April 14, 2024

Luke 24:36b-48

Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

Witnesses of these things.

Years ago, back in law school, I took a class on “Evidence,” which you might imagine is important for a lawyer in training. What are the various types of evidence? How do you introduce evidence at trial? How do you support one story as being more true than another? Or, how do you cast doubt upon what some else says is true?

If you were to watch a television program, you might get the impression that this is a high stakes, high adrenaline effort, filled with sudden plot twists. Surprise witnesses popping out of nowhere. Last minute reversals of testimony on the stand. Oh, the nail-biting drama of it all. And your impression would be wrong.

Evidence is quite frankly not a terribly exciting aspect of the law. Why? Because it shouldn’t be. There should be no surprises in the courtroom because that means someone was not paying attention. That does not mean that people do not lie or try to hide evidence. But that facet of evidence generally does not make it into the courtroom. And if it does, some lawyer is in big trouble.

Generally, the best result for a legal case is never going to trial. Because it is wildly expensive to do so. In thirty years of legal practice, I had one case go to trial and that was without a jury. All the rest settled.

You spend months and even years sifting through evidence and testimony and often countless boxes of documents. You conclude that you are going to win or lose by some nearly arbitrary percentage in your mind. And then you try to figure out how you might get the other side to negotiate over their upcoming victory or loss within their own murky percentage calculations.

You might ask, why settle when I am on the road to utter vindication? Why settle before my well-deserved my day in court? That is a client talking, not a lawyer. Unless the client is a lawyer, which was generally a nightmare in my experience.

You settle cases because of those percentages. Yes, I think I will win, but I might not. Typically, no one really knows the whole truth of what happened, what really was going on. They have their opinions, of course. They have their interpretations. They have their lawyers researching and writing the finest Latin phrases. But unless there is videotape, unless there is recorded evidence, it is difficult to know for certain what happened in many cases.

Do you know what evidence is notoriously unreliable? Eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable because it can change over time. If you were to record someone’s impressions within minutes of some event, like an accident, you would have fairly reliable information about the incident in question. But overtime, memory can drift or fade. Not because people are necessarily trying to lie. It is because our biological system for retaining memories does not care what color that random car was that drove through the red light. It is not biologically important. It would be more important if we were hit by that car—stay away from red cars from now on. But even then, our memories are not as firm as we might imagine.

In our reading this morning, Jesus refers to the disciples as witnesses. This was the moment when Jesus revealed himself to the disciples after the crucifixion. They were to be witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and witnesses to the repentance and forgiveness of sins.

The Greek word for “witness” used here is martys. And if that sounds like the word “martyr” that is because it is the same word. But a witness in this sense, as in this passage of the Bible, is not about martyrdom but about the actual eyewitness testimony that the disciples have to offer to those who might listen. How does one idea shift over time into something so seeming different?

The idea of bearing witness comes up in the Bible as something like a sacred duty. In the Ten Commandments, there is a prohibition against bearing false witness against your neighbor. And this is in the very familiar sense of testifying against them in a legal proceeding. Being a witness therefore was a solemn obligation. So, when Jesus declares that the disciples were to serve as witnesses to the events in question and to spread the message of repentance and forgiveness, it was no minor duty they were taking on.

How then does the Greek word for “witness” come to mean “martyr” as we have come to know that word in English. Martyr meaning someone who “voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion.” The idea of bearing witness becomes conflated with dying for your beliefs. This became a familiar narrative in the Early Christian period and becomes the origin story for the stalwart nature of faith of those people in that time. But that would not happen until a few centuries after the events of the New Testament.

When the Gospel of Luke was written down, about the year 70, that idea of martyr as someone dying for their faith had not yet taken hold. The persecution of Christians would not happen for about two centuries and so the concept of “witness” has not yet been melded with the modern notion of martyrdom.

Early Christians would eventually face persecution. Why? Because they did not fit in. They did not fit in among traditional Jewish communities because they were advocating for repentance and seeking forgiveness in the name of Jesus, a new prophet that not everyone recognized. And they did not fit in among the Romans because Christians were considered atheists. Yes, atheists, because they did not recognize the wider pantheon of gods worshipped in the empire. Worshipping one god in this instance meant you were denying the existence of all the other gods.

This accusation of atheism became a critical distinction. Some early Christians refused to offer worship to the images of past emperors, who were considered divine. I say some because there were Christians who went ahead and did this anyway. We have this image of Christian fortitude but like in any age there are people who are not willing to give up what they have—money, influence, prestige—for some theological set of beliefs. Hold that thought.

What did this worship of the emperors involve? You might be asked to offer a pinch of incense at a shrine to show your devotion to the emperors as gods and, I would surmise, to show your loyalty to Rome. And I think loyalty was really at stake here. Offering the correct observances can be an important part of showing that you have assimilated into a culture. And if you refuse to do so, you can get into trouble. It can even get you in trouble in the good old U.S.A.

For example, in the 1940s, a legal case made it up to the U.S. Supreme Court. It involved whether schoolchildren could be required to salute the American flag and to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. These children were Jehovah’s Witnesses, so I thought they would be a spot-on, object lesson for us today as we consider the word “witness.” Subtle as a sledgehammer, I know.

Jehovah’s Witnesses typically believe that they cannot pledge their allegiance to any worldly object, person, or purpose, only to God. And so, these children had been expelled from school in Minersville, Pennsylvania because they refused to stand, to salute the flag, and to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

As an aside, the original way of standing and swearing your allegiance to the flag involved a different set of actions compared to now. Today, we stand and place our right hands over our hearts. Back in the 1940s, you would stand and then you would stretch out your right hand, palm flat, arm raised at a 45 degree angle. That would change. It would change because that particular set motions was also being used by the new government in Germany—Nazi Germany.

The laws of a nation exist to preserve order and tranquility in a free society. At least, that is the case according to the Supreme Court. The Court wrote: “A society which is dedicated to the preservation of… [the] ultimate values of civilization [such as order and tranquility] may, in self-protection, utilize the educational process for inculcating these almost unconscious feelings which bind men together in a comprehending loyalty, whatever may be their lesser differences and difficulties.”

In other words, in schools across the United States you could force children to stand and to recite the pledge, under the threat of expulsion and the possible denial of the benefit of a public education. It is unclear from the opinion whether the Nazi salute was also required.

You may be saying to yourself, what a minute, I thought you were not required to say the Pledge of Allegiance? And you would be correct, eventually. The Supreme Court would overrule itself two years later. What had happened in the two years between one decision and the other prompting the Court to change its mind?

You see, the refusal to salute the flag or to say the Pledge of Allegiance could be regarded as student insubordination, resulting in expulsion. While expelled, the child could then be deemed unlawfully absent from compulsory education, in the Kafka-esque mindset of that moment in history. Therefore, the student was treated as a delinquent, now subject to potential incarceration in a reformatory setting for the criminally inclined.

The child’s parents or guardians could then be liable to prosecution for allowing this slide into delinquency. Conviction of the parents could result in fines of up to $50 (or about $1,000 in 2024 money) with a jail term of up to thirty days. Fines and jail time to be renewed over and over until the delinquency was resolved.

This is not a fanciful hypothetical. This happened in the 1940s in the United States, specifically in the State of West Virginia and leading to the new case two years later. The West Virginia legislature had passed a law requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance by teachers and students in all schools: public, private, and parochial.

Children were being expelled for insubordination. Children were going into juvenile detention because they did not say the Pledge of Allegiance. Parents were being fined and imprisoned. And so, the Supreme Court revisited its decision.

Which may bring up a nagging question for some: what was the big deal? Just stand up and say the pledge. Why make a literal federal case out of something so seemingly minor? Roll with it.

Now imagine saying something like this: It’s just a ham sandwich—eat it. What’s the big deal? It’s a few beers—drink them. What’s the big deal? It’s Sunday morning—just go to work. What’s the big deal?

If you are a Jehovah’s Witness and saluting the American flag reminds you of paying homage to a graven image, it might be a big deal. If you are Jewish or Muslim and public school lunch is filled with pork, it might be a big deal. If you are Baptist and you are expected to drink alcohol at a work function, it might be a big deal. If you are Christian and your job required you to labor on Sunday, it might be a big deal. We’ll ignore the problem of Sunday morning travel soccer for now.

From the outside looking in, requiring someone to do something that they find religiously unacceptable may not seem terribly consequential. But as a person of faith faced with the prospect of being compelled to do or to say something, it is a greater concern.

Now, imagine you are an early Christian and it is around the year 300. The Roman authorities are not pleased with your behavior. You are being required to recant your faith, meaning to give it up. You must put aside your beliefs and instead embrace the common polytheistic worship practices of the Roman Empire. The alternative is to be persecuted, to lose your legal rights. In some cases, to be put to death, though that was far less common than most Sunday school teachers may have mentioned.

Let’s follow through with our Pledge of Allegiance example. Come on, what is the big deal? Offer incense to the emperors. Who cares? Say a few prayers to Zeus—what’s the harm?

Obviously, from a Christian perspective, that is the very definition of bearing witness to one’s faith and, if necessary, to suffer persecution for one’s faith. And we look back on that dedication to faith with, what? With admiration perhaps. With a sense of wonder at their grit and perseverance. Or is it with a sense of bewilderment that they would risk everything—life, limb, and property—for something intangible like faith.

Now, what about those Jehovah’s Witnesses refusing to salute the flag and to say the Pledge of Allegiance? Maybe a bit different from what we might believe, but admirable in its way. In the 1960s, a Unitarian student objected to having to say the Lord’s Prayer and to read from the Bible while in public school. That led to the prohibition of such practices. Does that seem right or wrong in your estimation?

The real question then is: would you go to jail for something like that? You meaning you, meaning us, meaning those who are in this congregation? Would you risk life, limb, or property over faith?

In other words, is there something for which you feel so strongly that you would be willing to risk going to jail because it mattered so much to you? What, if anything, would that be?

Bearing witness in the Biblical sense requires us to understand what matters. What is important. What is essential. And what might those be? Because some things are central while others are, what, peripheral? This has been referred to as the difference between the transient and the permanent. What is so central to Christian witness that it is worth opposing authority for its sake?

Recently, I have been advising a religious community that is looking to set up a shelter for refugees seeking asylum in the United States. You may have heard that the shelter system in Massachusetts is overwhelmed with the number of people seeking shelter, both refugees and those who are homeless.

We can get into a long discussion about immigration and the border and all that. Not today though. Instead, I would ask the simple question of whether it is a religious objective to help the homeless, to shelter refugees, and to provide comfort and support to such people in need? Is it a religious purpose?

In case you were looking for some Biblical guidance on the matter, consider the Gospel of Matthew: “[F]or I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Notice that it does not matter why they are hungry or thirsty. It does not matter how they got sick or got themselves into prison. The expectation of Jesus as set forth in the Gospels is to care for them. And yes, there is one line in the Bible that says those who do not work shall not eat. Two observations on that. One, that is from a letter by Paul and he also said you should not be having sex. Pick your poison. And two, these people are willing to work but they are not allowed to work.

There is therefore no Biblical argument supporting not helping them, even though there are sundry political arguments. These argument are about as persuasive to me as the need to offer incense in the name of a Roman emperor.

As I said before, we have this image of Christian fortitude, but like in any age there are some who are not willing to give up what they have, or what they prefer, for some theological set of beliefs. Which leads me back to the question: How good of a witness would any one of us be?

As witnesses to the message of repentance and forgiveness. As witnesses to the life, message, and teachings of Jesus. As witnesses to the requirement, the clear and unmistakable requirement in the New Testament, that we are supposed to take care of others in need regardless of how or why they are in need.

When someone says they feel that America has drifted away from the path of righteousness, I often feel compelled to press for details. Because I suspect they are right in many respects, but when I drill down into the particulars, I find that we are talking about entirely different things. If they mean that Americans care more about money than humanity, more about self than service, more about personal freedom than civic obligation, then I might agree with them.

But if instead they are worried about policing the border better, I have many, many other questions. And if they are worried about the personal behavior of others, who they love and what they do in the bedroom, then honestly, I have absolutely no time for it. Feel free to guard your own morality, but please stop trying to impose it on everyone else.

Does that preachy sentiment mean that I would be willing to bear witness to my faith in some significant way? I hope so, though I do not know so. Not that I would like to go to jail any time soon. But sometimes you can bear witness short of jail time.

And you certainly can seek to help others even while professing the message Jesus taught us long ago. Sometimes you can do both of those. And, I hope and pray, I will remain ready, willing, and able to bear witness and to pursue these other holy tasks.

Amen.