Ambassador Sunday
Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34
Our generation is characterized by the refusal to envision a God who punishes. We always picture God as loving, forgiving and Compassionate. We understand these attributes of God because we have experienced love, forgiveness and compassion in our lives. We understand these emotions and we appreciate them. We deny that we often hate others, refuse them forgiveness and punish them for their wrong actions. In fact, we have criminal codes to punish wrongdoing. However, we always find reasons to wave aside the thoughts that God too can punish wrongs and sin. We imagine that by thinking that God is love, then he will not punish!
Although it is not a frequent occurrence in the Bible, that we read about God’s anger, yet God does get angry and punishes sins and wrongdoing. We saw last Sunday that the lies of the priest Amaziah to console King Jeroboam in his sins did not prevent God’s punishment from visiting the King and his entire Kingdom of Israel. It follows that no matter how we civilize ourselves, judgment day is coming, and punishment is inevitable for the exercise of human freedom against God!
Jeremiah’s expression of God’s displeasure with our inhumanity to others, in our first reading, warns us about self-deception that God doesn’t punish offenses. The example of shepherds ravaging their sheep may not strike a chord with us today. However, when we realize that our institutionalized capitalistic thievery kills more people than it saves, then Jeremiah’s outcry will come to life. How does one justify countries without petroleum, gold, uranium, diamond, etc. possessing and controlling these mineral resources and enriching themselves with it, while the lands and countries that harbor them wallow in abysmal poverty? Government policies on resource control increase the poverty line, yet democracy is the government of the people by the people and for the people? In reality, we actually see a fraction of our democratic society helping itself to our common good!
Ambassador Sunday is a remainder to us all that we neither represent ourselves nor others in all that we do; rather, we stand as God’s ambassadors. As God’s ambassadors, the laws of God that made us ambassadors, that is, those who stand in for God on the planet earth, the same laws will judge our stewardship. An analogy is important here. An ambassador has immunity in the country of his service, but his punishment awaits him when he returns home for his/her wrongdoing in foreign lands. You and I are God’s ambassadors upon earth. We enjoy earthly immunity from God’s direct chastisement. When we return to God, we will face the music, if we only represented ourselves on earth, instead of God. Remember that your life has a meaning. God put meaning into your life at conception. The things that only you alone can do, are your unique job as God’s ambassador on earth. If you fail to be a good and worthy ambassador of Christ, there will be consequences when you meet God.
The connection between our first and second readings are the walls of injustices to be toppled. The problem Jeremiah’s society experienced is the same as ours — the absence of JUSTICE! Jeremiah prophesied that the name of God is JUSTICE — “The Lord our justice” (Jer 23:6). In order to erect justice, walls of divisions must be toppled. Ambassador Sunday is a call to topple walls of divisions; it is an invitation to us to become whistle blowers, those who refuse to allow anyone, no matter how great or small, to divide us. In fact, an ambassador is a spy for his home country. You and I are God’s spies, those who see evil and cry out for justice!
According to our second reading, the walls of racial and cultural divisions of the world into Jews versus Gentiles, slaves versus citizens, and so on, those walls came down at the cost of Christ’s blood. This ambassador Sunday, all of us, without exception, are called upon to be ambassadors of justice. We rise and fall collectively, to the degree to which there is either justice or injustice. When a whole people are chastised, it means they’ve failed collectively on justice issues. When individuals are punished, it is because they failed as individual ambassadors of justice. To chicken out of fighting injustices with the last drop of one’s blood is to be a traitor, instead of an ambassador.
Our gospel reading narrates the accountability of Jesus’ apostles. They were sent out as God’s ambassadors. They wielded God’s powers by healing the sick and casting out devils. They toppled the regime of the devil that held people hostage. On account of their fidelity to the mission given to them, Jesus organized a vacation for them. Good and positive reward awaits a good and worthy ambassador. Because human beings get tired after working, they deserve their rest. For God, there is no rest. While providing rest for his apostles, Jesus continues to work because there were needy people who came to him seeking his help.
We don’t need to go around looking for injustices to topple. It suffices to look inwards first; that is, we need to answer the question: how faithful am I to my duties as a parent, priest, teacher, doctor, lawyer, student, etc. It is impossible to notice injustice, not to talk of tackling it, when we ourselves are both architects and masons of injustice! My inability to respect the minutest law, but circumvent and explain away my actions is the highest mess of justice. It is only when I am who I should be, that my actions will create an enabling environment for others to perform their respective duties.
Assignment for the Week:
Come clean on your participation in injustice this week!