Scripture Lesson

From the book of Psalms, Chapter 40:

¹I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
²He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
³He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.

From the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1:

⁴⁰ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ ⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ ⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, ⁴⁴saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ ⁴⁵But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

From the book of Acts, Chapter 20:

¹⁷From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him. ¹⁸When they came to him, he said to them: ‘You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, ¹⁹serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. ²⁰I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house, ²¹as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus. ²²And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, ²³except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. ²⁴But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.

"Encountering Christ Through Testimony"

A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Fourteen years ago, when I was checking out seminaries, I attended a day-long conference for prospective students at a divinity school that will remain nameless (but it’s in Cambridge). The first event of the day was a plenary session in a large amphitheater where a panel of about eight current students described their experiences at seminary and the journeys that had brought them there.

When the students had finished speaking, the Dean invited questions from the audience, and my hand shot up. Now I want you to try to picture this – hundreds of eager prospective divinity students trying to make good impressions with the staff and faculty -- and there I am, very conspicuous in a red suit. Sure enough, I was the first to be called on, and this is what I said: “I have been sitting here for almost an hour, hearing you speak of your experiences and your journeys, and not once have I heard any of you say the word ‘God.’ Would you please explain?”

Well, you can’t begin to imagine the commotion I caused! I remember the Dean sputtered a bit trying to come up with some sort of response to my question, and a few of the students also chimed in, with some pretty lame excuses if you ask me. I recall one of the students’ responses in particular; he said – a bit defensively -- “Hey, I don’t want to push my religion into your face, OK?”

Can you believe it? Here we were – at a divinity school, for heaven’s sake -- and the attitude seemed to be that sharing how God had worked in your life was tantamount to pushing religion in one’s face. I decided then and there that if you could not talk about God at this school, then I had absolutely no interest in studying within its hallowed, ivy-covered walls. Which is probably just as well, because I am quite sure they didn’t want to have to deal with that annoying woman in the red suit!

Now contrast the attitude of those uptight D-school students to the leper in this morning’s Gospel passage. After his encounter with Jesus, he goes out and tells everybody about how God has healed him. Even though Jesus has warned him not to say anything, the healed man just can’t help himself – he wants to tell everyone about his experience of God!

Unfortunately, we tend to find that people are more like those uptight D-school students than like the healed leper. But all congregations and all churchgoers have faith stories. So why is it that people are so reluctant to share them? Why do we hesitate to tell others about God’s presence in our lives?

Perhaps it is because our culture has decided it is somehow impolite or inappropriate to talk about religion, believing that one’s faith should be kept a private matter between the individual and God. Perhaps it is the feeling that talking about faith somehow cheapens it, or instead of talking about faith, one should act on it, doing good works.

The practice of telling our faith stories is called “testimony,” a word we share with the world of courtrooms and trials. In a courtroom, the people present expect to hear the truth; indeed, the law demands that “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” be spoken. The witnesses – the people giving the testimony – must speak the truth as they have seen, heard, and experienced it. And the same is true in a church. Witnesses – the ones giving the testimony – tell the congregation their truth of their experience of God.

The rituals of our church offer nonverbal ways of practicing testimony. When we gather for Holy Communion, we bear witness both to the story of Jesus’ life and death and to its continuing power in our lives. When we wash a new Christian in the waters of baptism, we offer testimony that we are bound to God, to one another, and to Christians of every time and place. When we share with one another the peace of Christ, we testify to the reconciliation God intends for all people. These and other rituals help us to learn the communal, shared practice of wordless testimony.²

But words are important, too. We might find it hard to find the words to explain our experiences of God, but without words, it is easy to forget our stories. Without the right words, faith can be lost. Perhaps this is why both the ancient Hebrews and early Christians wrote down their experiences of God.

The bible provides many stories and images of testimony, through the prophets and the apostles, and the book of Psalms is full of recorded testimonies, including this morning’s lesson from Psalm 40. Listen to the psalmist’s testimony: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit…set my feet upon a rock, put a new song in my mouth…”

And the Apostle Paul, whose entire life was given purpose in testimony, exemplified this passion the most in this morning’s New Testament lesson from Acts: “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

Throughout the book of Acts, we can see how the practice of testimony grew the early church, how testimony helped to accomplish Christ’s mission after the resurrection, and how people of faith were called to testify to God’s power and presence in their lives. In Paul’s own words from his many letters, we see a wider definition in which testimony was not just about God and the individual speaker, but about the community of believers as well. We see throughout the epistles that when testimony took place in community, it served to build up the faith.

But when Christianity was legalized by the Roman Empire in 313 A.D., there no longer seemed to be a need for people to tell their faith stories; everyone was assumed to be Christian. Later, the Enlightenment brought toleration of differing beliefs, and Christian faith become a private matter. But testimony is a practice which flows naturally out of our own congregational history. We may be called the “frozen chosen,” but back in the 17th century, many New England churches required applicants for church membership to testify to their personal experience of God. To join a Christian community, one had to be able to attest to a conversion experience.

Although it has been dormant for generations in our faith tradition, the practice of telling our faith stories has started to be reclaimed. In fact, whether you have realized it or not, we already practice a form of testimony here in this church. Whenever I include in a sermon a personal story of my faith journey, that’s a testimony. Two weeks ago, Tom Danilchuk gave a powerful testimony about his experience of God. For the past several years, during our annual Stewardship Campaign, we have invited members of the congregation to serve as “Stewardship Witnesses,” sharing with the congregation why they love this church and why they support it. This morning, Elaine Henriksen will give a testimony and sharing her thoughts with us as we kick off this year’s Stewardship Campaign. And during our prayer concerns, every time someone shares how our prayers have worked, how they or their loved one has had healing or experienced God – that’s a testimony.

There are many beautiful stories of God floating unspoken through this church. But if we were to put words to our experiences, if we were to share our stories about our loving God who lives and breathes in the ordinary spaces of our life and our community, if we were to tell of how we have observed holiness in our everyday lives, have seen God’s grace in the world, and have detected the Spirit’s often subtle, and occasionally miraculous, workings in common experience – if we were willing to take a risk and share our testimony, to share our experiences of God, then we could strengthen the faith of everyone who hears it.

And so, I extend to each of you an invitation, if you would be willing, to spend a couple of minutes during worship on a Sunday morning and share how God has worked in your life. Right now you might be saying to yourself, “Who me? I could never do that!” But each of you has a story of faith, and what a gift it would be for you to share it with the rest of us. And so, I ask you think about giving your testimony; pray about it; and if you feel so called, let me know, so we can schedule you for an upcoming Sunday morning.

In our world where falsehood is so strong, where many voices are raised but honest public speech is rare, in our world where spin doctors and commercial interests distort reality, we need the opportunity to hear the truth. We need to support one another within this community as we bear witness, speaking the truth about our experiences of God. When we do, we will be supported by yet another community, one that has inspired Christians since the earliest days: the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us. We invite you to join that procession of prophets and apostles, who – through the generations – have testified to God’s presence and power. Join that great cloud of witnesses, and let your voice be heard. Amen.

¹Adapted from Thomas Hoyt, Jr., “Testimony,” in Dorothy C. Bass, ed., Practicing Our Faith (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997), pp. 92-93.
²Ibid, p. 101.