Reformation Sunday in a Time of Pandemic

Today is Reformation Sunday.  In a different time, we might have gone to church and belted out "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" with vigor.  Today, I don't know anyone who will be doing that--among the people I know, those who are going to church are not singing.  

Let's think about Reformation Sunday and how we might celebrate as creative people in a time of pandemic.  But first, let me remind us why we should celebrate the Reformation, even if we're not Christians.  Very few people understand how the invention of the printing press made the Protestant Reformation possible. We have this vision of Martin Luther nailing a handmade document to the Wittenberg door. We don't think of the mighty Reformation as being powered by the lowly pamphlet. But it's a legitimate interpretation. 

The printing press is the main reason why the Catholic church couldn't contain Luther's dangerous ideas (a great book, by the way: Alister McGrath's Christianity's Dangerous Idea). Those darned pamphlets just kept popping up everywhere. In a way, Luther was an early incarnation of a blogger or a user of Twitter or Instagram: someone who knows how to use "free" technology and apps to get their ideas more widely distributed.

If Luther had stopped there, the world might not have been transformed so completely. But then Luther translated the Bible into German, which meant more people could read and interpret for themselves. And then more people wanted to learn to read, so that they could read the Bible. Those events have a direct link to the world we know today.

But of course, the Reformation wasn't a seamless path to a better world for humanity.  We can also blame the Reformation for centuries of war and upheaval.  Many people came to new lands in search of religious freedom because the persecution in their home countries was so persistent and deadly.  Reformers aren't often open to the reforming ideas of others, after all.

So how can we celebrate this holiday on a day where we can't go to church and sing together?   Here are some ideas:

--Lift a beer or an apple cider in a toast to the Reformation.  Be thankful for the positive changes that the Reformation gave us.  Resolve to protect those changes.  Be on the alert for extremism that often comes with times of Reformation.  Resolve to protect those who are vulnerable with extremists roam the land roaring about reformation.

--Read a book or an article, either on paper or online, and think about how wonderful it is to have the ability to read and more stuff to read than you can ever plow through.

--Many people have done a lot of thinking about our current society and what needs reform.  Reformation is not just for churches!  Here we are, a week and 2 days out from election day.  But we know that one election day won't usher in all the changes that we see that need to be made in our local societies.  How can we be positive change agents?  Reformation Sunday is a good day to ponder all the possible answers to that question.

--Take a popular song and make new lyrics, like so many of those early Reformers did: some of our most famous Lutheran hymns have melodies from drinking songs.

--Think about your own art form and the reformations you'd like to see. Treat your inner artist with a spirit of grace, not judgment.

--Try a new art form.  Maybe your creative life cries out for a Reformation.  If it doesn't work out, you can always abandon it.  But trying something new often energizes what you've already been doing.

--One of Luther's ideas was that the emphasis on earning one's way to Heaven was wrong.  He focused on the readings from the Bible that reveal God as a Divine being full of grace, not judgment.  Let us think about how we can reform our own approach to life, to move from judgment to grace.