Reformation Sunday Sermon Calls for Truth That Sets Free

LWF President Hanson Affirms Restoration of Human Relationship

During Sunday morning worship on25 October, the President of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Bishop Mark S. Hanson challenged Lutheran church representatives from around the world to tell the story of "the truth that sets free" as they lead the organization into the future.

"The truth that makes you free isn’t some idea you have to discover [nor] some religious proposition to which you must give a cent or some personal decision you must make," Hanson told the LWF Council members in his Sunday morning sermon at the chapel of the Ecumenical Center where the LWF Secretariat is located.

Martin Luther - the man who was at the forefront in Reformation

The LWF governing body began its meeting on 22 October, and will conclude on 27 October. This year’s theme is “Upholding Human Dignity: Confronting Human Trafficking.” The Eucharistic service was celebrated in the context of Reformation Sunday worship. It included a symbolic affirmation of baptism, during which participants dipped their fingers into a bowl of water and made a sign of the cross on the hand of the neighboring person, saying, "Remember you are baptized."

The LWF president said, "The story we tell is about writing anew script," an embodied narrative centered in Jesus, and in God’s reconciling love and mercy. He pointed out that while Christ sets free from bondage to sin, death and the devil, this"liberation is not a kind of release, banishment, sending you out on your own," but rather "forgiveness and your incorporation, your restoration into the abundant life of God's household."

Hanson underlined that great freedoms had been experienced because of curiosity to discover the truth about DNA, distanced galaxies, diseases and what sustains diverse eco systems. However, he explained, an unintended irony that had resulted out of this was that modernism also includes its own skepticism.

He expressed concern that people not only lived in a culture of deception that refused to see the truth, but that "we constructal ternative truth [and] narratives, seemingly so plausible, so believable that we end up deceiving ourselves." Hanson spoke of narratives of economic recovery in the USA based on stock market indices yet unemployment there averaged 10.5percent and over half the world's population lived in poverty.

"We deceive ourselves that our consumption does not destroy the environment, that the Israeli occupation brings security rather than breeds resentment. Or that the perpetuation of white manpower and privilege is some how based upon God's intentions for humanity," he added. He cited some of the stories that could be told about the life and work of the LWF, its Council members and advisers as well as staff, and the implications for freedom and reconciliation.

The 1999 signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the LWF and the Roman Catholic Church was an act of being released from burdens of condemnation. Similarly,a proposed statement for action on the legacy of Lutheran persecution of "Anabaptist's" which will be considered during the current Council meeting signified healing of memories.

The breaking of the silence on HIV and AIDS is to release people from the chains of stigmatization and discrimination, restoring them to life in community, the LWF president explained. He described reflections at the June 2008 Council meeting in Tanzania under the theme "Melting Snow on Mount Kilimanjaro: Witness of a Suffering Creation," and the symbolic climate change action of forming the figure '350' at a morning prayer on 24th October, as a call "for the release of creation from our destructive consumption and to restore sustainability to life."

Equally important are faith reflections on gender and power,signifying God’s restoration of human relationships that are“not based upon domination and male power and privilege.” Hanson said he had cited these examples as part of story that needed to be told, as it was "the story of God incarnation in Jesus Christ, the story of God’s reconciliation and forgiveness, the story of our continuing reformation."

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