Psalm 78:1-4 (NIV)
My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.
Today is the Third Sunday in Lent.
Our reading for today reminds us of the importance of words. Everything that we believe we know today about God and Jesus and the kings and prophets and apostles we have because someone – many someone’s – cared enough to repeat their words so that others in other times and places could know the great stories of our faith.
These words made an historic journey down through the ages, through thousands of years, to reach us here today. That journey at first was strictly oral – spoken words – spoken and remembered and spoken again by newer voices. Their speakers told the stories they had witnessed themselves, or stories they had been told by their mothers and fathers or by the teachers in the Temple.
In time – often long spans of time after the initial event – but eventually -- some versions of the words were written down. These then, in their turn, were edited and redacted and translated to other tongues -- over and over again until finally a version became codified as the "authorized" version.
Take, for instances, the greatest of the Old Testament stories -- that of Moses leading the people out of slavery in Egypt. This story is so lost in long-ago time that we can’t even say with any certainty that Moses was a single real person and not a collection of folk-heroes who over time gained that worldwide hero status. Assuming there was a real person, the estimates for the dates for his life vary wildly. The majority opinion seems to settle his birth at somewhere around 1300 BCE, give or take a couple of hundred years either way.
The Book of Exodus which tells the stories of Moses was most likely written down somewhere around 600 BCE. That means this story was told and retold and remembered and retold orally for 700 years before ever being written into any more permanent form.
Similarly, the story of David – the shepherd boy who would become Israel’s greatest king – existed only in oral form for 400 years or so before it ever achieved written status in the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel.
Likewise in the New Testament, the four gospels were put into written form anywhere from 40 to 120 years after the life of Jesus. The very earliest could have been in the lifetimes of those who actually knew Jesus, but the later were written down long after Jesus’ death. Before being written, they were simply stories repeated whenever the early Christians gathered.
We owe most everything we claim to believe to 3000 or more years of storytellers, because even when the stories were written down they were handwritten and rare and only belonged to the Temple or Church. For households to own bibles of their own is a comparatively recent occurrence in this long 3000 year span. In times of mass illiteracy, endless war, plague, and superstition, it was the storytellers who carried these stories forward.
Even today, most of us, though literate adults and bible owners ourselves, began to learn the basis of our faith through stories told to us by Sunday School teachers and bedtime-story reading parents – or maybe these days by cartoon characters -- the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, and all those childhood favorites.
Our faith is built up, for each of us, from our own experiences in life, but it is these stories handed down from generation to generation that give us the framework that holds these personal experiences and makes sense of them. Those times when we have personally resonated with biblical stories, or when we have recognized God with us – all those are anchored by, as our Psalm today puts it, these “things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us”.
When we hold a trusting, sleeping child, or we see again after a long absence someone we have always loved, we get a glimpse of the amazing love that scripture tells us over and over God has for us. When we stand looking out over a high mountain valley or on a rocky cliff looking out into the endless ocean, we can understand just a bit, God’s passion for this incredible world which was brought into being in Creation. When we find ourself mesmerized by the delicate and unique grace and beauty of a butterfly we understand that what we are feeling is part of God’s love for all creation. Our human lives amplify – over and over again -- the message – the stories -- of Scripture.
Again, we owe so much to the millions who came before us and passed on the stories so that we may know what God has done and continues to this day to do. Did these story collectors know that what they were doing was saving the stories of our faith for thousands of years of believers? Possibly not. They just told the stories because they believed they were important and because they made a difference in their own lives.
And there is an obligation that goes with this knowledge, an obligation put on us to join the legions of storytellers and to do our part in the telling. It is our half of a covenant between then and now, to not only teach and repeat the old, old stories but also to add in our stories – our stories of the wonderful things God does in our lives, because God is with us now, not just then.
This past weekend I was privileged to join a Zoom conference on the topic of “Testimony”. Now that’s not a word we use often around here and I wasn’t sure what I was going to hear. I knew what the word means in both its legal and religious meanings but it is a word rarely used in my own religious setting. I just wasn’t sure where we were going to go with it.
I learned that “Testimony” comes from a Latin word that means “witness.” Just as a witness in a legal matter testifies to the truth of what they have seen and heard -- what they know – what they have witnessed themselves – so it is in the church. I’m grateful for the leadership of our regional Disciples Women’s Ministries for presenting this information and this experience.
God's grace gives us an opportunity to testify to what God has done in our lives – that’s it. When we experience God and we know we have experienced God, we can either keep that knowledge all to ourselves or we can share it with others. It’s almost that simple.
I say ‘almost’ because it doesn’t just stop there. When – if – we share our experience, our testimony, others hear it and our words may move them to recognize and, in turn, share their story as well. When we speak out, someone else may find the way to name their own blessings – to give their own testimony. The joy is that our testimony can give hope and healing to the world.
When we speak our own truths, we become part of that greater story of the living church’s testimony to God’s greatness. Does this mean you have to button-hole total strangers on the street and force them to hear your story? Of course not. But if you know a truth worth sharing, would you not do so with friends? No one is asking anyone to preach. Even your questions can be part of your testimony – and if that word itself bothers you, if it seems a little scary, then let it go and just think of it as ‘sharing’. We all share with each other at times, right? And thus we add to the on-going story.
I’ve quoted from our Psalm at the beginning of this message, urging us to share those “things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us.”
Now the last line in the part of the Psalm we read says that “we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.”
May we go out and do so.
Amen.
Our reading for today reminds us of the importance of words. Everything that we believe we know today about God and Jesus and the kings and prophets and apostles we have because someone – many someone’s – cared enough to repeat their words so that others in other times and places could know the great stories of our faith.
These words made an historic journey down through the ages, through thousands of years, to reach us here today. That journey at first was strictly oral – spoken words – spoken and remembered and spoken again by newer voices. Their speakers told the stories they had witnessed themselves, or stories they had been told by their mothers and fathers or by the teachers in the Temple.
In time – often long spans of time after the initial event – but eventually -- some versions of the words were written down. These then, in their turn, were edited and redacted and translated to other tongues -- over and over again until finally a version became codified as the "authorized" version.
Take, for instances, the greatest of the Old Testament stories -- that of Moses leading the people out of slavery in Egypt. This story is so lost in long-ago time that we can’t even say with any certainty that Moses was a single real person and not a collection of folk-heroes who over time gained that worldwide hero status. Assuming there was a real person, the estimates for the dates for his life vary wildly. The majority opinion seems to settle his birth at somewhere around 1300 BCE, give or take a couple of hundred years either way.
The Book of Exodus which tells the stories of Moses was most likely written down somewhere around 600 BCE. That means this story was told and retold and remembered and retold orally for 700 years before ever being written into any more permanent form.
Similarly, the story of David – the shepherd boy who would become Israel’s greatest king – existed only in oral form for 400 years or so before it ever achieved written status in the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel.
Likewise in the New Testament, the four gospels were put into written form anywhere from 40 to 120 years after the life of Jesus. The very earliest could have been in the lifetimes of those who actually knew Jesus, but the later were written down long after Jesus’ death. Before being written, they were simply stories repeated whenever the early Christians gathered.
We owe most everything we claim to believe to 3000 or more years of storytellers, because even when the stories were written down they were handwritten and rare and only belonged to the Temple or Church. For households to own bibles of their own is a comparatively recent occurrence in this long 3000 year span. In times of mass illiteracy, endless war, plague, and superstition, it was the storytellers who carried these stories forward.
Even today, most of us, though literate adults and bible owners ourselves, began to learn the basis of our faith through stories told to us by Sunday School teachers and bedtime-story reading parents – or maybe these days by cartoon characters -- the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, and all those childhood favorites.
Our faith is built up, for each of us, from our own experiences in life, but it is these stories handed down from generation to generation that give us the framework that holds these personal experiences and makes sense of them. Those times when we have personally resonated with biblical stories, or when we have recognized God with us – all those are anchored by, as our Psalm today puts it, these “things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us”.
When we hold a trusting, sleeping child, or we see again after a long absence someone we have always loved, we get a glimpse of the amazing love that scripture tells us over and over God has for us. When we stand looking out over a high mountain valley or on a rocky cliff looking out into the endless ocean, we can understand just a bit, God’s passion for this incredible world which was brought into being in Creation. When we find ourself mesmerized by the delicate and unique grace and beauty of a butterfly we understand that what we are feeling is part of God’s love for all creation. Our human lives amplify – over and over again -- the message – the stories -- of Scripture.
Again, we owe so much to the millions who came before us and passed on the stories so that we may know what God has done and continues to this day to do. Did these story collectors know that what they were doing was saving the stories of our faith for thousands of years of believers? Possibly not. They just told the stories because they believed they were important and because they made a difference in their own lives.
And there is an obligation that goes with this knowledge, an obligation put on us to join the legions of storytellers and to do our part in the telling. It is our half of a covenant between then and now, to not only teach and repeat the old, old stories but also to add in our stories – our stories of the wonderful things God does in our lives, because God is with us now, not just then.
This past weekend I was privileged to join a Zoom conference on the topic of “Testimony”. Now that’s not a word we use often around here and I wasn’t sure what I was going to hear. I knew what the word means in both its legal and religious meanings but it is a word rarely used in my own religious setting. I just wasn’t sure where we were going to go with it.
I learned that “Testimony” comes from a Latin word that means “witness.” Just as a witness in a legal matter testifies to the truth of what they have seen and heard -- what they know – what they have witnessed themselves – so it is in the church. I’m grateful for the leadership of our regional Disciples Women’s Ministries for presenting this information and this experience.
God's grace gives us an opportunity to testify to what God has done in our lives – that’s it. When we experience God and we know we have experienced God, we can either keep that knowledge all to ourselves or we can share it with others. It’s almost that simple.
I say ‘almost’ because it doesn’t just stop there. When – if – we share our experience, our testimony, others hear it and our words may move them to recognize and, in turn, share their story as well. When we speak out, someone else may find the way to name their own blessings – to give their own testimony. The joy is that our testimony can give hope and healing to the world.
When we speak our own truths, we become part of that greater story of the living church’s testimony to God’s greatness. Does this mean you have to button-hole total strangers on the street and force them to hear your story? Of course not. But if you know a truth worth sharing, would you not do so with friends? No one is asking anyone to preach. Even your questions can be part of your testimony – and if that word itself bothers you, if it seems a little scary, then let it go and just think of it as ‘sharing’. We all share with each other at times, right? And thus we add to the on-going story.
I’ve quoted from our Psalm at the beginning of this message, urging us to share those “things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us.”
Now the last line in the part of the Psalm we read says that “we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.”
May we go out and do so.
Amen.
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