Ambassadors?

Ambassadors are sent out from a national government to other countries in order to represent our government and our business and diplomatic interests in that other setting.

What would happen if we had an ambassador to ...(lets pick a dreadfully poor country like Bangladesh)...who, when he arrived in the country, called a press conference and announced that the US would be giving a new 60” flat screen TV to every child under 16 in that impoverished nation.?

What would happen?

The ambassador would be immediately recalled, probably be given a psychiatric examination, and fired.

He was not sent out with those instructions;

he had no authority to make promises like that.

So if we are ambassadors for Christ, what do we say and do?

What are our instructions?

Or do we make up anything we want?

The conclusion of Matthew's Gospel is very clear about the instructions, isn't it?

Go therefore into all the world and make disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teaching them all that I have commanded you;

and there is a promise attached for us:

I will be with you to the close of the age.

“Make disciples” is the job.

And we know how: teaching, preaching, baptizing...

and the very presence of the Lord Jesus is with us as we get to work on this, our assigned task.

Our Second lesson today comes at this way of understanding our lives in different language.

Paul says: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself... and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

God is making his appeal through us, as his ambassadors.

We are sent, with a message, with a task.

There are those times when we get to feeling useless: “I'm not worth anything...there's nothing important that I am to do...

This feeling can pop up at many diferent junctures:

--at a boyfriend/girlfriend breakup

--at a job loss

--at a retirement

--when the last child goes off to school

just to name a few of the stressful times that we identify.

Because of this or that crisis point, I'm worthless, I think.

We need not make light of these critical points in our lives, or deny that they exist, or minimize their impact upon us.

But we do need to recognize that because we belong to Christ Jesus, these things are actually on the second level of importance, not the first!

The prime directive stands ahead of all of these difficulties, and in fact, is the element that can overcome all of them.

When we keep asking

“How am I an ambassador for Christ, today?”

“How is God intending to make his appeal through me, today?”

“How is what I do giving honor to God and opening Good News for my neighbor?”,

worth and value do not have to be manufactured or pretended.

We are infinitely valuable

just because we are God's creation and because he has tasks aplenty for us to do.

There is an ambassadors portfolio available to each of us

Abraham was valuable not because he was good, kind, and nice,

but simply because God chose him, and Abraham said OK and went along with the adventure.

In Biblical language, Abraham heard God's call and picked up and went, as the Lord had commanded him.

And the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

God stirred up faith in him, and he responded.

Our human tendency is to look for the loopholes, the ways to avoid responding to the gifts that have been granted to us.

Not me, not now, too hard, too much... we rattle on and on.

But fortunately, God is more patient that we are foolish, and he keeps on calling, and gifting, and expecting us to respond.

In the area of money, if the question to us is “Are you tithing?” and we give our reasons why not, then the question becomes

“What little step can you take in that direction?

What new thing can you undertake today?”

If the question is “What have you been doing to lead someone to Christ?” and we line up our excuses and reasons,

then God shifts the question a bit to: “Where can you practice, and how can you best learn these skills?”

And he points us to Sunday School, and Bible studies, and friends with questions to discuss, and the Way, and....

If the question is “How is God doing his aim of reconciling the world to himself through us as means?” and we deny that there is any connection,

then God will shift the question a bit to:

“Will you stop sniping at one another within the household of faith, and thus learn how to deal with those outside of it in a more positive and winsome way?”

That is a first step in grace.

Persistently gracious, this God of ours!

It is not that we are to improve ourselves by positive thinking, deep-breathing, or some other self-help technique.

It is a new creation which is to overtake and remake us, Paul says in our lesson today.

Not a little tinkering around the edges, but a total re-make is what God intends.

“Can't happen,” we exclaim.

“Yes, I will do it in you!” God insists.

Charles Wesley in the final stanza of the hymn Love Divine, All loves Excelling [LBW 315] writes this:

Finish then thy new creation,

Pure and spotless let us be...

Perfectly restored in thee.

God isn't done with us yet.

Each day, God is intending to draw us nearer, refashioning us a bit more.

Its not a matter self-help or determination.

It is a matter of God being faithful to his own intentions for creation.

To be “in Christ” is to be allowing God's “Yes” to be stronger than our “No”,

to be looking toward what we will yet become, not clinging to what we have been.

That is the lesson learned by the younger son in Jesus' story today.

That is the lesson which we wonder whether or not the older son learned, too.

That is the lesson opened to us as well.

Me, a new creation?

Me, a disciple-maker?

Me, an ambassador for Christ?

Yes, we are, and will become even more so!

Yes, we have the instructions, the commission, and are beginning to gather the tools that we need in order to live out that commission.

In a moment, we're going to sing three petitions this way:

Help us in our infirmity...

Grant us to grow in grace each day...

Grant us your Holy Spirit. [LBW 194]

The Good News is that this new creation is to include all who sing this prayer with joy.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.