Pr. Hector Garfias-Toledo + August 11, 2024
Love Fits Week 6 - Divine Pieces: Love Completes the Narrative
In this final sermon of the "Love Fits" worship series, Pastor Hector explores the metaphor of a puzzle to illustrate the importance of each individual's testimony in completing the picture of God’s work in the world. Just as every piece is crucial for the puzzle, each testimony plays a vital role in enriching our faith community. Reflecting on how our personal stories and experiences interlock to reveal God's love, this message encourages us to appreciate the diverse ways God works through us. Embracing our collective testimony helps us value each other’s contributions and strengthens our unity in faith.
Sermon Transcript
From automatically generated captions, lightly edited for readability by Chat GPT
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, Mother, Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our sibling, our friend, our Savior. And the people of God said: Amen.
Well, talking about testimony—testimony—what comes to mind when you hear testimony? Stories.
What else? Transformation. I hear some words here that I couldn't quite catch: blessings? Right. Fruit? Right. I was hearing a theologian, a professor at a seminary, who was saying that testimony is a word that really scares Lutherans, because we are not used, as Lutherans, to talk about testimony and to live out testimony. Testimony, as some of you said, requires speaking. But at the same time, I was thinking that when you are looking at this young worshipper sitting here, and when you look at this young adult, basically Sam, you can see his testimony. And the testimony is that one day this congregation may make it possible that these young worshippers will one day be speaking like Sam about what God has done in their lives and how they are, with their lives, giving testimony of God's love. Think about the power of the image that we saw here. When we talk about truth, when we talk about message, when we talk about blessedness, this was a perfect example of that. At the same time, testimony is something that, you know, when I was thinking, I need to bring a testimony. But also, the word testimony in the Bible that we are going to use today also means witness. And I need to say, I need to talk about witness.
When I first came to church and I was doing a baptism in the chapel, I was looking for a bowl for water for the baptism. I didn't want to carry that baptismal font because it’s too heavy. So, I saw something like this, bigger, in the chapel and I said, “Oh, that’s perfect.” So I filled it up with water and that was my baptism. Later on, David Horton, who had just started here at Trinity at that time, came to the chapel and saw that I had filled this container up with water, until here. The first thing he asked was, “What are you doing?” I said, “Well, I’m going to have a baptism, and this is perfect.” He told me the name of this thing because it’s a musical instrument, but to me, it was a bowl for water. He was my witness, and probably he can hold that against me now, or not.
So today, I just want to think about this image of witness and testimony. We are going to watch a video in a couple of minutes, but I invite you to think: Why is it important for us to talk about testimony in the gospel? In the first letter of John to the church, the word testimony appears seven times in four verses. If you paid attention, it appears seven times, so there must be a reason why the Elder, the writer of this letter or sermon, found it important to mention it seven times. He wanted to make sure that the church doesn’t forget that this word is important in the life of the church because that is the way that the church and the reign of God will continue to expand and reach out to lives. The Greek word for witness or testimony is “martus,” and you will see in the video what that means, so I’m not going to go too far into that. But let me say:
This testimony is a word and action. It is living out our faith. Testimony is something that is in us because it has been given to us and it’s in our hearts. The testimony or witness of Jesus is God’s own life according to the Elder in the passage we read today. Like love, as we said a few Sundays ago, testimony is something that we do not initiate by ourselves because when it is left to ourselves, we take testimony most likely for our own benefit instead of the benefit of the community. Testimony is something that God initiates in our lives. It is the fruit of what is in our lives and it flows from us. It’s a gift that we have already received and it is in our hearts. So, with that, I would like to invite you to watch this video. It’s about four minutes long. Capture, listen to the video, and then, after the video, we will have an opportunity to talk about a couple of questions that I have for you in terms of testimony. So, let’s watch that video together.
It’s a cartoon, by the way. You will like it.
I love the last image because it reminds me of the puzzle—all the pieces coming together and then witnessing to one another. So, as you notice, now I know what this is for: baptisms. What we are going to do is there are three questions that I would like to ask you. Again, identify some people—if there are some of you who find it more difficult to move around, I hope that some of you can approach them and have a conversation with them. So, let's go to the first question. Now that you’ve heard what witness or testimony is about, what are some ways in which the testimony of others has touched you? What are some of the ways that others' testimony has touched your life? Find someone and just respond. I will call you back with this instrument to come back and talk.
[silence for discussion]
I hope that you got a chance to introduce yourselves. Let's go to the next question. The next question is: What are some ways in which you have been a channel of that testimony for others? When you have a testimony for others, let's go.
[silence for discussion]
And now, testimony is not something that we only share; testimony reshapes us. Testimony changes us. Testimony helps us to see things from different perspectives. Find somebody else and let’s conclude with this question: Since we are going to talk about being changed, change the people you have been talking to. How has the testimony reshaped your life, the life of the community, or the life of your family? Let's take a few more minutes to talk about that.
[silence for discussion]
I know that we like to continue talking, but as we said last Sunday, I hope that these questions are opportunities for you to continue the conversation after the gathering. As you are drinking coffee or continuing your conversation in the narthex, I think that these are important questions that have to do with who we are as witnesses, who we are as the recipients of the gift that God has given us. Just like anyone who wants to say one or two words that caught your attention as you were listening to someone else, what did you hear in any of these answers to these questions? Anyone? "Women are better than men." True! Anyone else? Heidi, I couldn’t hear everything that you said, but thank you, Heidi. Anyone else? One more? One more? Who would like to share? What did you hear? Say again? "Caring Brothers." Caring.
What I want to invite you to think about in this passage is that through this series that we walk together, I hope that we were able to discover together that every piece in the puzzle of the masterpiece that God is putting together is important, and God will do anything to find us. This is the testimony of the Gospel—in the stories of the Good Shepherd, in the merciful father, and in the words of the Lord Jesus who said that no one will be lost and nobody will perish. We need to remember that when a piece is missing, when you are putting together a puzzle and a piece is missing, what do you do? Or at least, what do I do? What do you do? We find it. We go crazy, right? We go crazy trying to find it, and if we don’t have it, we feel that it’s not complete. We do anything that is in our power to find that piece. In putting a puzzle together, every piece contributes to the whole picture. No piece in the puzzle has its own way, even though every piece is distinctively different and unique, or may look irrelevant. Every piece contributes to the whole picture, and we are pieces that bring that testimony of life—the testimony that makes a difference in our own lives and in the life of the community. Remember that at the beginning of the letter, the Elder talks about koinonia—the household of God—and that the Elder is inviting us to think about how each one of us is going to contribute to that household of God. However, as human beings, we know that we do—when we think that we are pieces in this puzzle, sometimes we think that a single piece is the whole picture. When we take that attitude, we start looking for people that we like, people who think like us. We start talking about bringing people to ourselves. We want people to be on our side; we want people who empathize with us. And we start breaking the koinonia, the household of God, for our own benefit. And yet, even when we do that, when we alienate ourselves, when we think that we are the full picture of the masterpiece that God is putting together, when we turn inwardly, as Martin Luther and also Augustine said, "incurvatus in se," when we look into ourselves only, even in those cases, the crazy love of God is that God will come to find us. When we choose the edge of death, God opens the way—not so much for us to find God, but opens the way for God to find us where we are, as little pieces that sometimes are under the coffee table, under the rug, under the pillows on the couch.
Life eternal is the gift that God has given us, not just as something that we will experience when we die, but life eternal—notice the order of the words—first life eternal. It is more of a relationship that is constant, permanent, and eternal. Since we have been speaking Spanish for the past series a lot, let me teach you one more word in Spanish. If you can think of the one person that you love dearly, somebody that makes you melt when you see them, that you really feel like your legs become like spaghetti, can you think of that person? It can be a child, a parent, a partner, anybody. In Spanish, when we have a person that makes us feel that way, we call the person “mi vida.” You know what that means? "My life." I think that this is the testimony that the Elder is reminding the people in the church: "Church, you have your life. God will say to you, 'Mi vida,' and because of that, we can be the people, the witnesses, the ones who bring the testimony of the life eternal that God has given us."
I know it’s hard to talk about eternal life or life eternal when many of us are facing health conditions that are breaking our bodies, relationships that are falling apart, jobs that are changing, ideals in our lives that are not coming to fruition. And yet, in the midst of it, God comes to us, and Jesus reminds us: this is the testimony that God has given us—life eternal.
Jesus tells us, "You are my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, to the ends of the Earth." You are my witnesses: "Dios es amor" and "Dios," God tells us, "You are my life"—"Tú eres mi vida."
So the whole picture is complete. We have life eternal, we have a testimony to share with others, and together we know that we are God's life. And for that, we thank God.
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