Testimony

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

We were gathered in a small room at the back of the prison.  It was packed full of women and children.  I was squished into a corner, strategically placed in an attempt to ensure that I would not be called upon to speak.  It was a large correctional facility in the city of Quito in Ecuador.  I was there with members of my congregation and Christian missionaries who distributed shampoo, socks and other personal items to women who were incarcerated there.  The leaders of the mission team introduced themselves and why we were there.  We sang and prayed, moving from Spanish and back to English and back to Spanish.  It was beautiful and overwhelming.  And then it happened.  It was one of the scenarios I had feared.  The leader turned and looked at me.  “Would you like to give your testimony?”  The world suddenly moved in slow motion.  This is not something I had heard from mainline Protestants.  The words rang in my ears.  “Would you like to give your testimony?”  It was like one of those dramatic cinematic moments where everyone is talking, creating a din of noise and suddenly urrrchhhh…  silence.  “Um sure…” I said.  I made my way to the front knowing I would disappoint.  I was surrounded by loud and proud evangelicals; so comfortable in the world of testimony and witness.  They could talk about their faith as easily as talking about their kids or where they lived.  My heart was beating faster and faster…  The group looked at me in a way that felt as if they were staring right into my soul.  They wanted to hear about Jesus.  “Tell me how you came to follow Jesus Christ?  What difference has Christ made for you?  What has God done in your life?”  These questions seemed to drill right to my core and they nearly rendered me speechless.  I felt so raw and vulnerable.  And it wasn’t that I didn’t have an answer.  My journal can attest to the power that following Jesus has had in my life.  But that day in the prison, I felt as if I was standing naked in front of a crowd waiting to judge me.  I felt exposed, like they would take what I said right to God to see if it was worthy.  I wasn’t sure why they wanted to know.  Was there a right answer?  Did I need to use particular catch phrases or holy words?  Where should I begin?

Testimony, witness and faith sharing all belong under the umbrella of the terrifying E word, or evangelism, which could easily be placed alongside sex and money in the category of the things we never mention in church, at least mainline churches.  In her book, Unbinding the Gospel:  Real Life Evangelism, Martha Grace Reese speaks about evangelism in this way, “The heart of evangelism emerges from the interaction of…three sets of relationships:  our personal relationships with God, healthy congregational relationships and caring about other people who don’t have a conscious connection with Christ.”   Growing up, I was never asked to give a testimony or to share my faith story.  I was shown the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but I was never shown how to talk about it or why I should.  I bet many of you can relate to this.  Testimony, or faith sharing is not something most of us are anxious, willing or able to do.  But when I read today’s scripture, I wonder why that is.  Why is it that many of us find that we would rather undergo a root canal than talk about our faith with friends, let alone strangers?  Perhaps we fear being pushy or awkward.  We fear alienating people or perhaps we simply don’t know what to say or how to share it.  Perhaps we don’t have an experience of a moment of conversion, perhaps ours is a story of ups and downs- of a winding journey with God as we have followed Christ through it all.  Perhaps we feel that others might have a more spectacular story of faith or that we can’t do justice in words to what God has done with us.  But the truth is that being able to talk about our faith is an essential way to grow in faith, to grow in our love of God.  Giving voice to our faith leads us to the question of what exactly is at the heart of life with God.

Have you thought about that?  What for you is at the heart of life with God?  What does it matter for you in particular to follow Jesus Christ?  In the letter to the Corinthians, we read that, “the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you…”  And we can almost guarantee that a testimony strengthened leads to a faith strengthened. As good strong and stoic New Englanders, you might be thinking, that your pastor is nuts and that we simply don’t share our faith- that it is just too personal and awkward.  Perhaps we would prefer to leave such activities to other Christians- to those seemingly better suited for a task such as this.  We might tell ourselves that we are people of choice and that it is better to let others find our church or any church on their own.  But I would like to share with you some of the real story of mainline Christianity in this country.  In percentage terms, in the year 2000, they were just half as many mainline Protestants as there were 40 years prior.  Only 4% of baby boomers say that they were raised without a religious faith.  And yet 27% of people born between the years of 1980 and 1984 say that they have no religious preference or faith to speak of. In other words, each generation is less involved in religious life.  I have heard many of my peers share that they don’t go to church because they would like to let their children choose which faith they will have, but this of course assumes they know something about the faith or have enough information to make a decision at all.  So, while we might say that people are invited to dawn our doors as they are comfortable, for many “the thought of going back to church when they are in trouble or in need will never occur to them because they have never been inside a church building in the first place.”   Many people with whom we live and work will find a church home because of a message they hear from someone they know and respect.  Testimony is simply our ability to share a piece of our own evidence of God’s grace in our lives.  Testimony means that the joy of God cannot be contained.  Testimony means that we love God so much that we want to share it.  Testimony is a living affirmation that God is working in the world and in us. 

That day in the prison, the gathered group wanted to know the story of my faith.  They wanted to hear God’s unique and glorious stamp on my life.  That day I didn’t trust my story enough to share it, but as your pastor and as someone who now fully believes that the act of testimony is a way to grow in my love of God, I thought that I would step out in faith and share a piece of my testimony with you as my beloved congregation.  I want to share with you a small part of what is at the heart of my life with God.  I want to share with you some of what God has done with me.

Many of you know that I am a planner.  I like to know the action steps necessary to achieve my goals.  I love the creation story in Genesis because it is so full of perfectly marvelous order.  I can relate to this story of God.  God had a plan for each day and did what was necessary to bring order out of chaos for that piece of the plan.  I love the order of creation and I loved the order of my life.  I had a plan for high school and for college.  I worked really hard.  I rarely skipped class.  I did what my instructors assured me were the right things to do to be a good student.  I had faithfully attended church throughout my childhood and through high school.  I quickly found a church and a campus ministry group at the University of Arizona.  I continued to check things off my life to do list.  I rarely veered off of my life schedule, doing all that I thought I was supposed to do.  Volunteer work, study abroad, reading, writing, hiking, and Division 1 cross-country and track- all in an effort to really be someone. I wanted to a teacher and a politician. I wanted to change the world.  I wanted to do all of this according to my plan and timeline.  I was in control and there was nothing that could stop me.  That is until I found myself walking through my darkest valley.  The clouds of depression moved in and all I could see were shadows.  I found myself sleeping just so I didn’t have to face the darkness that covered me.  The storm of sadness was long and painful.  There was no way out.  It felt as if I was losing all that I had worked so hard to prepare.  It was my final semester of college and my world was falling apart.  It was too dark for even a pin light of hope to reach my soul.  In desperation I surrendered it all to my God.   I had to.  I had to let go and find God.  I found help in family and doctors and I was forced to let go of my perfect vision for how my life should unfold and I found the grace of God waiting for me.  In those months I found my God who says to me, that I am holy and precious in God’s sight.  In those months I let go and found the God I know in Jesus Christ, the God from whom nothing can separate me.  It was in that dark valley that I truly found the God in whom my life is grounded.  It was in those months of darkness, I met for the first time the God that Jesus spoke of- the God who holds a special place for those who are lost. At the heart of my life with God is my experience that there is no darkness too dark for God, there is no place hidden from God’s love and grace.  I was lost and God found me and I stand in awe of the power of our God, who we know through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Unbinding the Gospel:  Real Life Evangelism.  Martha Grace Reese pp.5.

Unbinding the Gospel:  Real Life Evangelism.  Martha Grace Reese pp.27.