What does it mean to “reform”?
The word “reform” at its simplest is to form again, that is, to take what is scattered or disarrayed and return it to its original form. The word “reform”, when we are talking about it on Reformation Sunday, takes aspects of the definition above but adds the connotation that the current disarray is a bad thing. Martin Luther and the reformers before and after him believed that the Western Church (Roman Catholic) had lost its way and needed to be brought back to what it was before, i.e. be re-formed into an earlier, better version. It was not the original intention of Luther to found a new church, but eventually, he realized he would have to; thus, we have the Reformation leading to Protestantism leading to the current situation of literally thousands of non-Roman Catholic denominations.
Today’s sermon is only peripherally related to all of that above, as I was more interested in what “reform” means to us as individual people today. Reformation is not just for organizations. It is also for each of us. Our texts all talk about reformation, about things becoming new but built on what was before. When we enter into the work of reforming ourselves, we don’t throw our entire previous self away and begin again (not even if we could). We take what we have that is worthy of building on . . . and we build on it.
Blessings,
