I have recently come across ‘The Great Courses.’ These are DVD’s on every conceivable subject, exhorted by educators who specialize in various topics.
The specific intent and direction of this particular historian’s discourse was to discuss ‘The World Was Never The Same Again,’ meaning events throughout history which immediately changed the direction of history: Lexington and Concord, Gettysburg, The Spanish Armada, etc.
One of his talks dealt with the 16th Century German theologian Martin Luther. I was roughly familiar with the man and his 99 Thesis nailed to the local church’s door. Those questions, or beliefs, were, in essence, a challenge to debate a papal legate who was soon to arrive in Saxony.
Fate sometimes knocks on some ordinary doors.
But the story began, as all stories and all lives do, in a far earlier time. Luther, the man who within his own lifetime [age 34] initiated The Protestant Reformation, was apparently born to a family of not immodest means. His father owned a business, resented his attorneys’ charges, and offered to pay Luther’s way to school if… he studied law; the idea being, to hire his son as the family’s legal counsel, and be tendered discounted fees.
Luther dutifully enrolled. Then two events occurred which propelled him into the social maelstrom. One evening walking home, a bolt of lightning struck nearby and, fearing a second strike – one perhaps a more accurate rendering of Heaven’s marksmanship – Luther called out to a saint, “If you let me live, I’ll join the church! [This plea-bargain evidently advanced in the event that God was using him for target practice.]
He lived.
He went home and told his dad: Dad, I’ve got bad news and worse news: Not going to be a lawyer; going to be a priest. His father, no doubt fretting over a decrease in net revenues because of lawyers’ fees was upset, but Martin was undeterred by parental disappointment. He changed majors, completed his religious studies and took a position at the University of Wittenburg in Saxony. He became a Doctor of Theology.
Then, the second shaping coincidence occurred. [Author’s note: I used to think of coincidences as the coming together of two unlikely, logically unrelated events. Now I consider them a ‘trip-wire’ designed to slow us down, and to reconsider those events which pend; a wake-up call, or Heaven clearing it’s throat to refocus our view, or shake from us our apathy.]
Well, this coincidence came in the form of an illness; not of Luther, but of a professor who was to teach a course: “Paul’s Letter to the Romans.”
Luther tried to demur, telling his superior his knowledge of the topic was insufficient to serve as instructor to the students. “Well, go learn about it!”
And in those simple words, the dean of the university set into motion a world-shaking event.
It is said Luther was a gifted linguist. [He translated The Holy Scripture into German.] In preparing himself for the upcoming seminar, he encompassed reading the Holy Bible in two languages: Greek, and The Vulgate.
As Luther pursued his learning, deeply influenced by the writer Erasmus, word circulated that a papal legate was to visit Saxony to conduct a ‘fund-raiser’ for the Catholic Church in Rome. The manner of subscription to this cause was to sell indulgences.
‘Indulgences’, I suppose, might best be described as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card. The was no sin, however heinous, which could not be expiated if a check written to the Roman Catholic Church, in a sufficient amount, was donated, and cashed. [Bounced checks ran counter to Apostolic intent.]
Luther heard about this, of course, and simultaneously noted in his process of study, that the word ‘Indulgence’ did not appear once in Holy Scripture. This apparent deficiency set him on another search for missing words in scripture. nowhere in the process of his studies could he find the words ‘Pope,’ ‘Nun,’ or ‘Monk,’ words, titles and positions all sanctioned by the Mother Church. Did Jesus levy taxes? Did Jesus prosecute martial war as some of the Popes did? Did Jesus sell forgiveness? What was going on here? All Luther asked his inquisitors was: Show it to me in the Bible, and I’ll change my tune.
No one could.
This set his mind in a tangle; and when the proper mind, at a propitious moment in history starts wondering, that rumbling you hear ain’t thunder; it’s a social earthquake.
Luther began to speak out, and the people of Germany, already doubting certain tenets of the Church, took readily to his preaching. But to circulate such ideas put Luther on a potentially fatal collision with Catholicism.
In our days, if I think 2+2 = 5, and you think the answer is four, civilized folks ‘agree to disagree.’ In Luther’s day, there was no such ecclesiastical tolerance of divergent belief. To be held heretic by the Church could well result in you smelling woodsmoke from the fire freshly lit beneath your feet.
Well, long story short: Luther lived out his years in freedom, always asking to be shown Scriptural rebuttal of his concerns, saying, “Here I stand for I can do no other.”
He married a nun [yeah, I know, no such thing exists in the Bible] but she evidently brewed a great beer; that talent alone justified turning a blind eye to certain confining orthodoxies.
It is said, courage, even that fueled by a vibrating faith, has its limits; yet I wonder if Luther was the exception. He warmed his hands, and his spirit, at the fires of Scripture as he perceived its secrets. We all admire courage, I think, not merely because an individual chose to go up against heavy odds, but oft-times of one’s willingness to accept the consequences of failure, in Martin Luther’s case, death.
– Lucky Garvin
Look for Lucky’s books locally and on-line: I Swear By Apollo; The Oath of Hippocrates; The Cotillian; A Journey Long Delayed; Campfire Tales; Sabonics; More Campfire Tales; Growing Up In Stephentown; Animal Archives; The Story Teller. SEE SABRINA’S WILDLIFE WEBSITE: FACEBOOK.COM/SWVA WILDLIFE
