Joshua: 5: 9a, Luke 15: 15 and 2 Corinthians 5: 18- 20

Citizens or ambassadors

Sometimes the lectionary readings prescribed for a Sunday are a like piece of rock someone gives you to sculpt and you have to walk around it and see if you can imagine shape in there somewhere. Today is like that.  There is the celebration of the Passover, commemorating the liberation of slavery in Egypt; there is the story of the Prodigal Son Jesus tells and there are the words of Paul that remind us that we are ambassadors for Christ.  When the Passover is celebrated it is a reminder that people are coming back to the land that has been in the memory of the people for generations.  In Egypt stories were told of this place which none of them has ever seen.  And they remember the hardship of forced labor and of the journey home.  But would this land still be there? Would they be welcome? Would they be strangers?  Were they the rightful citizens? Would they be chased off the land or would they be able to chase others of their land? These are the exact same questions alive in that part of the Middle East today.  It involves the question of citizenship, about the rights of citizens which is kind of the stamp or official seal of belonging in a place. It comes with responsibilities too of course, but we like to sweep those under the carpet a lot of the time.

Then there is the parable of the Prodigal Son, which is about salvation and God’s love.  But as many times as I have preached on this subject, there is one thing in that text that never jumped out at me before.  It says: “he (the prodigal son) hired himself out to a citizen of that country.”  There is an echo here of the Israelites going into Egypt and bowing to the rulers there.  He is not a citizen there, but is hired by one to feed the pigs, the worst job in the Middle East. There are echoes too of undocumented workers.  And then we jump to the idea of ambassadorship.

Friends, what ties citizens and ambassadors into one tapestry is the idea of a nation of a people that we become a part of?  The only thing is that the idea of citizen is more attractive than the idea of an ambassador.  What drove the Founding Fathers of the United States to that State House room in Philadelphia in the seventeen hundreds was the outrage that they were not treated as full English citizens.  The move toward independence was not at all popular but as a bunch of gentleman farmers, firebrands and intellectuals they pushed for it.  Not long after, however, a number of them became ambassadors for their new nation in Paris.  Still the idea of ambassador is not popular now. At most it is ceremonial. Paul might have been horrified by that because as a Jew AND Roman citizen born in Turkey he was diverse in his thinking.  It paled in comparison to his excitement about being an ambassador for his faith.  As a Dutch citizen that resonates with me.  I have felt like a foreigner for much of my life.  The idea of being an ambassador has always been important to me.  But then we do not think much of ambassadors do we? Ambassadors have to deal with leaders of foreign nations who are often corrupt and cruel and repressive and they have to deliver messages they often do not agree with.  So we think of ambassadors not as leaders but as messengers at most.  Who wants to be the UPS guy all the time?  Can ambassadors really be principled people, we want to know.  In a country as powerful as the US we do not value diplomacy very much.

Fortunately to be an ambassador of one’s faith is different; and very important.  What ambassadorship does is three things:”it forces you to be open to the culture and values of the people you live and work among; 2. it makes you embody the message you believe in even though you may not be able to win people over. 3. It makes you less arrogant about where you came from.  Each of these three things we can find in the writings of Paul, friends.

Wouldn’t it be something if we were less concerned about citizenship than we are about being ambassadors? Right in this country, as in Europe and Australia, the social discourse is exploding about who gets to be a citizen and who does not.  It’s a lot easier if you bring in a lot of money.  We have had that kind of thinking a lot for a long time about our faith.  Do I get to be a citizen of heaven? Who does and who doesn’t?  We don’t talk much about this ambassadorship for Christ that Paul is talking about.  Maybe because it’s a lot harder to be an ambassador.  But we are, friends, whether we like it or not.  If you are out there and tell people where you go to church and what you think about it, like it or not you are an ambassador.   It is something I am always aware of.  Friends, let’s do a little less citizenship talking and little more ambassador doing.  May God help us in that effort.