Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

October 26, 2025 / Reformation Sunday

Romans 3:19-28

Well, friends, it’s the last weekend in October.  That means it’s Reformation Sunday, of course.  But it also means that we are just over a week away from . . . wait for it . . . just nine days left until Sirius XM makes available its holiday music channels.  Yes, that’s right, on November 4th, you will be able to listen to all Christmas music all of the time.  They’ve yet to list exactly what those channels will be, but you may be sure that many of them will feature what might be the most subversive Christmas song ever written.  Want to take a guess at what I think the most subversive Christmas song might be? . . . “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.”  “It’s not subversive for the reasons that religious people typically lament the detour from Bethlehem to the North Pole – that is, commercialization and secularization,” writes David Zahl.  “The song is subversive because of how it sabotages the beating heart of Christmas, which has to do with giving.”[1]  Think about the words:  “He’s making a list / He’s checking it twice / He’s gonna find out / who’s naughty and nice.”  So nice children get nice gifts, and naughty kids get . . . a lump of a coal?  That makes a Christmas present a reward for good behavior.  Which means it’s not really a gift.  “Gifts premised on deserving aren’t gifts at all; they are more like paychecks, gestures based in reciprocity rather than generosity.”[2]  And that ought to be a problem for Christians.  Not because I’ve got anything against Santa, really I don’t.  I love that jolly old elf.  But it’s a problem for people of faith because even though the world operates on the premise that we get what we deserve, Christianity does not.  Christianity operates on grace.  

Grace is at the center of our Reformation Sunday observance.  It’s not about history.  Yes, the date of Reformation Day is determined by Martin Luther’s historic posting of the 95 Theses in 1517 – his arguments against the Roman Catholic Church’s practice of selling get-out-of-purgatory passes.  But history is not the focus of our worship today.  And neither is Luther’s translation of the Bible (and the liturgy) into German.  Even though generations of Lutheran children have been taught about that fact, translation is not what we celebrate today.  What we remember, above all else, on this day is the passage we heard today from Romans:  that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; [and] they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  It is the gift of grace that is front and center today.  Listen to how The Message Bible translates this passage:  “Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us.  Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself.  A pure gift.  He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be.  And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.”  We are justified – put into right relationship with God – not by our being nice instead of naughty, not by our ethics or right beliefs, not by our generosity or service to the world – no, we are justified by grace (a generous gift that we do not deserve) – by grace through faith. 

But “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is easier to understand.  Getting what we deserve makes more sense and it lets us feel like we have some control over our lot in life.  Listen to a part of an interview of author Philip Yancey and his comments about why he believes we have trouble accepting grace.  

We just have a hard time accepting something free like [grace}. We are kind of independent, pull-ourselves-up-by-our-own-bootstraps people, especially in the United States, and you know, somebody gives you a Christmas gift worth $20 and you only give them one worth $10, then you feel bad and next Christmas you’ll be sure to have one worth $30, you know? That’s the kind of people we are. Grace is not about fairness; it’s not about equality; it’s about unfairness, actually. . . . 

. . . I think just by the nature of who we are, we like to earn our way. We like to get credit for what we do. And grace doesn’t work like that. It works by different rules. So we’re not getting the credit. We’re getting the benefit, but we’re not getting the credit because it’s a gift. It’s a gift that God holds out to us. And just by nature, we want to climb that ladder on our own. We want to show how we’re a little bit higher up the rung than the people just beneath us. And grace doesn’t work that way. It kind of turns that ladder upside down and the people you least expect it are almost the closest to God because they’re aware that they failed and they want to receive God’s forgiveness and grace . . .. 

And then, this part, I really liked.  He continues:

You know, I remember a conversation. Well, it came out of a book. You know the rock star Bono of the band U2? He recently did his own memoir, but some years ago, he did a series of interviews with a French agnostic journalist who knew him well and had followed him around for years. And this agnostic can’t figure out why Bono calls himself a Christian.  And he keeps bringing up the topic and finally Bono says, “Well, you got two choices, karma or grace. And with karma, you get exactly what you deserve. And most of us aren’t gonna do very well on that measure. But with grace, you get the opposite of what you deserve. You get God’s love when you deserve God’s wrath.” And he said, “I’m gonna place my bets on grace, not karma.”[3]

Karma says that my fate is determined by cause and effect.  And that’s a really comfortable way to view life . . . when life is going as planned.  You know:  I deserve my salary because I work hard; I deserve a vacation because I have saved my money; I deserve respect because I am honest and trustworthy.  Karma is great . . . until bad things happen.  So let me get really personal here.  If I believe that everything is cause and effect, if I believe that I deserve the good that I get in life, then I also have to believe that I deserve the bad in life:  including a diagnosis of breast cancer.  But I don’t believe in karma.  I don’t believe that God works like that.  I believe, instead, in grace.  I believe that God loves me, not because I deserve it, but just because God is love, and I believe that God will give me – and all of us – all the gifts that we need to sustain us.  Because I believe in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Happy Reformation Day!

[1] Chapter 1, David Zahl’s The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World.

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/growth/philip-yancey-on-what-we-get-wrong-about-grace/