Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

Sunday, November 13, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

Testify with Your Life

Nanette Sawyer
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Isaiah 65:17–25
Luke 21:5–19

“Do not be terrified,” Jesus says. This is a strong word. We often hear in the biblical stories “do not be afraid.” Jesus says it; angels say it. Ambiguous characters who seem like they might be angels or they might be God, they say it: don’t be afraid. And here Jesus ups the ante and says, “Do not be terrified.”

That seems an appropriate command given the occurrences he is describing. It’s an appropriate command, but one that is very hard to follow, because Jesus is describing some very terrifying things: wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues, incarceration, and persecution.

It’s especially scary because these are all things we are familiar with. We’ve experienced them recently and are experiencing some of them currently. We could add hurricanes and forest fires, mass shootings, extreme poverty, and floods. Do not be terrified, Jesus says.

Keep in mind that this scripture has been read in churches and communities for more than 2,000 years, and people in every age are confronted with the fears described in it.

Beware that you’re not led astray, Jesus says, by the people who say “The time is near!” This is not the end, he says. Do not follow people who say it is. And I would say this applies to our own thoughts. Don’t follow the thoughts that lead you down that rabbit hole of obsessing and spinning, thinking this is the end of anything. Don’t follow those thoughts that cause you to freeze in fear or dwell in anxiety. We humans have been through this and worse before.

This text is rich with many images and ideas, but it’s not primarily a prediction of the future. There is the future-oriented statement that the temple will fall. But all the traumas and tragedies and injustices that Jesus lists are things that happen repeatedly in human history. That doesn’t make them any easier, but it does suggest that we can learn about bigger patterns in the world. These things will happen, and it turns out they happen again and again and again.

How then shall we live? What might this scripture give us? One thing it doesn’t give us is an excuse to give up because we feel overwhelmed by all that is happening. It’s not an excuse to live in fear, silence, and inaction. It’s also not a condemnation by God.

In the midst of describing all these terrifying events, Jesus does make a promise: God is with us, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He doesn’t use these words, but the promise is there. Let’s uncover it.

This scripture is written in a particular literary style called an apocalypse. That word means “an unveiling.” Something is being revealed.

Jesus is unveiling things that are happening, calling them out into the open and naming them, inviting his disciples to see them, to acknowledge them.

The things he names were happening in the years that Jesus walked this earth. They were still happening in the years 80, 90, 100, when this Gospel of Luke was recorded. By that time the temple Jesus referred to had indeed been razed to the ground by the Romans. They destroyed the city of Jerusalem in the year 70, looted and destroyed the temple in a siege that lasted almost five months.

When Jesus describes wars and insurrections and all the other scary things, it’s not a warning about the end of the world. It’s a description of the very scary reality of the world he lived in then and the world we live in now.

Sometimes a veil is lifted and we see trauma more clearly. Sometimes when that veil is lifted some of us see the trauma that others of us have been seeing and experiencing all along. When that veil is lifted, when we can see better together what is happening, then we can come together with our fellow human beings and we can work toward justice and peace.

Friday was Veterans Day, which was first created in 1919 by President Woodrow Wilson. It was called Armistice Day, and it celebrated the end of World War I, which had been called the war to end all wars. We wish it had been the case, but it was not.

In 1938 Congress made Armistice Day a national holiday, and three years later we entered World War II. Many more wars have followed. In 1954 the name of the holiday was changed from Armistice Day to Veterans Day, to include those who fought in later wars.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a veteran, issued a proclamation that said, “Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”

I find this choice of wording inspiring: that we should reconsecrate ourselves to the work of peace. In light of war, we should reconsecrate ourselves to peace.

This is also what I read in our scripture today — that we are called by God to work toward peace; that it is a holy thing, a sacred and consecrated thing, to work toward God’s promised future world where there will be no more sounds of weeping and no more cries of distress, as we heard from Isaiah this morning.

In the Luke text I find a gem, I find an invitation, even a command from Jesus, that we live in hope, even in our most difficult times.

Jesus said that the beautiful, elegant temple adorned with stones and gifts dedicated to God would fall. By the year 70 it had fallen. Physical things, human constructions are not ultimately enduring — even things and places associated with our faith, such as the temple where religious practices happened. Physical things are perishable things, not enduring things.

Although the temple fell, Judaism did not end. Christianity was born after that; it did not end. Faith, religion, spiritual practices, the stories that shape our understanding of the world—all these things have remained through the centuries and continue to grow and change and develop.

And yet practicing our faith does not and will not prevent us from experiencing the terrifying, traumatizing, and unjust things that happen in the world. Our faith does not prevent death or betrayal, insurrections, or natural disaster. It does not prevent unjust incarcerations and persecution.

But our faith does give us a way to live in the world. It gives us a way to confront and work against the terrifying things Jesus describes. And today’s scripture points to that way. Jesus says, “This,” referencing the long list of frightening events, this “will give you an opportunity to testify.” Testify, he said. This is a commandment about how to live in a world even when, and especially when, things seem to be falling apart.

We have to dig into this idea of testifying. The word may trigger images of proselytizing, of going around and trying to convince people to be Christian. We could imagine a preacher getting up on their soapbox on the corner. In fact, that does happen here in Chicago, without the soapbox. I’ve heard preachers on street corners, and there’s also a van that drives around, with loudspeakers attached to the roof, blasting warnings and condemnations.

That’s one way to interpret and apply apocalyptic scriptures. But that’s not what I’m seeing here. I think Jesus is talking about something entirely different than that.

To testify is to be a witness — to say what we know, what we’ve seen, and what we believe.

Testifying is more than using our words. St. Francis is famous for saying “Preach the gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words.”

If we testify to God’s world, we also work for it. We testify by our actions, not just our words. We testify by our beliefs and how they shape and direct our minds and our actions.

The mission and ministries that we do through our church are ways that we testify about God’s grace, power, love, and healing. Certainly our Chicago Lights Social Service Center, which is perpetually in need of men’s clothing, and our Meals Ministry program, which does need volunteers, by the way, each testify and show forth God’s power and love.

The same is true of our after-school Chicago Lights Tutoring program. To show up as an online or in-person mentor for a student one evening a week can be life-changing for the student and life-changing for the mentor. God’s care is made manifest in that exchange. Hope is shared. Growth and transformation happen.

You’ve probably heard of those programs, but did you also know about our Veterans’ Group? We are currently collecting names and contact information of interested individuals so we can create a support group for veterans, and families and friends of veterans, and offer a safe space to share life experiences, needs, challenges, joys, and struggles. Mark will be at a table in Coffee Hour after the service if you want to check in with him about it.

When we address the trauma of war and care for each other, when we create safe spaces of support, we testify to our faith. We embody in the world our faith in God.

Our church has also made a commitment to become anti-racist in all we do, but in order to do that, we have to continue to have an unveiling, a revealing of the ways that racism has worked and continues to function in our city and society.

Our city has a number of unhealed racist traumas, and one that shook the city and the nation was the brutal murder of fourteen-year-old Emmet Till on his summer vacation to Mississippi in 1955. Tens of thousands of people attended his open-casket funeral here in Chicago, which was a turning point in the civil rights movement. The Montgomery bus boycott began that year four months later.

The murder of Emmet Till is surely a modern example of terrifying persecution leading to death. And the response of the Black community is surely an example of testifying to and witnessing to and working toward the world of justice and love that God envisions for us all.

Our Fourth Church Racial Equity Council is providing an opportunity to pull back the veil and take a deeper look at this part of our shared history. The council has arranged for a free screening of the current movie that is showing in theaters now. The movie is titled simply Till.

The complimentary showing of the film will be at the Cinema Chatham Theatre on Saturday, December 3 in the afternoon, followed by discussion. Other churches from the Presbytery of Chicago will be joining us. Seating is limited, so you must register for a movie ticket if you’d like to join in. Samantha and Eric from the Racial Equity Council will also be at Coffee Hour today to talk with you about it after this service.

These few ministries that I’ve mentioned are all examples of testifying and witnessing to the vision that we heard in our first scripture reading today, from the prophet Isaiah:

“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.”

“I’m about to do it,” God says. But Isaiah 65 was written at least 700 years before Jesus was born, and here we are 2700 years later, and we’re still waiting. We get hopeful for peace and justice and a world without weeping or distress, but then we’re disappointed that there are still wars and plagues and famines and persecution and all of it.

I don’t know if it helps to turn to Psalm 90 where it says that a thousand years in God’s sight is like one day (Psalm 90:4; see also 2 Peter 3:8).

If that’s true, then to God it’s been a little more than two-and-a-half days since that promise was made. History is long. We might have to wait a little before Isaiah’s vision is made fully manifest. What do we do until then? Testify, witness, embody, share the hope that is in us.

Jesus says, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” Don’t think for a minute that this endurance is passive acceptance of trauma and suffering. It’s not. This endurance is more like perseverance. This endurance is a conviction in the power of God and in the gifts that God has given us.

We use our gifts, even when we are overwhelmed and afraid. We remind ourselves of Jesus’ words “Do not be terrified.” We redirect our attention to our calling, our vocation to be people of Jesus, bringing love and light and hope and the next best step we can take. Whatever that next best step is, it is the best we can do. So we do that.

And the thing is, we don’t have to do it alone. God is with us. Christ is with us. Jesus said, “I will give you words and wisdom.” This is how we will be defended and protected: by trusting that God will walk with us through every trial; by holding on to the belief in God’s presence with us, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Our trust in God and Christ gives us the power to become, to truly become, the beloved community. May it be so. Amen.