"IN Your Own Words"

Lam. 1:1-6; Lam. 3:19-26 or Ps. 137; 2 Tim. 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Dr. George R. Sinclair, Jr.
Pastor

October 7, 2007

                 I have not seen it but I have heard about Ken Burn’s film The War.  Everywhere I go people are talking about it.  Have you seen it?  I’m waiting to buy a copy.  Everyone says it’s powerful stuff. 

                 Someone mentioned it last week; I think it was one of the guys in the Wednesday Bible study. He said the Tuesday episode featured Dwain Luce from here in Mobile. I don’t know Mr. Luce, but they said he had a powerful testimony. He was there when the Allies liberated a Nazi Death Camp.

A friend of mine who saw the same episode told me about another witness, a man named Paul Fussell. Mr. Fussell said when he was going through the war he really didn’t see much purpose to it—mostly drinking and gambling and chasing women and not getting shot by Germans.  Then Paul heard General Eisenhower say they were on a crusade. Paul didn’t believe the General until he saw the Death Camp and then he knew he was on a crusade.  Dwain had a similar response to the liberation of that Death Camp. “There are still people in this country who don’t believe it happened,” Dwain said, “but I know it happened. I saw it. I was there.” 

There are many ways of human speaking; Ken Burns’ film relies on testimony. “I saw it. I was there.” Ken Burns has made a movie using testimony.  There are other ways of speaking—we tell jokes, we have conversations, we give dissertations, we recite poetry.  Sometimes we explain things like algebraic equations—and I know people do this because I live with a math teacher who’s quite good at explaining equations. There are many ways of human speaking. Testimony is a particularly unique way of speaking because it relies so heavily on first person truth telling.  When we testify we’re supposed to tell the truth. We tell what we see. Of course not all testimony is truthful. Sometimes it is a deceit, a very clever cover. 

One of my favorite TV characters is the Dr. on the TV show House.  He’s wrong about many things, but right about one thing—“people lie.”  And it’s true; we lie about small things and really big things. But we also hunger for truth. And I suspect we hunger for truth because we know lies lead nowhere good.  Think about Hitler’s Big Lie or the Gulf of Tonkin lie. And it’s not just politics.  It’s the personal lies that mark every life—the big smudge mark on our soul; the one strangers see when eyes dare not meet.  While we hunger for the truth we also run from it because deep down we’re not sure we can stand the truth. It’s a particular kind of truth we’re looking for—one that won’t kill us, a grace-filled truth that will set us free from the lie that warps our soul.  The Bible calls this kind of truth Gospel. 

So where do running folks like us get or find gospel truth?  I think the short answer is we get it from gospel truth speakers.  The Bible calls these people witnesses.  Witnesses, which is what we are, testify.  Like Dwain Luce, witnesses tell what they have seen.  When you’ve seen Good News, when it gets in your soul, you can’t help yourself—you have to tell it. And if it’s going to be real, which is another way of saying if it’s going to be truthful, then we have to tell it “in our own words.”  And that’s where gospel speaking gets tough—using our own words—because using our own words, while freeing, is also dangerous. 

“Jem,” I said, “are those Ewells sittin’ down yonder?”

“Hush,” said Jem, “Mr. Heck Tate’s testifyin’.”

It’s impossible to forget Harper Lee’s famous courtroom scene. The first to testify in that dangerous place is Sheriff Heck Tate who, as Lee tells us, “had dressed for the occasion.”  Gone were his “high boots, lumber jacket, and bullet-studded belt.” He wore instead “an ordinary business suit, which made him look somehow like every other man,” which of course he was as he leaned forward in the witness chair listening to Mr. Gilmer, the circuit solicitor from Abbottsville, a “balding, smooth- faced man” who “could have been anywhere between forty and sixty.”

Mr. Gilmer, Harper Lee tells us, had a “slight cast in one of his eyes which he used to his advantage.” He was, says Lee, “hell on juries and witnesses.” And that day he was “hell” on Sheriff Tate who was “testifyin’” about Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman.

“. . .in your own words, Mr. Tate.” 

“Well,” said, Mr. Tate, touching his glasses and speaking to his knees, “I was called—

“Could you say it to the jury, Mr. Tate?  Thank you. Who called you?”

 When testifyin’ in a white court about a black man you think innocent knees are probably where you’re going to look. And probably the last thing you want to hear is the solicitor asking you to testify “in your own words.”  There are no other words at a time like that.  Whose words are you going to use other than your own?  That’s the whole point of testimony—telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth “in your own words”, so help you God. 

Testimony is an act of honesty. But before testimony is honest it is courageous.  It takes courage to testify.  You’ve got to clear your throat before you testify. You’ve got to find breath to tell the truth and that takes gumption, which seems to be the whole point of Paul’s letter to Timothy—“Don’t be ashamed then, of the testimony about the Lord, but join with me in suffering for the gospel. . .” 

Paul knows testimony is dangerous, so he’s not pulling any punches. He’s not soft-selling Timothy on the kind of speech he has been called to engage in.  Paul’s in jail.  He’s writing from prison and he sees the handwriting on the wall—“the time of my departure has come.” Paul wasn’t talking about catching the next bus to Spain. 

Gospel truth is dangerous speech, or it once was. It once “turned the world upside down,” but now it’s become chatter. Tom Long aptly calls it “white noise.”  Tom means that we hear god-talk all over the place.  You know, you see it at football games—those John 3:16 placards down in the end zone.   Politicians bless us in God’s name when they finish speaking.  TV preachers chatter on about God. Some say God is good for finding yourself a parking space at the mall or dividing highway traffic on the Interstate when you’re running late.  You don’t have to look far for god-talk. It is absolutely everywhere. 

You’ve seen those billboards—“Don’t make me come down there—God.”  We don’t lack for god-talk—it’s everywhere, even on billboards. But, as Tom rightly observes, much of what we hear “strikes the ear with the dull clink of counterfeit coins.”  God talk, while abundant, is cheap. And it is cheap because it lacks courage.  And it lacks courage because it has nothing important to say. It is trivial, like blessing a sneeze or cursing an errant hammer. 

True gospel speaking, on the other hand, even when ordinary is dangerous.  Why do you think whenever God shows up in the Bible angels are always standing nearby? “Fear not,” they say.  It’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  Falling into the hands of the living God will turn your world upside down.  It will make you look at your knees or at least fall on them. 

Where does true gospel speaking come from? It comes from us.  We’re it.  God has chosen us. We are God’s witnesses—every one of us.  Testimony is not for professionals alone. As a matter of fact, professional preachers could use less professionalism and more testimony.  Testimony is where the gospel meets life. And when the gospel meets life, when it really meets life and we take the stand, a “hush” falls over everything. 

Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed that when you have something really important to say your voice has to find a different gear, a lower octave, maybe even find a whisper?  I know we think the really good preachers do a lot of shouting or they’re smooth, precise, no wrinkles or rough edges.  True gospel speaking is not like that. It is dangerous and it “hushes” up everything.  Job knew that.  You know after the whirlwind, after God got in Job’s face, poor Job says, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me. . .” Job hushes up. “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. . .” Before Job speaks, he must first see. And when he sees, he “hushes up.” 

True gospel speech is like that. It is “hushed” speech.  It is “hushed” because our word, our testimony is always broken, halting speech—“we see in a mirror dimly,” but still we see. And what we have seen we must testify to. And the testimony we give, when it is real testimony, is an act of daring.

When I first started preaching I thought I had to quote a lot of other people.  I still do that from time to time and have done it twice already this morning, actually three or four or more times if you count the Bible witnesses in addition to Harper Lee and Tom Long and Paul Fussell and Dwain Luce.  When you first start out in preaching you have to find your voice. And sometimes the only way you can find it is by quoting a bunch of other people. If you can’t find your own sermon—try one of Fred Craddock’s or Barbara Brown Taylor’s or Wil Willimon’s. 

I don’t think it’s much different when regular people testify.  When we give our testimony we’re apt to use somebody else’s speech or fall into his or her way of speaking. And usually we feel awkward about it because the speech we’re using is not “in our own words.”  So we say things we’ve heard on TV that sound religious. “Brother are you saved? Do you know the Lord Jesus?  Have you ever prayed the sinner’s prayer?”  That may be a start, kind of like quoting Fred Craddock is a start, but sooner or later you’ve got to testify “in your own words,” which is what people want to hear to begin with. 

Whenever people come through our new member class we ask them to tell how they got faith.  “Who first told you about God?”  It’s a simple enough question. Try answering it some time.  If you’re like most, you’ll probably find a mother nearby or a grandmother, a father or grandfather, maybe an uncle, someone close.  Timothy did, didn’t he?  “I am reminded of your sincere faith,” Paul writes to him, “a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”

I hear that all of the time. Where did your faith come from? Where did you get it? “Well, I guess I got it from my mama.”  “I’d have to say it came from my granddaddy, ‘cause he took me to church.”  You know, I saw the other day that big Fred Thompson told reporters that he didn’t belong to a church and didn’t go to church except when he went home to see his mama. And when he goes home he goes to church with her.  Mothers are like that.

Where’d you get your faith?  We get faith from ordinary people who speak to us “in their own words,” which when you think about it are the only words any of us ever have.  But we sometimes have a hard time speaking those words. Sometimes we are ashamed.  Paul understood that, I guess, because Paul had felt ashamed. I know I have. Sometimes testimony makes you feel down right foolish, so you just keep quiet.

Anyway, Paul tells Timothy—and remember—Paul’s in jail. It’s not as if he’s writing from the safety of a university chair or tall steeple church. He’s in prison.  Paul says to Timothy (who has to be in his mid to late thirties by now; he’s no boy, but he is timid and he’s been buffaloed by someone or something in the church at Ephesus where he serves), “I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.”  “I’m sure God will guard what I’ve entrusted to him. And I’ve entrusted my life to God.” That’s powerful stuff, powerful testimony.

We can only testify to what we know. Sheriff Tate knew that. The Apostle Paul knew that. Dwain Luce knew that.  “I know what I saw.”  “I know the one in whom I have put my trust.” 

Testify to what you know. Don’t be afraid to say it.  And if you’re not a little afraid it’s probably not worth saying anyway.  But don’t be ashamed.  And don’t get all worried if when you start speaking you start feeling the danger.  You know the one you trust and God will guard the life you have entrusted to him.  So, join with Paul and Timothy and Sheriff Tate and a host of others “in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God who saved us and called us with a holy calling.” Give your testimony. Tell others “in your own words” the gospel truth that has claimed you.  Amen.