Easter 7B
Text: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
sermon by Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
May 16, 2021
On Community, and Witness
In the lesson this morning from the Book of Acts, Peter notes that the departure of Judas has left a large, grieving hole in the ranks of the apostles. Betrayal will do that to you: leave you with a big empty space, with a place of loss that yearns for fulfillment again, looks to be made again complete. Judas, Peter says, was numbered among us – and that complete number would be 12, wouldn’t it? Not 11, but 12 – and Judas had been “allotted his share in this ministry.” Now that he’s gone, his share in this ministry must still be taken up; this ministry is just that important.
But who? Before the apostles get to names for nomination, Peter suggests the qualifications. What are the qualities we look for in people who might take up that share? Peter says we’re looking for, “One of those who has accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us – one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” The qualifications are two: It must be someone who has accompanied the community, and it must be someone who can become a witness.
Both these things are important. Accompaniment is important because you’ve got to be present in the community, you’ve got to accompany the company of saints if you’re going to hear the story. It’s in the church, in the company of believers, that the story gets told. To know the story you’ve got to be here.
To be part of the company is also important because you can’t proclaim the Gospel from a place where you haven’t experienced it. The church is the place where you experience the gospel, in the Word of God read and preached, in the grace of God received in Holy Communion, in the Holy Spirit moving among the fellowship of believers. If you’re not in the community then I don’t know what it would be you’d be proclaiming out there, but it wouldn’t be the gospel.
But finally, to be part of the community is important because it is in the community that you learn the gospel in all honesty. Without the community you are subject to your own self-centered whims. You make up your own story, and you come off looking awfully good, sinfully good, unbelievably good, when you make up your own story. You lie to yourself, and you lie to others. It is the community that corrects you, that guides you back to the gospel truth. A disciple must therefore be someone who accompanies the community.
And a disciple must be someone who can become a witness. Now usually when you hear the words Christian witness you think, ah, we’re talking about evangelism! Well, maybe we are, eventually, but before we ever get to that, there is a deeper reason that Christians witness, bring our faith to speech. At the most profound level, Christians witness, talk about faith, because it is a truly human act to want to tell the truth.
Ah, now, wait, Bob, you just told us that left to our own devices humans tend to lie. Yeah, I know; on the surface we often think that we need to lie, that our lies can get us out of trouble and make life somehow easier and better. Underneath, however, somewhere in there we know that we desperately want to tell the truth, need to tell the truth. Christians witness, talk about faith, because to be authentically human is – how do they say it when you take the witness stand? – to tell the truth, the whole truth.
If we cannot tell the whole truth then we cannot be fully alive as human beings, and Christians believe that we cannot tell the truth, not the whole truth, without talking about God. You can consider another human being physically – the chemical and biological principles that make the body work – and you can consider that human being psychologically, and that would be true, too, but you haven’t come to the whole truth about another human being until you consider that person as child of God. Christian witness, then, is about the whole truth of the matter.
But more than that, finally, in the end, Christian witness is about getting at the whole truth of the matter. Getting at it, I say. What I mean by that, is that trying to put our faith into words is a part of discovering what we know about God, believe about God, trust about God. It’s a process; when we do that we’re getting at it!
People say to me, “I know what I believe. I just can’t say it!” I understand the frustration, but I want to push you, suggest that in some ways just the reverse is true. The more you can say it, the more you really believe it. When we talk about our faith, we are not merely expressing our beliefs; we are coming more fully and clearly to believe. To put it another way: We are always talking ourselves into being Christian. And although that sounds funny to say about faith – we’re always talking ourselves into it! – it’s the truth, and it’s good and appropriate that we do it that way.
So let me suggest a handful of ways to be about this business, of talking yourself into it. One: Spend some time in prayer. Daily is good, but in any event set aside some time, when you can talk to God. Over time it will shape you; it will shape your faith. It’s like baseball practice: the repetition of it all will develop you and you’ll get better at it, you’ll become more comfortable and proficient in speaking the language of faith.
Two: join in Bible study. Holding the Bible at the center of conversation keeps us digging into Christian story and language, exploring who God is and what that means for us. “I don’t know enough about the Bible to join a study,” people tell me. That betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the enterprise: Bible study isn’t about academic content. It’s really about listening to one another, and articulating our struggles and development in faith, all centered around the Word. Join in Bible study, and you will be blessed by listening to others, and inspired by their witness and inspired by the Word, and sooner or later you’ll find yourself talking yourself into it.
Three: be ready, to let someone else know what your faith means to you. The question might come to you at anytime, often from one of your kids, it comes; sometimes from a neighbor or friend; occasionally from a mere acquaintance who’s interested in matters of faith and wants to know why you think this Christian faith business is important. To be clear: I’m not talking about what a warm and welcoming community is Faith Lutheran Church, or how committed we are to justice ministries; things like that. Those things are true, but the penetrating question, the witness question, the real question is: What difference does the encounter with Jesus Christ make in your life?
You know, back before the days of pandemic, when were worshiping in-person – remember that? – from time to time we provided opportunity for what has been called faith testimony. For a series of Sundays we would invite people to share publicly the real question: Let me tell you about the difference that Christian faith makes in my life. We were talking ourselves into being Christian. I remember after one of these testimonies somebody from the congregation told me, “You know, I listened to that today – powerful stuff! – and I wondered, if I’d been asked to do that, what would I say?”
That’s the power of Christian witness. It’s not really about knocking on doors. It’s about: What would you say, that tells the deepest truth about God moving, about resurrected new life!, in your life and in our community? Consider that question, and thereby – just like Mathias – become a disciple, a witness. What would you say?