You Will Be My Witnesses

James C. Longacre

In an ordinary week, with how many persons do you speak? We might start with counting the check-out persons at Henning’s Market, the neighbors next door, the colleagues at work. Would it be fifty? One hundred? Several hundred?

What is our testimony, our witness in our daily interactions with the many persons we engage in our weekly routines?

Witness, evangelism—the topic stirs up a variety of thoughts, does it not? We know we ought to do it, right? But we are afraid, do not know how, feel clumsy.

We have mixed feelings about those who give witness aggressively. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are not our favorite visitors. We admire from a distance the dedication of the Mormons, but we are not sure we want to copy their methods.

A number of you remember the days of door-to-door tract distribution. Did you not generally go to places out of your own community, go down the streets and insert tracts in the doors, and move on—hopefully before anyone came to the door?

Many of us have not been fully comfortable with confrontational approaches such as “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?”

Knowing what not to do, and how not to witness, many or even perhaps most of us, conclude that witness and evangelism is not our gift. Some have that gift, but it is not ours.

Another way to sidestep this issue of witness is to suggest that we will let our lives speak. It is good, of course, for lives to do their own form of speaking. But some words added to the witness of our lives would be much better.

The Scriptures do suggest that we are all called to be witnesses. The great commission given to the disciples and, we believe, to us, is to—“Go . . . and make disciples of all nations. . . .” In John’s Gospel, these were the words of Jesus to the disciples after his resurrection: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” So to suggest that to witness is not our gift is to weasel out of our calling.

Perhaps we view witness too much as obligation. It is the good deed that we have to do. It’s like as children taking cod liver oil—it tasted terrible, but it was good for you, so you did it.

Did you notice the text read from Acts 1? Does the text say, “You must be my witnesses. . . ”? No, the text reports that the Holy Spirit will come and “you will be my witnesses. . . .” Witness is not obligation—rather, it is explanation, it is testimony. Peter wrote in his letter to the early congregation: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you. . . “ (1 Pet. 3:15b-16a).

Testimony is explanation of what makes us tick, why we live the way we do, how we explain our priorities, what it is that gives us joy, and so much more.

So then what do we say? To what do we give witness? Drawing from the text read, let me suggest several out of many possible ways to witness.

The writer of Psalm 145 put it in verse 6 like this: “The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness.” We give witness to the beauty and grandeur all around us. We live with what one writer calls an “abiding astonishment.” Wonder, awe, adoration characterize our lives and our words. Worship is not simply a Sunday morning activity. Worship is a weeklong disposition.

Quite a few years ago the New Testament scholar J. B. Phillips wrote a book entitled Your God Is Too Small. It seems to me that for many of our time the world is too small. There is a kind of thinness in people’s lives. So we give testimony to the expansiveness of life, the beauty of our world, the amazing complexity of God’s creation.

With better telescopes and microscopes, what do scientists see but more complexity, additional beauty, amazing symmetry and balance, and so much more? So we give witness regularly and consistently to beauty, to what is good, to the richness of life, to the experiences and possibilities of joy. Thankfulness, wonder, praise are the demeanor of our lives. To be sure, on certain days we might sing the songs of lost love, disappointment, and more, but most of the time our song is that “This Is My Father’s World.”

In our looking for beauty and goodness, let us not overlook each other. Amid some continuing differences of opinion here, some of us have been a little too hard on each other. We would do well to delight a bit more in each other’s goodness.

Second, in our actions and words we give witness to the faith through our sharing Jesus’ concerns. Our attention is consistently turned toward the vulnerable, the rejected, the neglected, those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, the underprivileged. We treat with equal respect those whose names are honored and those quite nameless.

Thus, the checkout persons at the grocery store, the bank teller, the cleaning women—frequently persons of color still too often not accorded full dignity in our culture—in the hotels and motels are all seen as persons of dignity and worth and are treated as such. In our words of love, acceptance, and care we give testimony of God’s love and compassion.

Painted on the rock ledges along highways from time to time we see words placed there by someone who obviously risked their safety to climb there to paint. The letters are often not even, the paint ran a bit. But the words are striking: “Jesus Saves.” Sometimes in earlier years I wondered whether that was really the best way to give witness to the faith. Would people know what it meant? Would not more information be necessary? Perhaps so.

But we can fill out that brief message in our testimony, our witness. The message that we can offer gently or boldly, directly or indirectly, in lengthy conversation or over coffee, is that Jesus saves us from paths in life that simply go round and round. Jesus saves us from false gods. Jesus saves us from false promises. Jesus saves us from fear. Jesus calls us to visions bold and meaningful.

Now a word on the “how to” of our witness, the style of our testimony. 

First, let us always recognize that we are not the ones called upon to convert others. We are to bear witness. It is the Spirit who calls.

So we do not give in to manipulation. We do not impose our views. We do not suggest that we are superior. Earlier I quoted from 1 Peter the Scripture that encourages us always to be ready to give an accounting for the hope that is in us. The text then adds the words, “yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:16).

We are not called upon to argue down another. We are not directed to have the last word. We offer testimony.

In our witness we most often listen before we speak. We listen with Spirit-led ears and minds to hear what is behind the observations, questions, complaints, fears of others.

And we realize that not every occasion, not every conversation is the appropriate time for giving testimony. We are quite sensitive to the ebb and flow of people’s lives. What is on their hearts and minds is what is of interest to us. It is not that on a given day we have a given number of persons to whom we must witness.

Jesus did not invite himself to lunch with every tax collector. But when he saw Zachaeus up in a tree, that provided the opportunity for inviting himself to the house of Zachaeus for lunch.

In our openness to the Spirit we sense when to speak.
In our witness and testimony we want to leave in people’s minds that thought that lingers, the expression that has encouraged and honored them. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians that ”we are not peddlers of God’s Word like so many, but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.”
Earlier in the text Paul used the memorable imagery that “we are the aroma of Christ.”

Have you ever listened to the program Car Talk on National Public Radio? You can call in your particular problem with your car, and these two humorous brothers seek to provide an answer.
Some years ago my brother Paul was on the program with his problem. It was actually a problem with my truck and my stock trailer. It was my problem, but my brother was on this national program.

I’ll not go into the problem discussed. But the discussion went back and forth between my brother and these two gentlemen: ”What do you haul in the trailer? How far do you travel?” On and on.
When the conversation had ended, and Paul was off the air, the one brother said to the other, “You know, that Paul seems like a nice guy. He seems like the kind of guy you would like to sit on the porch with and smoke a cigar.”

At the conclusion of our witness, the next day, or the next week, that (maybe without the cigar!) is what we hope for: that a person will say, “You know, I would like to know more, to be with that person again. Something there looks inviting.”

We are the aroma of Christ. Now that is a privilege.

— For forty years James C. Longacre, Barto, Pennsylvania, has served the Mennonite church in congregational, district, and national leadership roles. His preaching has had a prophetic edge and his church leadership a visionary perspective. Currently Longacre farms and serves congregations as visiting preacher and teacher. This sermon, based on Psalm 145:4-7; Luke 4:14-21; Acts 1:6-8  is drawn from his book, Like Those Who Dream:Sermons for Salford Mennonite Church and Beyond (Cascadia, 2009).