Why am I Lutheran? A Question at #Reformation500

Im a Lutheran because, from a Lutheran perspective, this question is the least important to ask. Im not alone in thinking that.

Im a Lutheran because Lutherans think instead that we might run headfirst with love into our lives asking inquisitively: What does this mean? We might run into the world saying to those we meet, You are loved. How can I help?

Im a Lutheran because I believe that grace, that empowering love, is what really keeps us going, what renews the world from moment to moment. I believe that love seeks us out in one another and seduces us not into other-worldly escapism but instead into loving the world more deeply, calling us to seek care and justice for our lives, our societies, and for those different or rendered more vulnerable than us. We are loved and called out to reach out. I believe that human beings are messy creatures, but thats precisely what God loves about us.

Im a Lutheran because love frees us to be who we are, to love ourselves when we are in doubt, and frees us to love others, despite the discrimination and challenges in the world. Hatred or self-doubt or history or sadness or dehumanizing words or histories do not ultimately define us. Success or money or body type or political office or social skills or relationship status do not determine ultimately who we are or our worth or value as human beings. Love meets us where we are and calls us to be our messy, beautiful, changing, odd selves to the fullest we can from moment to moment.

Im Lutheran because I believe God despises abuse of power, theology, narcissistic rule, or distortion of facts for self-gain. We, instead, are made up of old and young, the living and the dead, contemplatives, environmentalists, feminists, queers, those striving for racial justice around the globe. We think and look differently, come at problems differently and like to talk about them. Divinity gives us courage to seek justice for and with each other, for those in need, and for the earth.

Im Lutheran because I believe that you dont have to be a Christian to be good or moral. Nobody is holier than anyone else. Everyone is capable of doing terrible violence and everyone is capable of the most powerful of love.

Im Lutheran because Lutherans dont believe in reading the Bible literally or in fundamentalismthe Bible is a manger that bears what matters to us and points us towards love. Im Lutheran because we believe that our other religious and nonreligious neighbors matter, enrich the world, and have so much to teach us. Im Lutheran because we try to tell better stories of whats ultimately worthwhile. Im Lutheran because we believe our stories and our actions should stand against violence, stand with refugees, and work with communities affected by disaster to get back on their way.

Im Lutheran because I believe that love meets in our daily life and work and that love is mysterious, even when we call that love Christ. Im Lutheran because we live in the midst of ambiguous, complex lives and moral decisions are rarely clear-cut. Bad things happen to good people. Lutherans arent willing to reduce the contradictions and complexities of life for easy answers.

Im Lutheran because we celebrate the arts alongside the best of the sciences. Im Lutheran because we believe that reason and emotion and learning and creating matters. Im Lutheran because we believe that people can abuse reason and emotion and get the facts wrong and that we need to witness and tell critical truth in those places instead.

Im Lutheran because we believe that our bodies and the pleasures possible in them are good. Im Lutheran because I still cry at baptisms and believe the world is better when strangers get together and sing and share a meal and do the ordinary things of love.

Im a Lutheran because I think Divinity meets us in unexpected placesusually outside of church wallsthat we might find God, as Luther said, in earth, in fire, in water. That loving, caring, and seeking justice for strangers matters, and that Gods love can surprise us anywhere. Im Lutheran because God constantly surprises us into remembering that that diversity and creativity are the richest gifts of our lives and that we should awe in those gifts in others.

Im Lutheran because we see the world through the crossour attention is drawn towards suffering and unjust places in the world. The broken or jagged edges of society are precisely where we are called to speak truth to power, to work for justice, to lament when people act like nothing is wrong. Im a Lutheran because Lutherans are self-critical, trying to flesh out our calling in the world, repenting of things we get wrong.

Im Lutheran because we are vulnerable and make big and small mistakes, over and over again. Im Lutheran because loving other people is hard and society doesnt make it easy. Luther wrote some terrible things, and the Lutheran church has made deeply awful mistakes. But Im Lutheran because we believe that our vulnerability needs just forms of community to celebrate and mourn and work for justice together. Im Lutheran because many of us believe that its far past time to confront and transform Lutheran complicity in white privilege, antisemitism , and violence against women and queers (this queer included). Sometimes our relationships break. Sometimes we have to ask forgiveness and commit to the justice and care of each other in that vulnerability.

Im Lutheran because love empowers us to try againwe call that reformation. We are open to creative transformation. We sin boldly in the ambiguity and mystery of our lives, and believe even stronger that love matters.

But mostly this: Im Lutheran because Im not defined by my Lutheranism. Because I can write those fragile words above, aspiring or called, in the midst of complicated histories, to what we can be.

Ultimately just love, grace, is what matters.