From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteous of God.
This is such an amazing and empowering message to me. We are God’s ambassadors—God’s representatives to carry the message out into the world. I’ve heard thousands of times that we are to preach the good news, but somehow this passage strikes me differently. Somehow the notion of ambassador conveys a different tone than evangelist, and I’m eager to do it.
Being an ambassador is a responsibility. It involves understanding 2 cultures and being able to bridge the communication and ideological gap between them. It means being a representative through your actions—which may mean forfeiting some of your habits for the sake of the relationship. Practically for cultural ambassadors it may mean forsaking a fork for chop sticks, or covering your legs, arms or head so as not to insult another. It may mean kissing cheeks instead of shaking hands, or looking at the ground instead of directly into someone’s eyes. Being an ambassador means understanding customs and traditions and being able to adapt to them to fully engage the “other.”
These adaptations go both ways for us as Christians. We must be able to adapt to secular culture without forsaking our own values as well as educate about Christian ideals in a way that is relevant and sensible to secular culture. It’s our role to bridge the gap between religious and secular in a way that is clear and meaningful. Starting with monastic asceticism might not be the best way to reach today’s youth. We may do better to start with the global impact of Christian actions as today’s youth are already aware of concepts of global awareness and responsibility. But whatever our approach, we have to recognize that we can’t simply hold to all of our traditions and hope others will join in. Being an ambassador requires adaptability to assure the “other” that they can truly trust you and that you understand who they are and what they are about.
As an ambassador, we have to look for the points of contact and correlation between the 2 cultures and help both sides to make the connection and be drawn into appreciation. We must also remain rooted in the Christian message and its importance in defining who we are, making adaptations does not mean forsaking who we are. While living abroad I came to understand myself as an ambassador of sorts. I was a representative of America and Americans and that meant I needed to act in way that reflected well on me and on my country. It was my role to show the best hospitality, graciousness, and cultural awareness in my interactions with Spaniards, Moroccans, Cubans, Costa Ricans, Syrians, Palestinians, and others. And, when I returned, it was my role to share my learnings and experiences with other Americans. I helped explain the ways burkas can actually promote the role and status of women, or how communism has served to educate the people of Cuba, or how the siesta isn’t really about the nap, but about time with family in the middle of the day.
Being an ambassador meant I had to invest myself in learning about other cultures and traditions. I came to appreciate the richness of other countries, as well as gain a greater appreciation for the riches of my own traditions. I was the “go between” to help people get cultural values and customs.
Now, ambassador is just one of the key words in this passage. The other is reconciliation.
Reconciliation with God is about connecting with God. It involves healing the brokenness in our relationship, the ways we have neglected, denied, and ignored God. It involves drawing nearer to God to have a deeper and more meaningful relationship.
I don’t know how many of you know about your use Facebook.com but it’s a website that helps reconnect people with old friends and classmates and even helps forge new relationships for some folks. I’ve never gotten into it, but in the last two weeks I’ve had almost a dozen people urge me to sign up. On the surface, it seems like it will only take up more of my time and will become yet another profile I have to manage. Can you tell I’m real eager to jump on the bandwagon? Yet, I’ve heard of more and more people who are on it and know it’d be an easy way to stay in touch, but I continue to fear it will simply consume my time and energy and not be very fruitful.
In some odd way, that’s how I hear the response to God’s reconciliation. I see us, the ambassadors, as God’s Facebook promoters. We are encouraging people to get connected, to experience God’s reconciliation-God’s redemptive work in relationships and many respond to God’s plea for reconciliation like I respond to Facebook: “Oh I know it sounds cool and would help me be close to God again, but it’s gonna take too much time and energy for me to do. Having a relationship with God sounds nice, but I really have a lot going on and I’m pretty satisfied with life as it is. I don’t need another obligation. I don’t want another responsibility. I’ve got too much on my plate as it is.”
And they walk away. Reconnecting isn’t enough for a lot of people. It takes time, effort, and intentionality to restore a forgotten friendship and sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it after years apart. I’m afraid that’s how some people see their relationship with God—it’s a nice bonus, if you have time for it. But it’ll take work and it may not be worth it after all these years apart. So, if you choose to walk away, you probably won’t miss too much.
That’s where the true test of our role begins. You see, if we’re truly convicted about the importance of reconnecting with God and the amazing blessings it will bring to someone’s life, then we don’t simply let them walk away. We don’t hog tie them and force them to reconnect either. But if reconciliation with God is something we merely promote on occasion or in passing or as something that “might be fun to do,” then we’re really not serving as effective ambassadors. As God’s agents, we have to work at making the connections and believe strongly in what we do.
I don’t know if you remember the affirmations we did two weeks ago, where we partnered up and told one another “You are important. You are worthy. You are precious. You are a child of God. You are beloved.” That exercise was meant not just to make you feel good, but to help convict you about the power of God’s affirmation in our lives. And it’s only when you really believe, when you’ve felt it in the depths of your soul that you become the most effective ambassador for Christ. Sure, you can preach the message and share the stories and some will be drawn into it, but just like with Facebook, many of us won’t sign up unless we are totally convinced, hook, line, and sinker, that it’s not going to be some other burden weighing us down, but will be a gift and a blessing in our lives. Convincing people about God’s love isn’t simply something they should do, it’s something that will change their lives. Forging a relationship with God is not just another responsibility to be checked off the list, or profile to be maintained, it’s a life changing event that transforms the way you see and live in the world.
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