Cultural Indulgences
“You should know that all who confess and in penance put alms into the coffer according to the counsel of the confessor, will obtain complete remission of all their sins” - Johann Tetzel
I hope you read that quote and felt a lurch in your souls. If you did it’s a good sign. Johann Tetzel was a German Dominican Friar who preached indulgences. Now, indulgences are for many of us a foreign concept. Simply put in the late Middle Ages when Tetzel was traveling around the German countryside you could buy forgiveness. Feeling particularly guilty? Throw some coin in Tetzel’s coffer and he’d give you a write of remission with Papal(Pope’s) authority. The belief was that you’d truly be forgiven for the exchange of coins. Not only could you purchase remission for yourself, but also for family members as well. You can see the appeal. It’s easy to understand and salvation is a few coins away. The issue is that it’s not Biblical and it often preyed upon the vulnerable. What’s a loaf of bread when you’re in agony in purgatory or hell? Why did the church do this? Well to raise money, a large portion of the funding for St. Peter’s Basilica came from this dubious and abusive practice.
The danger for protestant churches isn’t that we start affirming your salvation for a few Washingtons. No, our potential system isn’t so ruthlessly blunt. Rather the danger for us is in belonging to a church. Unfortunately, in many churches there is an unspoken reality to belonging. It could simply be true that it’s unspoken because it’s unintentional or that decisions that have been made with good intentions have unforeseen consequences. The danger we face as a protestant church is that we can make it seem like if you look right, vote right, earn right, and serve right then you can have community and grace within our walls. I know that sounds extreme. But when I first arrived at SRBC many of you came up to me with concerns about this very thing. Now you didn’t use the historical framework I have. Nevertheless, the concern was real.
“________ smells like smoke and I’ve seen people avoid them.”
“I’m glad you said that. It’s hard not being a (political party) here.”
“That small group has all of the best people in it.”
“We have a clique problem.”
“Everyone basically has assigned seats.”
“There is a lot of sin covered by looking right.”
“I don’t feel like ______ listens to me because of who I am.”
I have had those things said to me over the years. You can disregard them if you’d like, but those are real sentiments I’ve heard from others. That all sounds bad, and it is, but I’ve seen our church improve. Some cliques have dissolved. More people attend our church now that smoke than before. We have more small groups now than ever before. Changing service times as much as we have has forced many of you to sit next to many different congregants. People who thought that they wouldn’t be accepted after a messy situation have stayed and found a graceful community.
After Covid and a generally dramatic 2020. The leadership made subtle shifts to disciple towards hospitality. I happen to think that for the most part it’s been successful. The challenge is simply this, we’re people. And people are sinners. And sinners trend towards sinful thoughts, patterns and behaviors. In 2025 if we’re going to welcome the widow, orphan, loner, loser, smoker, addict, formerly incarcerated, divorced, poor, outcast, downtrodden, mentally challenged, and sinner into our church we have to resist the cultural indulgences that bar entry into Christ’s beautiful community.