The Church – Always Reforming – October 25, 2026
Psalm 46, Romans 3:19-26
October 25, 2026 – Reformation Sunday
This is the day we celebrate “Reformation Sunday.” Actually, Reformation Day is October 31st. It’s one of those Liturgical days that falls on a date, not necessarily on a Sunday.
But this is the Sunday we celebrate it. This is the day we remember that “upstart monk,” that troublemaker, named Martin Luther. And we remember him, in the year 1517, nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg cathedral in Germany, thus sparking the Protestant Reformation, which is one of the most important events in the history of the Church!
And why is it so important? It’s important, not just because it caused a major reform in the Church, but because it started a movement of reform. The motto – the marching song – of the Reformation is, in Latin, “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.” Which means, “The Church reformed, always reforming!” That means that continual reformation is part of the Church’s very nature from then on.
But it’s more than that. There’s actually a longer version of that Latin saying. It’s this: “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei.” That means, “The Church reformed, always being reformed according to the Word of God.” What that means is that the Church, after 1517, must always be willing to examine and evaluate what it does according to the Word of God and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The story was that over the centuries, up until the time of Luther, a lot of traditions and practices had developed in the Church, some of which had little or no basis in the Holy Scripture. And Luther challenged many of them – 95 of them, to be exact! But Luther didn’t want to start a whole new church. He simply wanted the Church to look again at what the Bible actually taught, rather than simply accepting things because they had “always been done that way.” And so another Latin phrase became important in that time. It was “Sola Scriptura” – “Scripture alone.” That became one of the defining principles of the Reformation.
So, “The Church reformed, always reforming, according to the word of God” is the hallmark of the Reformation. At least that’s the idea! But I think the Church has an even bigger challenge. And that challenge is that it must always examine and reexamine whether it is actually willing to be reformed, whether it is willing to be guided by the Holy Scriptures!
We hear some of that idea of “always reforming” when we have an ordination. It’s the meaning behind two of the ordination questions we have in the Presbyterian Church. And all elders, deacons, and pastors are asked those same questions.
First, we ask, “Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?” And second, “Will you fulfill your ministry in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and continually guided by our confessions?”
So, “Always reforming” is part of who we are as Protestants, and who we are as Presbyterians. But there’s always that matter of the willingness of the church to be reforming. So, the question I’d like to ask today is this: What happens when Scripture challenges something we have always believed? You know, it’s easy to say we believe the Bible is our authority. It’s harder, though, when we encounter a passage that challenges our assumptions, our traditions, our preferences, or (heaven forbid!) “the way we’ve always done things.” Which, of course, is a big phrase in the Presbyterian Church!
That’s not easy, is it? Because we’re not just talking about changing our minds about some little thing. We’re potentially talking about things we’ve believed for years, things we’ve been taught by people we love and respect, things that have become part of who we are. And when something we’ve always believed is challenged, our first reaction is often to defend it, rather than to ask whether we need to take another look at it. It’s always easier to point out where someone else might be wrong, than it is to consider the possibility that we might need to rethink something ourselves. Isn’t that true?
It’s not easy. However, if we truly believe that Scripture is our authority, then we have to be willing to listen to what it says, even when what we hear makes us uncomfortable. We have to be willing to ask not just, “What have I always believed?” but, “What is God saying to me now?”
I think this is where our reading from Romans helps us. Here Paul reminds us that none of us can earn our way into God’s favor. We all fall short, and we all depend on God’s grace. That’s what the Reformers were trying to recover – the understanding that we are made right with God, not by what we do, but through God’s grace alone. And right there, that should keep us humble. Because if we all depend on God’s grace, then none of us has the right to think we’ve got everything all figured out, or that we no longer have anything to learn – or reform. And we know that we are all still in need of God’s grace, and therefore, we’re all still in need of being reformed.
Psalm 46 gives a foundation. Its familiar words are especially fitting. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” In fact, Luther himself drew on that very Psalm for our hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” The psalm reminds us that our security rests in God, not in the Church’s institutions, traditions, or its confidence in its own correctness.
So, in Psalm 46, God is our refuge and strength. And in Romans 3, we are justified by God’s Grace, not by our own merits. So, the Reformation tells us, as Paul said, that the Church has no reason to boast, and every reason to keep listening to God. And by “boast” we don’t mean “verbally touting our own superiority.” It means thinking our beliefs and insights are superior.
But perhaps it’s more subtle than that. Maybe we get to the point that our beliefs are just “good enough not to bother challenging.” We believe what we believe, why should we “dig into it” any further? Frankly, I think that one is huge in the Church! A lot of Christians have the attitude that “My faith is good enough. Why are you pushing me to do better, to grow, to do more.” “It’s easier not to bother!”
Well, the response to that is found in Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians. He wrote to them saying that we are being “conformed to the image of Christ.” Do you get that? We are being “Conformed to the image of Christ!” That’s a big challenge! And it’s an active thing. It’s not “we are” conformed, but “we are being” conformed. It’s the same as “being reformed!” And when we get that, as Paul concluded, “We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. (II Corinthians 3:18)
Always reforming – always being reformed – is an active, ongoing process. It is growing into “the mind that is in Christ” like we talked about a few weeks ago. And part of that is being willing for that to happen. Part of that is even striving for that to happen.
So, it’s one thing to celebrate the Reformation. It’s another thing to be willing to be reformed. It’s one thing to say that the Bible is our authority. It’s another thing to let the Bible challenge us. It’s one thing to remember what the Church stood for five hundred years ago. It’s another thing to ask what God is calling the Church to be today.
And that’s not just a question for the Church as a whole. It’s a question for every congregation. It’s a question for every pastor, every elder, and every deacon. And it’s a question for every one of us who claim to follow Jesus.
The Church is always reforming because the Church is always being transformed. We haven’t arrived. We’re still being shaped, still being corrected, still being conformed to the image of Christ, still being changed into his likeness “from one degree of glory to the next.”
The Reformation wasn’t the end of the work. It was a reminder, it was a mandate, that the work of reformation must continue.
Prayer
Eternal God, help us to see where we may need reforming. Help us to be open to what you are saying to us today. Show us where we need to do better, to grow, and to do more. In all things, may your Spirit work within us, conforming us to the image of Christ our Lord, for we pray in his name, Amen.