Blessed to Be a Blessing

Testimony is a word that we don’t use a lot.

Testimony is what the evangelicals do. Those people that we don’t want to be. That’s what the white protestant churches said. We don’t want to be like those people. They force people to have conversion moments. That’s not who we want to be. I want to say today that I think we have done ourselves a disfavor in this because testimony can be as simple as sharing our story.

Just as Emmanuel did last week, for those of you who heard or were here last week. Testimony is just about sharing a piece of our story. That is how we encourage one another in faith. It hurts us that we don’t do that more often.

I will admit that those testimonies, the way some churches have put them out or created them, it’s almost like there’s just this formula. As long as you say that you’ve received Jesus into your heart, then you’re good. That’s all that needed to be done. We know that there’s a lot more to it.

When I think of my story, it’s not a once and done thing. I’ve had many moments and my faith has grown through the moments. I think that’s part of what’s supposed to happen. The heartaches that we all carry, the pain that we have gone through, the struggles. When we admit that, we can see the places where our stories may connect or they may touch. They’re not the same. It’s not the same pain. It’s not the same struggles, but there is something about going through the pain and the grief that helps us grow, in our stories and in our faith.

I want to start today with the scripture that was read for us, 1 John 5:9-13.

Let me begin by saying that I should never assume what you know or do not know. This scripture that was read comes out of the first letter of John. That is not the same thing as the gospel of John. It is a letter further to the back of the Bible when you’re looking for it. It is meant as a type of testimony. It is meant to encourage the faith of the believers of the faithful. The scripture that we read was all about testimony. For as much as I’m not really a fan of the word testimony, it appears God’s going to make sure we talk about it today.

God says, it begins with saying if you believe human testimony, if you believe the story of another. If you believed Emmanuel’s story last week, if you believe the story of anyone else you’ve talked to, any of your friends or family, then you should believe God’s story even more. Some people set it up like that, it means that God’s story is the only testimony that humans aren’t. It’s not meant to do that. It’s meant to just say, Our stories are true and God’s story can be trusted even more because our stories do change over the years when we get some distance away from the event where our perceptions change about it, but God’s story doesn’t change and it comes down to the simple verse.

It was verse 11, 1 John 5:11. “The testimony is this. God gave eternal life to us and this life is in His Son.” It’s meant to jar our memories or to be a parallel, almost a paraphrase of John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son. That whosoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.” It’s meant to help us connect the dots and say, “Oh, I’ve heard that before.” That’s a good thing to remember. It’s naming that God stands opposed to the world because the world is the way in which our capacity to hurt one another. We have a tremendous capacity to create pain and conflict with each other, and God’s love is in opposition to that.

Then the scripture that I read from John’s gospel, John 17:6-19, I heard that as well, it’s unique.

Let’s start there. It’s unique in that it’s the first time we get to hear Jesus pray about the disciples specifically. Usually when Jesus prays, he goes off by himself. It says Jesus went off into the mountain and prayed. We don’t hear much about it. We hear it in the Garden of Gethsemane. There we get to hear some words of Jesus. But this time, Jesus is praying to God about the disciples right in front of the disciples. So they’re hearing it. It’s meant to be a blessing. Jesus wants the disciples to understand that they are blessed.

Now I want to say, I want you to understand that you too are blessed.

You’re not just blessed so that you can pat yourself on the back and feel good about yourself, but that you are blessed to be a blessing. You have a story so that you can share it. and encourage others.

Jesus knows that the disciples are about to face one of their hardest times. When Jesus is arrested and taken away and crucified, they are going to feel like their world has fallen apart. He wants them to know that he has asked God to be with them, to protect them. It says it a couple of times, protect them. He wants them to know God is with them even when they don’t feel like it.

This is where this touches my story.

Some of you know, some of you are aware of parts of my story, but one of the parts of my story is that my father died when I was two years old. My father was a UCC minister. But I have absolutely no memory of him. So, through my life, I have tried to figure out who he is. Just because I thought it would be appropriate, I put a picture of him here for you to see.

This past week, I went to clergy convocation. Clergy convocation is when all four conferences in Pennsylvania, so all the clergy of Pennsylvania in the United Church of Christ, were invited to gather and it’s a time of learning, but our focus was on healing. Healing me. Healing you. Healing us.

At that convocation, A gentleman came up to me and said, I was a friend of your father’s. They went to F&M together. They went to the seminary together. He said, I need to talk to you. I was both excited and scared at the same time. Anxious in all those ways. I thought, “oh, there’s so many questions I have for you.” Because I really wanted to know who my dad was as a pastor. What was his thing? What was his specialty? Where were his passions?

But when we gathered, I decided that I needed to listen. I didn’t end up asking any questions. I just received his story. What he wanted to tell me was the last conversation he had where my dad told him that he was okay dying at 26. That was okay. That all he wanted was to spend as much time as he could with my mother and I. What that told me, which I think was underneath all of my questions, was that my dad loved me. That’s what I really needed to hear. More than anything else. The rest is frivolous in comparison. It wasn’t what I thought I wanted. But it was what I needed. His testimony affirmed me.

We can do that for one another. That’s who we are called to be. We’re called to be people who are willing to open up our lives and share the hard stuff.

Because everybody’s got that safe superficial stuff. But we’re supposed to look at the hard stuff. Because that’s who we are. When we can see each other’s stories, that’s when we break open our hearts, we learn to have more compassion for others. Then we can walk with another. Not because we’re better or because we have any special gift, except that we’ve gone through the grief. We know what that’s like.

We can encourage one another.

I will encourage you because I can tell you, God can handle all of your words. Because I spent years railing at God for the situation of my life.

I just had the opportunity the other night to listen to another person’s story who told me about how they were physically and emotionally abused as a child by a stepfather. I said, me too. Me too. I know what that’s like. They didn’t know that about me. It’s amazing the places where our lives connect.

But we are blessed to be a blessing to others. That’s who we are.

But when we keep our stories to ourselves, then we’re denying that. We’re holding back that encouragement that is meant for someone else. Because we are not alone. We have one another and the Spirit is here encouraging us to be here for each other. To be a shoulder to cry on, to be one who laughs with us, who celebrates with us, and will walk with us, even through the valley of the shadow of death. That’s who we are.

In John 17:13, it said “And now I am coming to you. I have told them many things while I was with them So that they would be filled with my joy.”

Have you looked for the joy in your life? What does that look like to you? Where do you see the joy of Christ?

Because let’s celebrate that. Our white Protestant pietism gets in our way and we can be the chosen instead of acting like we’re here for a celebration.

Let’s celebrate that love and grace. Let’s have a good time because that’s part of who we are. and who Christ calls us to be. Thanks be to God.

Church of the Apostles UCC