“So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us…” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
I am writing today aboard the southbound “AC Deluxe” out of Rampurhat, headed toward Calcutta. I have been visiting our friends and colleagues in Dumka and Mohulpahari at work among the Santal people of northern India. From Calcutta, I am headed west by overnight coach on the main rail toward Mumbai.
Rail travel in India is a wonderfully chaotic, impressive and effective, colorful and challenging experience. The station in Rampurhat (like stations throughout the country) is teeming with humanity: travelers and shoeshine boys, cleaners and sweepers, platform agents and vendors of every conceivable variety. There are porters, too, snaking through the crowds in every direction, with luggage on their heads. A porter will help you find your way to the platform, guide you to your car, and tuck away your bags on board.
And then, as I say, there are vendors. Immediately and throughout the journey come the vendors. Within a half an hour of taking my seat, I have been offered chocolate bars and peanuts, hot chai and coffee, cordless phones, video games, solar calculators, tennis shoes, blankets, bags and shawls, the daily news, battery re-chargers, flashlights, an aromatic blend of nuts and herbs, apples and bananas – not to mention a full-sized electronic keyboard. And I will see more variety as the day wears on.
I am impressed most of all, I think, with these inventive vendors. They are so earnest! – and this is what catches my attention especially. Peddling their boxes and bags of stuff, of course, is their livelihood. They set about it with such conviction and purpose – it almost seems a calling. And they are good at it, too! I found myself wondering for a moment, improbably, if I might not need a keyboard for the journey after all.
And I found myself reflecting: I have something to offer the vendors in return. I have something better than flashlights and shawls, and more useful than a keyboard in cramped quarters on a train. I am an ambassador for the King of Kings. I am a servant of the Word of God Almighty. I have News of Great Joy for All Peoples.
But somehow, I am not as effective at sharing it as these earnest vendors are effective at peddling their wares. I wonder why? I am a Lutheran from Midwestern America, for one thing; we find it difficult to become very earnest in public. I am a tourist, of course, too; I don’t know the language or the culture that surrounds me. More importantly, maybe, the vendors on the train know that their livelihoods depend upon their vending. On most days, for me, sharing the Good News is only one activity among many. On many days, it is not even the principle activity on my agenda. My livelihood does not depend upon sharing the Good News in the same way as vendors depend upon their vending.
It is other lives that depend upon it. If I don’t share…who will? And if you don’t share…well, how will your neighbors, and workmates, and family know? We are not peddling peanuts, after all. We have some News from the King of Kings.