There are only a few things that seem to span every generation of people at University Lutheran. One of those is a (sometimes painful) memory of being chosen on a playground by a captain for a team. Whether it was kickball or soccer or basketball or something else, all of us probably have this memory of two people saying, “Ok, I’ll take…[fill in your name]…” for their team. Some of us were lucky enough to get chosen in the first round….others, well, we may have just been happy to not be the only person left to a captain who didn’t really want us.
This week’s Red Letter challenge is to live into your appointment, your being chosen for God’s Kingdom. In John 15, Jesus is telling His disciples that they didn’t choose Him, but that He chose them. We aren’t the captain of God’s team, Jesus is. Jesus chose us to be on that team. We may be baffled as to why He chose us. Or we may feel like we have a good idea of why He chose us, only to find out later that we were wrong. Still, nonetheless, God chose us through Jesus. He made sure that we were baptized and chosen, brought into the Kingdom.
But God’s choosing is a little different. God doesn’t choose us the way that playground captains do. Playground captains choose on the basis of history and potential. If you played well last game, you get chosen closer to first. If you missed the ball a bunch last game, you drop in terms of your value. But God sees beyond history and into the future. He doesn’t need to base His decisions on history because He transcends time. He also doesn’t need to choose based on potential, because He Himself is the one that endows us with our potential.
So instead, God chooses us simply out of love. Even though our history is pockmarked with sin. Even though our potential is wanting especially in terms of the big challenge before us. He chooses us out of love, because He transcends those other things.
Therefore, we are called to see our being chosen not in terms of our potential or the lack of it. We are called not as being called according to our history, no matter how attractive or unattractive those stories may have been. Instead, we are called to see ourselves as chosen out of love, equipped out of love for a task too big for our potential and our history. All because Christ so loved us that He chose us and appointed us to be His disciples in His kingdom – making us ready for the task every day by forgiving our sins and granting us His Holy Spirit.
So you’re chosen. Now go and live into the game.