Quick Summary:

This final sermon in a four part series based on themes from the Lutheran World Federation Global Assembly 2017 affirms that as followers of Christ, our calling is not to promote an understanding of salvation that narrows the definition to purely spiritual concerns, but rather to lift up all the ways in which salvation as free gift brings freedom to all the spheres of our lives.

Salvation is a word for the "divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God’s name." (Barbara Brown Taylor) We see this divine spaciousness reflected in Jesus’ life.

The invitation for us at this 500th anniversary mark, is not only to ask what images animated Brother Martin and other 16th century Reformers, but what images and metaphors can animate us and the church of this day, carrying the momentum forward so that the church does not become a museum relic of the past.