I love coming home from work in the evening because Abby Kate and Joshua are at that age where they come running up to me and give me huge bear hugs as soon as I walk in the door. One of their favorite things to do is to tell what they were chosen for at school. Their teacher, Miss Karen, has several little responsibilities that she assigns to her students each day. One student gets to be the line leader; another says the prayer; another gets to lead the class as they sing the “Weather Song”; and so on. Each day (usually from Abby Kate), I get the complete run-down of who was chosen to do what: “Jackson was the line leader and Lindsey said the prayer and I GOT TO DO THE WEATHER!”

Believe me, it’s incredibly cute.

The notion of being chosen becomes a bit more knotty when it’s put in a theological context. Paul’s election language, for instance, has long perplexed scads of people, leaving honest seekers to wonder whether or not they were among the number predestined for heaven. If it’s already been decided, the argument goes, what difference does it make how I live? (Good point.) Still worse has been the unhelpfully literal translation of Revelation that claims heaven is reserved for 144,000 uber-righteous souls. Let’s face it; if it comes down to being one of the 144,000 best people who ever lived, we’re all pretty much in trouble. The “chosen” language has created myriad problems for Christians for centuries. As a result, I usually avoid the whole conversation completely.

But there’s something to this that I find incredibly important: God’s election of Israel, per the Deuteronomy account, is not conditioned by Israel’s size or strength. Israel hasn’t done anything to merit this special status. Moses reminds Israel that their status as God’s “chosen people” is rooted solely in Divine Love. Out of his great love, God chose Israel to accomplish His purposes in history. This is the same thread that Peter picks up on in 1 Peter 2:

Like Israel, we have been chosen to carry out the purposes of the Divine. Christ’s church functions as the in-breaking of the Kingdom here on earth. We were not chosen because of our size or our strength; we were not chosen for our uber-righteousness. In his translation of the troublesome Ephesians 1:4-5, Eugene Peterson says, “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.” Like Israel, our chosen status comes through no merit of our own; it is the gift of God.

We have been chosen, called out, for this purpose: to proclaim the excellencies of the One who brought us out of darkness.

With childlike joy, may we relish our status as the chosen people of God.