Reformation Sunday

Ecclesiastes 9:14-18a;¹ Ephesians 2: 4-9; John 8:12-14b

Rev Dr Isabelle Graesslé

Minister in the Protestant Church of Geneva, Switzerland, and moderator of the Company of Pastors and Deacons of Geneva.

Each year in Geneva the Reformation is celebrated in front of the Wall of the Reformers in a short ceremony - chaired by the moderator of the Company of Pastors and Deacons - which takes place after Sunday worship, at 11.30 am. It is an occasion to join in a brief act of worship and to sing Luther's great battle-hymn of the Reformation, but it is above all a commemoration, a recalling of history, an awakening of memory.

In July 2001, I became the first woman moderator in the Company's history. In my first ceremony at the wall in November that year, I wanted to pay tribute to Marie Dentière, one of the most remarkable figures from our past, but now little-known. The tribute made such an impact that it was decided to add her name, along with those of three others "forgotten" in the history of the Reformation, to the Geneva monument.

The ceremony in November 2002 was thus the occasion to unveil the inscription of the names of four precursors of the Reformation: Peter Valdes, John Wycliff, John Hus - and Marie Dentière.

That year, the 400th anniversary of the Escalade (a significant historical event for Geneva and the European Reformation) also gave me an opportunity to remember the contribution of Calvin's second in command, Théodore de Bèze, the reformer who led the Genevan Reformation out of myth into history.

The text which follows brings together the message of these two years, 2001 and 2002, years that were exceptional in more ways than one.

History has some strange twists and turns. Thus, in all likelihood, at the same time when Luther on the eve of All Saints Day 1517 was nailing his 95 theses to the doors of the church in Wittenberg, a woman named Marie Dentière became abbess of the Augustinian convent of Tournai in Flanders. Luther's ideas spread quickly, like wildfire, especially in the Netherlands. Marie, an educated and intelligent woman, converted to the Reformation around 1524, but her religious convictions would cost her dear. Driven out of her convent, she was forced into exile, abandoning her culture, family, and environment. She arrived in Strasbourg, where she met Simon Robert, the former priest and future pastor who became her first husband, and the couple continued their journeyings as far as Bex in the Swiss canton of Wallis. There Marie was widowed and met Antoine Froment, who was, with Farel, one of the reformers in Geneva. She married him, and joined him in Geneva soon afterwards in March 1535.

The following year, when Calvin issued the first edition of his great summary of theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Marie Dentière published anonymously a work entitled The War and Deliverance of the City of Geneva. At this time, she was still known as an admirer of Calvin and Farel. Later, after Calvin returned to Geneva in 1541, she and her husband saw their friendship with the reformer become increasingly embittered. That did not prevent Marie from signing a preface to Calvin's sermon on women's attire - and this in 1561, the year of her death.

Marie Dentière is not only a historian; she is also a theologian, with a sharp-edged quill and a sharp-edged style - no doubt as sharp as her character, which some described as "fiery"! For her, one of the great ideas of the Reformation is that of the universal priesthood, that is, the possibility for all (and in this case, for all women) to fulfil a function in the sphere of the sacred. Marie Dentière finds in this idea a justification of her raison d'être as a theologian, capable on her own of reading and interpreting scripture and history. For her, the Bible alone must be the direct source of every rule of living. And she has no equal in demonstrating its radicalism, its power and its contemporary relevance.

Behold, then, a foreigner, no longer very young, with impressive contacts. She is a friend of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, she rubs shoulders with the best in European Protestantism, she is the wife of one of the principal actors during Geneva's entry into the movement of the Reformation. She is also a woman who decides to write what she saw taking place before her eyes: the strained relationship between the Duke of Savoy and the Genevans, the disorders in the streets, the theological arguments in the lecture halls, the departure of the Roman clergy, war, and finally deliverance through a combination of outside help and resistance from within the city. But Marie is not content to report the story "live", in the same way that musicians today record live albums during their concerts, without the benefit of studio arrangements. She does more and she does better: she gives a theological reading of the history, and she does it as well as all the gentlemen whose statues are found behind my back.

Judge for yourself: when she goes to the convent of the nuns of St Clare to try to convert them to the Reformation, Marie makes a most beautiful declaration of faith: "I spent a long time in the darkness of hypocrisy," she says, "but God alone showed me my condition and led me to the true light of truth." It is in this light of truth that she interprets the story of her life and of the city that has become her own. For Marie, the safety God granted to Geneva is a source of hope, but also a free divine choice. As she recalls on every page we turn: the Genevans had nothing to do with their deliverance. It is by grace alone that God is and remains a God of hope, even when there is nothing left to hope for.

Since Marie knows her Bible by heart, or pretty nearly, her text is liberally peppered with appropriate quotations from scripture. But what is even more essential is that, for her, the only means that God used to save Geneva is precisely God's word. A living word, able to move what seemed permanently stuck, and to bring hope and recognition to those who have lost hope and feel themselves no longer accepted.

Twelve years after the publication of Marie Dentière's book, a new stage of the Genevan Reformation was about to get underway. At the end of October 1548, a young man of about thirty slipped into a small house in the rue des Chanoines to meet someone ten years older. On that late October morning, as windy and rainy as this morning, Théodore de Bèze arrived in Geneva and immediately took himself to Calvin, whom he had met in Bourges several years earlier at the home of their mutual friend, the tutor Wolmar, also a precursor of the ideas of the Reformation. Immediately, in this charming young man, with a warm voice and a soft, clear-eyed gaze, Calvin recognized the one who would succeed him. But he still needed to be seasoned, to be toughened up, so, after blessing his marriage, Calvin sent him to Lausanne to teach in the Academy there. It was only ten years later, in 1558, that Théodore de Bèze returned to Geneva to become a "minister of the holy gospel".

Thus begins the long career of the Genevan Reformer, which will end only in 1605, three years after the tragic night of the Escalade, when he dies peacefully at the age of 86, just as the 8 o'clock bell is summoning the faithful to the first sermon of the day.

What has not been said of Théodore de Bèze? There is his incredible capacity for work, and in every direction. It is true that he publishes books of poetry, polemical and theological writings, and plays. It is true that he gives courses at the Academy, delivers dozens of sermons, and corresponds with the whole of Europe. But there is also his activity as a diplomat, particularly in France, at a time when the young Protestant church there is so threatened. And we must not overlook his ecumenical efforts, well ahead of their time, especially when he tries, admittedly without much success, to bring together the Lutherans and the Reformed.

For what has Théodore de Bèze not also been criticized? In particular, for his timidity in comparison to Calvin. It is said that he was no more than a brilliant second in command, unable to go beyond the ideas of his teacher. For my part, I find more regrettable his rigidity towards new ideas, especially that of tolerance. His violent polemics with Castellio are a black mark against his name, and I hope that one day homage will also be paid to the other theologian, the apostle of freedom of thought.

But beyond the reproaches and regrets, beyond the relative oblivion into which history has plunged Théodore de Bèze, there is one quality for which we should give him credit: that to some extent he democratized the Reformation. Thanks to the second moderator of the venerable Company, each and every one of us - male or female - may follow in the footsteps of the precursors and the founder.

His self-effacing character, which might be seen as an excess of humility, in fact reflects a firm determination to give responsibility to each member of the town. Because Théodore de Bèze turned his face against stardom, adulation, or even recognition, this means that it is up to each Protestant man or woman to continue on the path of faith, independently, armed with his or her intelligence and freedom of conscience and with the breath of the Spirit to overcome the troubles of existence.

In ushering the Reformation into history and continuity, Théodore de Bèze gave it an impetus for the future, not by focusing it on himself but by linking it to the word of God and thus to life. The inhabitants of Geneva made no mistake when they said at his death, "Better to be in hell with Bèze than in heaven with Calvin"! Wherever we are, what remains essential is this word of life, which can move even the forces of death.

To be sure, for us who celebrate the Reformation more than 450 years after Marie Dentière and Théodore de Bèze, their perception of reality can seem somewhat optimistic, even utopian. And yet, what characterizes them both, even in their great differences, is the firm hope that the Reformation will not stop at its beginnings. Thus, in the last lines of her work, Marie continues to exhort, "It is necessary for us to ask the Lord of the harvest to send good workmen, and, after they have come, I hope that they will persevere in their work until the end."

To say the least, it is an original way to tell us, gathered here this morning in memory of those first workmen and women, that we must persevere in our faith in a God of hope, even when there is nothing more to hope for, persevere in understanding the living word, which can move what seemed blocked forever.

And as Marie Dentière concluded in those tormented times, which moreover strangely resemble our own times, "God by his grace will give us the heart and the intelligence for it... Amen!"

Notes