Reformation of the Heart
By Bryan Stites — Reformation Sunday Reflection
Lectionary Readings for October 26, 2025 (RCL Year C):
Jeremiah 14:7–10, 19–22 | Psalm 84:1–7 | 2 Timothy 4:6–8, 16–18 | Luke 18:9–14
Each year, Reformation Sunday invites us to remember that the reformation of the Church did not begin with a hammer or a door but with a heart awakened by grace. The Spirit that moved through Martin Luther and the reformers still moves through us, calling us away from self-assurance and back toward surrender. The question is not whether the Church will reform, but whether our hearts will.
The Golden Calf of Our Time
When Moses ascended the mountain to meet with God, the people below grew restless. They gathered their gold, melted it down, and shaped it into a calf. And when it gleamed before them, they said, “Here is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.”
It’s easy to laugh at their foolishness — until we recognize ourselves in their story. Every generation builds its own golden calves. Ours shine through the glow of our success, comfort, and control. These idols look nothing like ancient statues; they are the invisible altars of self, the subtle ways we make worship about what we bring rather than what God gives.
Perhaps the most dangerous idol of all is the one built in the sanctuary itself — when religion becomes a reflection of our pride instead of an act of humility before the Lord.
When Mercy Stops at the Gate
This week, I was grieved to read of priests and pastors who tried to bring Holy Communion to people held in an ICE detention center. They were turned away. The bread and the cup never made it past the fence.
When mercy is stopped at the gate, it is not God who has changed — it is us. The table of Christ was never ours to guard. It was never meant to be a reward for the righteous or the free. It is a gift for the undeserving. When we decide who is worthy to receive grace, we turn grace into currency.
That is what pride does. It convinces us that holiness looks like control, that purity is found in separation, that God’s love must be managed and approved. But the Reformation began with the cry that grace cannot be bought or sold. It continues every time we remember that mercy cannot be fenced in.
Jeremiah 14 — A Drought of the Soul
The prophet Jeremiah describes a land cracked with drought:
“The nobles send their servants for water, but find none;
the ground is parched. Even the deer abandon their young.”
The people had not stopped praying or offering sacrifices, yet God says:
“Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry;
though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them…
They greatly love to wander.”
Their lips remembered God, but their hearts were far away.
In the midst of this dryness, Jeremiah prays the truth out loud:
“Although our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for Your name’s sake.
For we have often rebelled; we have sinned against You.”
Jeremiah does not bargain or defend; he confesses. He names the distance between God and the people and still dares to hope that mercy will be greater than their failure.
We have much to learn from that prayer. We live in a time of spiritual drought — busy for God but rarely still before Him. Our prayers flow easily, but repentance does not. Our iniquities testify against us, yet our hope remains the same: that God will act, not because we are righteous, but for His name’s sake.
Psalm 84 — Longing for the Living God
Psalm 84 answers Jeremiah’s lament with longing:
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts.
My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord.”
This is not the language of obligation but of desire. The psalmist reminds us that even the sparrow finds a home near God’s altar. Those who dwell in God’s presence “go from strength to strength.”
Get Bryankstites’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Reformation begins here — not with declarations of doctrine, but with hearts that whisper, “More of You and less of me, God.”
2 Timothy 4 — Faithful Until the End
Paul writes from a cold prison cell, aware that his death is near:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
He adds, almost quietly,
“At my first defense, no one came to my support; everyone deserted me. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.”
Even the faithful failed him. They loved the Gospel, but not the cost of his chains. And in this, Paul mirrors the Church in every age — believing in Christ, yet hesitant to bear the burden of compassion when it requires courage.
Paul warns of a time when people will not endure sound teaching but will seek voices that make them comfortable. That time is now. We hear gospels of ease, spirituality without surrender, faith without repentance. But the Gospel that sustained Paul was costly grace: chains and courage, weakness and perseverance.
Jesus once said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
The Greek word for “meek” is praus (pronounced prah-oos). It evokes the image of a trained war horse — strong, disciplined, unwavering — charging into battle yet completely surrendered to its rider.
That is the kind of meekness Paul lived: power held in obedience, courage ruled by trust. True discipleship isn’t comfortable; it’s faithful, steady, honest, and meek — strength under the Spirit’s control, enduring when the world would rather turn away.
Luke 18 — The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story about two men who go to the temple to pray. One thanks God that he is not like other people. The other beats his chest and says, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Jesus says the second man — the sinner — goes home justified.
That’s the reformation of the heart: when pride breaks open and grace pours in, when worship stops being performance and becomes surrender.
The Enemy’s Whisper
In the spirit of “spooky season,” I found myself revisiting C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. In chapter 2, Screwtape advises his apprentice devil on how to corrupt a new Christian:
“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself…
Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the Body of Christ’
and the actual faces in the next pew… Never let him ask what he expected them to look like.”
Lewis captures the quiet temptation inside every church — the shift from adoration of God to admiration of ourselves.
It is exactly what Jesus exposes in the Pharisee’s prayer. Pride turns worship into a mirror. It makes self the idol standing before God’s throne.
The enemy’s whisper is subtle: “You’re right. You’re good. You’re better.”
It doesn’t sound evil — it sounds reasonable. But it pulls our gaze away from mercy and fixes it on the self. The oldest idol in the world still waits, even in the sanctuary, to take the place that belongs to God alone.
Peter Kreeft — The Sin of Non-Repentance
Philosopher Peter Kreeft writes that the only sin God cannot forgive is the one we refuse to repent of — not because God’s mercy has limits, but because our pride does.
God will not force grace into a heart that will not open. He will not pour living water into a cup already full. That is why reformation is not about perfection but repentance — the prayer of the tax collector, the tear on Jeremiah’s cheek, the perseverance of Paul, the humility that says, “Lord, I am not worthy, but speak, and I shall be healed.”
The Reformation That Still Burns
We wear red on Reformation Sunday not to remember destruction, but to remember fire — the fire of the Spirit that still reforms the Church today. Reformation is not an anniversary; it’s an altar call. It is the daily work of surrender: the tearing down of idols, the breaking open of pride, the rediscovery of mercy.
Every time we choose grace over judgment, truth over comfort, humility over glory, the Reformation continues.
A Call to Return
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one.” The slow drift of hearts that stop listening. The quiet comfort of people who no longer believe they need mercy.
But God still speaks: “Return to Me.”
So let us breathe again. Let us let go of our need to be right, our need to control, our fear of imperfection. And may we echo Jeremiah’s ancient prayer:
“Although our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for Your name’s sake.”
Because reformation begins not with the righteousness of people, but with the mercy of God.
