This was heard at St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas on Sunday April 19, 2015, the Third Sunday after Easter.
As always, praise be to God and thanks to the saints and witnesses at St. Mark and my good friend the Rev. Rick Brooks and his wonderful wife Teri. God bless you all.
Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
As most of you know, Pastor Rick and I are friends from Seminary. I rejoice calling him friend. It was an honor to be with him and work with him; not only on classes, papers, and exams; but navigating the waters of the Seminary life and life in Austin. We didn’t take our preaching classes together, but I imagine he heard some of the same preaching chestnuts I did. One that came from a wonderful pastor and professor was to never begin a sermon with a joke.
Today I violate that rule.
The least popular Spiritual Gift is martyrdom; because you only get to use it once.
See, one of the reasons to never violate that rule is because so few sermon jokes are actually funny. Martyrdom as a general principle isn’t funny. Martyrdom as the church understands it even less so. But here’s some good news, there is more to martyrdom and being a martyr than we understand.
You’ve invited me to share your pulpit enough to know that I love scripture and I love scripture in its original language. I always dip into the original languages because it makes the interpretation of scripture much richer. And while I was studying our gospel reading from John in the Greek, I discovered a gem.
I’m not sure if you caught it in our reading though, it’s well hidden in English. In the end of our gospel passage Jesus told everyone in his presence, a group of believers, disciples, and apostles, that they are martyrs. Not that they will be, but that they are. They are.
He didn’t say that they were going to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of the Lord; though some will. He’s not saying these wonderful saints of God will be imprisoned, or stoned, or scourged, or hung on a tree, though we know some of them did meet those very fates. He’s not telling everyone within earshot that they will die terrible and horrible deaths at the hands of Rome, Isis, some African warlord, or some death cult; though some of them did and others in the future will.
But there it is, right there in verse 48, “You are martyrs of these things.” Then again, that’s not the way our translations read. None of the major English translations read that way. Every major translation says “You are witnesses of these things.” What I read this morning was “You are witnesses of these things.”
That’s as far as I got when I started writing this, then things started happening to Christians all over the world. Over the past several weeks, things changed, I changed. Being a witness? Being a martyr? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? Is it real or is it just semantics? Now there is a very real difference between being someone who sees something and someone who witnesses something. Anybody can see something, but to be a witness there is more.
Seeing something is like being a tourist. It’s like going to the Grand Canyon or to the Hill Country. It’s like going to the Empire State Building or Central Park in New York City. It’s like taking in a Rangers game or going to the JerryDome. Anybody can go see something. To be a witness means something more.
We can be a witness a legal sense. To be called as a witness can be to testify to what you have seen, to what you know, in a court of law. Back in the day when this scripture was written the state was an arm of the church. So to testify to what we know meant something different then than what it means today. We talk about what it means to give a testimony in court or in church; in biblical time it was largely the same thing.
Outside of a legal setting, between two people, it can mean this and more. It can be a testimony of what you have seen, what you know, and what it means. It can even go further; it can be a testimony of all of this and how it has changed you. Being a witness can mean sharing with the world how life has changed because of what you have seen, because of what you know, because of who you have met. It’s about sharing with the world how it’s different because of what and who you now know.
In our reading from John’s gospel there’s now a different twist to being a witness. To be a witness is to see the scarred body of Christ. To be a witness is to hear the words of hunger from the mouth of Christ. To be a witness is to respond to the needs of the body of Christ. It’s about feeding Jesus, feeding the body of Christ when asked. To be a witness is to receive the peace of Christ… and to be startled and terrified.
To be a witness is to respond to Christ’s word when he said to them, “everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” To be a witness is to have your mind opened to understand the scriptures, as he says, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
So to these apostles, these disciples, these believers, the assembly gathered at this post-Emmaus gathering, to be a “witness to these things.” These saints of the church came together as witnesses, martyrs to stand up and live life in Christ as Christ calls us to live.
That’s not such a bad start for the sermon, right? But a funny thing happened on the way to the pulpit. Life got in the way. Terrors and horrors of life and simply living in this world have gotten in the way of life.
Here’s what we know: We are witnesses to our Messiah, the Christ suffered. Jesus of Nazareth died. He died like those African Christian students. He suffered like the Egyptian Coptic Christians. He suffered like those who died on Patriot’s Day in Boston at the Marathon Finish line. He died like Cassie Bernall at Columbine.
He suffered, and he died, and on the third day he rose from the dead, and we are changed. We are called to; we get to proclaim repentance and forgiveness, forgiveness received in Christ’s name, to all nations, an action begun in Jerusalem and taken around the world these 2,000 years since.
But how, isn’t that the big question.
Until recently I was selling insurance. I mention this to say I had been on the road a lot over the last six months. Being on the road put me in a place where I was hearing a lot of the radio and a lot of radio commercials. On ESPN Marshall, this means ads for churches, one church I won’t name and one I will.
The church I won’t name ended their ad with the pastor saying “follow me as I follow Christ.” “Follow me as I follow Christ,” if you feel a little uneasy hearing this it’s because you should. From our reformed point of view, we follow Christ alone. So if I told you all to follow me as I follow Christ you are entitled to ask “Who died and made you bishop?”
The other ad comes from Trinity Episcopal Church in Marshall. It begins with Fr. John Himes asking “Do you know that you are the beloved of God?” Now yes, I know this, but let’s just say the reason I had been selling insurance and am not selling it now is that I wasn’t very good at it. There were days when I wondered if I would ever get a decent appointment much less a sale.
I know my worthiness before God has nothing to do with my ability to sell a Medicare Supplement, but as a guy (not a man, a guy—and that’s a distinction for another time but I think you know what I’m getting at) on those days I would feel worthless. I had heard this commercial a thousand times, but all of a sudden, this time it really stuck.
You see, I finally connected with the truth that even after a horrible day I am the beloved of God. When I don’t feel that way it’s because I’m not connecting with God. God is connecting with me, with all of us, with all of creation; but when I don’t feel it it’s not because God has withheld himself from me.
How’s that for a witness, all in ten words, “Do you know that you are the beloved of God?” It reminds me of the beginning of 1John 3, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”
Now as much as I love the original texts, it’s just as interesting to see what other English translations do with these texts and I love how other bible translators interpret this passage. The New International Version doesn’t say that the Father has given us love. It says the Father lavished his love on us. Quite a difference, both are giving, but to lavish is the difference between a cone at DQ and a French Silk Blizzard. Both are wonderful but one is, well, plain vanilla and the other is so rich it’s almost beyond our ability to enjoy it. It’s just that good.
The New American Standard Bible, a translation known as a very good word-to-word translation uses bestowed instead of given. To me, bestowing is more formal, more ceremonious. There is great intention upon bestowing a gift on someone. Giving can be haphazard; bestowing is intentional, maybe even liturgical.
Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation takes another track, extending rather than giving. Using a Star Trek motif, when a ship Captain extends the shields both vessels are protected. There is a source and there is a recipient. The greater covers the lesser. Together both are protected. God extends a bountiful love to us. We are blessed by the blessed nature of God, the Lord who loves first.
As witnesses we do need to see that even on the worst of days, even in the worst of circumstances, God’s love has been given, bestowed upon us and what will come of us has yet to be revealed. What will come of that has yet to be revealed.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but after years of trial and tribulation—and in a time when our sailing is anything but smooth—I am now a witness to God’s love and what will come to pass has not been finished yet; not in my life. That is my testimony. Right now we’re living by a thread, but by the grace of God, through the people of God, we are blessed.
So now the last big question; what’s the difference between being a witness and being a martyr? In English bible translations it seems the only difference is Stephen is the only person called a martyr because he died. Jesus isn’t a martyr because he conquered death. We’re witnesses because well… Not much of an ending is it? But what if there’s more?
As in the original texts, as Jesus says, we are martyrs, in a very real sense we are. We are called to die every day. To use my example I need to die to that vanity, that vanity that kept me from seeing what it means to be the beloved of God. We are called to die to this world to be a part of the world 1John 3 calls us to join, showing the world who God is and what God is doing. John tells us we are the children of God. The world doesn’t know what we’re up to because the world doesn’t know God. Father Himes in Marshall reminds us all that we are the beloved of God and this is true as well.
Even in the darkest of days, the days of death and suffering, we cannot go anywhere God in Christ did not go first, and in that we have a Lord who knows us, knows our situation better than we can hope. God’s perfect love, a love that’s been to hell and back, is lavished upon us. God’s perfect love is for us so we may share it with others. That is how we are changed. That is what it means to be a witness. By this, we are all called to be martyrs, a gift we are called to exercise not just once, but daily.
