The Monk and the Devil

I find it very interesting that Halloween and Reformation Day are both on October 31. One is the devil's high holiday and the other is the darling of the Christian Reformation, of which many modern Protestants are completely ignorant. 
When I was a kid, I loved Halloween and all the spookiness. We'd dress up, mash wet oatmeal onto our skin, and troll the neighborhood for candy. We looked forward to it all year. Then the Lord sent this child into our family. My brother, almost ten years younger than me. He was adorable, with shiny copper curls and huge chocolate eyes. He was unusual from the get-go, shy and quiet, thoughtful, sensitive and obedient. He'd look and make sure his toes weren't over the demarcation-line on our driveway. He would curl up in the jump seat of the Volkswagen, that scratchy cave in the back of the car, humming and thinking about other worlds. I loved talking to him, even as a little kid, because he had a lot to say and was always dreaming about something. He was very cognizant of spiritual matters. He liked to stand on the air conditioning condenser outside our window and preach. He didn't think anybody could hear him because of the roar of the machinery. He would sing at the top of his lungs too, never knowing we were giggling hysterically at his bravado. 

Children sometimes know things that adults don't. I remember one Sunday, after our pastor spoke, my brother said, "Mama, Preacher Bob doesn't have as much green stuff around him as that other man that was here the other day." After many questions, my parents realized he was talking about an evangelist who had visited, a man who had numerous diseases but continued to travel and speak with power. Many people had come to Christ because of this godly man's message, bringing our church into a modern-day revival. The "green stuff" seemed to be some sort of protective aura that my brother saw around people, some more than others. It was a strange anomaly that we still don't understand. He says that now that he's an adult (and by the way, he's still a preacher), he doesn't see such things anymore. We're not even Charismatic or Pentecostal -- it defies explanation. But it was this spiritually-sensitive child, very young, that decided he wasn't going to go trick-or-treating. We tried to shut him up, but he wasn't having it. It bothered him that it was the devil's holiday...that's what he said and we couldn't dissuade him. Begrudgingly, we put up our plastic pumpkins and never went again. I had to respect the little guys' convictions and he had some valid points in there which I won't divulge here. My Mom bought 75%-off leftover candy at the store and we did something fun every year around that time. We were weird and different, but never lacked for love or laughs. 

At some point in my adult journey, I found out about Martin Luther. In the Baptist church I grew up in, I never heard hymns like "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (Martin Luther) or "And Can It Be?!" (Wesley)....except on our way out the door on Sunday morning where A Mighty Fortress would be belting out on the TV from a kiddie show, David and Goliath. Martin Luther was considered a renegade in some of the circles where we attended church....a rebel who believed in sovereign grace, the depravity of man, eternal salvation, limited atonement, predestination and the perseverance of the saints. Deep theologies that make the head spin. As I studied this quirky man, a monk who started actually reading the Bible for himself, I began to appreciate the revolution that he ignited. He believed that every common plowboy should be able to read the scriptures in his own language, that all Christians were actually saints (hey, that's what it says), and that you couldn't buy your way into heaven -- with money or with your own works. Radical in his day, but in some ways still radical. His transformation turned the church on its head.

Maybe that's what needs to happen today. We live in the Bible belt, where most everyone's been down an aisle, said a magic prayer and been dunked. All the rituals are done, but has the heart been saved? There's holidays, high days, seasons, rituals, liturgies, sacraments, red tape, good works, bad works, sins and high fives. At the end of it, there's the Christ and there's the Word. A lot of platitudes and nice sayings fill our churches and our Facebook pages but are they actually in the scriptures? Ole' Luther, he dug in there and found out for himself. We could stand to learn a thing or two from him.