chill.  School had just started.  And it was either 1513 or 1514.  (Might have been 500 years ago last night) Luther didn’t remember and scholars can’t figure it out either.  But God truly lit a fire that night. In 1995, the German Catholic church had a conference with the Lutherans and told them with smiles all around, “You know we actually agree heartily with Luther on the Grace.” The presiding cardinal was the guy who would later become Pope Benedict. 

But many historians who have studied the era say they would pick a different date to commemorate the Reformation.  1521 was a debate between Luther and Eck, a Dominican scholar and that highlighted the gulf between the two sides.  Others, more spiritual, say 1515 would be more like it.  That was when Luther taught a year on Romans and published his beliefs which had departed from official teaching (Compendium on Romans).  Compendium was such a bombshell book that the church tried to destroy it.  When John Wesley had his Aldersgate experience 200 years later, he told about a spiritual awakening upon going to a prayer meeting of Moravians on Aldersgate Street. And what was happening when Wesley had this defining moment and conversion.  They were reading Martin Luther’s preface to Compendium on Romans, the only part of the book that was in existence at the time.  So powerful were the words!  In the 1970’s the Vatican ‘found’ the complete text in their libraries in Rome. 

What his exposition of Romans points out about Marty, according to Catholic historian Paul Johnson, was what a profound translator of scripture Luther was. He was also a profound translator of life.  On politics, he made a statement that a lot of people would emphatically nod in agreement even today.  “People often get the prince they deserve.”  Which is to say, if we don’t vote and do it wisely, we are sunk.