Last year, Reformed churches all over the world celebrated John Calvin’s Jubilee - the 500th anniversary of his birth. At my church in North Carolina I was asked to put together an adult Sunday school class that would walk through the four books of The Institutes of Christian Religion, Calvin’s seminal work. As we began to work through them - and 4 weeks, turned to 8, and then to 12 - it became clear that we know little to nothing about Calvin. I didn’t either - until some enterprising professor made the Institutes a requirement. True, we know what people have told us about Calvin - stories of a sour man who made it his mission to ruin people’s fun: even to the point burning at the stake - or we know what Calvinists say Calvin believed, but how many of us have had a real experience with Calvin and his theology.
Calvin was born in Noyon, France the second of three sons whose father worked at the ecclesiastical court. It may surprise many to learn that he was not ordained as a priest; he received education as a lawyer – paving the way for many good Presbyterians to follow! By the time he had finished his education the Protestant Reformation was in full swing, and Calvin was intrigued. He agitated openly for a break from Rome and had to flee France. He began his ministry serving churches and developing theology in Strasbourg, and finally Geneva. Throughout his life, Calvin fought for reformation in many places, helping John Knox in England and Scotland, as well as helping the Huegnots in his native France. He died in Geneva in 1564 and was buried in an unmarked plot.
It’s ironic that churches all over the world spend time celebrating a man who made sure he was buried in an unmarked plot in order not to be revered as a saint. For Calvin there was only one worthy of worship, God almighty. The overarching theme, the cornerstone as it were, of his theology is his belief in the absolute sovereignty of God. His reading of scripture, his study and prayer showed him that God was not something humans could control, not matter how hard we try or how often we lie to ourselves about it. The God that created the heavens and the earth, that made you and me, that causes the flowers to bloom and the birds to sing – that God is beyond all we can even imagine. As God says to Job in the Old Testament, “Were you there when I laid the earth’s foundations? Have you ever given orders to the morning?” And the only correct answer is Job’s - “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” Along with the passage we read today from Romans, this encapsulates our appropriate awe at the might and power of God.
God’s sovereignty affects many different themes in Calvin’s theology. We have gathered here this morning as a group, as the body of Christ and our presence itself is a witness to God’s movement and power. Corporate worship was paramount to Calvin’s understanding. When we raise our voices in worship, in readings, in songs and in prayer, we are joined together with Christ. In this time, and any other time believers are worshipping, we are united with believers across time and space – all the saints who have prepared the way for us and all those who will walk in the paths we trod. When we join together to confess our sin, to recognize God’s forgiveness, when we stand and say what we believe, we are connected with all those who share our faith. Our worship is a participatory experience. You’re not just passive observers. Worship is directed towards God; we participate in acknowledging, honoring, and giving thanks for all the things God has done, is doing, and promises to do in our corporate lives. Calvin would bristle at modern Christianity’s acceptance of the consumer culture – of ‘church shopping’ and looking for places that ‘feed me’. From his perspective church is not about you and it’s not about me. It’s about God. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in all.” It is that lord, that faith and that baptism that we celebrate each time we gather. Our connection with God and with each other. May we consider that today and all the days that follow when we walk in the doors, when we stand to sing. God is our audience. And we are thankful children.
A vision of God who is ultimately in control also shaped Calvin’s most controversial theological concept – predestination. Now we couldn’t have a sermon about Calvin without talking about that right? Honestly, Calvin didn’t create an idea of predestination. Paul was writing about it in his letters long before Calvin was a gleam in his father’s eye. Both Augustine and Luther tackled the subject before he did. Based on Paul’s writings and other scriptures, Calvin did develop an overarching framework for understanding predestination. For Calvin predestination was a notion that brought him comfort and peace. Now let’s be clear – Calvin’s understanding of predestination was only concerned with salvation. It didn’t mean that I was predestined to break my arm, or that someone was predestined to have diabetes, or that you were predestined to meet your spouse in the vegetable aisle, or predestined to be here to listen to this sermon– as much as we might joke about those things. From Calvin’s own writings predestination deals solely with the idea that God can save who God chooses. Essentially Calvin says that God is powerful enough to do what God darn well pleases. So nothing we do, no amount of working, bargaining, or worrying can change that. There is immense comfort in that – especially for someone coming from a tradition that emphasized that good works were the way to salvation. Recognizing that God is in control – no matter how much that scares us or bothers us – meant a release of pent up energy and fear!
Many people have pushed Calvin’s thought to what they saw was a logical conclusion - that God can save some and damn others, a doctrine called double predestination. Calvin would say that it is possible - because God is sovereign - but highlight that it is useless for us to speculate about God’s actions. By the very same standards, God could just condemn us all! That, truly, would be the only just way. But from my perspective - and that of others - the real question is why a loving God would condemn anyone. It is God alone who saves – and who can really get in the way? No one. As Paul says “who has given a gift to God, to receive a gift in return?’ For from God and through God and to God are all things. To God be the glory forever.” Amen.
However, God’s sovereign power doesn’t stop with salvation. Just because salvation is in God’s hands does not relieve us from the way we live. Contrary to how his position has been portrayed, Calvin believed that God’s law shaped our lives. It is a social law – it protects us from ourselves and each other. It is a condemnation – it shows us just how much we have sinned and fallen short of the will of God. Finally, it is a guideline – it shows us how we should be living. In each service, Calvin led the congregation in a reading of the law. Calvin thought that this was of utmost importance and chose its place carefully - after both our confession of sin and the promise of God’s forgiveness. It is there as our guideline – showing us how we are to live as God’s children. God’s presence in our lives engenders actions of glory and obedience – and for Calvin they don’t stop at those doors. Much like the Shema of the Hebrew people – Hear o Israel – we are called to appropriate God’s teaching into our very lives. Every action in our lives, in here and most importantly out there, are to point towards God’s majesty. In fact, in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin says that the highest calling is that of public service. Not ministers, not deacons, not elders, but those who hold public office! For those who serve the public good have a responsibility to live lives that uphold God’s laws. And it’s not limited to them – we are called to take God’s love and grace and let that inform all aspects of our lives. There is no sacred and secular – all actions, all things are sacred. All things should point to God.
I could continue talking and talk for a long time while only scratching the surface of the theological impact Calvin has had on modern Presbyterianism. However, it is vital that on this day we remember that Calvin’s tenets are not things set in stone – throughout the years they have been interpreted and applied in different ways. But perhaps the most lasting is the emphasis on reformation. Calvin believed, as do we, that the reformation was not something that happened one time in the past. We are constantly being changed, led in new directions, and reformed ourselves. You might have heard it said that Presbyterians are a people reformed and always reforming. Calvin would quickly point us in the right direction reminding us that we do not do the work of reforming, God does. More accurately we are: A people reformed and always being reformed. The one constant is God. God speaks in different ways throughout the centuries and continues to speak a new word for us to hear. We need just humble ourselves enough to hear it.
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