Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Ambassadors, even today, follow a time-honored custom. Immediately on their arrival in an assigned country, they present their sealed credentials to the leader of that land. By his credentials, an ambassador is known not to be an imposter, but one who enjoys the trust and confidence of his own government and is authorized to speak for his country. After that, it's what he says that's important, of course. Ambassadors have carried threatening messages, reassuring messages, messages of war, messages of peace.

Paul told the Christians at Corinth that they were "ambassadors for Christ." They were credentialed, they established their bona fides, he said, by the way they viewed, and treated, other people in light of the cross. (We no longer regard anyone "from a human point of view," Paul writes. Because of the cross, we regard every man as a brother for whom Christ died. The externals and superficials no longer count. Everyone is a "new creation" Every one has a fresh start in Jesus. And, Paul told those Christian "ambassadors" (most of them poor and uneducated) that the message they carried was the message of reconciliation. ("All this (is) from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.")

It is an interesting word, reconciliation, and an important one for our faith. In English it has two meanings. The first, which is not Paul's, is to resign oneself. "I don't like it, but I guess I'm reconciled to the situation." The second meaning is that of reuniting, of making up differences, of patching. As we might reconcile a checkbook to make certain that we and the bank agree. Or as a feuding husband and wife might be reconciled. That's Paul's meaning. Inescapably it suggests that some estrangement has taken place…in this case, an estrangement between man and God and between man and man. If you don't feel that, you will never understand our message or our mission. If there's nothing to be saved from, we don't need a Savior. Or, as Jesus put it, if there's no illness there's no need for a doctor. Something has torpedoed our relationship with God and neighbor. But God has reconciled us to himself in Christ, and we proclaim that, and work to reconcile ourselves to others.

Sometimes this estrangement from God is a matter of indifference. When I was selling insurance, I learned that the worst "prospect" was not the one who loved his present broker but the one who was indifferent to the issues. He just didn't care. There are many people, who (although they may be miserable) never come to care about their separation from God - never even see it. Sometimes the estrangement comes from resentment, blaming God, and other people, for things that have gone wrong. Sometimes it comes from pure selfishness. I want to do what I want to do. Period. Look out for number one. Be yourself. Sometimes estrangement from God grows out of guilt. Not wanting to face God because we are ashamed, we stay away from Him. In any case, we are separated from our creator and from our brothers and sisters. Something has poisoned the well. Something is wrong in the basement, and it's affecting the whole house.

It's important to get the order straight. Reconciliation is needed first between us and God (which God takes care of in Christ, which we proclaim, and which is the basis of our salvation), and then reconciliation is needed between us and each other (which we live out in response to God's love, and which is the basis of our fellowship). In the case of our estrangement from other each other, we are dealing with the same elements that caused our estrangement from God: indifference, resentment, selfishness, guilt. The world is full of those who are indifferent to the fate of other men and women. They simply don't care of someone else is hungry, or cold, or miserable. "What's it to me?" Many, in regard to those around them, live resentful lives, carrying spectacular grudges for years and even decades. Selfishness and guilt, likewise, can keep us from being reconciled to each other. We put a premium on the things that divide. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, our first scripture lesson, we often overlook the fact that it begins with the Pharisees grumbling because Jesus welcomes sinners and even eats with them. In the Pharisaic world there was a clear demarcation between saints and sinners, between clean and unclean. And ne'er the twain would meet. Because uncleanness would rub off! In the parable, the prodigal - the son who ran off with half the estate and wasted it on wine, women and song - was the sinner. And the father takes him back, is reconciled to him. Not only takes him back, but throws a party! That's the shocker. That God's intention is not for holy folks to maintain their purity by disassociating themselves from sinners (as the Pharisees seemed to suggest), but that God's intention (indeed, God's delight) is to find sinners and bring them home, to reconcile them to himself. And we, likewise, rather than hiding in self-righteousness, must carry forth that reconciling ministry that God began. Jesus ate with sinners and we, as his ambassadors, must do the same. That does not mean we are reconciled to sin, but that the sinner is more important than the sin. It's amazing what Paul understood, at such an early date: "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us."

We can say all we want about men being equal. They aren't. Not by any worldly measure. We are equal by this one fact: that we are all sinners who are, nevertheless, loved by God. That is the basis of our equality and the foundation of our fellowship. All other equality is a sham.

As ambassadors we represent Jesus. We "re-present" Jesus. In ourselves, in our words and deeds, so far as the outside world is concerned, we are Him. We strive to reconcile ourselves to the blueprint of Jesus Christ. So the message we carry must not be one of judgement and denunciation (for that would not accurately re-present Jesus), but one of reformation and reconciliation. "The Son of Man came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might live."

So we have a task before us. (Usually, when God gives us a gift it is accompanied by a task.) It is a ministry he has called us to. Sometimes people come through Lent (trudge with the church through its annual pilgrimage of Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter) - sometimes people come all the way through Lent, and say, "So what's next?" This is what's next. A life-time ministry of reconciliation. In the ashes of Ash Wednesday we recognize our mortality (and stop telling lies about how good we are, and how we will live forever). In the desperate shouting of Palm Sunday we see how hollow praise for Christ can be (and rethink our own hosannas). In the sadness of Holy Thursday, we watch him set the stage (and know all too well the drama we are about to witness), in Good Friday's staggering scene, we are horrified (and hope only that we might be that thief on the cross who cries, "Remember me," and not the other who mocked our Lord). And on Easter we see Christ overcome all of the above (and pray that we might also overcome). And then we go forth, with all worldly distinctions broken down by the cross, striving to patch up the differences between nations, between races, between families and family members, between husbands and wives, parents and children. As God patched up the differences between him and us.