"The Importance of Witness" A Good Friday Sermon

This Holy Week...I have been overcome with the many "ordinary" characters who are in the Gospel readings, all of the witnesses. 

I think it's been on my mind because of everything happening in the world: shootings, bombings that continue in Gaza, the collapsing of what had been the stable economy of the United States, and the failures of different institutions...academic, legal, media, and Congress... to do anything to stop the madness that has taken over the highest office in the land. 

And as a representative of "the church," I feel compelled to not be silent about the things that are happening around me. Because the one I call the Christ was not silent about the corruption and soul-crushing meanness of the Empire in his day. A corruption in which there was complicity on the part of the religious status quo because it was a way for them to maintain some version of power. 

That is the same problem that exists today. I will not be a party to that. 

Because I am a witness to the things that are happening...and they are not good.

Even if you don't consider yourself "Christian" or "religious" this is one sermon I encourage you to read and not look away.

Text: John 18:1-19:42

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In October, 19-96….I witnessed an execution.

It was at the Florida State Prison in Starke.

The condemned man was John Earl Bush.

He and three others had kidnapped a store clerk…Frances Slater…drove her to a remote area of Fort Pierce where they shot and stabbed her to death.

The news director for the Fort Pierce public radio station had called our Florida Public Radio bureau and asked if someone could take her place as a media witness for Bush’s execution.

She was pregnant at the time and didn’t want to be exposed to such a thing.

Me…being a 28-year-old who enjoyed reporting on court cases…said yes.

I didn’t really understand what I had just said “Yes” to doing.

The way a state execution happens is methodical, clinical, sterile.

The walls of the execution and adjacent witness chamber are bright white…which are made even brighter because of the fluorescent lights.

At the time…Florida was still using an electric chair to carry out death sentences.

And while the witness chamber was technically another room…we were only separated from the death chamber by a wall with a large plexiglass window.

The distance between us and the electric chair was only about 20 feet.

John Bush…a black man…was led into the chamber by an all-white prison crew.

The guards strapped him into the chair and secured the skull cap to his head.

He was given a chance to make a final statement, but he declined.

Instead… he silently stared at each one of us…a majority white room of witnesses…as a guard wrapped a gag over his mouth.

They draped a black leather mask over his head.

The warden gave the signal to the executioner…. who was standing behind a curtain…to administer the electricity.

Bush’s body lurched up against the straps…his hands clutched into fists…and after a few minutes…he went limp…and the electricity was turned off.

A doctor then examined him…and it was announced that the death sentence had been carried out.

As a reporter…I knew that my next job was to collect my microphone and recorder and head out to the field across from  the prison and do interviews with people who had come to protest.

I also gathered statements from the spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

But it wasn’t until I was in my car and driving back to Tallahassee that I was faced with the reality of what I had just witnessed.

I had watched an otherwise healthy 38-year-old man get strapped into a chair and killed before my eyes.

What’s more: I had watched this all take place…and I had felt nothing.

I cried.

Not for John Earl Bush.

I cried because I realized that there was something wrong with my humanity.

I was ashamed that I could watch this happen as if I was watching a movie.

The next day…one of my male newsroom colleagues asked me in mocking tone of voice if witnessing this execution had “changed my life.”

And…again…being a 28-year-old woman working in a predominantly male-dominated field…I had learned to mask my true feelings.

So…for his sake…I shrugged it off as if this hadn’t been a big deal at all.

But that was a lie.

That night and that self-realization that I had had on that drive home was the beginning of God’s intervention into my life.

And it was the beginning of God’s work in me which shifted my career path to where I am today.

I share that as an example of the power of witness.

When we witness…we are not merely casual observers of the mundane and the ordinary.

We become the important conveyors of the truth of what we have seen and experienced.

And whether we are initially aware of it in the moment or not…we are transformed by what we’ve seen and experienced.

And that transformation can set us on a course to testify to the need to make right what is wrong in the world.

To raise the alarms and steer us in new directions.

This is what happens to some of our military members when they go off to war.

The experience changes them in ways that those of us who are civilians don’t always understand.

Even if they believed in the rightness of the conflict and that the war they were fighting was just…most veterans will be the first ones to caution the next generation to do all that they can to prevent us from going to war again.

Because the battlefield is not romantic; it’s hell on earth.

Journalists who are sent into war zones are also deeply affected by what they observe and what they must report.

While they may be seemingly keeping it all together when they are on camera…bearing witness to the brutality and trauma leaves scars on their psyches.

The death of Jesus on a Roman cross also left wounds beyond just the marks of the nails in his hands and feet.

Those who put him to an unjust death did so out of their fear…their anger…their need to maintain power over others.

They were the hard-hearted and stiff-necked of the First Century.

Their goal was to show the rest of the population what happens to those who step out of line and challenge the Empire.

Their intent was to make people afraid….and remind them to keep their heads down and not challenge the status quo.

And in that process…they lost another piece of their own humanity.

Those who were the oppressed and disenfranchised in Jerusalem saw what happened.

Some probably shrugged and went about their business.

They were so used to the Romans’ brutality that they were immune to it now.

Others were probably hoping this would mean the end of any more uprisings that drew unwanted attention to the Jewish minority.

And then there were those who had been so hopeful.

They had shouted Hosanna only days ago…excited that Jesus had arrived to save them.

Now they’re in shock and weeping at what they had seen: an innocent man…traded in the pardoning of an insurrectionist…is killed.

From the cross…our evangelist John reports that Jesus’ final words were “It is finished.”

True…his earthly work was finished.

But God’s work through Jesus was just beginning.

Because Jesus’ death on the cross was witnessed.

And those who took in this scene were about to be changed in ways they couldn’t imagine.

His death was about to breathe life…and light a fire in the belly of those who had come to believe in his message.

Those who saw what went down…and knew it was wrong…knew it was unjust…were going to become an even greater force….carrying forward the work of God as modeled for them in the life of Jesus.

In this way…Jesus fulfills the prophesy of Isaiah’s suffering servant:

“The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Is.53:11-12)

The bullies and tyrants of the day had done something they knew was wrong.

Those who followed Jesus knew it was wrong.

And God’s purpose was being achieved through Jesus’s death.

Because Jesus’ death on the cross was the climax of this clash between those who were rooted in the earthly practice of power-over people…and his followers who were rooted in the Love that seeks power-with people.

And power-with people is the winning strategy.

This is our story…the story of Love rejected and Love resurrected.

The story of a Love that promises to be with us when we’re afraid…and give us what we need to stand up for ourselves and those on the margins.

A Gospel that reminds us that the world is full of bullies and tyrants and people who retreat into their fears…and their smaller selves.

And a Gospel that demands we not succumb to our own fears…and so that we might live bigger and brighter.

Here…so many centuries later…we are once more at the foot of the cross.

We are again bearing witness to injustice…at a time

where many people are nervous and afraid of the government.

We are onlookers to a moment when there are illegal deportations happening…and court orders getting ignored.

While these actions may seem far removed from our day to day lives down here in this corner of Georgia...they are occurring in our name.

Jesus went to the cross to call the people’s attention to the Rule of Love.

Those who initially stood far off were eventually moved to act on behalf of Love.

Jesus’ reconciling work from the cross compels us to pay attention to what is happening to the most vulnerable people in our country…citizens and non-citizens.

I pray that we are ready to respond to this call in such a time as this.  

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.