Our Witness Matters

When I first served as an ELCA missionary with the Malagasy Lutheran Church, I was assigned to a rural evangelism team in the southeast corner of Madagascar working with local congregations to explore their witness to the gospel. Witness is not necessarily a word often used in Lutheran circles. We turned to I John 1 to describe what we meant by witness:

We declare to you what was from the beginning,

what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes,

what we have looked at and touched with our own hands,

concerning the word of life -- 1 John 1:1

There is a two-fold power to the word witness. To be a witness means that you have experienced something yourself, something that has impacted you in a manner that cannot leave you silent. And yet a witness is also one who points to something beyond themselves – something so big, so important that it has life-changing significance for others.

--this life was revealed, and we have seen it

and testy to it, and declare to you the eternal life

that was with the Father and was revealed to us--

I believe our witness as children of God and members of Christ’s Church matters. I believe that our particular witness as that part of the Body called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America matters. What we have heard and seen, touched and experienced is nothing less than the unconditional love of God, a love incarnate in Jesus Christ, a relentless and limitless love that knows no boundaries, transforms all circumstances, and embraces all creation. This love refuses to respect our restrictions, whatever they may be. This love cannot be controlled by us – which is why we experience it as both law and gospel, death and life, or as Bishop Eaton recently said, “fierce and tender.” By the power of the Holy Spirit, this love forms us into expansive both/and people in a restrictive either/or world.

Look at the context in which we live today.  Divisions of all kind separate us – human being from human being, humanity from creation, ourselves from our souls. And so many people are convinced that this is both inevitable and normal. 

Our witness points to a different experience, a different reality. We were created not for division, but for life in community, not for isolation but for wholeness, not for endless striving but for joy.

-- we declare to you what we have seen and heard

so that you also may have fellowship with us;

and truly our fellowship is with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father

and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things

so that our joy may be complete.

In this deeply troubled time in which we live, I am convinced our ELCA witness to the gospel matters more that ever. It matters so much that the Rocky Mountain Synod Strategic Planning Team has been working a new, clear statement to guide our life and work together.  It begins with the affirmation that we are Christ’s Church, Better Together.  It goes on to say that our specific mission as the Rocky Mountain Synod is to connect, equip, and accompany congregations, ministries, and leaders so that together we proclaim and embody God’s unconditional love for the sake of the world.

To proclaim and embody God’s unconditional love – together – for the sake of the world … this is the heart of our witness.  It’s a witness that matters, a witness that is desperately needed in a time when so many yearn for hope, healing, and wholeness. Which is what keeps me going on days when I’d rather not be a bishop, rather not be a pastor, rather not be a disciple of Jesus. Turns out I can’t help myself. For this love of God that claims and controls me is simply too big, too important not to share with others. 

Yet I can’t do it alone, this life of witness. Nor can you. Our calling is to life together as as Christ’s Church, where our efforts to connect and collaborate, accompany and equip each other for participation in God’s mission make a difference, make us better with each other, make us better in and with the world.

As the Strategic Planning Team works in the weeks to come to develop some specific goals and objectives for our life as the ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod, I encourage your feedback and participation whenever possible. At the end of the day, if our witness is to be effective it needs to be a witness we claim and share together. It’s that important. For I am convinced that ours is a witness that matters.

Yours in faith,

Bishop Jim Gonia