Go, Testify

 John 1:6-8, 19-28

Testify, witness, a testimony in church, for years and years we have hidden ourselves away from these words like they are a plague. Something those "other" churches do. We don't want to be related with those and we have kept ourselves apart. Like anything we don't fill in words for they end up being stolen from us. Because we don't give testimony or witness people tend to fill in the blanks and one of the greatest criticism of our mainline denominations is that we don't speak up and witness enough. 

What are we supposed to be pointing to? Well, look at today's words. John does a great job of testifying to Genesis. We can't read the first chapter of John and not hear the way the word was and has always been, or how it has been an example of light and not hear those first words God spoke, "Let there be light." This is what creation is a testimony, a pointing to what has created it. It testifies to the life cycle, to death and resurrection. Every winter we know will be followed by spring, where once again everything blooms.

Witness is something we were never meant to let go of. We need to witness in death not being the last word, in believing that losing our lives leads to gaining it all! Witness is a wonderful thing and because we have been silent, others have written the narrative. A narrative of God's judgment and a list of rules to follow or a magic genie God who answers everything as long as we follow the rules. A narrative which says when we do something wrong we are punished. Unfortunately this is not the narrative I see, why?

Because there is this little story about a lost community. Yes, whole community called Nineveh and God sends a reluctant prophet named Jonah there. Now our friend Jonah doesn't want to give the witness God has given him to take to Nineveh. Jonah runs in the other direction and he's not killed, he just has to endure a smelly voyage. Then Jonah goes to Nineveh and much like the predictive prophets expects God to rain down vengeance on the Ninevites after they listen and do what God wants them to do. Still God doesn't destroy them or Jonah again. Instead he makes this plant grow and shade Jonah and then it dies. God tells Jonah, just because he's more righteous things don't work the way Jonah wants them too. God is the one who decides mercy and yes love.

See John gives us this wonderful introduction today to the God of love. The One the prophets don't seem to understand. Many times they come close, womb love, a mother hen, and how we treat one another are examples, but then they go into how Israel's punishment is from God and we get a Jonah prophecy. The real witness is still there time and again. The place we see it is a little further on in John, the much overused John 3:16 yet we forget the other part of this verse 3:17, because God so loved the world he sent Jesus, not to condemn, but that we might have life!

Love and life is a testimony I would give. God so loved us, always has, always will that God sent prophets and teachers and then God's son to us. To us who don't get it. To us who only paint a picture halfway. To us who forget love is the very root of what started this lineage long ago. What love? The love of a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law Ruth and Naomi, which then culminated in the love of Boaz to Ruth and the love of Naomi's life a son, Obed the father of Jesse, the father of David, the father of Jesus. Love is where it all ends up. Now this is something I want to testify from the hilltops. Each one of us should want to.

When I hear the news of today the only thing which will make it better is if we have and testify to this love. When I hear we can't agree, we may disagree, but love can conquer this. When I hear we try to forget those who are dying in so many different ways, COVID, racism, or because we forget them, love is the witness for them. When I hear of how we try to keep people out of this country and how they die, love is the only thing which is our testimony. Love came to us and comes to us in every time and place and way. Love asks us to care for the homeless, the naked, the stranger and feed them, give a care for them. Love is a witness there is not scarce resources, but a bounty made out of love. 

This love makes its way into us and we can't help but testify to it. Because this love has remade us, transformed us, called us beloved when we were told we weren't. This love makes its way down into our very soul and shouldn't we want to testify to it? Shouldn't we want to let others know they are beloved when they were told they weren't? Isn't this the story of Jonah all over again? 

Love is patient, love is kind, love believes in us even when we don't, and nothing on or in earth can ever separate us from that love and yet this is what we have done to that love. It's scarce, it's only given out to the best, most righteous, it's only for the few. No this love is free. Free to love, free to be abundantly given, those are some of Jesus' best stories. The woman caught in adultery, the woman who cried and anointed his feet when everyone else in the room thought she wasn't worthy, this is the love we are to witness to. Do we? 

It is our sacred responsibility to let love go free. It is a testimony to someone who feels the weight of the whole world against them, you are loved. It has been so freely, liberally, and wonderfully given to us our response is to testify to it. This holy love came down and was entrusted to two teenagers who had no idea how this love would hurt their lives, yet they said yes to it. So testify to this love in your life, so others can see it, so others will know they are deeply, freely and abundantly loved because God's love doesn't turn off just because we don't learn its language. Instead, it is given to us again and again in hopes that we might come to believe in it.