Seeing is the pearl of great price, wrote Annie Dillard. To see. To witness.
Do you remember the famous image of justice? The woman holding the scales…blindfolded, so she’s not tempted to tip the scales in favor of one or the other party…equal treatment before the law…she is presented as a servant of truth…of truth that disregards privilege or personal favor or gain…objective, unbiased truth…possible because she cannot see…
The irony, of course, is that in our system of justice…it’s been taking off the blindfold and the ability to see that is beginning to make justice possible…
If you are scratching your head, just think about how much more justice has been possible as a result of the cell phone video camera…
The protests have been essential…that bearing of witness…and the law suits…like the one we joined against the federal government two years ago…that witness also critical…
But those videos opened our eyes, finally, perhaps…to more of the truth of the world than that blindfolded figure would ever have dispensed…
Whether it’s a visual record of a police stop or images of the assault on the Capital…
The cell phone camera , wielded by ordinary citizens, that allowed us all to see what justice needed to be done…has become an ally of truth…for us all.
Can I get a witness to that?
Can I get a witness, please?
Amen is what I would hope to hear back from you if we were in person…
Amen. Preach it. Yes.
Taking off the blindfold…the ability to see has made the difference…we’ve witnessed it.
Witness is our spiritual theme for February…and there are layered meanings to that word but it is about our ability and perhaps our willingness to see.
At its most basic, to witness something is simply to “see” it.
But in the legal world, witness is not only about seeing…having seen something or knowing something…it is also the willingness to testify…to tell about some truth that you know…
And in the religious meaning, to testify…to some truth about living and about our lives…
And bearing witness often has a cost…the Greek word witness…martus…is also where we get the word martyr…
Bearing witness carries a weight and a responsibility.
To bear witness is not just about seeing…
The Where I’m From Poem that Tom shared as our reading is all about naming and witnessing the complex and specific details of our lives…
I’m from clothespins and Clorox…a spilling of old pictures…
There is a template you can use to write your own “Where ai’m From” poem. We used it at Seminary for a Day this year.
My own Where I’m From poem includes this: I’m from fist bumps and head nods…
If you have ever observed, witnessed two black men…of a certain age…approach one another on the street…even if they have never met…you may have noticed them nodding to one another.
It is a habit that developed in the South. And it is not as common among younger generations, but for me, even today, when I am approaching another Black man or now any BIPOC male identified person, I automatically nod and smile.
It is a way of saying, I see you. Not…I see the color of your skin or the shape of your nose or eyes… Not I see you as a representation of a category…But I see you as another child of God, a person with inherent worth and dignity… with whom I probably share at least some experiences…I have some idea where you might be from…to use the language of our reading.
I see you and I am glad to see you. I bear witness to the value of your presence. I want you to know that my day is better because our paths have crossed.
All of that in a head nod. Yes.
That habit doesn’t cross the gender divide comfortably.
But, today, I do try to extend the same recognition to other male identified folx, especially houseless folks I encounter.
I try to make my living in the world an act of witness to the love and acceptance my faith tells me is present for us all.
Because it is not enough simply to believe that we all have worth and dignity…though that in itself is no small task…it takes intentionality to go against all the fear and distrust our culture teaches about difference
But it is not enough to simply believe. Living is not a solo or a private act.
And if we believe in the power of love…then we need to bear witness to it…to embody it…with the living of our lives.
Because that can change the world.
I think of all of the marches and protests in support of Marriage Equality…I took part in so many of them…
And they were important.
But what turned the tide, were the thousands and hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian couples who had the courage to show up as who they really were at PTA meetings and supermarket checkouts, in workplaces and family gatherings…and in this church…
They witnessed to their lives with their lives…and they helped change the world. Their witness made the legal question…personal and real. Cousin Clarice was just not more threatening because she was out of the closet.
Marriage Equality is old news now. The world changed…but not the whole world. We all know that trans folx are still targeted. That Asian Americans are still called model minorities. That houseless folx are still being forced from one encampment to another…
And Black folx…well…
There is a fight now going on about appointing a Black woman to the Supreme Court…have you been tracking that? It’s being called an affirmative action pick…the qualifications of these manifestly talented jurists with such distinguished records…
Wouldn’t affirmative action better describe the selection of all those white males for over 200 years? Isn’t that preferentail treatment a definition of affirmative action? Just sayin…
And Affirmative Action itself is on the Supreme Court docket…
I want to nod to all of those talented and patriotic justice seeking jurists, who are Black women.
Those jurists who doknow the difference between a law book and a J. Crew catalogue…because they know the truth of the world and bring that truth with them to the bench.
We see you, we bear witness to your gifts.
But witnessing to our lives involves more than just a nod…
In the biblical tradition there is a line of scholarship that makes witness central. It begins with the Exodus…when Yahweh called the people to liberation and parted the Sea of Reeds so that the people could escape…
In this tradition it is the people themselves…their lives… that bear witness to the liberating and saving power of their God..
They bear witness to the possibility of liberation by the fact that they are still alive…
The truth of their lives became their witness…
That tradition recognizes that the Israelites kept breaking their covenant with Yahweh…having to be called back by one prophet after another to faithfulness…
Called back to remember who they were…they were the people that Yahweh had saved.
Called back to witness to the truth of their lives…and the truth of their liberation…with the living of their lives.
What truth are we called to bear witness to…by the very living of our lives?
What truth do we proclaim by our very living?
Earlier this week I asked our Board of Trustees that question. What truth or values do you bear witness to with your life? What truth or values are you trying to embody?
The zoom room got very quiet. It is not an easy question to answer with honesty. So much of how we live is done out of habit, or to make ourselves more comfortable or to fulfill some sense of responsibility…
I wish more of my own life could be shaped by a witness to love.
I asked not to make anyone feel somehow deficient…but to ask us to look at our lives through that lens…
What is our witness? What is your witness? Not in terms of what you believe…but in terms of how you live?
The answers from the Board members, when they came, were powerful.
Truthfulness and honesty … with myself but I try to make that my witness in the world, too.
Radical acceptance of everyone
To live as if abundance were real…with enough to share…
I try to embody integrity, one said.
Openness, another.
Kindness.
The heads in that zoom rectangle seemed to nod “yes” with each answer…yes…that’s me too…I want to embody that…
But there were two other themes that ran through many of the answers…
I have a commitment to complexity…to resisting simplification…to knowing the details….\ said one board member.
I want to love and listen to the complexity, said another.
Witnessing the specificity and the complexity of where we’re from…
Another member said…I not only seek connection…the truth is we live by our connections to ourselves and each other…
Thich Nhat Hanh’s language of Interbeing was brought forward.
The particularities and the connections as sources of beauty. An aesthetic, really.
And there was a recognition that living a life in which those values of complexity and connection are central…living a life like that is no simple task…
We fall short…and need to be called back or call ourselves back…just like the Israelites were called back to faithfulness…
And no simple task to live a life where interdependence and connection are central…when we have had to be apart for two years now…
Even the introverts among us are yearning for connection…
We all carry with us a kind of stress…a kind of trauma almost….from valuing connection so highly and the ability to know one another in all of our complexity…while the best we feel safe doing is to show up on that zoom screen.
We yearn so much to be able to greet one another…to nod in appreciation of the blessing we are to one another…
To touch one another…
“To notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature
So that creation need not play to an empty house.”
It feels like we have not been able to make our connections real for so long.
And, here at the church, I know we have been conservative…very safety conscious…
But I hope we can begin to gather in person in weeks…not months…the infection rates are coming down…and we will invite folx back into this sanctuary as soon as safety allows.
But right now…we are all weary of this staying apart…weary of the demands safety requires…
We are, all of us…ready to be witnesses for one another again…
Witnesses to our lives with our lives…
Topics: Witness