Harvard Morning Prayers: Reclaiming the Title "Lutherans"

“Reclaiming the Title ‘Lutherans’”

Morning Prayers, Harvard Memorial Church, Harvard University

Sam Melton

Harvard Divinity School, MDiv ‘19

A recording of this service can be found here:

https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/samantha-melton-mdiv-iii-march-22-2018-morning-prayers?in=memorial-church/sets/morning-prayers-at-harvard

Reading

I share with you a piece of writing penned by Martin Luther in 1522 in response to the title of ‘Lutherans’:

"I ask that my name be left silent and people not call themselves Lutheran, but rather Christians. Who is Luther? The doctrine is not mine. I have been crucified for no one. St. Paul in 1 Cor. 3:4-5 would not suffer that the Christians should call themselves of Paul or of Peter, but Christian. How should I, a poor stinking bag of worms, become so that the children of Christ are named with my unholy name? It should not be dear friends. Let us extinguish all fictitious names and be called Christians whose doctrine we have.”

Homily

As a Lutheran and particularly as we approach Passover, I want to be sure to recognize and repent for the pain and suffering that the writing and words of Martin Luther and our tradition as a whole, has historically and continues to inflict upon the Jewish community. May God grant you peace during this season.

I love this humble confession of Luther’s, even as a self-identified Lutheran, this very quote of Luther reads more as a Confession than a dispute to me. Luther’s reminder that the singular thread that ties us to one another is our belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and not simply a denominational title and governing body that we claim. It stands as a reminder that in a world full of division, one marked by owning unique identities, Luther’s words feel oddly comforting today.

My time here at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) has been marked by many identities, yet the title of “Lutheran” is one that has seemed to follow me since I first took my seat at orientation. The prescription of that title has always seemed to perplex me for a few reasons. Mostly, because this has never been an identity I have carried at any other point in my life. I converted in my teens, wandered around denominations for a while, and when I did find myself in a Lutheran community, I was almost always referred to as the ‘bad’ Lutheran, the ‘new’ Lutheran, or the ‘baby’ Lutheran.

So, while yes, my time at HDS has very much been marked by my Lutheran identity, I have really spent much more time resisting that identity than I have embracing it. The irony is that this attempt at resistance is actually how ended up here at HDS in the first place.

When choosing where to further my education on my way to ordination, I intentionally decided against attending a traditional Lutheran seminary and was resisting the idea of traditional congregational ministry as to provide myself with an escape route if I ever saw fit. For some reason, the idea of spending four years completely surrounded by Lutherans seemed terrifying for me. So, HDS was my answer. It was a way for me to sit in the back of a lecture, closest to the exit door that would lead me straight away from the Lutheran faith while avoiding the small talk on the way out. And though I tried to leave a few times, it seemed that every other room I found myself walking into would simply be another room with some different type of Lutherans in it. It became this thing that would not let me leave.

The more time I spend with Lutheran communities, the more I find that I was never actually attempting to escape Lutheranism itself, but I think I was instead trying to escape the truth of our history.

How is it that I am able to claim such a deeply flawed tradition as my own? As a queer Lutheran, how is it that I can feel called to preach in a pulpit that this tradition has spent so much time making sure I don’t have a claim to? How is it that I can claim a tradition that prides itself on reform without recognizing the cost of that reform in the lives of the vulnerable and marginalized? Yet, here I am.

One could argue that if you were ever going to be Lutheran, 2018 was the year to do it. I spent much of my time this past year celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and while I’m the first person to love some good lutefisk and German beer on a Sunday afternoon, I think that in midst of these celebrations, we’ve lost a sense of the confessional church Luther had hoped we would be.

In some ways, I think turning Luther’s words in on himself actually helps us understand our identities as Lutherans better. If we truly claim this title Lutheran, just as much as we celebrate the nailing of the 95 theses, we must also claim the ugly parts of our history too. We can claim Luther’s rebellion, but we must also claim the weaponization of Luther’s words by the Nazi’s. We must claim terrorists like Dylann Roof. We must claim our violent participation in colonization and slavery. It is this history, the parts that Luther may argue reveals our “poor stinking bag of worms” nature, that is so difficult to embrace. Yet, Luther teaches us that we can not move forward experiencing the life of the Gospel without first repenting for our history.

During my first year at HDS, I found myself often saying something like “Yeah, I’m Lutheran, but I’m like a queer Liberal Lutheran,” as if I could somehow quantify the identity itself and erase the ugly parts of our history in the process.

Today, I wonder what identites you hold and wrestle with as well? What identities do you feel the need to qualify and defend? Moreso, I wonder what kind of freedom you may find in fully claiming those identities and allowing them to act as a confessional for your life as you work through the process of reconciliation?

This confession of Luther’s reminds us that too often, we forget the liberation that is found in owning up to the truth of our history, to claiming our identities, and navigating the deep repentance that accompanies them. Though it likely looks different for you, it is the title of ‘Lutheran’ that invited me into a relationship with these complex histories. The title of ‘Lutheran’ reminds us that we are so deeply flawed, that we mess up and will mess up again, that we don’t always get it right, and yet it is here that we encounter God’s grace most fully.

The liberation in these claims comes in reminding us that we are the vehicles in which reform begins to take place and while yes, it will be messy, it allows us room to mess up and try again, and again, and again and perhaps as we move into the next 500 years, the grace and freedom I find at the intersection of identity and history, is actually why many of us continue to stick around. As we launch ourselves into a new type of Reformation I do hope to meet you at this intersection too.

Amen.

Prayer

I leave you this morning with Martin Luther’s Traditional Morning Prayer from his Small Catechism. Let us pray,

“I thank you, my Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.”