Sermon: January 20, 2008

Three seasons ago, ABC launched a new medical drama geared to 20-30 year old viewers.  It’s called “Grey’s Anatomy.”  I’m told by my perplexed, “give me ESPN or give me death” son, that this show is so popular that college women plan their Thursday activities around its time slot on Thursday evening…However, for aging women like me, there is still nothing that can beat a fast-paced, angst-riddled episode of the long-running NBC medical drama, “ER,” also on Thursday night.  It’s like an old friend…So last Thursday, I poured a glass of wine, curled up under a quilt in our chilly TV room and caught an episode titled, “Atonement.”  And I have not been able to get one of the multiple storylines out of my mind…

It concerned a retired doctor, brought to the ER after rescuing a little boy who had fallen into an icy pond.  In his obsession with the boy’s condition, the old doctor reveals that he had worked in a prison, and part of his job was mixing & administering the lethal dose of drugs to those who had received the death penalty.  One of those who had died by his hand was the little boy’s father, who, it was learned later, was not guilty of the crime for which he had been sentenced to death…The doctor, now near the end of his own life, is tormented by all the deaths he has rendered, so the wise doctors in the ER send for the hospital chaplain - the young, beautiful, confident hospital chaplain.  She sits down and proceeds to utterly misread the man’s enormous struggle, applying a “we must look deep within ourselves for answers” type of pastoral care.  But the tormented man will not have anything to do with that brand of theology, and he orders her out of the room, shouting, “I want a real priest with a word from God!”  …He knew very well what was “deep within” him – he was tormented by it!  He needed a witness who would speak God’s judgment and God’s forgiveness even for him.

Our Gospel text began:  “The next day, John (the Baptizer) saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’”  John is a witness who announces the Good News that Jesus is God’s mercy come to save the world from sin and death.  This is yet another epiphany for us, another revealing, a manifestation, of Jesus’ identity and mission…But how does John know who Jesus is and what he has come to accomplish?  John says it was revealed to him at Jesus’ baptism.  “I myself did not know him,” John says, “but the one who sent me to baptize…said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one…’  And I myself have seen & testified that this is the Son of God.”   John had an encounter with God’s amazing Word, and, therefore, he became a witness to what he had learned.  As we receive John’s testimony today, he becomes the example for each one of us and all of us together as we grapple with our baptismal call to bear witness to Christ’s power-full presence in our lives for the sake of a lost and desperate world.

We are called to speak, to tell, how God has revealed God’s saving love to us in Christ.  That is what it means to be a witness. 

• For example, to be a witness is to tell how God’s judgment and forgiveness have come to us through confession – here in this house or in other settings of reconciliation.  It is to say, “I know God forgives because I have been freed by the announcement of forgiveness and peace.”

• To be a witness is to tell how we have been healed, or how a community has been healed, by the faithfulness of God in the midst of turmoil.  It is to say, “I know God heals because I have seen bodies, spirits, relationships, once as good as dead, stitched back together again.  I have seen anger and mistrust replaced with hope.”

• To be a witness is to tell how we have been, or a community has been, provided the words and the strength to demand justice & to show kindness in a greedy and unjust society.  This is the witness that Martin Luther King, Jr. - whose life and ministry we honor as a nation tomorrow – gave to the world.  In what was his final speech, in Memphis, on the eve of a sanitation worker’s strike, he told the crowd gathered at the Mason Temple what God had revealed to him.  He said, “I don’t know what will happen now.  We’ve got some difficult days ahead.  But…I’ve been to the mountain top…God’s allowed me to go up…And I’ve looked over.  And I’ve seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.  And I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything.  I’m not fearing anyone.  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”  …He was a witness to an unshakeable hope that had been revealed to him by the Word of God.

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A witness uses words to tell how God has revealed God’s saving love to him or her, or to an entire community.  And there is not one of us, not one of God’s children who is not gifted by the Spirit with eloquence for the moment, and for a lifetime, of testimony.  

John tells how he knows Jesus is the Savior of the world.  We are called to do the same; for revelations of God’s love in our lives are not private possessions.  They are for telling – humbly and authentically – to others.

A witness tells, and then a witness invites, just as Jesus invited the disciples of John who followed him, to “come and see” the grace of God.

“Where are you staying?” they asked Jesus.  And Jesus’ invitation to them, to us, and our invitation to others is, simply, “Come & see.”  Come & see the Christ I have met - we have met - in the Word and Sacraments, in the mutual consolation and conversation of the community of faith, in service for the sake of making God’s love known to the world.  And the invitation is crucial, for some have encountered the community of faith, the church, as a grace-less place, a place of exclusion rather than a place of welcome.

New research done by the Barna Group reveals how a great percentage of 16-29 year-olds view Christians and the Christian community.  Here are the percentages that believe these words describe Christians and the church:  anti-gay…91%; judgmental…87%; hypocritical…85%; old-fashioned…78%; too political…75%; out of touch with reality…72%; insensitive to others…70%; boring…68%.

The respondents were not people who were looking in from the outside, non-Christians, with no experience in a congregation or with Christians.  No, the respondents were people who had experience with churches and with those called to be witnesses to Christ.

Our humble and authentic words of witness, a gracious & generous life as the people of God, and the invitation to “come and see” the Christ who has revealed himself even to us – these are not just needed, but are a matter of greatest urgency.  God reveals God-self to us, to this community, in a myriad of grace-full ways, and this is not a secret to be kept, a private treasure to be preserved!  It is the testimony we are called to share.  And like ripples that result from a stone tossed into a pond, from our humble witness, other witnesses are raised up, and from them, still others…And each one of them issuing the invitation that leads to Life:  “Come and see…Come and see.”

Thanks be to God.                                                    AMEN