Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

4/30/06 - 3 Easter

The Rev. Sarah Ball-Damberg

Luke 24:36b-48

"You are witnesses to these things," Jesus says to the disciples.

It's an interesting word, witness. On the one hand, it means "someone who's seen something," which is certainly true of the disciples. They saw Jesus' life and work, they saw his betrayal, trial, and crucifixion, and now, although they're afraid they might be seeing a ghost, they're seeing his resurrected body. They're eyewitnesses.

We're awfully fond of the word eyewitness. We have Eyewitness News and eyewitness accounts. The idea is that what someone's seen is what is - I saw it, so it's a fact. The funny thing is that if we took five people who saw an accident, we'd probably get five different accounts of what happened. Everyone will have seen something at least a little different from everyone else.

And certainly, judging by the different Gospel accounts, the disciples saw things differently. Nonetheless, what Jesus says is, at one level, a descriptive statement. The disciples are witnesses in the sense that they are eyewitnesses - they are Gospel-see'ers.

But there's more. After all, it would be a shame to think Jesus came all the way back from the dead just to tell the disciples what they had already seen. So when Jesus says, "You are witnesses of these things" to the disciples, he's also talking about what happens next. He's giving them an assignment - he's telling them "You are to go bear witness to these things."

Jesus means that the disciples are to go and tell what they know. They are to go and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in the name of Christ to all nations. That's even clearer when Jesus says it again at the beginning of Acts. There he says, ". . . you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." So to say, "You are witnesses of these things," is a commission -- "Go be Gospel-tellers."

But there's more to bearing witness than just talking. It's such a beautiful phrase, isn't it? It has that sense of carrying something - Go carry this news. And bearing witness does go beyond just seeing and speaking. Bearing witness is really a way of being - it means that we can live our witness to God. So when Jesus says, "You are witness of these things," he means that his disciples can be Gospel-bearers. Their whole life can carry the Gospel.

I love that idea -- that it's possible to live in a way that our whole life can be a witness to God, in the same way that in Psalm 98, the whole universe gets happy with the joy of being God's Creation - "Let the sea make a noise and all that's in it. . . Let the rivers clap their hands, and the hills ring out with joy. . . ." Can't you just imagine rivers clapping their hands?

I got to thinking this past week, how does that happen? How do we get to be bearers of the Gospel? How do we get beyond the idea of being a witness to the Gospel to actually being a Gospel-bearer?

The Greek is a good place to start. In Greek Jesus says, "You are ma,rturej of these things" - the Greek word for "witness" is "martyr."

Bummer.

But here's the thing -- to be a martyr means to be a Gospel-bearer in the fullest and most complete way possible - a martyr is someone who has completely surrendered to God, someone who has been able to say, "Not my will, but yours," someone who has found their life by losing it. In the upside-down world that is God's kingdom, the death of a martyr is a witness to life.

So I spent some time reading about some of the martyrs of the Church, one of whom is Jonathan Myrick Daniels. He was a young Episcopal seminarian and civil rights worker martyred in Selma, Alabama in August 1965. Jonathan got in between a shotgun and the 16 year old girl it was aimed at. He caught the shotgun's blast in his chest and died instantly.

I actually already knew the basic outline of Jonathan's life and death. I knew that we remember him because he gave his life for another, and on behalf of many others. But what I didn't know is that the Book of Common Prayer had a lot to do with how he lived and died. Shortly before he was killed he wrote,

"As [I] said [Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer] day by day, [I] became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible "communion of saints" . . . who blend with theirs our faltering songs of prayer and praise. With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in him whose name is above all the names . . . we are indelibly, unspeakably ONE."

Some of you may have gone last Sunday to the first of the classes Scott and Donna are offering on peace and justice in the Holy Land. If so, you heard Scott say that justice isn't an idea, it's a practice. Justice doesn't exist in our thoughts, but in our actions. It's not just what we think, but what we do.

Things happened too fast on that August day in Alabama for Jonathan Daniels to think about what to do. He had to act before he had time to think. But how did it happen that he acted to save someone else and not himself? It's not like he'd trained himself to step in front of a shotgun should the need ever arise.

I think what happened is that all the time he'd spent in prayer, all those days he'd prayed the daily office with others, shaped him for that moment. Not that prayer and worship is training for action, but that when we join in prayer and worship, God's Word and God's grace soaks in so much that when we act, it's God acting through us. In some small degree we are able to participate in the grace that saved us.

Jonathan's participation in the prayers and liturgies of the Church had freed him to do exactly what he did - to live for others, even to the point of giving his life for another. His prayers were practice. Gathering with others to hear God's Word, to pray, to join in the Eucharist - all those things transformed Jonathan into a witness, a martyr. Saturated with the Gospel, Jonathan became a Gospel-bearer who bore witness to God's self-giving love and grace.

Gospel-bearing is a way of being. It's a way of life shaped by the things we do and say when we gather here every Sunday to offer our praise and thanksgiving to God.  It's a way of life shaped by the grace of God. Being a Gospel-bearer isn't reserved just to those who are martyred for their faith - it's something each of us can do. It's a way of stepping inside God's story and becoming part of that story.

When Jesus tells the disciples "You are witnesses to these things" he is commissioning them - he's sending them to carry the Gospel into the world. He's also inviting them. He's inviting them to live in love instead of fear, to live lives filled with grace instead of anxiety. Jesus' commission is God's gracious invitation to be part of God's work in the world, to carry the Gospel, to bear witness to God's redeeming love.

Jesus says to us all, "You are witnesses of these things." Amen.

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