To Reform Is to Remember

Grace and peace to you in this week of remembrance.

We did not gather this past Sunday, but I have found that even when the church is scattered, the Spirit is not idle. There are weeks when the work of worship happens in the heart rather than in the sanctuary. This was such a week. And in a strange way, that is fitting for the Sunday of the Reformers, because reform rarely begins in a temple. It begins in exile, in silence, in a longing that refuses to be quieted.

When we speak of reformers, we often imagine scholars and theologians. Men with books and pens, arguing their way toward truth. But real reform is more than correction. It is repentance made visible. It is the soul of the Church remembering who she is. Every generation must decide again whether to cling to comfort or to risk everything for the sake of faithfulness.

King Alfred the Great understood this. His reign was not remembered for conquest but for wisdom. He ruled a kingdom ravaged by war and plague, and yet he dreamed of a people shaped by knowledge and prayer. He translated holy writings into the language of the people, not to make them less sacred, but more accessible. He believed the Word of God belonged on every tongue, not just in the mouths of priests. His reformation began not in rebellion but in devotion.

The apostles Simon and Jude remind us that renewal also requires perseverance. They were not counted among the great preachers or writers of the early church, yet they carried the message of Christ to places no one else would go. They preached hope in regions torn by violence and disbelief. Their reform came through endurance, through remaining faithful when their work seemed fruitless. Reform is not always loud. Sometimes it is simply refusing to stop loving the world God has made.

Maryam of Qidun took another path. Hers was the reformation of the heart. She withdrew to a cave, not to escape the world but to pray it into healing. In her silence, the noise of empire could not reach her. The desert became her classroom, the wind her teacher, and the stillness her song. Her reform came through holiness that needed no audience.

Then there is John Wycliffe. He stood at the crossroads of change, where the hunger for truth met the fear of authority. He translated Scripture into English because he believed the Word of God should not be imprisoned in Latin. For this he was condemned, and yet his work could not be undone. His ashes were scattered in the river, but the current carried his vision across generations. Every Bible in the hands of ordinary believers carries a trace of his defiance and his faith.

And while these saints shaped the soul of the church, the land itself was remembering its own cycle of renewal. In the Celtic world, this week marks Samhain, the turning of the year. The light wanes, the harvest is gathered, and the thin veil between the living and the dead invites us to remember. For the Celts, this was not a time of fear but of trust. The dying of the year was holy, because death was never the end. The seeds buried in the dark would soon awaken again.

There is something profoundly Christian in that rhythm. The world dies and rises, just as Christ did. The earth rests and is renewed. Samhain teaches us that the work of God is not confined to light, and that endings can be sacred ground. We remember those who came before us, not as ghosts to be feared, but as companions in the great communion of saints. Their faith, their struggle, their longing still breathe in us.

So we hold these memories together. Alfred’s wisdom, Simon and Jude’s endurance, Maryam’s silence, Wycliffe’s courage, and the Celtic reverence for the cycles of death and renewal. Each of them points to the same truth. Reform is not a single event or a single generation’s task. It is the slow work of the Spirit, reclaiming what time and fear have eroded.

To reform is to remember. To remember is to return. And to return is to love the Church enough to tell her the truth.

We live in a time that prizes innovation but fears change. We rename, rebrand, restructure, but we rarely repent. Real reformation asks for humility, and humility is costly. It means admitting that we have not always reflected the grace we proclaim. It means rediscovering prayer before program, mercy before judgment, and simplicity before spectacle.

Every one of us is called to be a reformer in some small way. Parents reform the family by teaching their children to love without condition. Teachers reform the mind by awakening curiosity. Activists reform society by insisting that justice is not optional. Pastors and lay leaders reform the church by tending to the soul, not the system.

We are not called to restore the past. We are called to carry forward what was good and holy, and to let the rest fall away. That is how the Church stays alive.

As the veil of Samhain reminds us, the boundaries between what has been and what shall be are thin indeed. The saints who once walked this earth are not far from us. Their witness surrounds us like the air we breathe. The same Spirit that moved in them stirs within us still.

May we listen. May we learn. May we reform.

May we, like Alfred, seek wisdom over power.

Like Simon and Jude, preach hope in a weary world.

Like Maryam, find God in quiet places.

Like Wycliffe, speak truth even when it costs us.

And like the Celtic saints, trust that the dark is not empty, but full of promise.

The fire of God’s renewal has not gone out. It never will. It waits for hearts willing to tend it. So, Let us be the reformers this moment needs - gentle, steadfast, and unafraid of the dark. Amen.