When the Israelites reflecting on the things God had done, their dramatic experiences with God, they grasped that at some deep, inexplicable level, they had been "chosen," singled out, destined by God. As the saga of Genesis unfolds, God at first cares directly for the entire world - but God's project turns out badly. After the flood washes everything clean, God embarks on a new, startling strategy: as if by zoom lens, God zeroes in on just one person, Abraham, declaring "I have chosen you; I will bless you" (
Genesis 12). But this does not mean God has given up on the rest of the world, or that Abraham was noble and somehow earned a penthouse seat in God's mansion. No, God chooses Abraham (and thus, Israel) because God intends to use him (and them) to save everybody else: "By you all the nations will be blessed." They are chosen, not so they can bask in comfort and live on a lush oasis, but rather so God can use them to save all the other nations.
Being chosen is not a perq, but a weighty responsibility. It is no vacation when God says, "I choose you to labor as a slave in my vineyard," "I pick you to be a mailman to deliver my message through rain, sleet, snow," "I choose you to be laughed at because you mirror my holiness in an unholy world," or "I choose you to be the symphony through which my beautiful song is played to the masses."
We may recoil against this notion. Aren't we the ones who do the choosing? I choose God, or I don't choose God - right? But the Bible spins our conceptions inside out: if I think I choose God, it's only because God chose me, zoomed in on me, threw a cloak of love around me before I had a clue about God. Why did God choose Israel? Deuteronomy 7 clarifies that it was not because Israel was big, good or clever; God chose Israel because God loved Israel. Love is like that: out of the blue, undeserved, undeservable, sweeping me off my feet, so mystified am I that God has loved me. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo asked Gandalf, "Why was I chosen?" Gandalf's reply: "Such questions cannot be answered. You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess... but you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."
I am no free agent down here: God has prepared a destiny for me, and for us. But are we pre-destined? That's another email! but like Abraham, you and I exist to be the ones God intends to use to save everybody else. This is why we are here. Our life together is vapid until we discover that God mysteriously picked us to be his, and magnificently provides us with a destiny. Later we will ask how Christians think about Judaism and its eternal honor as "chosen," but for now, as we discover how we are singled out for a glorious destiny by God, our mood will continually be one of gratitude, a humble dependence, an unstinting availability to the God who chooses.
James
james@mpumc.org
The complete email series on Bible Questions can be found if you click here.
Coming up:
eBibleQuestions13 - Does God harden hearts?
eBibleQuestions14 - What about the Laws of the Old Testament?
eBibleQuestions15 - Why so much warfare in the Bible?
eBibleQuestions16 - What can archaeology tell us? and not tell us?
