Who Are We? A Chosen Race 1st Peter 2:9-10 (Wednesday Night Reflection)

Who are you?  who Are you?  who are You?

For that matter, who am I?

You know, I have struggled with this Wednesday’s reflection as I continue to reflect on the violence in Charlottesville…the violence that continues to plague our nation, to plague our world.  I have watched the responses and outrage from all sides.  I have refused to respond via social media…as y’all don’t know me that well, don’t ever look for me to get involved in those debates online.  I believe in using social media to communicate, to share what is going on in our lives, to share God’s Word…but I do not believe in engaging in touchy issues in that arena.  Just because you don’t see me post my opinion, don’t think I’m not interested or don’t have feelings about an issue.  I do…but those discussions are saved for face to face dialogue.

And yet again, I am drawn to Charlottesville…I am drawn to Dallas…I am drawn to Baton Rouge…I am drawn to Charleston…and I think the root of the problem is that we have forgotten who we are…so at the urging of the Holy Spirit…starting tonight, and for the next several Wednesday’s, we are going to take two verses of Scripture and asking, and hopefully answer the question, “Who Are We?”

In the first ten verses of the second chapter of this first letter of Peter, Peter writes the early church to remind them of who they are supposed to be.  The truth of who they were, and who, as the Church, we are called to be, is summarized, I believe, in these verses: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 

So where do we start?  We start with the beginning…Paul writes the Early Christian Jews…and because God’s Word is eternal, Paul is writing us, reminding us who we are…and he begins with “You are a chosen race.”

Do you know how hard it is to say those words in this day and time…in light of this past weekend?  Yet, those are the words of scripture…the Word of God.  Isn’t there some other way to consider the translation?  In all actuality, when comparing various translations of the Bible, most, not all, but most, translate the Greek word “genos” as race in this verse.  The struggle is that way too many folks have used the idea of being “a chosen race” to oppress others…for many it has become a phrase associated with evil: with Nazi Germany, with the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists, with genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Iraq, Dafur, and other places.  The idea of a “chosen race” conjures up images of people that would lift up one ethic group as superior to all other ethnicities…it lifts up the idea that those “inferior” ethnicities should be either “put in their place” or even “eliminated altogether.”  We find our country reeling in the face of such claims and thinking even as we gather here tonight. 

However, a couple of years ago, when I approached this text for the first time in preaching, reading commentaries and trying to get away from the word “race,” I read words that have changed the way I approach the idea of “race.”  Here’s what I read, in a commentary written more than a decade ago: “Especially in a time of ongoing racial tension Christians rightly recall that as Christians (not as Caucasian, not as African-American, Hispanic, or Asian people) we are a chosen race.  For Christians who take 1 Peter seriously, the line on the application that asks for race ought to be filled in: ‘Christian.’”  And since I read it, that is exactly what I have done on every application or form that had a blank to fill in for the area of “race.”

To be God’s chosen race has absolutely nothing to do with ethnicity.  It never has and it never will.  Peter’s words simply remind us that we are chosen…that we didn’t choose God.  From the very beginning it is about God doing the choosing, and God’s Word testifies to that from the very beginning.

God chose to create and give life to humanity…

God chose Noah to bring creation through the flood.

God chose Abraham, and promised to make his descendants into a great people.

God chose Moses to bring his people out of slavery in Egypt.

God chose David to bring Israel out from under the tyranny of other nations, and Solomon to build His Temple.

God chose Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, and the other prophets to proclaim His Will.

God chose Mary to give birth to the Savior of the World.

Jesus chose James and John, Peter, and Andrew, Nathanial, Matthew, and the rest of the twelve.

Jesus chose Paul with blinding light on the road to Damascus.

And the list can go on and on…including God choosing each one of us.

We are chosen…God chose each of us…we did not choose God…no matter whether we think we did or not, we did not choose God first…we simply surrendered to God’s choosing…

What does it mean for us to be God’s “chosen race,” God’s “chosen people”?

It means that God loves us.... There are times where we may feel unloved or unwanted…times where it seems that everyone else has turned away from us…God says, “I choose you…I love you…you are part of my family.”

It means that God sees value in us… When everyone else wants to declare our value is equal to what we can do, what we can proved, and when we don’t live up to their expectations, they reject us…God chooses those that the world rejects…a King out of a forgotten shepherd boy, disciples from fishermen and tax collectors, an evangelist out of a foreign woman, an apostle out of a murderer…  God says, “I choose you…I love you…you are valuable to me.”

It means that God has a purpose for us…  God doesn’t choose us so that we can declare that we are better than everyone else…God doesn’t choose us so that we say God loves us more than everyone else… God chooses us in order that we might remind everyone else that God chooses them too…

God chose Abram and promised to bless him, that he would be a blessing…and make his name great in order that all the families on earth might be blessed.  God chose Abram to call all the world to Himself…

Jesus reminds us that we are the light of the world…A city on a hill…we are the ones chosen by God to draw the entire world to the throne of God…chosen by God to “go, therefore and make disciples of all nations….

To be the chosen race of God has nothing to do with the color of our skin, the curl of our hair, the accent in our speech or even the language that we speak…to be the chosen race of God has everything to do with God declaring through us, His love for all…and His desire for all to come into His family…that all might know that they are chosen, that they are loved, that they are valued, and that they have a purpose!

Who are you?  Who am I?  We are the chosen race of God, bearing the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to the people of Charlottesville and all the world!  Amen.