Prayer

Lord as we ponder your words open our hearts that we may understand and know you. Amen 

Sermon    

I never truly traveled until I came to Freelton and Strabane. When I think of those early trips I took they were all to places of Origins.   The Holy Land origin of our deepest beliefs.  Scotland my familiar origins, and Germany. Germany? Yes. Yes it is true that the center point of the trip to Germany and central Europe was the passion play in Oberammergau but I began that trip in Worms, which is not far from Wittenberg and the  Wittenberg cathedral.  Here was the origin the beginning of our denomination. Here was the home of the Protestant Reformation. We went to the Worms Cathedral. You could imagine the big ripple that Luther had caused.   Not far from the church there is a beautiful monument honouring Luther and the other reformers. 

The Sunday before All Hollows Eve is known as Reformation Sunday. 

        The main problem Martin Luther had with the Roman Catholic Church was the sale of indulgences. A part of the Catholic tradition was the performance of penance when one committed a sin. Usually acts of penance were in the form of prayer or study. However penance could be performed by acts of charity or kindness. This is where money got involved. Sometimes people would make charitable contributions to the church as penance for their sins. This was obviously unfair to those who could not afford such gifts. Sometimes people would even make their contribution before they committed the sin and purchase an indulgence that could be used later as a penance before the fact. It was the hypocrisy of this penance before the fact that was at the center of Martin Luther's complaints against the church. After publishing his 95 theses or complaints against the church, Martin Luther was ordered by his superiors to recant or take back his statements. He was finally excommunicated from the church. At one hearing when he was told to deny all he had written, he is reported to have said, "Here I stand, I can do no other." Martin Luther was thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church. However it was too late pride and arrogance had fallen to the call of humility and service. Luther called for a return to our origins.   It is hard to remember that reform movement our origins were in   the beginning forged in pain and cruelty. The Roman Catholic Church brutally perused the reformers and many of the faithful found themselves guests of the Inquisition and the stake. 
These ideas would influence an English King however one must own that his motives for the English Reformation may not have been completely centered on God but more of his marital status . There are those that would argue that Henry never really stopped being Catholic. This Reforming voice gave freedom to express ones understanding giving voice to Knox and Wesley and the birth of our own United Church. 

     In the journey of faith the Roman Catholic Church had grown full of itself.  There is a quote I remember from Church History on the state of the church during those times. “It would be nice to have a Pope that at least believed in God.” 

To the Glory of God the Roman Catholic Church has changed and is changing.

Today’s Gospel could be considered the foundation of our origin story. 

Jesus is ask “What is the greatest of the commandments?”   Another attempt to make him look bad. 

Jesus gives us these foundational words.  “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Like Russian dolls that stack inside each other. We are the smallest…all others are masks, Jesus wants us to be "inside out" people...show on the outside what we are on the inside the image of God. That person who loves God with all their heart, soul and mind.