“Are You Speechless

“Are You Speechless?”

Text: Luke 3:1-6

© December 10, 2006 by C. Edward Bowen

Deborah was a young woman who worked in a bookstore. One day it was her turn to show up early and open the store. But when she got there, she was somewhat surprised to see a man standing outside the door, waiting to get in. So after she unlocked the door and turned on the lights, she said, “Can I help you?” And the man said, “Yes, I want to know about Jesus.” So right away Deborah led him over to the shelves of books they had on Christianity and religion. But as she turned and started to walk away, the man called out, “No, I don’t want a book. I want to know about Jesus. I’ve been in your store before, and I’ve seen the cross that you wear around your neck. Please tell me what you believe.” For a moment at least, Deborah was speechless. She knew that she believed, but at that moment she didn’t have any idea what words to speak.[1]

There’s an old joke that goes: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Presbyterian? The answer: someone who rings your doorbell, but who has absolutely no idea what to say. Unfortunately there’s more truth to that joke than we might like.

But here in the reading we listened to today from the Gospel of Luke, when John the Baptist felt God touching his life and talking to him in some way, right away John knew that he had no choice but to go out and proclaim, to go out and tell, what God was doing. In particular, what John was sensing was that he was the one who God was appointing to announce that the Savior was coming. And so he didn’t keep that good news just to himself. No, he shouted it out for all the world to hear.

And what we find as we read the Bible is that when God acts and touches people’s lives, people find that they have no choice but to speak and tell about what God has done. For instance, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced to her what God was about to do in her life, how she was about to become the mother of the Son of God, what did Mary do? As soon as the angel left, Mary ran and told her relative Elizabeth the good news.

Or on the night when Jesus was born and the angel announced to the shepherds that a Savior had just been born in Bethlehem, what did the shepherds do? The Bible says that immediately the shepherds ran over the hill into Bethlehem and not only found the baby Jesus in the manger, but the Gospel of Luke says that they also told the people there the wonderful message that God had made known to them.

And it’s the same thing throughout the Gospels. When Jesus healed people, what did those people do? They didn’t keep that good news to themselves, bottled up inside. No, they went out and told their families about what Jesus had done. They went out and announced to the whole community the great things that Jesus had done for them.

Or on Easter morning when those women went to the tomb and met the risen Christ, did they just keep the joy that they experienced to themselves? No, they ran and told the disciples. They ran and proclaimed what God had done.

But why do we tend not to do that? When it comes to talking about what God has done in our lives and what we have seen God doing in the lives of people around us, why are we so often speechless? Our usual response, of course, is something like: “Well, I believe. But my faith is personal. It’s something inside me. It’s not something I feel comfortable talking about. It’s not something I feel that I need to talk about.”

But think about it: Let’s say that a friend does something really nice for you or gives you a really nice gift. And that makes you feel good inside. And in your heart you know that your friend cares about you. But do you remain silent? No, you speak – you say “thank you” to your friend. You tell your friend how much he or she means to you. And you go out and tell other people, “Look! Look at what my friend did for me. Let me tell you about what a great friend I have.” In a situation like that, we speak because we know that to remain silent is wrong.

Or if you’ve ever been married or if you’ve ever been in love with someone – it’s one thing to have thoughts and feelings inside of you. It’s one thing to know in your heart that you love someone and care about them deeply. But if those thoughts and feelings are real, and if you care about that other person and want your relationship with them to continue and grow, at some point you have to put those thoughts and feelings into words. At some point you have to find the words to speak. At some point you have to say out loud “I love you.” At some point you have to turn to your family and friends and say, “Listen! I have to tell you about this special person that’s a part of my life.” Because if those words are never spoken, eventually the relationship you have is going to wither and die.

Why is it that we can talk about the weather, we can talk about the Steelers, we can talk about who our favorite contestant is on American Idol, but when it comes to God – when it comes to Jesus – so often we become speechless? And why is it that we’re often quite content to leave it that way?

I was at a meeting recently with a group of other ministers, and the one minister was telling about a funeral service that he had had at his church. He said that the woman who had died was a rather elderly person, who had been a member of that particular church for well over 50 years. During the eulogy, the woman’s daughter stood up and said, “My mother loved this church. She loved it because she knew that she would never have to talk about Jesus here. And that was important to her.”

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a tragedy. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s an incredible shame that someone could be a part of a church for more than five decades, and what you end up prizing more than anything else is the fact that your church made it possible for you, and maybe even encouraged you, to remain speechless about your faith all that time. If we aren’t able to look at our lives and at the world around us and see what God is doing, and in some way at least occasionally put that into words, there’s something deeply, deeply wrong with that.

On the bulletin cover we say that God’s mission for our church is to be a community where people grow as disciples of Jesus and minister to those in need. Well, one of the things disciples of Jesus do is they find ways to speak about their faith. And so one of the jobs of our church, then, is to assist people to grow in their ability to do that.

Now, I’m sure that some people are thinking, “Talk about my faith? Talk about Jesus? I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that.” But during the past year we have been providing people with more and more opportunities to do just that – to put their faith into words – and guess what? No one has fainted, passed out, or died yet.

For instance, in Sunday school and at Bible study, we begin each class by taking a few moments to allow each person to share some blessing they experienced in their life, or to share some way that they’ve seen God at work in someone else’s life or in the world. Some people tell about how God answered some prayer and solved a problem in their life. Others simply express gratitude for the sunshine, or for their family and friends. The point isn’t to impress anyone. The point isn’t to feel the need to share something that’s amazing or awe-inspiring. Rather the point is simply to give people the opportunity to put into words the big or little things they see God doing.

In the same sort of way, almost every meeting we have at church now – whether it’s the session or a committee or youth group or choir – we begin our meetings with what is known as Word-Share-Prayer. “Word” refers to the Word of God, the Bible, and the way that we begin our meetings with a short time of Bible reading. And then each person is invited to share some reflection on the passage – to tell what they hear God saying, or perhaps even to raise questions about what the passage means. Then “Share” means each person in the group is given an opportunity to share a prayer concern – for themselves, for someone else they know of, or for some concern in the world.

And finally “Prayer” means each person is invited to pray out loud for one of the other group member’s concerns. The prayer doesn’t need to be long. The prayer doesn’t need to be eloquent. It can be one short, simple sentence: “Dear God, please help Ann with her problem.” But by engaging in Word-Share-Prayer, what we are trying to do is help people grow in their ability to speak about their faith. And even though a few people balked at participating in Word-Share-Prayer at first, for those who have given it a try and taken part, I believe without exception they have found it to be a helpful and meaningful practice.

Or this morning, for the second time, we have a Moment for Sharing during our worship time. Today John Novak has agreed to do that for us. Our hope is that about every month or so we’ll invite someone to get up and speak a little bit about their faith. You can speak about how you’ve seen God at work in your life, you can speak about how you first came to faith, you can speak some blessing that God has given to you. Again, the point isn’t to show off or impress anyone. Rather the point is simply to encourage one another – to encourage one another to grow in our ability to put our faith into words.

The familiar carol that we’re going to sing next says: “Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!” As we look at what God has done for us and as we look at what God has done in the world around us, that’s not something that we should just keep bottled up inside us as some warm feeling in our hearts. No, as we look at what God has done for us and as we look at what God has done in the world around us, we need to take what we’ve seen and experienced and go and tell. We need to put it into words, so that more and more people can hear and discover for themselves the great and wonderful love that God has for us and for all people.