What is the Appeal?
Fr. John Riccardo
October 27, 2021
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20).
St. Paul speaks of himself as an ambassador for God. What’s an ambassador? In a most basic sense, an ambassador is an authorized representative or messenger of a leader of another country. Ambassadors work out of embassies, diplomatic missions within a country other than the one the ambassador represents. Though an embassy usually remains under the jurisdiction of the host country, it is accorded a number of privileges, including immunity from most local laws. Most notably, the authorities from the host country cannot enter the embassy without permission. This is why people flee to an embassy seeking asylum, since they cannot be apprehended by the host country without the permission of the embassy.
What in the world does this have to do with what Paul is saying and how it applies to us right now? Much, I would suggest!
Paul offers us, I think, a very helpful vision for what a parish can and should be. The Church or, in this case, a given parish, is supposed to be a place where people, when they visit, immediately can tell this place is different. It is not bound by the “laws” of the “host country.” What is the “host country?” The world. And what are the laws of this country? Not simply the law of Sin and Death, but the other patterns of behavior that characterize the world: gossip, slander, division, envy, resentment, bitterness, division, a desire for revenge, hostility, fear and more. Someone who visits a Catholic Church should know and be readily able to detect that this place is different, these people are different. And this difference, especially in a world that is increasingly divisive and virtually at each other’s throats right now, will be incredibly attractive.
Is this what our parishes look like? Are we any different from “the host country?” I fear not, at least by and large. All too often we, as disciples of Jesus, sound more or less like the world around us, and look like the world around us. Our parishes are filled with division, gossip, envy, jealousy, and more. Are we attractive to…anyone? Really?
So, what is the appeal Paul is talking about when he says, “God making His appeal through us?” Well, maybe it’s simply this: “You can defect! You don’t have to live bound by the world’s ways and laws. You don’t have to live under the power of Sin anymore, or be held bound by the fear of Death anymore. Jesus has defeated those. You can be freed from the spirits of division and disunity, of animosity and bitterness. You can move from the tyranny of the devil and his minions to the house of a good, good Father.”
Come, Holy Spirit! Make us these kinds of people! Come, Holy Spirit! Make our parishes these kinds of places!