God’s Testimony: Creation, Jesus & Community
Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
Thomas Hoyt, Jr. p. 91, Practicing Our Faith A Way of Life For A Searching People
“Thank God for what God has done for me, and I hope that you all will pray for me so that I will grow strong.”
Let’s memorize this testimony, shall we? Make it our own? Offer it up to God each day, each week, each year of our lives? No matter our struggles and sorrows, our heart breaks, our hopes and our dreams? Thank God for what God has done for me, and I hope that you all will pray for me so that I will grow strong.”
Let’s memorize this testimony.
I’ve been pondering testimony, particularly because I am teaching Mira and Luke in Confirmation. I invited Joel to come and give his testimony - I asked the kids to interview their parents and grandparents to discover their testimonies. We ask our confirmands to publicly testify that Jesus Christ is their Savior, that they will turn from evil, they will participate in the full body of the church, serve on committees and be active in the mission life of WPC. I know - us Presbyterians shy away from this word and concept because of its connection to conservative evangelical practices of demand and specific date of salvation. We are shy to testify - we use to do a thing called ‘Spirit sightings’ which in its own way is testimony.
The Black Church does not shy away from testimony and they see it as an integral part of every worship service. It is as important as the sermons or the prayers, more so in some ways, as it is what gives energy and life to the body of Christ. Church is the uplift, the place of healing, comfort and lament, to help people make it one more week. When you live at the margins of society and culture, worn down by the every day racism and exclusion practiced on your very body, you turn to the gathered community for reassurance of this life getting better by and by. Even during slave times when they met in ‘brush arbors’, a coded word for church, with the horror of the beatings fresh on their bodies, they found reason to thank God for life and ask one another to pray for strength. Their testimonies ring out strong and clear still to this day.
But what of God’s Testimony? It’s a peculiar frame of reference: God’s testimony is greater than humans; He testifies to and through His Son; we who believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Holy One, the Son of God, have God’s testimony in our hearts! God gives us eternal life.
As I have walked around our beautiful city during this past week of Spring, I’ve come to think of nature, creation, as a part of God’s testimony. The beauty that surrounds us, from the Olympics across the salt water to the west, the Cascades capped in white to the East, Mt. Baker majestic to the North and Mt. Rainier towering like a natural cathedral to the south, is God’s creation Word, His Divine Witness as a great gift for us humans to enjoy.
He spoke the universe into being, He spoke to Israel through Moses and the prophets, He humbled Himself to the vulnerability of becoming human in Jesus, His weakness exposed in this life-giving hope. God is not doomed by our unbelief, done in by our rejection, rather He continues to show up, reaches out, reaches in, what theologians call ‘prevenient grace’ that is, the placement of God’s witness beside that of others, to be measured and judged. We live in a Good Friday world in constant need of salvation and deliverance. In the face of all the horrors, God focuses His attention on His Son, “...with whom I am well-pleased”. The cross is the final act of powerful weakness, to which God shouts, “Here is Your Savior!” His testimony buried for a moment, only to be raised up on the 3rd day.
The power of God’s testimony is located in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of God, Love’s most robust expression, complete, whole, marred yet so beautiful. You want life? Have Jesus. You have Jesus, you have life. This doesn’t take away the deep pain and brokenness that we all experience, we lament for ourselves and others, all over the world. It simply centers God’s testimony, His Son, enfleshed, not a lofty intellectual idea, rather an embodied person who walks our dusty streets, drinks our dirty water, sleeps in the shelter of our human lives. God ‘condescends’ to be engaged with the very people who so often turn away or seek a power kind of savior, one who will destroy those we name evil. Yet He doesn’t waver from His witness, His determined insistence that Jesus is the gift of love and life for eternity throughout the whole world. The Spirit, the water of baptism and the blood of His death agree. No antichrist can take this away.
It makes me think about community as a part of God’s testimony. It might be a well-placed act of compassion carries more life-giving power than a good sermon. Stop and think about every day kindness and inspiration. Teachers come to mind - those that devote their precious imaginations and energies so students are challenged to learn the very most at the deepest levels. Weekly volunteers at the Food Bank. Folk who in non-pandemic times, go to Children’s Hospital to rock the babies who are sick or without family. Powerful advocates who speak up and speak out for the voiceless, the forgotten, the nobodies. If we only could take a measure, place a value, recognize the intricate web of connection throughout our communities. Simple gestures that signal recognition of another’s humanity, maybe their weakness ‘need a hand?’ Gestures of gratitude go a long ways toward healing.
We live in a time of falsehoods reigning supreme, lies told as truth, build up of fears toward those whose skin color or voice patterns or cultural practices are deemed unworthy. Our testimony must be measured for its truth, our voices and bodies exercised in the display of God’s deep and abiding love for the whole world. “Let me tell you what I have seen and heard - in the Bible, in the history of Christianity, from the great cloud of witnesses who surround this community, in the appearance of the Holy Spirit in my own life and our life together.” We become drum majors for justice like Martin Luther King, Jr. We march in the streets for liberation and freedom of women, the LGBT communities, people of color including Asian Americans, poor people, against the tyranny of white Christian nationalism. This is all part of our testimonies that we offer up to God for His judgment and His grace. We beg God to find us worthy, to watch over us if He finds us righteous, to strengthen our feeble knees, that we might yield fruit in due season.
Again, our testimony: “I thank God for all that God has done for me and I hope that you all will pray for me to remain strong.” Amen