Reformation Sunday/30th Sunday in Ordinary Time/October 25, 2009

Character:  The Rev. John Wesley, English Reformer

 

John Wesley comes from 18th century England.  He is dressed in black trousers, white shirt, black vest, long black coat (which he removes for a black clergy robe), and black riding boots.  He has shoulder length white hair (in his elder years) and is clean shaven (or close to it).

 

(Wesley enters from the rear of the sanctuary - would be best if he could have arrived on a horse - shouting . . . )

 

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

Good day!  A cheery morning to all of you.  Oh it is good to once again be back among the living!  But what a long walk!  What I would have given to have a horse to ride!

 

(Go up into pulpit)  It is an honour and extreme pleasure  for me to be with you here to commemorate the Reformation of the Church.  And it would do us well to begin with a prayer together.

 

O grant that nothing in my soul

May dwell, but thy pure love alone!

O may thy love possess me whole,

My joy, my treasure, and my crown!

Strange fires far from my heart remove;

My every act, word, thought, be love!  Amen.

 

So, let me begin at the beginning.  I am the Reverend John Wesley, Priest in the Anglican Church, that is, the established Church of England.  I was born in 1703.  To put myself into an historical context:  The Protestant Reformation began in 1577 with Martin Luther hanging his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenburg Cathedral.  John Calvin, one of your church’s most prominent founders and the great Reformer of Geneva, was born in 1509.  William Shakespear, the “Bard of Avon” was born in 1564, the one who’s words I just quoted from his play Richard III..  And George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” premiered in Dublin in 1742.  And I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of it in Bristol.  It exceeded my expectations.  Quite impressive!

 

So, in regards to the Reformation, I was on the end of it.  Although the Church is never without need of reform.  We must always be about making the church relevant for our day and time.

 

My life began in Epworth, in Lincolnshire, England.  I was born the 15th child (of 19) of Susanna and Samuel Wesley.  My father was a rector or priest of the Anglican Church.

 

At age 5 I had a very traumatic experience.  Our house caught on fire and I was rescued from the second story by members of my father’s congregation.  From that point on, my mother always believed that I was destined for something special and I too saw myself as providentially set apart, as a “brand plucked from the burning!”  

 

I was educated at home, like all my brothers and sisters, and then, at age 11, I was sent to school in London.  I was a good student and quite religious as a boy.  But I was ill treated by some of my classmates.  Even once, they tore my underpants from me and forced me to eat them.  It was a totally humiliating experience and I thought that if mere children could be so cruel, could not also God do worse?   I was fearful of a vengeful God and I had lost much of my enthusiasm.

 

I attended Christ’s College at Oxford, and joined a society, started by my brother Charles.  We took vows to lead holy lives.  We took communion once a week, prayed daily, and visited the prisons regularly, shared our funds with the poor.  And we spent 3 hours every afternoon, studying the Bible.  Others at the college mocked us.  They gave us many names.  We were called the “Sacramentarians”, “The Holy Club”, the “Godly Club”, “The Enthusiasts”, and “The Reforming Club”, “Supererogation-men” and eventually, “Methodists.”  Which is the name that stuck and which would be used later to refer to the church which I founded.

 

But let me be clear.  I  had no intention of founding a new church but always and in every possible way, sought to stay united with the established church of England.

 

While at Oxford, my brother Charles and I accepted an invitation to go to the mission fields in America.  We sailed to Georgia where I took a church in Savannah.  My experience there, however, was devastating and I left after only 3 years, my confidence and my faith, both badly shaken.

 

However, I had been greatly influenced on the voyage there, by a group of German Moravians who were also on their way to Georgia to preach to the American Indians.  During the trip, a storm blew up!  The wind and waves beat the ship and all on board, both passengers and crew, all feared for their lives.  All, except the Moravians.  They stayed huddled together, below deck, calm and untroubled, singing their hymns, all throughout the storm.  Later, when I asked them how they could remain so calm, they asked me, if I, John Wesley, had faith in Christ?  I said I did, but later knew that this was not really the truth.

 

You see, I believed I was doing God’s work.  I did all I thought I must in order to convince God of my worthiness.  I feared God and yet, the more I worked to please God, the more I felt unworthy.  I said to myself, “The good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do!”  I had no peace in my heart, no assurance of God’s love for me.

 

But all that changed, when in the evening on Wednesday, May 24, 1783, I attended a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation:  And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

 

I would soon be preaching on the doctrine of personal salvation by faith, and later on God’s grace, “free in all, and free for all!”  I had discovered that personal faith, that religion of the heart, that I had never had before.

 

I began to see how the church, the established Anglican Church in England, was not reaching out to the people.  It was not preaching a doctrine of salvation from sins.  The clergy were lazy and corrupt.   Furthermore, most people did not even go to church.  And the poor and working class had so little hope.  Poverty was everywhere and gin was much too easy to get.  There was a saying, “Drunk for a Penny, dead drunk for two!”  And such was the way of life for many people.  Drunkenness, idleness, hopelessness and depression afflicted so many.  There was a great need for the hearing of the gospel of Christ.  

But how to reach these poor souls who did not even attend religious services?

Enter George Whitefield, my old friend from Oxford.  He had also gone to America and upon his return to England, was excluded from preaching in the churches, just as I also was.  George began to preach to groups of miners in the open air.  He invited me to do the same, but I refused, believing it to be improper, that preaching was to be reserved for the church.

 

But I finally gave in and found that there was indeed a hunger among the populace to hear the word of God proclaimed.  I began to preach regularly wherever I could.  Soon groups in the thousands were gathering to listen to me preach.  I even took to preaching from my father’s tombstone at Epworth.  I went where the people were, in fields, in halls, in cottages and chapels.  I would say later, “the world is my parish.”

 

Soon I realized that more needed to be done to help the people.  We began to form “societies”, groups of people meeting in homes.  When the societies became too large, we began forming “classes” each with 11 members and 1 leader.  The classes met weekly to pray, read the Bible, discuss their spiritual lives and to collect money for charity.  Soon we did not have enough preachers for all the classes and so I developed “circuits” and the itinerant system.  I along with our other lay preachers would ride on horseback from one town to another, preaching sometimes 2 or 3 times a day.  As for myself, by the end of my life, I had ridden 250,000 miles, and preached more than 40,000 sermons.

 

My advice to the  people included this saying, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can , as long as ever you can.”

 

Some of my other important teachings included the themes of Justification by Faith, the doctrine of Christian Perfection, my stand against the concept of Calvinistic Predestination, where it was believed that God preordained, or elected, some for salvation and some for damnation.  I argued that God’s love and grace was universal, available to all, not just for a few select.  I also taught that all matters of faith should be determined first by looking at Scripture, that the Bible is the sole foundational source of theological and doctrinal development.  But then also by how it matches with the Tradition of the church.  Thirdly, our faith must be reflected in our own Experience. And Fourthly, faith cannot be divorced from Reason.  This has come to be known as the Wesleyan Quadralateral:  Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason.  And through all of it, with those who opposed me, I would always seek common ground by asking, “Though we may not think alike, may we not love alike?”

 

The movement caught on like wild fire and spread across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and eventually to America.  This is when we became known as “Methodists.”  Although I did not allow in England, the separation of the Methodists from the Anglican Church, it did finally occur after my death.  But in1784, I ordained and sent Thomas Coke as a superintendent, who began the Methodist Church in America.  

 

Lastly, the telling of my story would not be complete without mentioning my dear brother Charles.  He was right with me through it all and known mostly as the hymn writer.  In his lifetime, he wrote over 6,500 hymns, all of which I edited, organized and published into numerous hymn books.  By singing Charles’ hymns, the people learned and felt the gospel message and in their singing became united with one another in the Spirit of God.

 

So, in closing, I would like to sing what was perhaps his own favorite of all the songs he wrote.  The poem called “Wrestling Jacob.”  (Sing “Come O Thou Traveler Unknown”)