Invocavit sermons
The invocavit sermons are eight sermons that Martin Luther gave in Wittenberg from March 9 to 16, 1522, beginning with the Sunday Invokavit (the first Sunday of the Passion ) and thus ending the Wittenberg movement .
Through his sermons, Luther achieved that the Reformation in Wittenberg took an orderly course again.
The starting point
While Martin Luther was hidden in the Wartburg as Junker Jörg , the Reformation movement in Wittenberg radicalized under the leadership of Andreas Karlstadt to the point of iconoclasm .
Luther at the Wartburg
On May 26, 1521, Luther was "put" into the imperial ban, which means that no one was allowed to support him anymore, and that his killing was possible at any time, if not even desired. Elector Friedrich the Wise had Luther brought to the Wartburg in order to remove him from access. He stayed at the Wartburg until March 1, 1522 under the code name Junker Jörg, where he translated the New Testament .
The events in Wittenberg
Due to the absence of Luther - who was always an integrating figure in the various Reformation movements in Germany - the Reformation in Wittenberg overheated. Andreas Karlstadt celebrated Mass without a chasuble, in German, and the Lord's Supper in both forms, with bread and wine for the “lay people”, and he also removed all pictures from the church.
What seems like a normal evangelical church service today was completely overwhelming for many Wittenbergers, as they had the feeling that without a "proper" mass, the familiar devotional images, a properly dressed pastor would be at the mercy of the devil. Accordingly, there were not only unrest in the city, but also tumults in the service itself. This situation caused Luther to leave the Wartburg against the resistance of Elector Friedrich in order to calm the situation in Wittenberg.
The sermons
The sermons were delivered from March 9 to 16, 1522, during the invocavit week and reminiscences on Sunday .
The first sermon - on Sunday Invokavit 1522
- Introduction: At the end of his life, every person is responsible for having learned the faith correctly; therefore he now wants to clarify some principles.
- We are children of anger, so we must not be proud of our own decisions and actions, let alone expect a reward from God.
- Faith in the Son of God alone saves from damnation.
- "We must also have faith and do one another through love, as God did for us through faith ... God does not want listeners or parrots of the Word (of God), but followers and practitioners."
- What does 4) mean now? With the apostle Paul "everything is allowed, but therefore not everything is beneficial".
- The main part of the argument: While it is in accordance with God's Word to abolish the (Latin) Mass, does it make sense to do so in such a hurry? Because:
- a) Do not all people need a childhood in which they are lovingly raised by their mother with soft food? Does a mother ask her children to grow up immediately? The Wittenbergers are still "children in faith and weak in faith"; To withdraw the familiar from them would be “loveless” and therefore unchristian and also pointless.
- b) Couldn't Luther have done all of this himself long ago? Couldn't he have abolished the Latin mass long ago, etc.? He was already there long ago - but what would those who have only just come to this realization say then? Wouldn't they have been just as overwhelmed? And then wouldn't he have been completely alone? So what is this rash (and thoughtless) action supposed to help the cause (of the Reformation)?
Enough of the mass, tomorrow it will be about the pictures (which in reality are only dealt with in the third sermon).
The second sermon - on the Monday after Sunday Invokavit 1522
Contrary to the announcement, it's not about the pictures.
- Only half as long as the Sunday sermon, Luther first repeats from the previous 4) and then deals with the futility of a “forced faith”.
- “I can't get any further than people's ears; I can't get into her heart. And because I cannot pour faith into their hearts, I can and must never force or press them, because God does it alone and 'makes' him live in the heart (of people). "
- In addition, Luther settles accounts with all fanatics, whether on the Protestant or papal side.
The third sermon - on the Tuesday after the Sunday Invokavit 1522
- We heard (in the first sermons) of "the things that must be ... Now follow the things that ... have been left free by God and which one may or may not keep."
- So z. B. celibacy, because a monk or a nun who cannot celibate should take a spouse.
- The decisive factor, however, is that “at the Last Judgment nobody is allowed to say: someone said something, everyone did it, and I just ran after the crowd! Every decision must be justified from the Scriptures. "
- Therefore I say again: What God has not regulated must remain free, and it is an injustice to regulate what God has not regulated.
- Now to the pictures: The pictures are unnecessary, but God has left the decision to the people, except for one point: "Pictures must not be worshiped!"
- How can one say that God has left the decision about the images up to people when it says in the second commandment: "You should not create an image"? There is also an interpretation that it only means that one should not worship it, for Moses also created the bronze serpent , and it was preserved for centuries and only destroyed when people began to worship it. So Paul did not destroy the images of the pagan gods in Athens , but used them as a starting point for his sermon to the Athenians.
Impact history
- The particular importance of the invocavit sermons lies in the direction Luther gave to the Reformation in Germany: “Peaceful Reformation, not violent revolution”.
- In the Lutheran churches, the invocavit sermons provide the basic scheme for conflict resolution: "Convince through the power of God's word, not through the use of force!"
- In the end, Luther's argument against Karlstadt remains controversial: Although he was actually right with his reforms, he carried them out too quickly without considering “the weak” in the community. The historical impact shows that practically every reform in the Lutheran churches can be postponed indefinitely with precisely this argument.
Edition
- Eight sermons by D. Martin Luther, preached by him in Lent 9-16. March 1522. Edition and introduction by Gerhard Krause . In: Karin Bornkamm and Gerhard Ebeling (eds.): Martin Luther. Selected Writings. Volume I. 2nd edition, Insel Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1983, pp. 271-307.
Web links
- Luther's Invocavit sermons in the archive of the Göttingen Sermons on the Internet :
- Sermon series for Martin Luther's Invokavit sermons: Passionszeit in 2004. In: Göttinger Sermons on the Internet .
- 9.3.1522 Luther's invocavit sermons in Wittenberg. In: Luther calendar. Archived from the original on September 12, 2007 .