Spiritual Disciplines-Testify

This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on November 18, 2007, the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Isaiah 65:17-25
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

This is a true story. It’s a little over twenty years old, and it’s mine.[1]

In the summer of 1985, I finished grad school. But as a twenty-three year old with no professional experience in a tight economy I couldn’t find a job in my field, higher education. So, I went back to doing what got me through grad school, I went back to work in the bars.

While working at a club in the Westport district of Kansas City, Missouri I met a girl, her name was Megan. She was home in KC for a couple of semesters from the University of Wyoming because her grandfather was dying. She was taking education classes at the University of Missouri Kansas City, working at a hardware store, and playing shuffleboard at my bar. To make a long story shorter, I was taken by her. But too soon, in January 1987, she went back to Wyoming to go back to school and in an age long before email, we began exchanging letters.

That summer, she came back for a couple of weeks and when she did, she blew me off completely. I was ticked. Of course, I didn’t say “ticked.” There are bar words and there are church words, and I should not use the bar words here.

After some time of hurt feelings and a couple of more letters, I came to know that I had fallen in love with her. I decided what I needed to do is put my cards on the table, tell her how I felt, and let what happens happen. I decided it would be best to do this in person instead of in a letter, but I never got the chance. On December 13, 1987 Megan shot herself. When I got the call, I let out a cry that made God himself shudder.

I knew I needed forgiveness; forgiveness for being so angry with her; forgiveness for not telling her how I felt; forgiveness for not taking responsibility for my feelings and my actions; or inactions really. But I could not find forgiveness, so instead of forgiveness, I tried to hide.

I hid in work. I hid in a bottle. I hid in plain sight. Finally, I ended up hiding in Lamar, Colorado 81052. A little over a year after Megan’s death, I was running a dormitory at a community college.

After a few years in Colorado I began to hear that still small voice of the Lord, the one that told me if I was waiting to “be good enough” before going back to church, I would never be good enough and I would never go. So one Sunday, I ended up in a pew at the First Presbyterian Church in Lamar and began the journey that brings me to you today. But that’s another story; let me finish this one first.

I attended regularly and began reading my bible. I started to learn about grace and forgiveness. But one thought haunted me, no matter how hard I tried to deal with my guilt, it never went away. Truth be known, I was probably giving it away with my right hand and taking it right back with the left.

One night, at a Presbyterian revival service (yeah, a Presbyterian revival—it may be an oxymoron, but it’s still a true story) the pastor spoke on forgiveness. He preached on Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer with special attention to 6:15, “but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Don’t get me wrong, I understood, to be forgiven I would have to forgive. But what did I have to forgive her for? She was the one who was in so much pain that she thought the only way out of it was to kill herself. What did I possibly have to forgive her for? Then, by the grace of God, I discerned an answer: I had to forgive her for forgetting. I had to forgive her for forgetting about her family, her friends, and I had to forgive her for forgetting about me. I had to forgive her for leaving. I had to forgive her. And in that moment, after nearly eight years of mourning, I did.

And at that moment, I don’t know if you heard the angelic choir or not, but at that very moment, at the moment I forgave, by the grace of God, I was forgiven too. I had held onto my mourning and sorrow for so long, when the weight was lifted I knew I was in the presence of God. At that moment, I was in a holy place in my life.

Wonderfully, about four months later, I met Marie. If I had met her any earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready, she would have seen it, and life as I know it would have been without the love I know today. Thank God I didn’t meet Marie one minute before I was ready to meet her.

Megan’s mom came to Colorado for our wedding. During the dance at the reception, I thanked her for coming. And I told her that I am a better man, and will be a better husband, for having known her daughter.

I say that this is my story, but this isn’t really true. First of all, I have many more stories than this one, but this is a very important one and was once the dominant story of my life. But more importantly, it isn’t my story, it’s God’s story. The Lord gave it to me so that in the end the glory of God may be known. I’m one of the lead characters, but from that horrible abyss of abusive self destruction, there was a light that shined long before I could see it, long before I was even looking for it. And I thank God that the Lord was concerned with me long before I was ever concerned with the Lord.

Jesus tells us that we will be called before others; kings and governors and other powerful people, and this is our opportunity to testify. And when we testify we aren’t to have defense strategies prepared because the Lord will give us the words none of our opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. Jesus promises to give us words, and in all truth, we have been given the words to use when kings and governors ask us to testify, they come from two places.

The words we are to use are right in front of us, literally. The words we have been given to speak are in the words of scripture. These words give us the best defense, more than we could ever imagine. And in these words, we are given the speech to talk about who God is. In my story, I learned that our Lord has the courage reach into the deepest and darkest places in our lives. The Lord is bold and caring and loving. The Old Testament shows us a multifaceted God, one that creates humanity because God wants a loving relationship with humanity. We are also presented a jealous God who disciplines when we stray and worship other gods.

This is the same Lord who is presented in the New Testament in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. This is the same Lord who turns over the money changer’s tables in the temple invoking the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah when he tells them they are making the temple a den of thieves.[2] The same God who John tells us not only is the perfect personification of love, but is love.

In the words of scripture we are not only presented with the image of God, but with how God interacts with creation and the created. Theologian George Lindbeck writes “the primary focus of [of the bible] is not on God’s being in itself, for that is not what the text is about, but on how life is to be lived and reality constructed in the light of God’s character as an agent as this is depicted in the stories of Israel and of Jesus.”[3] We have a picture of who God is through scripture, but it is not complete without the Lord in relationship with creation and humanity.

The story of Israel is the story of how the Lord says and lives the announcement, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”[4] It is the story of the Lordship of God, the kingship of God in the kingdom of God. It is the story of a disobedient Nazirite who becomes the renowned and notorious Sampson. It’s the intimate story of a prophet who anoints a simple shepherd boy to become King David. It is the story of how Jesus interacts with the disciples, and not just how Jesus interacts with Peter, James and John; the “popular kids” disciples. It is the story of Jesus’ relationship with Simon the Zealot, Peter’s brother Andrew, Matthew the tax collector; and even the story of Jesus’ relationship with Judas, the disciple who would betray him.

Our testimony is both who the Lord our God is, and who the Lord our God is in our lives. And when people ask us about who Jesus is, when people ask you what you believe; they don’t want to hear theological rhetoric, which is a pity because I have a pretty good lock on that. People want us to tell them about who God is and why God is important in our lives. They want to know why God is important to us. They want to hear stories of power and glory, stories of faith and redemption. People want to know want to know not just who God is, but why God is important in our lives.

Even more important than the testimony of our tongue is the testimony of our hands. Jesus said much, but it is what he did that intensified what he said. He not only tells us to behave with compassion, he was compassionate. He healed when the rest of the world rested. He fed the multitudes when others would send them home hungry. He forgave when others passed the sentence of death. He returned from a place where others remain. And we are called to follow him in these acts of peace, grace, and mercy.

In this we are called to follow the spiritual disciplines of prayer, lifting those who need support and giving thanks to the Lord who answers prayer. We are called to give, even when others say that giving blood won’t be enough. We are called to live in a world that wants nothing but our death. And we are called to share the word with the world, a world that doesn’t want to hear it.

Jesus warns us though; we are called to testify in very difficult times. We are warned that others will vie for our attention. Some will even claim to be like gods or even gods themselves. Idols will abound in times like these. We will hear that end times are near, whether individually or as a nation or a people, we will hear that end times are near, but we are instructed not to follow them. We are told that terrifying things will happen and terrifying things will be rumored, yet as long as we know who God is and who God is in our lives, we are set upon ground that cannot be shaken even by the earthquakes of our lives.

We are also warned that on the basis or our testimony, on the basis of the one we testify about, we will be hated and some will be put to death. History, both ancient and current, show us that this is true. But through our endurance, through the perseverance of the faith and the one in whom we have faith, we will not simply persevere, we will gain life. We will gain our souls. We will be saved by grace through faith. It is this faith, this grace we are to share with the world.

To testify brings an outrageous level of terror; with good reason. Jesus warns us that in this time we are called to testify we will be in danger. We will be called to testify when kings will be in a place to take our lives and Pharisees eject us from the temple. Worse, our friends and neighbors may begin calling us names like Jesus freak. But our witness, our testimony is the church’s evangelism. Through testimony in the faith of our Lord and God we are called to be disciples. We are called to be God’s people, because the Lord is our God.

It’s scary; then again the Greek word for witness is martyr. It’s supposed to be scary. But in God, we have nothing to fear. In our testimony is our life. In our testimony is the life of the Lord in our lives. It is up to us to testify, to share the good news of who God is and what God does in our lives.

[1] The names have not been changed. No one is innocent.
[2] Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11.
[3] Lindbeck, George A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Louisville; Westminster/John Knox Press, 1984, page 121.
[4] Jeremiah 7:23