There have been some famous battle cries in history, like “Remember The Maine” from the Spanish‑American War.  World War I was “The War to End All Wars.”  We’ve all heard “Remember the Alamo.” Then, there are some famous ones from sports: “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” Yogi Berra translated that one this way: “It ain’t over till it’s over!”  Then, of course, there is Henny Youngman’s battle cry: “Take my wife, please!”

Today is Reformation Sunday, commemorating the Protestant Reformation of the church. It was in 1517 on Oct. 31 that a young monk named Martin Luther nailed a list of questions up on his church’s front door, “the 95 theses” as they are called, that signaled the beginning of the Reformation.  It had a three-part battle cry: “Faith Alone, Scripture Alone, and the Priesthood of Believers.”  This battle cry has largely shaped church development since then and it has also influenced political developments.

To understand the significance of this battle cry, it is necessary to look at the church of Luther’s day – which should not be confused with the Roman Catholic Church of today! It was a very different church in the middle ages. In Luther’s day, the people believed that you worked your way up the ladder to heaven. Each time you took communion, merits were credited to your account. Baptism also earned you credits. But you also had debits to your account which were acts of sin. Your salvation depended upon your earning enough credits to offset your debts.  In case you still remained “in the red,” you could turn to the saints who were supposed to have lived such a meritorious life that they had more than enough merits for their own salvation, so their excess merits could be credited to your account.  If you reckoned that you or a loved one were heading for purgatory, which was believed to be a place the not-quite good enough went to be purged of sins so that they could finally one day ascend into heaven, then you could buy an “indulgence” and, in exchange for that indulgence, the pope would release the person from purgatory. An indulgence salesman of that day named Tetzel had his own battle‑cry which said, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” As you can imagine, this practice led to much corruption, and whatever the Pope said was the infallible pronouncement of God.

Jesus spoke these words to the leaders of the religious institution of His day, but His words could well have been applied to the Medieval Church of Luther’s day: “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”  The church in the Middle Ages loaded people’s back with guilt and then offered a faulty remedy for this guilt, not really lifting one finger to help them.

Martin Luther was born into this faith system. Having been nearly struck by lightning, Luther had resolved to follow the noblest and most certain path, but the prescribed path did not bring him any assurance of forgiveness and eternal life.  “My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him.” Luther began to wonder if God were just and righteous at all.  Perhaps He was an untrustworthy tyrant, Luther thought. Then Luther began a study of the Book of Romans.  There he saw the truth. Salvation was not earned by merits or saints or indulgences.  Salvation had been won by Christ’s death, and it was received into our lives by faith and faith alone.  “…Through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith,” Luther wrote.

“Salvation by grace through faith alone”  revolutionized  and reformed first Luther’s life and then the whole church. It reformed the understanding of the sacraments. Baptism didn’t magically remove guilt. It was nothing unless accompanied by faith of the parents or the believer. The Lord’s supper, which had degenerated into a magic show or an exercise for extra credits, was said by Luther to be worthless unless the recipients understood salvation by faith alone.  It was Luther’s understanding of salvation by faith alone that converted a searching John Wesley in 1738 and gave rise to the Methodist movement. It was this understanding of being saved by trusting in Christ alone that revolutionized my life and propelled me into the ministry. It is so simple that people find it hard to believe. It is so simple that people have to complicate it! And yet this is the simple truth: we are saved, not by our own goodness or good works but by the work of Christ on His cross. Our part is to accept this as true ‑ to believe.

Becoming a parent helped me to better understand this. It seems to be true that children doubt that their parents really love them.  But we parents know the truth that we love our children, not because of how good they are, but because they are our children. That is how our heavenly Father feels about us! That is what salvation by faith means! We sing this belief in the hymn My Hope is Built:

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Since a study of scripture had led Luther to faith, and since the Protestant message was in conflict with the official Church’s teaching, it was natural that Protestants would look for a source of authority other than Popes. Luther did not trust the authority of popes or church councils because both had contradicted themselves many times. When pushed into a corner, Luther found himself standing on the scriptures as the authoritative source of truth and doctrine. He said that he would not act contrary to his conscience which was captive to the Word of God. “I cannot do otherwise,” he added. “Here I stand, so help me God.”  In so doing, he went against the claims and practices of the church for 1000 years.  People, even popes and councils, could be wrong.  “People are like grass but God’s Word is eternal,” Isaiah said. By the way, it was this same distrust of people that led to the development of democracy.  The same forces that led to the reformation of the church also led to the reformation of governments.

To say that the scripture is our authority is to say that we won’t swallow any doctrine that is not well documented in the Bible and that we make Christ, whom the scripture reveals, our authority. There is a fierce battle raging today over this issue ‑ the authority of scripture. At issue is why the Bible is our authority.  Is the Bible our authority because it is “infallible”‑ without discrepancies or contradictions ‑ or is it authoritative because it is the only source of truth concerning Christ and the way of salvation?  Those who want an infallible Bible seem to think that if the Bible can be shown to be without error, then God’s existence and Jesus’ resurrection are somehow proven. They seem to be saying that God’s existence and  Christ’s resurrection depend upon whether or not the Bible is without error. In my opinion, they have the “cart before the horse.” The starting place for Christians is to have faith in God and this faith makes the Bible authoritative. The Bible’s place in my life depends ‑ not upon a doctrine of infallibility ‑ but rather upon my faith in God.  If God is my authority, then His words are important.  For Protestant, United Methodist people, the Bible is our authority because it tells us about the living Word of God, Jesus. And Methodists have four guides to help them interpret scriptures: 1) tradition ‑ how Christians before us have understood it;  2) The place of a passage in the context of the entire Bible message, centered in the gospel message; 3) What was the original intention of the writer, and how did the original hearers understand it; and 4) What does the passage mean to us in light of our circumstances today.  The Protestant emphasis on scripture as the sole authority led to the rejection of all church sacraments except two, baptism and the Lord’s supper which were observed by Christ.

The idea of the priesthood of all believers means that ordained clergy and lay people stand as equals before God.  Clergy‑persons are not higher, just different.  I have heard it said that there were three kinds of people: men, women, and preachers.  Clergy are only lay people with special training who have been given certain tasks to perform. Paul Tillich in A History of Christian Thought said “Every Christian is a priest, and thus has potentially the office of preaching the Word and administering the sacraments…  For the sake of order, however, some specially fit personalities shall be called by the congregation to fill the offices of the church.  The ministry is a matter of order.  It is a vocation like all other vocations; it does not involve any state of perfection, superior graces, or anything like that.”  James Kennedy, who was for many years the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, said that the devil’s greatest victory is getting lay people to believe that only preachers are responsible for ministry.  The doctrine of the priesthood of believers means that each of us is the other one’s priest or pastor.  We each are ministers to the other.  Since 1964, every major denomination has been in decline.  This includes Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and United Methodists. Now the Southern Baptists are also declining in membership. Many theories have been advanced as to why. Usually a theory gives someone a chance to blame someone else.  As a pastor, I am willing to admit that we pastors deserve our share of the blame. Some say that the church has grown too conservative while others say too liberal.  Some say that we are too stiff and formal; others say that we are too informal.  But some churches are growing. Why?  Here is my theory, and it involves the priesthood of believers.  In these growing churches, the preaching is not as good as United Methodist preaching, although the delivery is more enthusiastic than ours. The music isn’t as good as ours.  The organization isn’t nearly as good as ours.  Their Sunday Schools are no better.  But, having known some of these folks, I know that they take seriously their call to be priests to each other.  They pray audibly for each other. We seem to think that only the preacher should pray!  They counsel with each other.  They shepherd each other.  They lovingly hold one another accountable for faithful living.  They meet in small Bible studies and sharing groups where they can confess their problems to each other.  They openly share their pain and joys with each other.  They accept anybody, regardless of race or how fouled up a person might be.  They know how to love the unlovable.  They see people changed by the love of Jesus.  They do a better job being priests to one another!

Someone has said that Pentecostals find a person in the gutter, and they get him out.  The Baptists cleanse them in water.  The Methodists educate him.  The Presbyterians help him get a job. The Episcopalians introduce him to high society living.  Then the Pentecostals get him out of the gutter again…

I ask you, my friends, to think of people that might come through our doors to worship with us.  Would a drug addict or a juvenile delinquent be welcomed here today?  What about an Indian family, or Hispanic, or African-American?  Are some churches growing because the priests – the preachers and members ‑ know how to accept folks better than we do?  Why is it that only middle and upper economic persons are attracted to our United Methodist churches?  Is it because those are the only folks we know how to love?  The priesthood of believers is perhaps the greatest lesson from the reformation that we Protestants are yet to learn.

The Protestant Battle Cry: “By faith alone, the Bible alone, and the priesthood of believers,” a message 491 years old this week and still so fresh that it needs repeating almost daily!  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

When Joan Jamieson and I first talked about a UMW Sunday, she was hoping to rope and tie a guest speaker for today, perhaps a preacher-daughter of hers.  But when those plans didn’t materialize, she suggested that I preach while wearing a dress!  This robe is as close as I will come to that!  My dear friend Rev. Julian Lazar tells about the time he was to baptize a three-year-old toddler that he knew very well, but the minute Julian picked the boy up, he began crying loudly.  After the baptism, the parents asked the boy, “Why were you crying?” and the child said, “Who was that ugly lady in that black dress?”  That description fits me today, I guess.  At least I was sensitive to the nature of the service today and avoided choosing an inappropriate hymn such as “Rise Up O Men of God,” or and I could have chosen 1 Corinthians  14:34 as my sermon text: “women should remain silent in the churches.”  (Why are all you ladies glaring at me with a cold stare?).

Actually, the Biblical passages restricting women’s role in church and society are a good place to begin our special emphasis today.  While we have moved far beyond these restrictions in our day, for most of human history women have been assigned their roles by men, relegated to subservient rolls.  Women haven’t had the right to vote in our country but for 88 years, and a woman’s right to become ordained clergy in our church is only 50 years old.  But this does not mean that women have been powerless or without their influence throughout history.  From raising the sons who led the advances in civilization for centuries to partnering with their husbands to spread the Gospel, women never quite stayed in the places assigned to them by the leaders in the patriarchal culture.

We see glimpses of the importance of women in the spread of the Gospel in the lessons for today.  Paul speaks with loving concern for Euodia and Syntyche, two women that he says worked at his side in the cause of the gospel, and this “along beside work” implies equality, a partnership. Perhaps these women were teachers helping to tell the story of Jesus.  Acts also tells us about other very influential women like Lydia and Dorcas, Priscilla and Damaris.  Luke 8 tells about the preaching journeys of Jesus, when He was accompanied by the official 12 Disciples and other unofficial disciples as well, but He was also accompanied by a group of wealthy, influential women.  Some traveled with Jesus because they had personal stories to tell, stories of how Jesus had healed them of physical and mental illnesses.  Mary Magdalene was one of these women.  Another was a wealthy woman named Joanna who was married to King Herod’s chief of staff, a very rich and powerful man.  I have to wonder about this, about the courage it took for Joanna to be seen with Jesus, someone Herod didn’t really like.  Did her actions place her husband Cuza’s job or life in jeopardy, especially seeing how she used her husband’s fortunes to finance Jesus’ ministry?  There were other women like Susanna who were supporting Jesus’ ministry out of their own pockets.  Then as now, it takes lots of money to finance Christian ministry!  Peter, Andrew, James, and John might have been able to help feed the Disciples by fishing and maybe Matthew had some leftover tax money, but I never read of any of the Disciples doing anything to help financially support Jesus’ work.  But these women, assigned by society to powerless and inconsequential places, made the ministry of Jesus able to go on from town to town.  And since the ministry involved travel, and knowing how men will never stop to ask directions, perhaps the women enabled the Disciples to get to the right towns at the right times without getting lost.

You will also remember, I hope, that the first witnesses to the empty tomb were the brave women who, despite guards being posted at Jesus’ tomb, went to His tomb, determined to insist that the soldiers allow them to give Jesus a proper burial, something He was denied on Good Friday because of the lateness of the hour.  But instead of finding guards on duty and a sealed tomb, they discovered the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, and angels saying, “Why would you look for a living one in a cemetery?”  They were the first evangelists to ever tell the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection.  Our ancient world might have operated on a patriarchal system, but that limitation was never embraced by God, Jesus, or Paul.

In our Methodist heritage, we were greatly influenced by Susanna Wesley, mother of John, Charles and their siblings.  Not only did Susanna teach her children a practical, methodical Christianity but she also defied conventional wisdom.  In addition to teaching her daughters household skills, she also insisted that they learn to read and write, something not all mothers gave to their daughters.  One time her husband Rev. Samuel Wesley was “detained” in debtors prison.  Now I have a few debts, but I am thankful that you all haven’t locked me up yet!  While Samuel was in prison, Susanna decided to lead the weekly prayer meeting.  Her husband was mortified!  He tried to forbid her from ever doing that again, but seeing that his “zero tolerance” policy was doomed to failure, he told her to lead the prayer meeting if she must, but she should not call it preaching!  Susanna was just a bit ahead of her time.

Our present day UMW began as mission societies within the three branches of American Methodist churches back around 1870.  If you remember your church history, you will remember that the original Methodist Episcopal Church, born in 1785, split north and south in 1844 over the issue of slavery.  Also splitting away from the ME Church was a group opposed to being led by Bishops.  These were known as Methodist Protestant Churches.  And there were German-speaking Methodists who eventually merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The women in each of these denominations began mission societies soon after the Civil War.  Some of the work was aimed at the expanding west and to Native Americans while other missions targeted the international community.  There were missions to immigrants from Japan and China as well as to those coming from Europe.  Recently liberated slaves were also recipients of the work of Methodist Women.  The societies sponsored missionaries to China, India, Denmark, Russia, and even to Italy.

This is an interesting story:  Lois Parker and Clementina Rowe Butler of Boston decided to start the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society within the Methodist Church in 1869.  Unexpectedly, opposition to their work arose from some men who were part of a competing Methodist missionary society.  That group’s secretary, Dr. John Durbin, suggested that the women turn over all their funds to the men’s missionary society, but these women were determined to maintain complete control over their organization and its funds.  There was even a movement at the General Conference of 1884 to disband the women’s missionary society, a movement which obviously failed.  There was a similar movement against the work of the women in missions in the Southern branch of Methodism, and it also failed.  I suppose these events signaled that a new day was coming which would lead to gender equality.

When I was a child, I remember hearing about the WSCS, the “Women’s Society for Christian Service,” and women in my home church met together in “circles.”  The name WSCS  was given to the women’s missionary societies when the three branches of Methodism in America – the Methodist Protestant Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South – united in 1939 to form The Methodist Church.  In 1972, four years after that body united with the German EUB branch of Methodists to form the United Methodist Church, the name WSCS was changed to “The United Methodist Women” as it is still known today.  And still today the United Methodist Men are still trying to catch up with the women, but we no longer try to get our hands on their loot!

At Memorial UMC, the UMW is divided up into four circles.  The Afternoon Circle meets second Mondays at 2 PM.  The Lydia Circle meets on second Tuesdays at 10:30 AM.  The Friendship Circle meets on third Tuesdays at 6:30 PM, and the Magnolia Circle meets on Third Thursdays at 6:30 PM.  Then there are combined gatherings of all four circles, and gatherings are also held for all United Methodist Women in the Greenville District, the South Carolina Conference, the Southeastern Jurisdiction, and also national/international gatherings.  It is amazing how much good is done in this world by the actions and generosity of the United Methodist Women.  I wonder where our church and this world would be without the Lord’s supporting cast!  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt

Gathering together in homes, unselfishly sharing possessions with one another, eating their meals together…  The writer, Luke, gives us this snapshot of the early church in his book, The Acts of the Apostles. What else does that sound like?  Where else do we gather together in homes and share possessions and meals together?  In our families!  In families we share meals, possessions, good and bad times, and even the washer and dryer.  Last year I was here at church when I just felt like there was something wrong with the white shirt I was wearing, and I discovered that one of Penny’s slips was attached to the inside of my shirt, the victim of static cling!

What Acts is telling us is that the Holy Spirit made one big happy family out of the members of the early church.  In a day of severe economic and political hardship, the members of the church lived in safety and security, enjoying the feeling of belonging to a huge, loving family.  No one was ever in need.  No one was ever hungry or homeless.  The Apostles were the patriarchs, the father-figures of the group, giving Christian instruction to the people and overseeing the Lord’s Supper.  No wonder the early church grew!  People were attracted to the faith that meant that they were never alone in this life. They were of one heart, mind, and purpose, that purpose being to do whatever was necessary and possible to spread the Good News about Jesus.  The atmosphere and actions of the early church remain the role model for all churches today.

That same Holy Spirit has called us together here at Memorial United Methodist Church.  God’s desire is to make one family out of us, too.  We have already witnessed many signs over many years of our growing sense of family.  We also share our possessions of time, talent, money, and service.  If there is a need in the life of one of our members and we know about it, this church is quick and generous in its response.  Together with other churches in our community – churches that we feel a sense of being our kinfolk – we reach out beyond the walls of our church, feeding the hungry through the Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, assisting with rent and utilities through Greer Relief, and offering other assistance through Greer Community Ministries.  No one ever needs to be alone in life!

There has been so much talk of Great Depression and economic recession recently.  Those problems are much too big for me, and people much smarter than I are finding it hard to agree on what to do.  But this I know to be true: the Church of our Lord has always been at its best when the world was falling apart!  Together we can weather any storm, and our faith and assurance will be a great testimony to the world of the power of faith in Christ.

Today is World Communion Sunday, reminding us that Christians of many denominations partake of the same faith in Christ and the same benefits of the body and blood of Christ.  Denominations are like the U.S. political parties.  We make a great deal of noise about our differences until times get tough, and then we come together, remembering that we are one nation or one people of God.  Today Christians of many denominations will be receiving the communion elements, and our unified actions will be a reminder of our basic unity.  When you peel away all of the things we’ve added to our houses of faith, things which sometimes help us understand how faith and life work and sometimes get in our way, the absence of the peeling shows us that we are one Church in God’s eyes.

Do you know of people who live without any family connections?  Please tell them about the Church of our Lord and how the Holy Spirit is able to make one family out of people from very different backgrounds.  The Spirit can make family where there was no family!  No one ever needs to be alone!  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt