Witnessing 101

What is the most "emotionally difficult" thing you've ever done?

For most Christians it is achieving salvation, then we feel the rest is easy. Now we can kick back, relax, do a little church... our part is done! The problem is that Jesus expects us to be good stewards. He wants us to invest our "talent" on His behalf! Nearly everybody gets real nervous at the idea!

Does God really want me to talk to strangers? What if they laugh at me? What if they think I'm a nerd, or just stupid? I wouldn't know what to say! Hey! They've probably heard it all before, maybe they already know more than me!

What if the other person tries to convince me that I'm wrong? What a scary thought! Everybody makes fun of you if you're wrong! I hate to be wrong!

As many of you already know. I am rather multi-cultural. My ancestors are mostly Irish and American-Indian. I grew up in a town that was almost 3/4 Mexican-American. My best friend, of about 40 years, is African-American, and his wife (when I first met him) was Caribbean. I spent most of my service years in the Orient, Southeast-Asia, and Polynesia. I am pretty good at absorbing local flavoring everywhere I go, so I am something of a smorgasbord, maybe you'd call me culturally eclectic.

One thing that has always surprised me, is how similar the legends are in many cultures. Let me share a couple of examples with you from the Cherokee...



"The Legend of the First Woman"

For a time the man was very happy on earth. He roamed around and ate the fruits and berries and he visited the animals and he saw all his homeland. There was much to learn and the earth was beautiful. But before long the man grew discontented and he became very unhappy. He didn't know what his disease was, bit it was a disease that we still have. He was bored.

When he got bored, he used his mind and his strength differently. he shot arrows at the deer without really needing to. He picked the plants and didn't use them. He tore up the animals' dens just to see if he could do it. And soon the animals became concerned about the new creature.

The animals called a council meeting to try to determine what to do. They said they thought this creature was supposed to have respect for other creatures, that he was given a mind. A little insect said, "Wait, you haven't thought this out. The Great One made him; let's ask him what to do." This seemed to be a good idea. They called to the Great One to help them with the new "superior" creature.

The owl said, "You told us the man has a mind and he is to respect us."

The deer said, "I don't want to be disrespectful, but you told us the man would need more of us deer than any other animal. If he keeps killing us like he is now, very soon he won't have any deer left."

"Oh," said the Great One, "thank you, thank you. I had not thought about something I left out in this man."

The bear said, "Look at him right now. He's lying out in the sun with his face up. No animal will sleep right out in the open. We all know to go into a private, guarded place to rest."

The Great One said, "Yes, there is something missing because I was in such a hurry to make him. But I know what is missing."

"Stand back," he said. He made a green plant to grow up tall. The plant grew up right over the man's heart, up toward the Heavens. It was a plant with long, graceful leaves and then an ear and a golden tassel. Above the tall plant was a woman, a beautiful, tall, brown woman growing from the stalk of strong corn.

The man woke up and thought he was dreaming. He rubbed his eyes and said, "This is not true. In a minute I'll wake up and be just as bored as I was before. Oh, I am so lonely."

The Great One sort of kicked him in the behind. "Get up you lazy thing," the Great One said. "Be a man for your lady" Now no one had any reason to think this man was a mannerly individual. Recently he had certainly not been acting like a real gentleman. But we don't have to be taught manners: We need someone to expect the best from us and we use the manners the Great One has already given us. So the man got up, brushed himself off, and gallantly offered his hand to the woman who came down from the stalk of corn.

The Great One remembered that although each man will sometimes need to be alone, each man will also need companionship to be his best.

Perhaps, it will be just a bit more familiar, when told this way...

"Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, to the east, and placed in the garden the man He had formed. The Lord God planted all sorts of beautiful trees there in the garden, trees producing the choicest of fruit. At the center of the garden He placed the Tree of Life, and also the Tree of Conscience, giving knowledge of Good and Bad. A river from the land of Eden flowed through the garden to water it..."
(GEN 2:8-10) tlb

"And the Lord God said, 'It isn't good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs. So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever he called them, that was their name. But still there was no proper helper for the man. Then the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which He had removed it, and made the rib into a woman, and brought her to the man. 'This is it!' Adam exclaimed. 'She is part of my own bone and flesh! Her name is "woman" because she was taken out of a man.' This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife in such a way that the two become one person."
(GEN 2:18-24) tlb


...and then we have...

"The Legend of the Deluge"

A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scolded me dog, which then spoke to him and then said: "Very soon there is going to be a great downfall and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water." The man did not believe it, and the dog said, " If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck." He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out.

Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft.

Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions, and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountain were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters with down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.

Once again, there is a somewhat more familiar version...

"And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch."
(GEN 6:13-14)rsv

"For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die." (GEN 6:17)rsv

"And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female."
(GEN 6:19)rsv

"And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights."
(GEN 7:12)rsv

"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died."
(GEN 7:21-22)rsv

"In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry."
(GEN 8:14)rsv

"So Noah went forth, and his sons and his wife and his sons wives went with him."
(GEN 8:18)rsv

You know these stories, and you know there is a lot more to them than any legend could contain. It is relatively easy to see why there are differences. Our Bibles' Old Testaments were originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, whose written languages have existed for many thousands of years. Cherokee legends, on the other hand, were passed down from Story Woman to Story Woman for many thousands of years, and only became written down a few hundred years ago when their syllabic alphabet was invented. This made them much more prone to error. It is interesting to note that, even so, there is much similarity in the Indian legends, despite the separation of nearly half the earth, and countless generations.

But, what does this have to do with us?

If you were to go to the other side of the planet, five thousand years from now, and find that those people have a distorted view of what your country, and what your life were really like, wouldn't you feel the need to correct their misconceptions? To set your country's history straight? You bet you would!

And that is what God asks us to do; to set His record straight with people, and make sure they know the way to heaven, just as we do. He is counting on all of us. Make Him proud.