Papers were nailed to the
church door on Sunday as we entered. Curious about why, I pointed them out, and
Ann remembered that Sunday was Reformation Sunday, a day when we celebrate
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and the beginning of the Protestant Church.
Stories of Martin Luther’s
challenges to the Roman Catholic Church, particularly about the practice of
indulgences, are familiar to me. Martin Luther’s story has always been one of
how ordinary people could have relationships with God without the intervention
of a priest. It has been the story of a man who challenged the church’s sale of
indulgences, challenging a practice that encouraged people to pay so that they
could go to heaven. In my life, his story has been the story of a man who stood
up for common people. Fittingly, two lay people gave the sermon about his story.
The second speaker, Kay
Verelius, surprised me with parts of Martin Luther’s story that I had never heard. For
one thing, he introduced hymns to the church service, though the meter was
different in his day. Additionally, later in his life, Martin Luther was an
activist against Jews. The website Christianity Today,
among many other sites, reports that Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies (1543) where he wrote,
“Set fire to their synagogues or schools.” He continued that Jewish houses
should “be razed and destroyed,” and Jewish “prayer books and Talmudic
writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught,
[should] be taken from them.” In addition, “their rabbis [should] be forbidden
to teach on pain of loss of life and limb.” Still, this wasn’t enough.
Luther also urged that “safe-conduct on the
highways be abolished completely for the Jews,” and that “all cash and treasure
of silver and gold be taken from them.” What Jews could do was to have “a
flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade” put into their hands so “young, strong Jews and
Jewesses” could “earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.” According to Kay, his words contributed significantly
to the German anti-Semitism that led to persecution of Jews during World War
II. Kay said nearly every writer of Third Reich referenced and quoted Martin
Luther’s works.
Kay also quoted Pastor Bernard
Howard: “It seems to me Martin Luther is a man we should honor but not
celebrate…. Luther is both hero and anti-hero, both liberator and oppressor.” Pastor
Howard said that we should “honor” Martin Luther for all of his contributions,
but not lift that honor to the level of celebration.
I’ve been thinking about
that. What does it mean to honor a person? Knowing artin Lunter’s
anti-Semitism, do I honor Martin Luther?
Martin Luther was a
complicated man. Like most of us, he was created “half to rise and half tofall.” Can I honor the man, knowing both his great gifts and his great failings?
The question goes so far
beyond Martin Luther. It’s again evidence of the partial histories our schools
and church’s tell, hiding the darkness of those whom the powers would have as
our heroes. Learning about Martin Luther reminds me of learning about
Christopher Columbus’s destructiveness and about the Japanese internment in the U.S. during World War II. I didn’t learn about the darker side of these stories in school, perhaps
because they undermine a myth of goodness and power that undergirds the
American myth of virtue, and perhaps my church didn’t teach me about Martin
Luther’s anti-Semitism for the same reason. This gives me pause.
Like humans, perhaps our
institutions are created half to rise and half to fall. Our nation, our
schools, and our churches, are a complicated mix of good and bad.
Thinking about this history
and Howard’s comments, I wonder who I honor and what that means. I’m not sure I
know what Howard means by “honor,” but I don’t honor the man, Martin Luther; I
do honor some of his deeds.
As I think about this, I
remember my niece Isabella, a debater in high school, who told me that she
liked to argue the harder side of a debate but that she would never argue
against immigrants or gay people. Because I know everyone has a dark side, I
want to think about what, for me, is outside the bounds of honor.
Anti-Semitism is. So is
racism. And so is macho-ism. Interestingly, I don’t think homophobia is for me.
Maybe that’s because I grew up with it and with so many people I loved who were
homophobic.
I’ll have to think some more about this. I'd love for you to help me.
