Testify!
Testify!
Faith United Methodist Church
January 19, 2020
Rev. Laura Norvell
Here in the unfolding season of Epiphany we continue to
watch for the ways Jesus is revealed to us as Christ.
I want to unpack that just a little – helping us remember
that “Christ” is not a given name, not Jesus’s last name, but a title granted
by the tradition of Christianity. When we refer to Jesus Christ or to the
Christ, we are claiming that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Part of what we watch for in Epiphany is
Jesus’s “Christ-ness.” We watch to see the signs and revelations that show Christ
to us – in history and in our lived lives – as God’s chosen one, the one who
saves us from death and preserves us for eternal life.
That is a lofty theological statement – and sometimes on a
Sunday, we’re just not ready for lofty theological statements. We grow our understanding of a teaching or an
experience by sitting with it, examining it, watching for its impact,
questioning it, exploring more deeply, poking at it, pushing against it.
I am well aware that on a Sunday morning, we offer ourselves
to God and then I hope we wrestle with some sound byte that causes us to think,
to reflect, to pray and hopefully causes us to say “Thanks, God.” All of that
is hard work in the span of 75 minutes on a Sunday.
The sound bytes that we’ve pondered in this season of
Epiphany help us build a shared vocabulary.
In the first week, we talked about “discernment,” about using our senses
and our gut to see and try to understand the way that God is working in our
lives and in the larger world.
And then last week, we talked about “covenant” –
specifically the way we became part of God’s larger covenant with God’s people
through baptism into Christ’s holy church.
And today, our word is “testify.”
Where does that word come from? What does it mean to us in
action?
And where might we go with that? How might God be revealing
something to us through the call to testify?
We begin with our Gospel text today, which is a week-long
break from Matthew for a detour through John. John’s gospel differs so much and
so meaningfully from the synoptic gospels. If you’ve not studied these texts,
it is important to know that Matthew, Mark, and Luke cite much of the same
source material and therefore use many of the same stories and similar details
and interpretations. But John’s gospel
differs significantly. There is a more cohesive interpretation of who Jesus is
and what Jesus is doing throughout the text. John’s images of Jesus are more
symbolic and universal in so many ways. They have so much to say to us here and
now.
In today’s reading, we hear John testify to who this man,
Jesus, is, and we see Jesus invite some of John’s disciples to come witness
with their own eyes who he is, so that they might build their own testimony.
John has already baptized Jesus at the Jordan, and John’s
testimony in this passage includes details about what he has heard and seen God
do in that moment of baptism – the settling of the Spirit on Jesus in the
descending of a dove. John’s testimony also includes the declaration that this
Jesus is the Lamb of God.
So often in our Sunday School faith we hear “lamb of God”
and we think about Jesus as a sin sacrifice…because many of us have been told
that over and over.
But that is not the metaphor developed in this Gospel. The Lamb of God here is the Passover lamb –
the lamb that symbolizes the lambs sacrificed by the Hebrews to mark their
doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over them during the final
plague, the death of all the firstborn in the Exodus narrative.
From Exodus 12 – For I will pass through the and of Egypt
that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both
human beings and animals; and all the gods of Egypt I will execute my
judgments; I am the LORD. The blood
shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I
will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of
Egypt.
The blood of the Passover lamb marked those who were part of
God’s covenant. In John’s gospel, the last supper happens on the day of
preparation – the day when households would have prepared their Passover lamb
for sacrifice. Get it? John is building the idea that this Jesus is
the Passover Lamb of God, who marks those receiving him as saved for eternal
life, included in the new covenant God makes with God’s people.
So…John declares that this is the lamb of God. And John’s
disciples who hear this immediately get what John is saying – this is the one
I’ve been saying would show up!
I kind of imagine John’s disciples gaping as Jesus passes by
– Who are you?
And Jesus doesn’t give a definitive answer. Because that is
not how Jesus does things most of the time when asked a question, right?
Instead, he invites them to “Come and see.”
Come and see. We
don’t get the straight up answer. We are
invited to come and see. We are invited
to see what is revealed in Jesus’s actions in the world.
Over the next several weeks the lectionary readings “linger”
in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. This is where the infamous “love” passage so
often read at weddings emerges, you know – love is patient and kind - and I
think it is no mistake that in a season where we are watching how God is
revealed to us here and now, the shaping of the young church at Corinth’s understanding
of LOVE is part of the backdrop.
In a world where fewer and fewer of our friends and
neighbors have an understanding of the traditional church language for God and
even fewer have an experience or understanding of the story of who Jesus is,
the experience of LOVE is somehow universal, and I think it is a powerful way
for us to talk about the energy of God through the power of a creator, a
teacher, a sustaining spirit that moves among us at every turn. God is in simple terms, Love.
If you were to invite people to “come and see” what Jesus is
doing in your life, how the Triune God is moving in your life, what would you
show them when they showed up?
Because our life is what testifies. More than our words. Even more than our
actions in isolation. It is the fullness
of our lives that testify.
And with that in mind, moving beyond how our individual
lives might bear witness, how would we invite people to “come and see” what God
is doing here at Faith? Where are the places where our shared life bears witness
best to the love that God has for each of us and for those beyond us?
Today, the sound byte God has placed on this pastor’s heart
is rooted in our scriptures and in our civil society. This is the weekend we mark Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s birthday, recognizing his life of ministry and ultimately his
martyrdom which helped birth seismic shifts in who we are as a Nation – work
that is still unfinished today…perhaps work that is being unraveled today.
In an op-ed this week by Michael Gerson, he reflected on the
current state of division in our country in light of remembering Dr. King, and
he pulled this quote as a summary of King’s legacy:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
King’s work of non-violent resistance sought to create a
living testimony to what LOVE was capable of, how LOVE responded to hate, how
LOVE could meet fear and division with a power to overcome it.
As I swim in the ideas of who Jesus was and who Christ is
today and how God is calling me to live differently in light of that…when I
swim in how big the world is and how to have an impact in the midst of that
BIGNESS, I keep coming back to that word – love.
How is it that I am testifying to God’s love for all of
God’s creation day in and day out?
Taken from one of my favorite blogs this week, turning these
questions to us as a community:
Where and when do we most vividly, experientially embody the
Gospel we proclaim?
What, in particular, might someone “come and see” in our
community that might cause them to decide to step more fully into God’s mission
of liberation, love, and joy?
And how is it that we, as a community of Faith, are not so
focused on our budget and our buildings and our own experience but are looking
for ways that our shared life TESTIFIES to how God’s love changes things?
This is not lukewarm work.
This is not lukewarm work.
This is hard work that requires that we learn to love one
another in spaces of disagreement.
This is work that requires us to learn to love one another
even when we disagree.
This is work that requires us to extend invitations to those
we do not fully embrace or understand.
This is work that calls us to receive God’s love for
ourselves and TESTIFY to how it is LOVE for every person in God’s reach.
Come and see.
Jesus moved in the world making a difference, being the
lived presence of God’s love and HUMANITY.
We are called to testify to that. To the way love makes a difference. Because hate can not drive out hate. Only
love can do that.
May it be so.
Amen.
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