The Inauguration

The Inauguration: January 21, 1525 Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, George Blaurock

Matthew 5-7

Every four years on January 20, a national ceremonial event takes place called the Inauguration. On that day, the President elected the previous November begins a new 4-year term of office. The inauguration takes place in the capital city, Washington, DC, in front of the Capitol Building, the symbol of national power.

An inauguration serves much the same function for a president as a coronation does for a king. For example, Charles was crowned King on May 6, 2023, at Westminster Abbey in London. While the King of England no longer has the same kind of power as in medieval days, the President of the United States does have great power.

The inauguration is thus an important ceremony, a ceremony of beginning. It shows the world that this person is now in charge of the government. The ceremony demonstrates, represents, and outlines what the government will look like.

This is especially the case through the centerpiece of the inauguration ceremony, the inaugural address. The inaugural address is a speech which allows the incoming president to outline their vision and priorities for their time of governing and to reflect on the values and ideals that they hold for the nation. (ChatGPT)

As I write, this inauguration ceremony and address is scheduled for January 20, 2025.

The next day, January 21, 2025, a very different type of event will be celebrated. There will be little or no fanfare, few news articles written, and little discussion on social media.  This day is recognized by Mennonites, Brethren, Amish, Hutterites, and others as the 500th anniversary of a very different sort of inauguration.  

That inauguration event on January 21, 1525, was not held in a national capital, although it did take place in an important city of its time, Zurich, Switzerland.  It was not held in a stadium or other large public arena, but in an ordinary house, even though that house was just a few blocks from the large cathedral church. There were no invitations sent out to city or national or international dignitaries, although it was attended by several well-known Bible students in the city. There are no records of musical performances, poetry readings, or pompous ceremonies. There were no grand and lofty speeches celebrating victory or laying out a vision for their nation or their church or promoting their political or religious agenda. There was only fervent, even desperate, prayer.

The grand meetings and dramatic political and religious debates had already been taking place for several years prior to 1525. During those years, the only official church in Western Europe was the Roman Catholic Church led by the pope in distant Rome. But a reformation of the church was stirring and the pastor of that large cathedral church in Zurich was becoming known as one of the leading church reformers, being compared with Martin Luther in nearby Wittenburg, Germany, whose followers eventually became known as Lutherans.

The name of the pastor/priest in Zurich was Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli was a gifted Bible teacher, fluent in the original languages of the Bible and the Church, including Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. On the basis of his study, he began preaching and challenging the authority of Church of Rome and its pope. The people of Zurich and its surrounding canton were taking notice and starting to support his reform. More importantly, he was gaining the favor of the political authorities of Zurich, the Council.

Zwingli finally decided he could no longer support the Roman Catholic church, so he resigned his position as pastor. However, the Zurich Council then took control of the church and appointed Zwingli as pastor of a “Reformed” church in Zurich. That meant was that the church in Zurich no longer recognized the authority of the pope in Rome, but rather submitted to the authority of the Council.

Along the way, Zwingli, the Bible teacher, gathered around him students from the area who agreed with him that the Church should follow the Bible. These students stepped up their study, particularly of the New Testament. They started to push Zwingli in his movement toward even more reform in the church. Some of them became convinced that the church should not operate under the authority of the Zurich Council any more than the authority of the pope. They said that the New Testament was the final authority for the Church.

In effect, they were calling for a church that was independent of the state government. This was a radical concept that most people and especially government leaders were sure would completely destroy the unity of European society. This unity between church and state had existed since the days of the Roman emperor, Constantine, who declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire. Even though the Roman Empire itself fell apart as a governing power, the nations that picked up that power remained tied to the Christian faith as interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church and its pope in Rome.

So, Zwingli was understandably careful and cautious about his reforms. He called “disputations” to debate how the church in Zurich should implement reform.  However, the disputations were always refereed by the Zurich Council. Zwingli always allowed the Council to decide the outcome. Thus, reform moved slowly. Yet, a group of Zwingli’s students continued to insist that the Church should follow the New Testament, not the secular government officials of the Council.

The conflict came to a head over the issue of baptism. With an official state church, it was assumed that if a baby was born to Christian parents in a Christian country, that baby was a Christian and thus should be baptized as a Christian. Baptism, of course, was the initiation ritual into the Christian faith, a kind of individual inauguration into life itself. Thus, all persons became subjects of their ruler as well as members of the church in one significant ceremony. They were baptized as babies and their births recorded in the records of the church and the state government.

Yet by reading the New Testament, these radical students of Zwingli were convinced that people should be baptized into the church upon their own choice as adult believers. They started withholding their newborn babies from baptism, this church/state inaugural ceremony. This alarmed the Council authorities who instructed Zwingli to resolve this matter with his students. Yet, increasingly, the students could no longer accept the authority of Zwingli if Zwingli did not accept the authority of the New Testament.

Another disputation was called, but the result was determined ahead of time. The Zurich Council turned a deaf ear to the radical students and simply declared that all parents should present their children to be baptized. If they didn’t, they were to be expelled from the whole canton of Zurich. In essence, if they would no longer submit to the authority of the government of Zurich, they could no longer own or live on land controlled by Zurich. They were to be essentially exiles, refugees from the land of their birth.

Three days after this proclamation, a small group of disillusioned followers of Zwingli met for a prayer meeting at the home of Anna Manz and her son, Felix Manz, one of the leaders among these students. Another leader present was named Conrad Grebel. They were joined by several others, including a country preacher who wandered into the city days earlier wondering who was interested in following the New Testament. Being mostly unknown in the city, he became identified by his first name, George, and his distinctive blue coat. In German “blue coat” is “Blaurock” and thus he became George Blaurock. After becoming dissatisfied with what he was hearing from Zwingli, George learned about Grebel, Manz, and others, and thus also joined the prayer meeting on January 21, 1525.

A later account of the meeting said this: “After fear lay greatly upon them, they called upon God in heaven, that he should show mercy upon them. Then, George arose and asked Conrad for God’s sake to baptize him; and this he did. After that, he baptized the others also. After this more priests and other people were added who soon sealed it with their blood. So also the above-named Felix Mantz, who was the first; he was drowned at Zurich.” (Dyck, ed. An Introduction to Mennonite History, 1981, pp 48-49)

These people became convinced that their own baptisms as babies were essentially meaningless. Baptism was a choice to follow Christ and one needed to be an adult enough to make that choice before being baptized. So they chose to be baptized. Their enemies, however, saw this as a second baptism or re-baptism. They nicknamed these folks as “Anabaptists” since “ana” means again. But the believers themselves insisted this was their first and only true baptism.

Thus, this 500th anniversary commemorates another inauguration, but of a very different type. Rather than the spectacle of large public gathering, it was a small meeting in an ordinary house in the city. Instead of featuring an inaugural address, it featured prayer.

But make no mistake; the speech did come. The Anabaptist inaugural address came in the form of hundreds and thousands of sermons. From that first prayer meeting, the Bible students became preachers who fanned out throughout Zurich, throughout Switzerland, and Germany, and then other parts of Europe. They preached on street corners, in homes, and wherever they were given opportunity. They preached a simple Gospel that true Christians were not those who had a few drops of water sprinkled on their heads when they were babies. Rather, true Christians were those who made a conscious decision to follow Jesus Christ and his teachings as found in the New Testament.

These believers knew that they were making a radical break with the larger society by accepting the authority of the Holy Spirit as they studied the New Testament in their local communities. For in doing so, they were rejecting the authority of a church hierarchy controlled by the government intent on preserving power rather than following Jesus.

Within five years, these three men were dead. Grebel, weakened from fleeing from town to town, died of the plague. But most of these preachers along with scores of other persons who simply responded to their preaching by accepting believers baptism were executed by the authorities. Manz was drowned in the Limmat River. Blaurock was burned at the stake. Yet, hundreds and thousands more continued to spread the word and meet secretly in small assemblies.

These people, labeled “Anabaptists,” acquired other labels in the years that followed. They preferred to call themselves “Brethren” a name that some use even today. A movement in eastern Europe had a leader named Jacob Hutter, so they became known as Hutterites. In Holland, a leader named “Menno Simons” emerged, so his followers were named “Mennists” or “Mennonites.”  Much later, a Mennonite leader named Jacob Amman led in a group that broke off and were called “Amish Mennonites” or just “Amish.”

Yet, the early Anabaptists always insisted that they were not the real inauguration. Their movement actually started 1500 years earlier, now 2000 years for us today.  They were teaching nothing new, but simply the message of the early church. This was the teaching of Jesus himself.

The heart of the message of Jesus was also a sermon, a sermon by Jesus himself, what is known today as the “Sermon on the Mount.” This sermon is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7.  These three chapters are often considered to be the best distillation and summary of Jesus’s teachings. Likely, Matthew collected these sayings from scores of other sermons that Jesus preached throughout Galilee and Judea.

The Sermon on the Mount represents the heart of the message of Jesus. It was the core message of the early church. It represents the heart of the message of those folks called Anabaptists preached all over Europe 500 years ago in the face of constant death threats. The Sermon on the Mount is the essence of Christian faith for any folks who would follow in their footsteps whether they call themselves Mennonites or Anabaptists or Christians, or whatever other name used to identify themselves as followers of Jesus.

The Sermon on the Mount has been described and labeled and analyzed in many ways. This inaugural event shared by Matthew in his Gospel account is rich with so many levels of meaning. For now, we will simply observe several features that amplify the theme of inauguration and inaugural address.

The Sermon on the Mount is indeed an inaugural address, inaugurating the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God, or what we might call the Rule of God or Government of God in the world. A few verses before the sermon starts in chapter 5, Matthew 4:23 says, Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom The Sermon on the Mount is a proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven or what the other Gospels call the Kingdom of God.

Matthew’s account makes it clear that this is not a teaching out of nowhere. The sermon has roots in yet another inaugural event: Moses proclaiming the Torah, the Word of God, or the Law. Moses’s teachings from God were associated with a mountain, Mt. Sinai. Jesus’s teachings are also given from a mountain. Preaching and teaching from a mountain, Jesus grounds his teachings in this Old Testament Word of God proclaimed by the Israelites for centuries in the story of Moses and an earlier mountain. Jesus goes to the heart of those teachings that were the foundation of the Old Testament people of God. Jesus builds on the story of God’s dealings with the children of Israel.

The Sermon on the Mount proclaims a Kingdom vision that builds on Israel’s hope in a Godly King in the line of Israel’s most famous earthly king, David. The king who was prophesied to come from David’s line and restore the Kingdom was called the Messiah, the “Anointed One.” Anointing is the symbol in the coronation (inauguration) of a king. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus announces that this Kingdom is at hand. Matthew reflects this by structuring the sermon so that the kingdom of heaven is the center of the center of the center of this inaugural address. It is represented in that key phrase of the Lord’s Prayer: 10 May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10 NRSVue) (More details at the Bible Project intro to the Sermon on the Mount.)

The Sermon on the Mount is delivered in a Kingdom place. That does not mean a place that an earthly kingdom would choose. It’s not in the capital city as one might expect, neither a political capital like Rome, nor even a religious capital like Jerusalem. Jesus could easily have chosen Jerusalem, which was known for its mountain. The temple was, after all, located on Mount Zion, a symbol of religious power, even the powerful Creator God whom Jesus claimed as his Father. Jesus could have had his inauguration on Mount Zion. Instead, Jesus chose Galilee, among those who would have been considered “hillbillies” of their day by the sophisticated Judean elite. Yet, Jesus based his early ministry in this region, teaching among the common country people of Galilee and thereby attracting them to this mountain, just as Moses had led a ragtag band of people called “Israelites” to Mount Sinai.

Thus, we have our first glimpse into who Jesus considers the Kingdom people. His audience for this “Kingdom inauguration” is not the typical audience of dignitaries and those thought of as important people, even religiously important people.

  • There are no Sadducees trying to bring in the Kingdom by getting in the favor of the current ruling authorities in Rome.
  • On the other hand, there were no Zealots, (except perhaps in secret), no freedom fighters who were trying to take out the Romans by force.
  • There are no Pharisees featured, those who thought the way to the Kingdom was for people to be good enough and follow the letter of the Torah law more closely. Jesus started many of his sermon topics with “You have heard that it was said…” This would have been a clear reference to the Pharisee teachers, for whom Jesus had the response, “But I say to you…”
  • Finally, there weren’t even any Essenes or other intentional community first-century hippies whose solution was to withdraw to the desert, study and pray and wait for God to act.

Instead, Jesus announces to ordinary people on a Galilean mountain that the Kingdom starts with them, here and now. Jesus’s prayer is key: “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done, here on earth as in Heaven.” Jesus echoes and amplifies Kingdom principles God gave Moses centuries earlier. And 500 years ago, the early Anabaptists echoed these principles of Jesus for their own day.

These are upside down principles, starting right away with the opening words of Matthew 5 about who is truly “blessed” or truly happy in God. “Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5 CEB) It is not the generals and their proud conquering armies who rule in God’s Kingdom, but the humble. Upside down also is an ethic of love which permeates society like salt and light rather than forcing the kingdom through retaliation and revenge. Yet, the values of the Kingdom are upside down only because human society has been engaged in a continual battle for its own way rather than God’s way. Jesus wants to restore the true “right side up” or righteousness.

Which way will we today orient ourselves? Throughout the Sermon on the Mount and especially in the summary at the end, Jesus makes it clear that we have a choice. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount are these words from Matthew 6:24 (NRSVue):  “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. At the end of the sermon, he talks about two gates, the wide one with an easy road that leads to destruction, or a narrow gate that leads to life. He talks about “hearers” and “doers,” those who build on sand and those who build their lives on the solid rock.

The choice is still there. This world’s inauguration events will come and go. Will we be captives to the inauguration of earthly governments built upon the values of wealth and power and prestige and forcing people to see it my way and conform to my ideology? Or will we harken back to the inaugural address of Jesus and follow the Sermon on the Mount? Will we live for God, living for others and giving to others, and following the way of Jesus even to the cross so that all may have eternal life?

Jesus anticipates our response to this call–to give our whole lives without thinking of our selfish desires. “But what about my needs? What about my family?” we say. In Matthew 6:31–33 (NRSVue) he says, 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Yes, we, too, have a choice, an ongoing choice. In the midst of the inaugurations of this world, we can set aside all of the selfish goals that they represent. Instead, we can seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness… As we continue to study and ponder Jesus’s inaugural address, may that be our goal.

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