Zwingli’s Approach to Tradition, Mt. 6:16-18; 9:14-17

Ulrich Zwingli was the reformer fewer people know about.  He stand in between Luther and Calvin, moving further from the abuses of Catholicism than Luther did but not as far as Calvin.  I happen to have a lot of appreciation for Zwingli, not because he was a perfect man (because we certainly was not) but because he stood tall for Christ and the Bible in his society.  Here is a brief history of the early years of his life.

Born in Wildhaus, Switzerland (photo of his boyhood home), on New Year's Day in 1484, Zwingli received a good education in the classics and was ordained a priest in 1506. He served as parish priest in Glarus from 1506 to 1516. The year 1516, was decisive for him. He moved on to become priest at Einsiedeln He immersed himself in the Greek New Testament published by Erasmus. (He actually hand copied out of this edition all of Paul's epistles and learned them by heart.) His preaching began to take on a decidedly evangelical tone. On January 1, 1519, his 35th birthday, he became pastor at the central church in Zurich. As soon as he arrived, he announced that, rather than preach from the prescribed texts of the lectionary, he was going to preach through the Gospel of Matthew. This was a bold step in that day.

Let us note how Zwingli dealt with some matters of tradition related to the practices of the Roman Catholic Church.  There were many issues, including the papal use of Swiss youth to fight their wars, marriage of clergy, music in the church, the fast at Lent, the mass, worship of images, purgatory and the sale of indulgences.  We only want to note briefly how Zwingli handled these things and then consider his primary method of dealing with tradition.

·         The slaughter of Swiss youth in the foreign wars for the RCC.

Opposing "blood for gold": A key event during that period aroused his patriotic fervor and perhaps began to undermine his confidence in the Roman church. One of the major industries for the Swiss then was mercenary service. They would hire out their young men to fight in others' wars, including battles for the pope. (You can still see the Swiss guard today policing the Vatican in their colorful uniforms). Zwingli accompanied the Swiss troops as chaplain in September of 1515, and saw 6000 of his young countrymen slaughtered in the service of the pope at the battle of Marignan in Italy. He returned home determined to abolish this mercenary practice of "selling blood for gold." It would cost him his parish at Glarus but helped pave the way for his call to Zurich later.

Zwingli made this a public and political matter.  He convinced the governing authorities to stand up to the RCC and to refuse to allow the practice to continue.  This use of the civil government to decide “church” issues became the order of the day.  We might not want to involve the government in Church matters today; but remember that, as with all the Reformers, Zwingli did not hold to a so-called separation of Church and State principle.  A political region had one religion; thus Church and State were expected to be one.