Linda B. Hirst

Palm Sunday April 4, 2004

"Can I get a witness?" Acts 1:1-8:

One of my favorite things I used to do with my confirmation class in CT was to take them to our sister church in a nearby city to worship. We had developed this partnership over the years with this church one of the few black UCC churches in CT - building playgrounds together, joining together for gospel concerts to raise money for mission - and once a year a we’d bring a group of youth and adults to worship with them - to see how they did this thing we call church. And as we found out - while it was all church - there was prayer and praise and singing and preaching - it was all very different.

A typical Sunday visit for us would go like this - 12 kids and a few adults would be greeted by men and women dressed to the nines - no jeans in this church - hats and white gloves, suits and tie were the norm. The ushers would escort us to our seats - right up front - no sitting in the back pews allowed. Our kids would down in the pews as the band and choir started to warm up, they’d begin to move around in their seats....just a little bit...to the beat of the music, the drums, the guitars. Then the singing would begin - good old fashioned gospel music - and the choir would start dancing and the congregation would dance along with them - the kids beside me- their eyes would open wide - was new, this was cool, this was different and pretty soon they would be dancing too, and singing along with everyone else- kids who never sang in my church - would sing at this church.

After a good bit of singing, the deacon would ask for the offering and we’d move up out of our seats to give our gifts to God, all the time moving and singing, praising God, and when that was done, there was more singing and some praying until it was time for the sermon - by this time an hour had gone by but no one seemed to care, not even the kids.

The preacher - Pastor Joe was his name - would then read the scripture with and then he’d begin to preach. Boy, would he preach. And as he preached the congregation would encourage him shouting out....Amen! Preach it brother, and the more they shouted, the better Pastor Joe got. He was passionate, he was enthusiastic, he was lively, he was funny, he would walk up and down the aisle while he preached, no notes which of course, which just made me crazy. And our kids would just stare - their eyes never left him. Occasionally, I would catch them glancing over at me, and I knew what they were thinking...they were thinking, why don’t you do that, if you did that, then church wouldn’t be nearly as boring. We’d like church then!

This would go on for a while...Pastor Joe preaching and the congregation shouting...and then all of a sudden, he would stop - in the middle of his message and ask for a witness. Can I get a witness? He’d said. It’s a tradition in many African American churches and some evangelical churches too - known as a call and response.

The preacher says can I get a witness - that’s the call part - and someone from the congregation is supposed to stand up and witness to Christ, to witness to something Jesus has done in his life...that week, that day. That’s the response. And if no one stands up when the pastor asks for a witness, he will call on someone.

Well...by the time this started, our confirmation kids weren’t looking so enthusiastic anymore, in fact they’d start to look a little pale, a little scared, because they got what was going on...that when Brother William or Brother John, was done giving his witness, it might be their turn next. I’d look over at them and all 12 kids - who just moments before had been bopping in their chairs, wishing Pastor Joe was their pastor instead of the boring old Reverend Mother, all 12 kids would have their heads just about down in their laps praying that Pastor Joe wouldn’t pick on them to be a witness. Saying to themselves under their breath over and over. Please don’t pick me, please... Hoping that, with their heads bowed deep and their hands clasped together, it would look like they were praying and not like they were hiding...which they were.

Pastor Joe, in addition to being a very passionate and lively preacher, also had a great sense of humor. He’d come down that aisle looking for a witness, stop at our pew ever so briefly, pausing just long enough to give our kids a heart attack, and then keep on walking... finally calling upon Sister Lorraine or Sister Mary to give her witness. And as he’d walk by you could hear the entire pew of confirmation kids breathe a sigh of relief.

After the service which lasted somewhere between 2-3 hours - on our drive back to our church I would ask the kids what they thought of worship and inevitably they all said we loved it...all except the witnessing part...that was hard.

And they were right. And therein lies a great truth. Witnessing is hard.

And I’m not just just talking about the kind of witnessing that involves standing up in front of a group of people you may or may not know and talking about Jesus, sharing what he’s done in your life or what he’s doing now - that’s easy compared to actually doing those things that Jesus actually did, doing those things he wants us to do.

Things like loving your neighbor as yourself.
Do not judge so that you may not be judged.
Turn the other cheek.
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.
Do good and lend, expecting nothing in return.

Things like "forgive and you will be forgiven"...forgive those who have wronged you, who have hurt you in some way, maybe it’s a big. Forgive in your heart those who make you crazy, those who have intentionally caused you grief and anger and heart ache or made your life miserable. That grudge you’ve been holding against your neighbor, let it go, that thing you swore you’d never forgive your sister, or brother or mother for...let that go, too. Because when you forgive those who sin against you, then God will forgive you. A lot easier said than done.

How many of us really like that saying? How many of us really know what to make of it? Or...follow it. It’s a hard one.

Even the seemingly easy ones can be hard... There was a pastor who was preaching one Sunday in Boston this past winter winter - it was a cold, cold evening - and he happened to be preaching on this saying from Jesus: if you have two coats and you see someone without one, give him one of yours - and after the service a man - who was obviously homeless - came up to him and said, "I have no coat. Can I have yours?" And the preacher stopped and went uh....in all the years he’d been a pastor, all the times he preached on this passage, no one had ever taken him up on it before - there wasn’t time to go home and get one of the coats hanging up in his closet he’d been meaning to give away to the Salvation Army, so he took off the coat he was wearing - it was one he really, really liked - and gave it to him.

And this one - I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was sick and you took care of me. Truly I tell you, just as you do this to the least of these among you, you do it to me.

A few years ago on Good Friday Brad and I we were busy getting ready for different services at different churches - we were running around, it was pouring outside, just a dark and rainy night. I had about half an hour before I had to be back at church so I ran home to get something to eat. I walked in the door and was greeted with my family sitting down to dinner....plus a man I did not recognize. Brad said, Hi honey, this is Mike. Mike was traveling through town and it started raining and he had nowhere to go so he came to the door and I invited him to have dinner with us tonight.

And I looked at this stranger at our table, surrounded by our young boys, and by our dogs, and I think even Brad’s mother and I said, "Hello Mike". Then I turned to Brad and said, "Can I see you in the other room, please?"

And when we got to the other room I said to my dear, dear husband. What are you doing? You just brought a stranger into our house, you don’t know anything about him, he could be a mass murderer for all you know and now he knows where we live, if he shows up when we’re not here, our dogs being labs will just roll out the welcome mat, how you doing - good to see you again! What it shows up when the boys are here and we’re not, what if he shows up when you’re out of town? what if? what if? what if?

And Brad said, I know. I know. But I saw him standing out in the rain, and I thought of those wrist bands we hand out to our kids - you know the one with WWJD on it and thought, "what would Jesus do?" and well, Jesus would probably ask him in and feed him, so that’s what I did. You know...welcome the stranger...to which I said to myself, "Darn those wrist bands," but he was right. What would Jesus do? So we went back in and had a slightly awkward dinner with our guest Mike. What would Jesus do. What would you do?

Sometimes being a witness - doing what Jesus would do - is hard. Don’t let anybody tell you different. Being a Christian, a disciple of Christ, a member of the church is hard. It takes courage, it’s draining, it’s tiring, it’s confusing at times - how do you know what’s right? And it can be scary. Being a witness is hard.

And yet...and yet...there is joy there, too.

Sometimes it’s just a little joy...the kind that comes from knowing you’re doing the right thing even if you don’t want to be doing it - and other times your cup runneth over.

Last month our confirmation class served dinner at the Community Beal at the Methodist Church in Berwick. Nancy Ergmann, Becky Wieder and Sue Sullivan cooked for 50 -60 men women and lots of children who desperately need a meal - low or no income families looking for a place to have a nice dinner and be treated with respect for just one night a week. Our kids were given the task of serving these men, women and children - taking the meals to them, getting them drinks and talking to them. I was given the task of doing dishes - because I was the only who knew how to operate the dishwasher. And it sounds easy but it’s really not. It’s hot in that little dish room, the dishes are endless, and the whole thing is just messy and unpleasant - not a thing about it I like. But I do it because someone has to do it and it’s the right thing to do. I get about this much joy from it.

But out in the dining room - I get to peek out once in awhile - out in the dining room while I’m doing dishes at the Community Meal are eighteen 13 and 14 year olds who are serving meals to families in need - people they generally don’t get to see - and they’re serving and helping and talking and cleaning and they’re not afraid or scared, quite the opposite - they’re kind and compassionate and caring...and the joy I feel looking at them - sharing God’s love - is much, much greater. Sometimes the joy we feel is like that.

And then on the ride home in the van, while the kids are talking about their experiences, their surprise at how many kids were there - kids their age and much, much younger, what it must be like for the child who was celebrating his birthday there that night. No presents at home, no big party. Just 40 people - many of them strangers - singing Happy Birthday to you over a little cake. And yet, that was special for the boy and for them. And the realization that they actually had fun serving people dinner, talking with them, getting to know people they might otherwise not get to know. And when a few of them say, "I want to go again, when can we go again? "I think to myself, they get it. This is what it’s like to serve God. The joy I feel is overwhelming. Sometimes the joy is like that.

Yes, witnessing is hard, but there is joy there, too. Jesus knew this. "I say these things to you, " he said in the gospel of John "so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete." His disciples found this out as they followed Jesus around and went about his work, and as we go about God’s work, we find this out, too. And if you haven’t discovered it yet, come see me and I’ll point you to some people who need you and you’ll find out what I’m talking about.

The world needs witnesses - our world, our country, our town needs people to be witnesses - to do what Jesus did - to show mercy and love and compassion, to forgive, to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies, to give away a coat or two when you least expect it. The world needs witnesses to welcome the stranger and feed the hungry, to go on mission trips - to Buffalo, to Honduras - to visit the sick, to care for the lonely, to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh.

The world needs witnesses to feed a child, to teach fourth and fifth grade church school and do all those other things Jesus asks us to do, maybe even stand up in front of a church full of people and talk about all that Jesus has done in your life and is doing now.

The world needs witnesses. And Jesus said to his disciples. You will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

May God give us the strength, the courage, the wisdom, the power to witness to Jesus today. Amen.

Benediction:

Somewhere today someone is asking, "Can I get a witness?". May we be those witnesses. Let us go forth and serve our Lord with joy and gladness.