On October 31, 2020, most Americans are going to be thinking about Halloween and setting back the clock for Daylight Savings Times. If a couple goes to bed at 11 P.M., they will set back their clock to 10 P.M. so when they awake the next morning, losing that precious hour of sleep, they will be in the new time. This weekend many of us will be buying batteries to change out in our smoke detectors and candy for little monsters. It will be the last weekend of political campaign adds, let it come quickly, Lord Jesus. For some us, it will be the start of 6 months that the clock in our vehicle is off by one hour. But this can also be the weekend that you “set back the clock” in your spiritual life.
My story begins with a college student. His dad was paying for him to go to law school, because Dad’s hopes and dreams (and retirement) were all on him. But life was difficult back then. At that time, a plague came through, and it took the lives of several of his college buddies. Later, he was stranded in the middle of a terrific storm, became so frightened that he made a deal. If you’ll let me live, I’ll become a monk.
The life of a monk or a nun varied widely. For some of us, we think of Friar Tuck, Robin Hood’s friend. Some of us, may think of Sister Mary Clarence aka Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. This young man joined the toughest monastery in town. He went from being a college student, enjoying German beer and playing the lute, to being an Observant Augustinian with a rigorous schedule. Look at this daily schedule that begins at 1:45 …. in the morning.
Daily Schedule – Observant Augustinians
1:45 Wake Up
2:00 Church Service
3:30 Sleep
4:00 Church Service
5:00 Private Reading and Prayer
6:00 Church Service and then Breakfast
7:00 Work
8:00 Church Service
9:15 Work
11:45 Church Service
12:00 Midday Meal
1:00 Private Reading and Prayer
1:45 Sleep
3:00 Work
5:45 Meal
6:00 Church Service
7:15 Private Reading and Prayer
7:45 Church Service
8:00 Bed and Sleep
I don’t know about you, but if I had to wake up at 1:45 AM for a 2 AM church service, I would be in a very unholy mood. I would not be getting closer to the Kingdom of Heaven. This young man kept this schedule up for years in an attempt to get closer God through good deeds.
As this young man wrestled with his conscience and his fear that God was going to condemn him, his spiritual advisor realized that something had to be done. This young man had waaay to much time on his hands, even with that schedule. This young man was constantly going to confession, even when he didn’t have anything to confess. So what do you do with someone with too much time on their hands? In the case of this bright young man, you send him off to seminary. You make him a seminary student. And then a priest. And then a professor. Between being a pastor and a teacher, he would be so busy with tending his flock and writing out his lesson plans, that he wouldn’t have time to think.
But the Lord was up to something. He wanted this young man with a sharp legal mind to read the scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek. And as this young man did so, he noticed that what the church taught was not found in the Scriptures. In fact, a person could create a short timeline of ideas that had crept into the church.
200 A.D. – Tertullian develops the doctrine of Mortal sins and venial sins
240 – Origen of Alexandria creates the idea of Purgatory
Mid 200’s – Cyprian uses the Latin word for priest to refer to elders
250 – Cyprian of Carthage teaches about the “Bloodless Sacrifice” and “Sacrificing Priests”
250 – The doctrine of penance begins as Church leaders wrestle with what to do with weak Christians who denied the faith during a recent persecution
275 – St. Anthony, alone in Egypt, starts monasticism in a hermit style
340 – Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, develops the monastery
Late 300’s -Augusta of Hippo begins teaching about infused grace
382-early 400’s – St. Jerome begins translating the Bible into Latin – the famous Vulgate. In his translation he includes the Apocrypha, which he did not consider to be on the same level as Jewish Scriptures and Christian writings. He also makes four translation choices that create confusion in the years go come
- In Genesis 3, he translated that “She shall crush his head” leading many to believe that the Virgin Mary would defeat Satan. That should have been translated as “He shall crush his head.” Eve’s descendant, Jesus Christ, would be the one who crushes and defeats Satan.
- In the four gospels, he translates the word “repentance” (change of heart) as “penance” (to do an act of penance)
- In Luke 1, he refers to Mary as being “full of grace,” putting the emphasis on Mary rather than a gracious God.
- For righteousness, Jerome used a word that meant “not guilty via faith and good works” rather than “by faith declared not guilty.”
451 – Pope Leo the Great declares that the Bishop of Rome was superior to all the other bishops
590 – Masses for the Dead/Intercession for the Saints in Purgatory – Pope Gregory the Great
831 – Transubstantiation is created by Pacschasius Radbertus
1000’s – the Plenary Indulgence becomes popular
1214 – St Dominic teaches the Rosary
1139 – The church prohibits the ordination of married men
1150 – The 7 Sacraments are taught by Peter Lombard
1215 – Pope Innocent III orders all Christians to annual confession, under penalty of damnation
1215 – Transubstantiation becomes official doctrine
1230 – Hugh of St. Cher teaches the Treasury of Merits
1274 – Purgatory becomes an official doctrine
1274 – Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica teaches “Infused Grace” – Grace that works in us to earn heaven
1300’s – Gabriel Biel teaches that God gave grace to those who did want was in them
1343 – Pope Clement VI declared the Treasury of Merits to be dogmatic
1439 – The Seven Sacraments become official doctrine
Unfortunately, more ideas kept coming in such as the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and the Assumption of Mary in 1950. It was like a house that was newly built with plenty of storage space that a young couple buys. And then twenty years later, they are running out of space, because of all the stuff they placed inside the closet, attic, basement, and garage. Over time, the church had been cluttered by extra-biblical teachings.
The result of all this clutter was that instead of a loving, gracious heavenly Father who was eager to forgive his children though the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ, and give them the Holy Spirit, the church created a Vending Machine God – with the right prayers, the right saints, the right acts of penance, the right priests, maybe with an indulgence from the pope, maybe some help from the Virgin Mary, and a generous donation – a person could find forgiveness.
It was time to set back the clock.
This young man didn’t realize that he was getting himself into on October 31, 1517. Martin Luther was simply nailing an announcement to the church door. It wasn’t even in German; his 95 Theses were in Latin. But it was a spark that created a burning blaze that swept the world.
It even created the course of Methodist history. You may recall that a young Anglican priest went very unwillingly to a Bible Study on Aldersgate Street. The teacher that night was reading from the preface of Martin Luther’s commentary on the Book of Romans. Be honest. Would you really login to a Zoom meeting, if I told you that I was going to read the preface of Martin Luther’s commentary on the Book of Romans? But here’s the deal: The good news is still good news. It’s not like bread that gets stale. And that night, John Wesley heard these words: “Hence it comes that faith alone makes righteous and fulfils that law; for out of Christ’s merit, it brings the Spirit, and the Spirit makes the heart glad and free, as the law requires that it shall be. Thus good works come out of faith.” That night, the Holy Spirit made John Wesley’s heart glad and free. He wrote that he felt his heart “strangely warmed.” Like Luther, John Wesley was no longer trying to earn his salvation. He could accept it by faith alone, and it doing so, it freed him to better serve his parish – the world.
So what about you? Are you trying to earn God’s grace?
Or do you realize that God can’t possibly love you anymore than he loves you now?
Do you realize God’s love for you when you look at the cross?
Do you treat God like a Heavenly Father or as a Vending Machine?
Are your ideas about God accurate? Or do you need to some fall cleaning and get rid of some clutter?
Do you understand that Faith in the Engine and Good Works are the Caboose?
Or are you trying to put the cart before the horse, and feel like you’ll never measure up?
My friend, you don’t have to go through this life wondering if you’re good enough for God. It never was about your goodness. It has always been about God’s grace. That’s not a Wesleyan teaching or a Lutheran teaching. It was there all along. So maybe this weekend, you need to go back and accept God’s grace by faith.
Maybe you need to set back the clock.
The Keith Church Blog 