Father Richard Rohr invites us to accept with humility that we are chosen by God:
In Romans 11, Paul is trying to define chosenness. Speaking of the chosenness of the Jewish people, he says chosenness is definitive and irrevocable (Romans 11:29). But he also says chosenness has nothing to do with worthiness, which is so hard for our tit-for-tat minds to understand. God’s choice has to do with God alone, not with us being worthy or ready. No one is ever ready! In fact, the readiness comes from experiencing and surrendering to the chosenness. That’s a subtle point, but it’s absolutely foundational. The biblical tradition goes to great lengths to show that God always chooses the unworthy, the weak, the sinful, and the broken, so that no flesh can glorify itself in God’s sight. We are merely God’s instruments. When we love God and love others, it is God doing that through us and in us.
Paul also says that chosenness is for the sake of experiencing mercy (see Romans 11:30–31). Ancient Israel’s chosenness is not so they can feel superior and saved, which is where immature religion always stops. Rather, Paul says very clearly that we experience chosenness so that we can know what it feels like to be God’s beloved and experience God’s mercy. Only then can we communicate that chosenness to everybody else. Now we are a fit instrument to describe what it feels like to be beloved, to be elect, to be significant, to be validated, to be gazed at with the gaze of God, and to be mirrored by the ultimate mirror.
Being loved by God in this way, we know we cannot love back the way we are loved. However, our inability to love God fully keeps us in the realm of desire—always yearning, longing, and wanting more. Knowing we are not there yet is good! It keeps us humble and honest. It keeps us aware of our need for mercy. We know we will never get it right on our own.
I think religion is the best thing and the worst thing. It can create the most narrow-minded, petty, self-protective, racist people who stop at that first stage of: “We’ve got it right. We’re elect. We’re chosen.” But their faith really hasn’t transformed them, so they don’t know how to communicate chosenness to anyone else. Without a love relationship with God, religion doesn’t keep us moving or growing. It doesn’t keep transforming. It becomes a sideshow for elitism, that’s all.
The biblical tradition begins with chosenness for a few, but it always moves toward egalitarian chosenness for everyone. And the only people who are equipped to communicate the inclusivity and the boundless abundance of God are people who first experience that boundless abundance in themselves.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr with Thomas C. Welch, Called, Formed, Sent (National Association of Diaconate Directors, 2002), 5–7.
Image credit and inspiration: Credits: Tony Sebastian, untitled (detail), 2019, photo, India, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like a bouquet of many different kinds of flowers, we are all gently held as beautifully chosen and beloved.
Story from Our Community:
O blessed Holy Trinity, enkindle in our hearts the warmth of your love, enlighten our minds with the wisdom of your Truth and enable our souls to follow your holy way in life, spirit, and love.
— Mark W.
