A sermon by Rev. Heather Schoenewolf
October 25, 2026 | Reformation Sunday
Scripture readings: 1 Thessalonians 2:1–8 and Matthew 22:34–39
We all have routines that bring comfort to our days—a morning cup of coffee, a familiar bedtime ritual, or a favorite way to begin the week. They help us navigate a world full of uncertainty. But what happens when faith calls us to change?
In “To God Be the Glory,” Rev. Heather Schoenewolf reflects on the Reformation and the Presbyterian conviction that we are “reformed and always being reformed.” She invites us to consider how God’s love changes our hearts and how we live.
Love That Changes Us
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s a teaching that Heather describes as both simple and complex.
She recalls a youth group gathering where she felt God’s love in a way that left her wanting to be kinder to her sisters. The feeling transformed her outlook—for three days. Her story offers a reminder that change is rarely a one-time event: we return to old habits, and God continues to call us toward love.
“Faith is not a performance. Faith rather is a change of heart that leads to a change in how we live.”
Love in Everyday Life
What might that love look like? It could mean listening to someone whose perspective differs from ours, sharing what we have, apologizing when we’ve caused harm, or cheering for a struggling pitcher on the other team.
These ordinary moments give us opportunities to live out our faith. As Heather reminds us, we love because God in Christ first loved us—and in that love, we can continually be made new.
“Love is not simply a sentiment, but that which is to be enfleshed, lived, enacted, embodied.”
Read the Sermon
Gracious and loving God, as we draw near to your word, we pray that you will draw near to us, that we will hear and heed your call to love, and that we might remember that this is only possible because of your love outpoured for us in Jesus.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation on all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
As human beings, we like our routines, don’t we? Even those of us who enjoy a more flexible or adventurous spirit to our day-to-day still like to punctuate our days with the predictable structures that bring us comfort and ease.
We have our morning routines. I like to play Wordle as I sip my coffee every morning. We have our bedtime routines, our laundry routines, our routines for washing our face or doing our exercises or even for prayer.
We like to have our routines because, in case you haven’t noticed, life dishes out more than its fair share of the unknown. And these little routines help anchor us. They help us get stuff done. They give us systems to help us navigate all that falls outside of our control as we face the changes that mix things up.
Even when they’re unexpected, change can be hard. Even when change is exciting, even when change is necessary.
Now today we celebrate Reformation Sunday, and in doing so we remember that 509 years ago on October 31st, Martin Luther called the church to change.
Luther insisted that the church—and that’s the big-C church, not a local congregation—the big-C church was getting it wrong when they started to turn forgiveness into a fundraiser through the sale of indulgences. Forgiveness could not be bought or sold. It couldn’t even be earned. Luther taught it was a free gift from a gracious God. And humanity’s salvation from the tight grip of sin’s hold was won through Christ alone, by grace through faith. End of sentence.
Now, there were other concerns that Luther had, and we’ve heard of 95 of them that he nailed to the door of the chapel in Wittenberg. And he called the church for change, and change ensued—though frankly, not the kind of change Luther expected.
Luther’s hope was actually that the Catholic Church would change from within, stop the sale of indulgences, and cling to these practices that were grounded in the grace of God in Christ.
Now, change did come. Indulgences were not sold any longer, but also change did come through what we have come to know as the Protestant Reformation—a big change in the capital-C church.
Luther’s act sparked this Reformation, creating a religious family tree for the church universal that was grounded in the fundamental practice of change. We say it ourselves when we remind one another that we are reformed and always being reformed. Change is a part of our DNA.
A reminder not just from Luther, but a reminder even that goes back to Jesus, reminding us that as people we need to change. We need to change to be faithful, even if we resist it kicking and screaming, because as people we mess up. We get stuck in habits and traditions and ideologies.
We might think we’re even doing what’s right, but then find, with that hindsight that gives us a 20/20 perspective, that we were just holding on to something we knew, clinging to something that was fixed and narrow and maybe even distorted in its original purpose. We stick with idols of our own making and make excuses for why we’ve grown distracted from the work of the Spirit of God—a Spirit that is present in the world making us and all things new.
Now, we overheard Jesus having a conversation with religious leaders this morning. And as Mark said earlier, if we situate this little snippet of conversation within its larger context, we see that Jesus has been having a long series of debates with the religious leaders of the day. They are bringing their questions to Jesus, but it’s clear that they are not just trying to learn. And maybe, in fact, they’re not trying to learn at all. They are trying to trip up Jesus.
They are threatened by the change that Jesus is bringing into the world. They are uncomfortable with his teachings on mercy, with the way he welcomes the outsider, with the way in which he touches those who are seen as unclean. They are threatened by Jesus’ refusal to endorse the status quo and do things the way they’ve always been done before.
These leaders are attached to the systems that have served them for generations. Not only are they known and comfortable, but they maintain a religious and social order that everyone has grown accustomed to, whether they benefit from it or not.
But Jesus keeps stirring the pot. Jesus keeps pointing out the truths of the gospel that invite a practice of change. For he reminds those who gather—religious leaders and the ordinary folks who follow him—that the law loses its meaning if it does not first uphold the law of love.
Jesus points out how traditions have no purpose if those traditions simply bring harm in their wake. What’s more, even the worship of God is distorted if it focuses more on upholding social and religious status of people and less on giving glory to God alone.
See, Jesus points out that faith is not a performance. Faith rather is a change of heart that leads to a change in how we live.
Faith is lived through a love of God and a love of neighbor and a love of self that goes well beyond religiosity, but puts into action the truth that we have all been changed by God’s love for us in Jesus.
See, this is at the heart of our gospel today and at the heart of our faith. The central teaching of Jesus is love: God’s great love for us and our call to love God and love our neighbor as ourself. It is that simple and that complex.
Today on this Reformation Sunday, we remember that the heart of the gospel that we proclaim is the gracious gift of love that God has given to us in Jesus. And that as followers of Jesus, we witness for ourselves that love is not simply a sentiment, but that which is to be enfleshed, lived, enacted, embodied.
And Jesus reminds us, as Luther did centuries later, that authentic faith is not about spouting off doctrine or maintaining the structures we’ve created to enshrine God. Rather, in our faith, love is not relegated to one place or time, but God’s love changes us, and we are to live as those who have been changed in every aspect of our lives.
Now, I think I’ve told you this story before of how, as a teenager, I gathered on the living room floor of Arty Gilks’s house for youth group, and the gospel was proclaimed by a youth group leader at an Episcopal church down the road. And I have no idea what he said. I do not know the text from the Bible that he read, and I do not know the story that he told.
I do remember being smooshed on the floor, sitting with a bunch of other teenagers. And I remember that I left that living room changed.
Now, change for me as a 16-year-old looked like wanting to be kind to my sisters unequivocally, no matter what. And I was freed from big sisterly irritation and competition for three days.
But to this day, I remember what change felt like when I felt the love of God in Christ penetrate my heart and how that love called me to want to love differently.
We are all not far from our own 16-year-old selves and from the reality that we change and then we go back to the way we were, and we need to change again.
But Martin Luther and, what’s more, Jesus remind us of a God whose love is with us through it all, calling to us, forgiving us, and sending us forth in love so that we might continually be made new.
See, this is how we bring glory to God: to live out this call to love in everything we do at every time of our lives. Whether we are gathered with friends on a living room floor hearing the gospel of Christ and being changed, or fighting over who sits in the front seat of the car with our siblings, God calls us to love and acknowledges that our own capacity to love is because God in Christ first loved us.
So, what does this look like?
Perhaps living this love calls us to slow down in a conversation and listen to another person’s perspective, even when we cannot wait to prove to them that we are right.
Maybe it looks like cheering for the tired Little League pitcher who’s having a rough inning on the mound, even when he’s pitching for the other team.
Maybe it means noticing all that you have been given and considering how you might share what you have with those who are lacking, remembering the needs of those all around us, even when we can’t see them.
Maybe it means apologizing for doing something wrong, even if your wrongdoing came from your very best intentions.
Maybe it means acknowledging when wrongdoing is really informed by generations of influence that have shaped biases that have calcified in our hearts.
Maybe it means noticing the beauty in the world and trying to care for it, whether that beauty comes in the smile of a child or a sunset or the trees that are changing color along the highway.
All of this work is not done only in ordered, joyful worship, but in each moment of our lives. For we are called to bring glory to God, whether we are in line at the grocery store, mowing our lawn, or putting a meal on the table.
Our call as Christians on this Reformation Sunday, and indeed in the everyday living of our lives, is to live out our love to God and to our neighbor as ourselves, that this love might not only inform and infuse our hearts and our minds, but our actions and our choices, so that we are engaging the world in which God has placed us always through the lens of our faith because we have been changed.
We have been changed not by any act of our own merit, but by the gracious, merciful love of God poured out for us in Christ Jesus.
Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of our service, I am honored to wear a tartan stole made by Marty over the past months. This fabric came from Scotland—from, I’m gonna say it wrong, but from Ayrshire, which is the region of Scotland that my mother and her cousin traced our family’s lineage.
Now, I won’t lie, it came as quite a shock to my Irish Catholic family that we had origins that dated back to Scotland, and to learn that I was not the first Presbyterian pastor in our family.
But today at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon, as we celebrate our Reformed history, we honor that we are part of a family tree with roots that precede the birth of Presbyterianism, with roots that date back to before Luther posted his 95 theses. These roots are deep and wide and a part of a long tradition of generations who are longing to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ.
And so let us give thanks and praise and glory to God, who in Jesus tells it to us plain. The roots of Presbyterianism and Lutheranism and Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, they’re all simple: Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is our call.
To God be the glory. Amen.
