A Powerful Testimony

5-13-18 (Easter 7B)

1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

A Powerful Testimony

As we’ve focused these last few weeks on these various writings from John in both this letter and his gospel, we’ve been in pretty comfortable and even familiar territory.  Jesus’ encouragement to bear good fruits, to love one another as we have been loved… these are all things that we can easily follow and give our own affirmation toward - we get these ideas, and we’ve heard them preached time and time again.  Today, though… we start to move out of that comfortable territory and into words, phrases, and ideas that aren’t as familiar.  That word testimony that John uses so frequently in the first reading isn’t a very big part of our Presbyterian vocabulary - in fact, if I were to step aside and ask for volunteers right now to come up and give their own testimony… how many of you would raise your hands right now and volunteer to share?

Is it a scary thought to share your story?  Do you feel like you’d have to take the next week, painstakingly struggling to find the most important moments that you’d be comfortable enough to share?  Would you spend the first three days just staring at a blank sheet of paper, wondering what to write in the first place?

Our tradition is one that isn’t too comfortable with the idea of sharing our testimony - you don’t see a whole lot of Presbyterians who go door to door, talking to random strangers and asking them if they’ve “found Jesus,” or handing out tracts from the street corner.  We don’t have a lot of people who feel comfortable just spontaneously coming up in front of the congregation and sharing their story of what God has been up to in their lives.  We’re plenty comfortable leaving the preaching to the preacher - just show us where the bold print is where we’re supposed to respond together, or tell us the hymn number to sing and that’s about as much interactive participation as we’re good for, thank you very much.

And yet, as I looked over these two passages this week, I realized that they’re all about story - as Jesus prays on behalf of his disciples in John’s Gospel, he recounts that he has told them their own story.  He talks to the Father, saying “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world,” and he asks God to protect them, to “sanctify them in the truth” as he sends them out into a world that will not want to hear that same story that they are being sent to proclaim.

John carries this idea of story, of testimony, even further in his letter, defining it even as a symbol of faith and faithfulness - he says that “Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts” and equates that testimony, that presence of the Son as life itself.  He goes on to say that those who do not believe that testimony, who do not carry that story of God within their hearts, do not have life and even go so far as to make God a liar.

I’ll take another second here - anyone want to come up and give their testimony now?  Just checking.  It’s OK.

There’s a kind of power to story - a good story can draw us in, make us forget who we are and what’s going on around us as we become immersed in the world that an author conjures up from the words of a page.  Stories can convey deep and powerful meaning in their telling - it’s one of the reasons that Jesus used them so frequently in his ministry.  With the right story, entire groups of people can be inspired to go out, to make a difference in their world - great leaders in our history have invited us into stories and visions that have taken us to the moon and back, that have inspired us to stand against the evils of the world, that have comforted us in times of fear and sorrow.  Stories help us understand our world and why things are the way they are.

As Jesus and John both talk about this story, however, they talk about a story that transcends any other story we could possibly tell - as John puts it in his letter, “If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.”  And that story, as John goes on, is that God gave us eternal life, and that that life is in God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

As we listen to that story, as we hear it unfold time and time again, it’s a story with incredible power - a story, in fact, that shapes all of our other stories, because it’s the story that shapes our own lives.  I have a great admiration for some of the other traditions in our wider church family who put such emphasis on the ability to share our stories - and while I’m not one who feels right in going door to door trying to evangelize strangers with tracts and scripts, I still think that there’s an immense value in being able to share our testimonies, nevertheless.  When I worked as a camp counselor in college, it was something we were actually encouraged to think about and to be ready to do as a part of the ministry we were providing to the kids at camp, and as I began to pursue my own calling into ministry, I often found myself not only sharing my own story, but also listening to the stories and journeys of many of my classmates as we talked together about why we were following this strange and wonderful calling in the first place.  Every time we invite a candidate for ministry to come before the floor of our Presbytery for examination and welcome into a new calling, we even ask them to share their own story of their faith journey and what has led them to the church they want to serve alongside.

It’s a powerful thing to share our stories, to stand and give that testimony - but it’s also an incredibly vulnerable moment, and one that can be intimidating and scary at the same time.  And it has its challenges, which is perhaps one of the reasons I think we’re personally so uncomfortable just getting up and doing it - after all, what is there for us to share?  We talked just a couple weeks ago about whether we were “cradle” Christians and when that moment was when we began to come into our faith, and for a lot of us, as we think about what our story may be, we may be forced to wonder: do I even have a story that’s worth sharing?  What is there really to tell about a life where coming to church every Sunday is all you’ve ever really known, where you haven’t really had all that many profound experiences along your way that would make for something compelling, something truly worth sharing?

I remember hearing stories, at camp, in seminary, and even among colleagues now in ministry, of truly miraculous things happening - moments of unexplainable healing, people hearing a physical voice calling them and telling them that they need to go into ministry, genuine struggles with the evils of this world and the power of Christ to defeat those powers… and I often hesitated to share that I was just a simple preacher’s kid who thought he’d never in a million years ever want to be a preacher, himself.  What kind of story does that make, anyway?

But then, as I read these passages this week, it became clear: when we give our testimony, when we tell our own stories, it’s never fully about us in the first place.  Sure, we can tell some good stories and get people interested, but if it’s only ever our story, then it ultimately ends up being nothing but that: a good story.  The real power of our testimony, the thing that makes our stories worth telling, no matter how ordinary or how exciting they may be, is that they are also God’s story at work in our lives.  We only have stories because God has given us those stories in the first place, because through Christ, we have encountered God and found ourselves in God’s story.  My mother often tells me the story of a time when I was probably around Ceilidh’s age and she came into the sanctuary to find me standing up in the pulpit and acting like I was preaching.  She asked me what I was doing up there and I said “When God gives you a story to tell, you tell it.”

If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater.

As Jesus prays to God, he prays that God protect those whom he has sent out as his friends, because Jesus has given them a story that needs to be continued - Jesus has shown them that God is at work in their midst, that God wants to do great things through them, and that this is what they are now about to be sent out to do: to continue God’s story, to continue God’s work in this world.  Jesus invites them, and us as we hear his words today, to be a part of God’s continuing story.

And so I invite us again - you don’t have to come up, I won’t put you on the spot - but as you go home today, as you go through your week… think about your story.  Think about where you have seen God at work in your world.  And ask yourself: what if we were to start telling those stories, and what if we were to be able to be more open to hearing those same stories from others without fear of shame or ridicule?  What kind of difference might it make in our community to be able to hear these concrete stories of where God is at work in our lives?  Friends - God has given each of us a story to tell, and more, a story to live.  Let us go and tell that story together.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.