Here’s my sermon for my third time being involved at Christ the King’s annual polka worship service! The service includes the Lutheran liturgy set to a variety of polka tunes arranged and led by musicians from our congregation here at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Port Washington.
The readings I selected this year are Acts 1:6-14, Psalm 150, and Luke 12:22-33, and my sermon is lightly adapted from my May 28, 2017 sermon on witnessing. I came across the story of Pastor John Harper here, and found Bishop Mike Rinehart’s exploration of the text very helpful. No recordings for this service, but here’s the sermon text.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Did you know that the average person speaks about 16,000 words per day? (source) I have no idea if that’s true, or how you’d measure it, but I’d love to see a breakdown of when in life people say the most words, because my guess is that it’s when they have young children. When I’m around my children, I tend to narrate what’s happening in the world.
“Look, Jonah. Micah is putting on his shoe. And the dog stood up, because he thinks we’re going for a walk. He’s going to be really happy if we get the leash. Now Micah’s putting on his other shoe, and it’s almost time to go. Look, there’s a tree. And a car drove by. It was a red car. Do you see any other red cars? I see a delivery truck.”
I want to build their vocabulary and help them process what’s happening in the world around them, and the best way I know to do that is to just keep telling them what’s happening, pointing out things, talking about what we’re seeing in the world around us.
I hope once they’re a bit older, we can tone it down a little bit, and not need to talk about every single speed limit sign and every street we drive on, but I might be stuck in the habit by then.
My wife Christin will tell you that even before I had kids, I already had a tendency to tell people about random things I’d noticed.
There’s a word for that act of pointing out things and sharing what you’ve seen: Witnessing.
Literally, a witness is someone who tells what they have seen or experienced.
As Luke retells the story of Jesus’ ascension in the book of Acts, Jesus’ last words to the disciples are, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
You will be my witnesses. The very last command we have from Jesus is to witness, to tell the story of what’s happened to us, what we’ve experienced.
Now, the language of “witnessing” in church carries some baggage. Often, we think of witnessing as trying to save people. I searched online for examples of witnessing, and I came across the story of John Harper. John Harper was a Baptist pastor on his way to preach at the Moody Church in Chicago in 1912.
On his way from Scotland, he happened to take passage on a brand-new passenger ship, Titanic. As the ship sank, survivors reported his last words were yelling at people over and over asking them if they were saved.
That is a form of evangelism, and in a crisis like when your ship is sinking, I’m sure God can work through that, but in most circumstances, it’s more off-putting than effective, and it’s not really witnessing.
Witnessing is more about sharing how God has been active in your life and less about yelling at people.
Witnessing isn’t about saving people, because that’s not something you or I can do. Faith comes through the Holy Spirit, through God’s work. Salvation comes through Christ on the cross, not through anything you or I do or say.
But we do get to point people to God’s work by telling our stories. We get to tell about how the Holy Spirit has changed our lives, the ways we’ve experienced God’s presence. God works through our stories to connect other people with faith, to help others find hope and meaning in life.
Being a witness doesn’t need to be dramatic. You don’t need to have all the details right. Bishop Mike Rinehart puts it like this: “A witness simply testifies as to what they have seen and experienced. We are not called to convince, cajole, or arm-twist, but only to testify to our own experience, in word and deed.”
It sounds simple, but many Christians struggle with it. Talking about God—especially outside church—it feels risky.
What if someone’s been hurt by a church or they’re angry at God? What if they think I’m some kind of religious nut? What if they think I’m judging them and get offended? What if they ask a question and I don’t know how to answer it?
The poet Mary Oliver has a wonderful poem called “Instructions for Living a Life.” It’s short, only 7 words.
Here it is: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
That’s really all there is to witnessing. First, pay attention. What’s happening in your life? What’s worth pointing out? What’s your story?
Second, be astonished. Where do you see God? In your story, what is God’s role? How is God involved?
Jesus invites us to consider how God has provided for us, how the One who clothes the grass of the field and causes the lilies to grow cares for you as well.
Third, tell about it. If you just stop with noticing God, you’re kind of like the disciples who stand there staring up toward heaven after Jesus ascended. The angels came and asked them, “Why are you just standing there?” As we train ourselves to better notice what God is doing, to recognize those “God-moments,” we realize we do have something to say. Don’t be afraid of sharing your experience.
Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And this is important—the word “you” there is collective. Jesus isn’t saying you personally must be a witness everywhere all at once! In fact, the places Jesus lists give a good outline for thinking about our witness together.
First, he tells the disciples to be witnesses in Jerusalem. This is their home turf. They know the people there. This is like sharing our stories with each other in church, talking with your neighbors down the block or down the hall.
This is what happens during quilting, or in a small group, around fellowship tables, maybe during supper tonight. And the more we practice talking about God’s activity in our lives, the easier it becomes. We’re building our vocabulary for talking about what God’s doing.
Next, Jesus says we are his witnesses in Judea. Jerusalem was their immediate community; Judea is the wider region.
How are we as individuals and as a congregation witnesses in Port Washington, and Saukville, and Ozaukee County?
Sometimes it’s religious things we say, public events we invite people to like polka services or things we say online on church Facebook pages. Other times, it’s more about our actions, like supporting the food pantry, offering space for community events, inviting people to contribute to hurricane relief. How is God calling us to reach the community around us?
Third, Jesus doesn’t stop at Jerusalem or Judea—he adds, “and Samaria.” This is the most interesting one, I think, because Samaria is not a popular place. Samaria is where those others live, the enemies. The dirty, rotten, no-good heretics, not the nice people like us. Good Jewish people like the disciples looked at Samaria and saw them as a lesser race, the other, people to be despised.
How do we engage and serve and love our enemies? How do we bless people who are different, sometimes very different from us? When people like Muslims or atheists look at the church and at Christians, do they see witnesses testifying to God’s love for them? Or do they see hate and fear?
How are we witnesses to people who will never set foot in a church building? How do we witness to people of other political parties, or to people who’ve hurt us? Remember, when Jesus defined the idea of loving your neighbor, he used a Samaritan as the hero in his parable.
Finally, we are called to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. Sometimes, this might mean sharing the gospel with someone in a far-away tribe who’s never heard of Jesus. But it’s not just that. How are we—as followers of Jesus in Port Washington, Wisconsin—supporting people around the world?
Maybe it’s by sponsoring missionaries, or going ourselves on mission trips like we support through Lighthouse, but more often, I think our witness around the world looks like showing people that they’re not forgotten.
It looks like sending quilts to places around the world where we’ll never go, to people we’ll never meet. It looks like combining our money with others to be used for hurricane relief, to help people in their time of need.
The way we use our resources, our time, our talent, our treasure, our energy, the ways we treat each other, the ways we spend our lives are all witnesses.
The question is always, what is our testimony? How do we use the time we have?
As God’s people, we are called to witness to God’s loving care for us and for the world.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Amen