Religion: A Pastor Ponders

Not for sale

By Pastor William Jenkins

October 26, 2006

October 29 is Reformation Sunday. It is the Sunday closest to October 31, when on All Hallows Eve, 1517, Martin Luther posted 95 discussion questions on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and ignited the Protestant Reformation. We have difficulty relating to the significance of that simple action.

Because of it, Luther was summoned to appear before the Imperial Diet of Worms (pronounced “Vorms”) to answer charges of heresy. His friends cautioned him against going, but Luther was determined. They reminded him how once before the emperor had delivered another would-be reformer to the stake. Luther answered, “I would go to Worms if there were as many devils at Worms as there are tiles upon the housetops.”

At Worms, he stood before the highest authorities of his day. When ordered to recant all that he had been teaching, writing and preaching, Martin Luther uttered that splendid yet simple declaration: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.”

During the Second World War in Luther’s Germany, the pastor of an influential church in Berlin was ordered to pledge loyalty to Nazism. The Nazis were anxious to gain this prized personality and use him for propaganda purposes.

The pastor steadfastly refused to sell out to their demands. On June 27, 1937, the infamous Gestapo was sent into his Sunday morning service. He knew they were there and why. With every temporal advantage to lose and none to gain, Martin Niemuller stood in his pulpit that Sunday and served notice that he was not for sale.

In his sermon he said, “I will just say that we have no more thought of using our power to escape the arm of the authorities than had the apostles of old (Acts 5). But we are no more ready than they were to keep silent at the command of men when God commands us to speak. For it is and must remain the case that we must obey God rather than men.”

Concerned parishioners ushered Niemuller out of his pulpit after his sermon. He was arrested on July 1 and sent to the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen and Dachau where he was imprisoned for eight long years.

Something to ponder: In these days of compromise for convenience, where are the bold spirits who for truth, honor and common decency are not for sale?

League City United Methodist Church is located at 1411 Main Street (FM 518), one block east of Interstate 45. For information, call the church offices at 281-332-1557 or visit the website at

HYPERLINK - http://www.lcumc.org