Psalm 98:1-9

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory; he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.

Luke 20:27-38

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.

The Gathered Church

This morning, we continue our discussion of Congregationalism. These November sermons are a lead up to a New Member Sunday at some point down the road when we will welcome new members into our church.

Today let’s begin by taking a look at this word, “Congregational.” We are a Congregational Church. When I tell people that I am a minister in a Congregational Church, often the response I hear is “Well, isn’t every church congregational? Doesn’t every church have a congregation?” And yes, it’s true, every church does have a congregation, but in our tradition this word “congregational” has a meaning and a history that dates back to 16^th century England.

In 1534, King Henry the 8^th wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and so, being a good Catholic, Henry wrote to the Pope in Rome to ask for an annulment. But Pope Clement the 7^th refused to grant him an annulment. Henry, a temperamental man with a powerful and dominant personality, was not pleased. And so he did something extraordinary, and actually, kind of brilliant. Henry appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England so that he could annul his own marriage.

It was a political move. Henry really did little to change the spirituality of the church. The Church of England remained essentially Catholic in practice and theology. And that meant, among other things, that if you lived in a town in England, say in Canterbury, for example, you were, by birth and by residence, a member of Canterbury Parish. In other words, where a person lived determined their church membership. And there was no choice.

So, this is the long way of getting around to this word, “congregational.” The word comes from the Latin “congregare” meaning “to gather.” A congregational church is a gathered church. Now this doesn’t really mean anything to us today because for us all churches are gathered churches. But in England, at the time of Henry, a person was born into the church, and there was only one church. There were no options. You simply went to the one church that was in your town.

But then, later, when people began to rebel against the authority of the church, they found themselves gathering in like-minded groups. They gathered together, and a “gathered” church was quite different from the state church. A gathered church meant a separatist church, a dissident church, a break-away church. And this is what was happening. People were breaking away from the dominance and authority of the existing church institution. This was the essence of the Protestant Reformation as it rolled out across Europe for the next two centuries.

Freedom to Assemble

Now, we take this freedom to gather for granted because we are so accustomed to it. But even today, in many places in the world, it is illegal to gather as a church. In many countries, the freedom to assemble is quite restricted. For example, I had a friend years ago when I lived in Western Maine, a man who was a devout Christian, who was a retired electrical engineer. He was the CEO of an engineering company, and he had spent many years of his career working in the oil and gas industry in Saudi Arabia. And he told me that the Christians among the American families who worked in Saudi Arabia were not allowed to form a church there, so they had to worship in secret. They met together in a dark basement, and they kept their worship secret because the government did not allow freedom of religious expression and assembly.

So as a church, we are a gathered church. And to gather as a church was against the law in England back in the 16^th century. This was because the Church of England was a state church, a government church. King Henry broke away from the Catholic church as a political move so that he could get the divorce he wanted. But for the English separatists, the people who broke away from the Church of England, there was an ever stronger motivation. They were driven by a quest for spiritual freedom. They wanted the freedom to experience God on their own terms, to read the Bible on their own terms, and to think and interpret scripture on their own terms. So these are key points, and these are foundations of the movement that became known as “congregationalism.”

Now let’s take a look at our scripture reading for this morning. In our reading from Luke’s Gospel, some Sadducees ask Jesus a complicated question about marriage and life after death. This is actually a trick question. The Sadducees are trying to trap Jesus into giving a wrong answer. But Jesus brilliantly sees through their game. Jesus has a way of cutting through his opponents attacks and exposing them. And that is what is going on here.

So now, let’s imagine that we are back in 16^th century England around the time of King Henry, and this is a parish church in the Church of England. We might be able to read this scripture lesson in English because one of the things Henry did to break away from Rome was to publish an English Bible. It was called “The Great Bible,” and Henry made it compulsory. Every church in England was required to have a copy of the Great Bible. On the cover of the Great Bible was a large picture of Henry himself, seated on a throne. So I think Henry was more concerned about self-promotion and thumbing his nose at the Pope than he was about the spiritual lives of his parishioners. But in any case, he did place this English Bible in the churches, and that was an important reform action.

Freedom to Interpret

A Bible translated into English was a significant break from Roman Catholic authority, and, of course, the Catholic Church did not approve of these new translations. But the freedom to read scripture in English also meant that ordinary people, not only priests, could read and interpret scripture. The freedom to read and interpret scripture for oneself is a significant element of the Protestant Reformation and the break away from the Catholic church.

So this morning, we can read this complicated scripture passage from Luke, and we can think about it for ourselves. I will think about it with you, but I won’t tell you exactly what it means in any final sense because that is not my job. In our church, we protect each person’s freedom of interpretation. There are different ways to interpret scripture, and we each have the responsibility to read and think for ourselves. This is a very important foundation of the Congregational Way. Freedom of Interpretation. That means that we can disagree on scripture. We have the freedom to disagree. And for a church, at least, it seems to me, that is an extraordinary thing.

And by the way, not everyone appreciates this. I have had people say to me, “What kind of pastor are you? You don’t provide any leadership! That is not what people need! People need to be told what to think and what to believe!” I have had people leave the church because of this very point. But I’m sticking to my guns here, folks. Yes, I went to seminary, and yes, I am an ordained minister. But I am an ordained Congregationalist, and my job is clear. My job is to help each person in our church discern for himself or for herself, the meaning of scripture. In other words, I am not going to define your theology. You have to do that yourself. And, in some ways, this is much more difficult than being told exactly what to think and believe.

These things that we take for granted, these freedoms: freedom to assemble, freedom to worship, freedom to think and interpret scripture for ourselves, take on more significance when we remember that things were not always so easy as they are now. In the 16^th century, this was serious stuff. People were burned at the stake for breaking away from the church. Eventually, one hundred years after Henry, because of persecution, the early Puritans left England first for Holland, and then later, for the New World across the Atlantic Ocean.

We will pick it up here next week, and I will have some stories for you about William Bradford and the Pilgrim’s crossing on the Mayflower. May we be mindful of our freedoms. Amen? Amen.