We are the Witness
By Jessica Greer
1997. Exactly thirty years after the Summer of Love. The cultural, social, political schizophrenia of San Francisco reverberated throughout each neighborhood. One block into the Western Addition District: gentrification, skyrise apartments, Silicon Yuppies. Just around the corner: poverty, addiction, children out loose on a weekday morning without school, without guardians, and without purpose.
The crack epidemic had devastated the inner-city Black communities amid punitive policies, prison, systemic injustice. The summer of love had ended, the aesthetic absorbed by mainstream America – while the city folk were left with the trash of the after party.
I was 13 years old when my parents were sent out to pioneer a church in San Francisco in the summer of 1997. For many adolescent teens, a social psychological line of demarcation occurs that creates a new era, dividing the “pre” and “post” years of our lives.
For me, that was the summer of 1997, as my appetite for change, for independence, for truth came to a head. I can’t think of a more exciting moment in my life as a kid than the day I found out I was moving to San Francisco. Landing in a city I saw in movies and on TV, that I heard about in songs – rebellious Americana. I was here for it!
I thought I would live in a loft apartment on Union Square; maybe hang out at a bodega; explore the wondrous city that looked like a Universal Studios movie lot. Instead, my 13-year-old self-importance took a hit while serving Thanksgiving mush at the Freedom West Projects in the Fillmore District – a far cry from the ’90s rom coms that shaped the millennial hype for the urban experience.
Popping up as a small church, we began outreaching in the Fillmore District in a primarily Black neighborhood known as the Harlem of the West. This corner of the world was seemingly untouched by the wealth and modernization erupting inside the city proper – swirling around its own vortex in the heart of SF, a community in dire need.
We dove in: one small family in a pool of humanity – collectivized, generalized, nameless faces made up of individuals created in His image. Each one. After a month or two of connecting with relatives of fellowship brethren, Christians looking for a church, a few converts... in came one man who would encapsulate Luke 15:7: “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Henry burst into the West Bay Center to hunt down his girlfriend. Blood boiling, seeing red, ready to hold accountable whatever fool was occupying her time. He had done several years in San Quentin and Tracy State. Born and raised in San Francisco, this Italian-Mexican had only traveled outside the city while being bused to multiple California state prisons. The Mission District was Henry’s natural habitat. Survival came to him as naturally as to any creature that escapes a deadly trap by awakening its primitive instincts. It was innate.
After 30 years of living as a blind heathen – all of Henry’s walls collapsed as the hatred that fueled this would-be confrontation was met by the Holy Spirit. Just as when the barbarian tribes of the North invaded Christian Rome in 400 AD, the impact of this collision resulted in conversion.
Henry went to the altar that night and wept. He gave his life to Christ in October of 1997, only a couple of months after we first set up the little makeshift church. Henry was born again; all things were made new! He married his girlfriend of over a decade. He learned how to read. He got a job with the city of San Francisco. He bought a vehicle; he crossed the Golden Gate Bridge for an outreach; he visited a different state to attend the Tucson Bible conference. He bought a house; he bought two houses for cash; he retired. Henry’s entire life went from darkness to light.
When I think back on those years as my adolescent self, they seem fast, cold, lonely – even lost. But when I think about Henry, it brings color to those years; it brings to life the love of God in Matthew 18:12: “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety- nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?”
I often think of the film Saving Private Ryan, in which Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) leads a detachment to find one soldier and return him home safely in the middle of the most violent battles of a bloody war. There’s loss, there’s risk, there’s sacrifice, there’s injury, there’s discomfort. The amount of discomfort God will put a person through for one soul is hard to stomach by the standards of a culturally relevant theology.
Self-proclaimed “sent” televangelists of our day are building million-dollar brands through social media. These influencers, much like Simon the Sorcerer in Acts chapter 8, are using the power of God and the image of Christianity to create illusions.
From the Christian Mommy, wifey, homemaker bio, to life-hack tips and tricks, to motivational speaker, to spiritual leader/huckster perpetuating false doctrine. Progressive Christianity tickling itching ears. “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God” (2 Corinthians 2:17). “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 2:3).
Many today are preaching self-love, glorifying victimization, man’s intrinsic goodness – thus wiping out the premise of sin and the need for a redeemer. These cater to the dream seeker who believes their right to happiness is as biblical as their right to salvation and that pursuing money, status, individualism, and first-world materialism are paramount in life.
To be sent is to be a witness. A witness is a reflector of light: an illuminator of Him who sent us. In John 1:7,8 it says: “This man [John the Baptist] came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through Him might believe. He was not that Light but was sent to bear witness of that Light.” The sent bear witness to the salvation message. The witnesses speak truth; their life testimonies give evidence of the truth they speak.
Mordecai tells his niece in Esther 4:14: “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
To stand boldly is no light feat. It comes with a height of risk that can cost you your life. As we all know, Esther’s story ends with Haman being hanged on his own gallows.
“The amount of discomfort God will put a person through for one soul is hard to stomach by the standards of a culturally relevant theology.”
But not all stories end with quite the same earthly victory. Acts 7 tells us of Stephen being stoned to death. In verse 60 we read: “Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Speaking the truth comes with its own set of consequences. In Acts 9:15-16 God says, “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.” God labels Paul’s ministry as one of impact and suffering – even before he encounters his first spiritual challenge.
After being literally ambushed by the Lord, Paul wrote, preached, and led... then died. He was sought, saved, and sent. This in no way resembles the post-modern pseudo-Jesus taught by many that encourages hyper-indulgence as we grapple with our own story and our own subjective truths. Our experiences are only given meaning within the grand context of the unfolding redemption story.
Multiple narratives and perspectives do not war for dominion in God’s kingdom; there is only one objective truth – His truth – to which the evidence of many lives bears witness. The purpose of our lives is connected to the real-world impact we have in God’s continuing eternal redemption story, which is the only true reality.
Henry is all of us, each one of us sought, saved, and sent to bear witness. We are not the Truth. We are not The Light. That is Him in us. We reflect the Light. We are the witness.