The Lord has chosen YOU!

Sermon delivered Sunday, June 14, 2015, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN
3 Pentecost, Proper 6, Year B (1 Samuel 15:34-16:13)

What does it mean to be "chosen" by God?

In the Hebrew scripture for today, we heard the story of God choosing David to replace Saul as king of Israel. God tells Samuel he has chosen one of Jesse’s sons to be the next king, so Samuel goes to visit Jesse and find the chosen one. One by one, Jesse’s sons come before Samuel, but Samuel hears from God that none of these are the chosen one. He finally finds out that there is one more son that no one has thought to bring in, since he is young and is out tending the sheep. When this youngest son, David, comes before Samuel, he knows instantly that this is the one God has chosen as the next leader of Israel.

I don’t know about you, but in today’s day and age, I think many people tend to be skeptical about people or communities who claim to be “chosen by God.” If that person is the chosen one, who is everyone else? The non-chosen ones? The rejected ones? The not-good-enough ones? Language about being “chosen” can easily lead people to believe they are superior to others, to take being “chosen” as an indication that they are better than those who are not chosen, that David was somehow better than his brothers, for example, because God chose him rather than any of them.

That’s certainly one way of interpreting what it means to be “chosen by God” – that we are the special ones, that we are superior to others, that God loves us more than God loves everyone else – and certainly there is scriptural precedent for holding such a perspective. But I prefer another narrative in scripture that reminds us that we are ALL people of God, that God’s temple is a house of prayer for ALL nations, not just the Israelites, that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35), that we are ALL chosen by God; it’s just that we are not all chosen to do the same thing. Claiming to be "chosen by God" only becomes a problem when we believe that the thing God has chosen us to do is better than the things God has chosen other people to do.

My grandfather, who was not a church-going man himself, used to say, "What a good thing it is that God made us all different -- that's what makes the world go 'round." Or, as the letter to the Ephesians puts it:

"[E]ach of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesians 4:7, 11-13)

Paul’s metaphor about the church as the body of Christ emphasizes how essential diversity is within the community. We need all parts of the body to function effectively. If we all tried to do the same things, not much would get done. Just because David’s brothers were not chosen to be king did not mean that God did not have a plan for their lives, or that God valued them less than God valued their brother.

Each of us has particular gifts that God has given us to use for the building up of the body of Christ. No one gift is better than any of the others. Even this passage from Ephesians is quite limiting, since it talks about people being called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers -- but God also chooses people to be health care workers and architects and BBQ or English tea volunteers and vestry members and gardeners and finance committee members. What role has God chosen you to play in building up the body of Christ? Where do your gifts lie in serving God and bringing others to the knowledge and love of God? (As an aside, if you’re not quite sure of the answer to that question, I invite you to consider joining our next group of Faith Leaders, which will begin in the fall. Faith Leaders is an eight-month-long program for adults that meets weekly and helps people discern what their gifts are and how God is calling them to use their gifts in the world.)

In my own experience of discerning my call to the priesthood, I have come to believe that at any given time, God is calling us to a particular path that will bring us to a place of abundant blessing if we choose to follow it. I believe God will still be with us and work good in our lives even if we do not choose that path, but I do believe that we will find more fulfillment and abundant blessings if we do follow the tug of God’s call, however impractical it may seem.

In late college and the beginning of graduate school, I planned to pursue a career in journalism. I knew I loved studying religion, and I was also a good writer, so I thought I would combine these two things and become a religion reporter for a newspaper. My experiences in the world of journalism were all rewarding in some sense, but while I was writing articles and copy editing newspaper pages, I couldn't shake the sense that there was something else that I should be doing. From the first time I began to read the Bible in earnest in late high school, I had been struck by Jesus's injunction to reach out to the poor. Passages from Scripture like, "If you love me, feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17), and "whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40), would ring in my head as I walked past homeless people begging for change on the streets.

Finally, I listened to the call and began to volunteer with an outdoor church for the homeless in Cambridge, Massachusetts, similar to the Church in the Yard here in Nashville. You’ve heard me mention this ministry in sermons before. Although I had no idea what to say or do as I interacted with the people on the streets and I felt completely unqualified and incompetent to do that ministry, it certainly brought me much closer to God than journalism ever had. After I wrote some reflections about my experiences with the Outdoor Church, some of my mentors suggested that I might consider ordained ministry. Although every practical bone in my body told me it was time to get a "real job" and start making money to pay off my educational debt, I felt drawn to devote intentional time to discern whether or not I was called to ordained ministry. So, I decided to take a year to reflect and pray through one of the Episcopal Service Corps internship, designed to help young adults in their 20s and early 30s discern their vocational call. Although I wanted to stay in the northeast, in Boston or New York, it turned out that the place God had for me was in Omaha, Nebraska. I could have turned down the opportunity because Omaha was not where I wanted to be, but I’m so glad I didn’t, because it became obvious to me once I arrived and met the wonderful people there who supported me in my discernment that I had found the place of deep blessing that God had for me at that time.

Listening to God's call is not often easy or practical, in my experience. But when God chooses us to do something, we actually have very little choice in the matter. From comparing notes with others in the field of ordained ministry, I have heard countless stories of people who have denied their calling for many years, pursuing another career, until finally they were able to accept and begin to live into that place of deep blessing to which God had been calling them all their lives. Like Jonah, we are finally unable to run from our calling, however scared we might be to accept it.

Accepting that we are chosen by God can be difficult, especially since we often mistakenly think that we cannot be chosen unless we are of a certain level of righteousness and holiness. But the only thing we have to do to disabuse ourselves of that notion is to return to the study of scripture. None of the people chosen by God in scripture were perfect. Think about David, who we read about today. The “spirit of the Lord was mightily upon David,” and yet he still wound up committing adultery and having the husband of his lover killed in battle so he could have her for himself. Not exactly model behavior. But he was still chosen by God to do the role he was called to do.

One of my favorite quotes about our reluctance to accept that we are chosen by God is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but was actually written by Marianne Williamson, an author and minister in the Unity Church. She writes,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I believe this is what happens when we begin to follow the path that God has prepared for us -- we are brought face to face with our belovedness and are liberated from our fear. God begins to pry open our hearts to accept God's love and to offer it to others. It may not always be the path we would have expected to take, and it may not be the path that others would have us take -- but it is the path God calls us to nonetheless. And it is an invitation to a place of great blessing.

My prayer is that each of you would find that path, that place of great blessing, in your own lives, and in doing so you would find yourselves face to face with a God who loves you and who chooses you - every day and every hour - to represent God's love to the world.

The Lord has chosen YOU. So, "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify God in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).