(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Witness”, originally shared on March 29, 2021. It was the 102nd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
A witness is someone
who tells about something they have seen. Today, we will talk about what
Christians have seen and the witness Christians have to offer the world at this
stage of the pandemic. We will talk about how to share our faith for life
transformation.
We’ve come through crazy week number 57 or so in this pandemic. This
week, we’ve received the announcement that LA County is going to resume full
parking enforcement starting this coming Thursday, April 1st. No
foolin’! The City of LA resumed parking
enforcement last October, but now, wherever you are in County patrolled areas,
the slack you were cut for the pandemic is over. I guess that’s a good sign.
On the other hand, fifteen states are seeing spikes of coronavirus cases
and, between injudicious spring break and Passover and Easter celebrations, and
the variants, we could be in for more if we aren’t careful and don’t get our
vaccine when it’s available. Health officials are now concerned that a fourth
surge may be on the horizon.
We’ve seen what happens when people ignore the simple things they can do
to lower the curve of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths. We are witnesses.
One of Sally and my favorite movies is one called “Witness” with
Harrison Ford and a host of well-known actors. A widowed Amish mother and her
young son are on a trip to Philadelphia when the boy witnesses a murder. The
murderers find out that he was a witness and set-out for Amish country to kill
him before he can testify in court. The Harrison Ford character is a
Philadelphia Police Department detective on the case who drives the boy and his
mother back to their Amish community and stays with them to protect them.
Most of the movie takes place in an Amish community. There is a
wonderful scene in which the whole community comes together to raise a barn in
a single day for a young Amish couple. The community speaks about and actually
lives in a way that is a witness to the faith that has produced their kind of
counter-cultural life, their isolation from the world, and their commitment to
a pre-modern way of life. That’s the other meaning of the term “witness”.
A witness is someone who tells about something they have seen.
We’ve all had the experience of being a witness to something and hearing
how others who have seen the same thing sometimes have very different ways of
describing the event. Just look at all the different churches, and the
differences in beliefs that people have even within those churches. We all
believe we are guided by the Holy Spirit. How is that possible?
Well, it’s a big Body of Christ, and the body has many members. It takes
all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. But there is only one
Church, one Body, and that’s the total of all baptized believers in Jesus
Christ throughout the world and beyond time. It’s composition is known only to
God. The names on the doors of our churches don’t matter. Faith matters. What
we believe matters. The relationship we have been given with the one true
living God matters. Those things are the things to which we bear witness.
And yet Christians, at least in the West, seem very reluctant to be
witnesses.
We’ve made a deal with the non-Christian world. We do the things that
the world thinks we should do and keep quiet about why. We get approval and
peace in exchange for our tolerance of all other forms of belief and of no
belief at all.
We accept the requirement that our beliefs are personal and should be
kept as such. We keep quiet because we want everyone to feel good about
themselves, including ourselves.
And, sometimes, I suppose, we just get discouraged and decide that this
is an adulterous and sinful generation (Mark 8;38), that we should not be
casting our pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). And sometimes that’s
appropriate.
Yet the offense of the cross that we mark in this Holy Week in the
Church calendar, is the good news that Jesus died for sinners. He has not given
up on us or on anyone else.
Jesus said to his disciples, in Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth.”
Jesus gives his disciples what Christians have called the Great Commission
in the closing verses of the Gospel of Matthew, the 28th chapter,
starting at the 18th verse:
Witnessing is something different than arguing theology, engaging in
apologetics (defense) or polemics (offense). Those all have important places in
Christian evangelism, but a witness
is someone who tells about something
they have seen.
What have we seen with regard to our Christian faith of the life
transformation that it brings? And how do we communicate it in a cohesive way
from the many-membered Body of Christ, the Church?
What can we do: How do we
witness to our faith? How do we point to a way of life that offers a better
alternative to the world we live in today?
I used to close each service at the church I served in San Dimas with
one practical idea for sharing our faith. I think I collected over a hundred
and would share a graphic on one of them in rotation. They were things like,
“use snail-mail”, “if you have a Christian bumper sticker on your car, be an
especially courteous driver”, “invite people to church when they are most
likely to come”, and so on.
Today, I just want to share a few general principles on the general
concept of witnessing.
First, be a credible witness. Seek to live in such a way that does not
discredit what you say. We are all hypocrites. That’s why we depend on God’s
grace. But the world will look for any reason to discredit your witness, and
that’s number one. Be transparent, therefore. Share your struggles and your
peace and your empowerment to live the life you seek to live in gratitude to
God, not to get something from God.
Second, who knows you the best? Your friends and relatives. You will be
most credible to them. In fact, study after study finds that between 80 and 85
percent of all people who come to a living faith in God do so through the
influence of a friend or a relative. How did you come to faith?
Third, you’ve probably heard of the concept of the elevator speech,
something you have ready to say when the opportunity presents itself and you
know that you only have 30-seconds or so. Think about what you would say to
someone who expresses an interest in hearing about your relationship with God.
Don’t rehearse a speech but have some talking points in mind that can be
adapted to the occasion. Something like, “The world is messed up, it’s not what
it’s supposed to be, but I believe that God has entered into our world out of
love and will one day put it right. In the meantime, God offers the gift of
faith to give us abundant life here and now. Would you like to hear about
that?”
Or, one of my favorites comes at the end of a 2007 article about early
20th century evangelist Aimee Semple
McPherson by John Updike called “Famous Aimee” in
the New Yorker Magazine. Sister
Aimee, as she was known, was a pioneering and popular figure in the United
States, her life was filled with success and scandals. She founded Angeles
Temple in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles and the international
Foursquare Church denomination. She at one time fled the country.
Charges against her had been dropped in LA
and she traveled to New York. She went to Texas Guinan’s popular speakeasy (fun
fact Whoopi Goldberg played a character named Guinan who ran the bar on the
Starship Enterprise in Star Trek: Next Generation). Sister Aimee entered the
club in a yellow suit and furs. A reporter called for her to speak. The proprietress agreed and Sister Aimee
calmly walked to the center of the dance floor, smiled, paused, and said,
“Behind all these beautiful clothes, behind these good times, in the midst of
your lovely buildings and shops and pleasures, there is another life. There is
something on the other side. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul?” With all your getting and playing and good
times, do not forget you have a Lord. Take Him into your hearts.” Texas Guinan
walked over to Sister Aimee to the applause of the crowd, put her arm around
her, and stood there to the ongoing ovation of the club-goers.
Fourth, as an exercise, ask yourself questions to prepare your
witness to others, such as:
- How has answering God’s call to do
God’s will in your life been meaningful to you?
- How has your suffering given you
something to say to people who are also suffering?
- When has the Holy Spirit revealed
to you just the right thing at just the right time?
- How has the Holy Spirit revealed
something about the Creator in the creation?
- How have your struggles and doubts
been overcome, if not explained?
- How have you experienced God in
your suffering?
- Who has been a witness to you in
your life?
- How has God led you to stay on
track and close to God in the good times.
- How have you experienced joy in the
midst of life’s sadness?
- Why do you think that a positive
outcome to events or circumstances that others would explain as
coincidence or unexplainable has been experienced by you as the work of
God?
- How do you experience God in your
weakness?
- Why did you become a Christian and
what has inspired you to remain a Christian?
Fifth, think about your witness as specific to what you do in this time
of global pandemic:
- Pray for the leadership,
inspiration, and empowerment of the Holy Spirit to know and do God’s will.
- Use the name “Jesus” in a sentence
in a conversation with someone to whom you witness once this week.
- Care for those who care for you. Do
so in the name of the Cross.
- Be a generous tipper. Are you
concerned about income inequality or the minimum wage? Do what you can and
help the person who is right in front of you. Let them know that you are a
Christian.
- In addition to hand sanitizing,
social distancing, getting a vaccine, wearing a mask (or two), if someone
asks you why or tells you that those things won’t protect you, tell them
that you aren’t doing it for yourself. You are doing it for them, to help
protect them, and let them know that service toward others is an outcome
of your faith.
- Point out to others the work of
Christian groups you see in the media at work feeding and caring for
others without being identified as such.
- Share how you have seen God at work
in your losses and gains during the pandemic, as well as in the lives of
other Christians.
John writes, in his 1st letter, the 1st chapter,
starting at the 1st verse:
*I John 1:1-4
How have you seen God at work in your life or in the lives of others?
How can your experience help you in sharing your faith?
A witness is someone who tells about something they have seen. Be a
witness.
