Testify
Testify
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey
Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service February 16, 2025
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.
John 8:12-19
Sermons also available free on iTunes
My pastor growing up, Dr. Paul Bauer, said “Sermonettes are for Christianettes.” That was probably his only joke in 20 years, but it was a good one. Good morning, Episcopalians. They’ve got me tied to this mic today, so you’re welcome.
So today I’ve got scriptures, I love the scriptures you give me there. Define the relationship of Jesus Christ and God the Father without straying from Episcopalian beliefs or violating your Presbyterian doctrine, and do it in 10 minutes. Thanks. We’ll pass on that. I mean, there have been wars fought over this, and over a single Greek letter. We’ll pass on that. What we won’t pass on is the opportunity the scripture gives us to talk about testimony.
Testimony. We need more testimony in this world. We don’t need more arguing. We don’t need more fact-checking. We don’t need more gotcha. We don’t need any snarky answers to people’s sincerely held beliefs. What we could use is testimony. Did you hear it in Jesus’s saying, “You don’t know where I came from or where I’m going?” If you know where you came from, if you know where you are going, you have a testimony. You have something to say.
And I don’t know if any of you have been preachers, weekly preachers for 40 years. But I’ll tell you a secret. When you’re preaching every Sunday, everything that happens is sermon-fodder. You know, everything goes in the old chipper and comes out, I tell you. And so I was thinking about testimony and what does it mean to – and where is the good testimony and where things are. And would you believe it, in my inbox comes testimony from the Episcopalians. Woo-hah. And about 20 other denominations, including Presbyterian, about sanctuary.
Now, you all know how hard it is to keep quiet in a sanctuary. You know how hard it is to keep me quiet in the sanctuary before service. Well, I’ll tell you, you Episcopalians work even harder on sanctuary. For over a quarter of the century, sanctuary has been kept in churches, synagogues, religious gathering places around the country, saying, hey, arrest people somewhere else than in church, at services, on a Sunday. But no longer. No longer. And that’s what the Episcopalians testified.
Listen to this. Sean Rowe, presiding bishop. In the Kingdom of God as we understand it, immigrants and refugees are not at the edges, fearful and alone. Their struggles reveal the heart of God. We cannot worship freely if some of us live in fear. Sean Rowe, Episcopal bishop, presiding bishop. Even Jesus himself identifies as “stranger.” We must proclaim, particularly in this time, that we are all welcome in the places of worship, that all have – that all are welcome in places of worship. This seems a basic human right, one that we are called by God to serve.
In the first week of the current administration I see he arrested over 4,500 people, including 1,000 people in a Sunday immigration enforcement blitz. At least one of these – this is from the court case that your church joined with the church I serve, and 21 other churches in testimony. And at least one of these enforcement actions occurred at a church in Georgia during the worship service. According to news coverage, an usher standing at the church entrance saw a group of ICE agents outside, locked the door. The agent said that they were there to arrest Wilson Velasquez, who had traveled to the United States from Honduras with his wife and three children in 2022. Immediately after crossing the border, they turned themselves in to U.S. authorities, requested asylum. They were given a court date, released after federal agents put a GPS tracking monitor on Velasquez’s ankle.
After settling in suburban life, the family joined the Pentecostal Church, where they worshipped several times a week and helped with the music. They were listening to the pastor’s sermon when ICE agents arrived to arrest Velasquez. Although Velasquez had attended all his required check-ins at the Atlanta ICE office and had a court date scheduled to present his asylum case to a judge, ICE agents arrested him, explaining that they were simply looking for people with ankle bracelets. The pastor, Luis Ortiz, tried to reassure his congregation. But he said he could see the fear and tears in their faces.
And if you’re upset that people are talking in sanctuary, imagine how upset you’d be if someone came in and arrested someone during the sermon. That should be an announcement every Sunday morning. But we’re not saying you’re bad, or you’re awful, or you vote for this person, or it’s all your fault or blame. We’re saying where we have been, where we came from, and where we are going, we know that, so we have a testimony. And here’s the Episcopal Church’s testimony. And God bless you all. This is in the filing of the United States court system. Because you all know where you’ve been, and you all know where you’re going, and you have a testimony.
Plaintiff, the Episcopal Church. Recognizing the Bible’s repeated calls for God’s people to embrace the foreigner as a way of extending the work that is the heart of God in every time and place, the Episcopal Church, champions and advocates for humane policies toward migrants. And many dioceses, parish, and Episcopal networks provide resources, support, and care for asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and other migrant communities. Testimony. Testimony.
If you don’t know where you’ve been and don’t know where you’re going, you don’t have a testimony. But Christians know where we’ve been. We read the scriptures every Sunday. Hopefully more than every Sunday. We live by them. And we know where we’re going. We’re going to the Kingdom of God, and we’re living in the Kingdom of God right here. We are not living in Empire. We do not serve the Empire. We serve the Kingdom of God. We know where we’ve been. We know where we’re going. We know what our passport says. Our passport says “Kingdom of God.” Not Empire.
And so we have a testimony. You don’t have to argue with someone because they’re just not listening. They’re just waiting for their turn to argue with you and go back and forth. We need to have conversations. We need to find common ground. We need to go forward. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But that’s not going to come from arguing. It’s going to come from testimony based on where we come from and where we want to go.
Brian, you got that slide up there for me? Here’s a testimony. Here’s a sign that doesn’t say “Vote for this” or “I voted that” or “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other one.” This is what I believe. In this house we believe love is love. Testimony. Black Lives Matter. And if you’re racist, Black Lives Matter Too, because I have to say that or otherwise you’d think that we do a Breast Cancer Awareness or Fundraiser, we’re saying no other cancer matters.
Black Lives Matter Too. Science is real. Women’s rights are fundamental. Women’s rights are human rights. No person is illegal. Disability rights are human rights. Healthcare for all. Kindness is everything. That just says what you believe. That’s a testimony based on where you’ve come from and where you’re going. It attacks no one. It should upset no one. It goes, oh, thanks for sharing what you believe. Now, I know you a little better. Some of those things I believe. Maybe we could figure out how to make that a little more true in the greater world. It’s testimony.
I brought a prop. My wife made this for me. And I think I’m going to be wearing it more and more. This might be a daily driver. Some people are against rainbows. But this shows where I believe. And I think I’m going to be wearing this shirt.
I almost wore it to preach in. You’re welcome. This should threaten no one. This just gives a testimony to what I believe. It’s perfectly okay if you pee next to me. Now, if you want to bring a gun in, I might have an issue with that. But you all can pee next to me. So if you’re upset, you can say, well, at least he didn’t wear the T-shirt the whole time.
So I come to thank you. Presbyterian Church is in the pleading, too. Eighty pages, great reading, along with Episcopalians, the spot on the Mennonites. We can almost – we’ve got a couple atheists in there. All testifying. In 1993, America decided that sanctuary was a place not just to keep quiet for a few minutes before worship, but a place where humans that are fearful could come and worship God, and hear the good eternal truth in the gospel without fear of being arrested and hauled off because it’s easy to get them there. Over a quarter of a century ago. I don’t remember changing, that we thought as long as you’re quiet you can arrest people in our services.
Testimony. I believe sanctuary is a place where everyone can come and worship without fear of persecution, without fear of that. And you know, folks, I have some privileged folks in my life. And when I start talking about that, they go, oh, you’re talking politics. Oh, you’re just talking – we don’t talk politics.
Wilson is now not with his family. He’s taken away from his children and his wife. And I would challenge that person to go and explain to their children that their father is not with them anymore, that he’s in prison, it’s just politics, and they shouldn’t really care that much. Our faith is a lot more than what is comfortable for us and for the people that we can see. Our faith is a faith of the entire world. We believe that Jesus Christ came, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. It’s not a scripture, but that world means cosmos, means everything, all the relationships, and all the people in it, and the plants and the animals, and the people that come and go. That’s what God came for, not just to make my life comfortable. And those I can see not suffering because that’s upsetting. It’s for everyone.
So I come here as a wandering Presbyterian to thank the leadership of the Episcopal Church in saying where they come from and where they’re going, and testifying to all that would hear, and many that don’t want to, that this is who we are. This is who we love. And this is where we’re going. And we’re telling everyone. Testify. Amen.