Easter 6B; Music Sunday; Mother’s Day – John 15:9-17; Acts 10:44-48
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to spend a semester in Vienna, Austria. It was just at that moment when, with apologies to Ed Clark, I was making the decision to give up on that physics degree I was fruitlessly pursuing, and switch to music instead. And what a city to do it in! With four of the world’s best concert houses, and ticket prices around a dollar (if you didn’t mind standing), I think I went to the symphony that semester more often than I went to class.
I remember one night at the Vienna State Opera; it could have been any show. At intermission, a woman came up to me and asked if I was from the United States. She must have heard me fumbling with my lousy German at the concessions stand or something. I said yes, expecting to have a lovely conversation with a stranger in my own language, finally, after all these weeks of being unable to communicate. But instead of asking me what part of the country I was from, or why I was traveling abroad, her next question was, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior?”
I don’t remember my reaction, though I can safely say that today, such a question, would be a test of how far back in my head I can roll my eyes. But to be fair, while the time and place was a bit absurd, I have to admit that under other circumstances, it’s a question that sets me to thinking. When was it that I made a choice for Jesus? Just when did I sign on to this God thing?
And if the question made me uncomfortable, the answer does even more: I’m not entirely certain that I did. In fact, I don’t really remember there ever being a choice. When I was little, my mother never asked whether or not I believed in God. It was just something she taught me about, like shapes or colors. The alphabet was hung up on the wall of my bedroom, over the windows, and on the other side of the room, next to the closet, was the cross. Poking around in places I wasn’t supposed to be, as kids do when their parents’ backs are turned, I found drawers full of items Mom thought were truly valuable–keepsake jewelry passed down from her mother, and just as precious, a prayer book from her youth. And of course, she took my brother and I to Church, where we learned the stories of faith, and what it meant to behave like a Christian, and in my case, those first awakenings of musical talent, standing next to her, singing hymns from the old green book.
It’s an interesting thought experiment. If my parent’s hadn’t been Christian, would I? If Mom had been a Buddhist, would that be my faith today? Born into a Jewish family, would I be working as a Rabbi? Or maybe a physicist, Ed?
But it’s not a very useful train of thought. I wasn’t born into a Jewish of Buddhist family, good as those families might have been. Mine happened to be Christian. I didn’t choose it; it just was; it chose me, in a way. My parents wanted to have a child, someone they together could love, and THEY chose to find ways to help me get to know the God that they knew, perhaps just because they loved me, and wanted me to know that same Love. And so, just as I did not choose my parents, neither did I choose Jesus.
Which is exactly what Jesus tells his disciples in today’s Gospel reading. “You did not choose me,” he says, “but I chose you.” (vs. 16) And that’s true for all of Christ’s disciples, not just those ones standing with him in that upper room two thousand years ago. Even those of us here who do have stories of moments in our lives when we have made a choice for God, stories which are powerful and real, stories of conversion of lives and renewal of hearts, have only been able to do so because of the choice God first made for us.
This is an old, old story. We see it in the reading today from Acts. Peter is preaching to Cornelius and his household, something he’s doing not because he wants to, but because God sent him. And as he’s doing so, the Holy Spirit comes to those who are gathered there. It’s almost comedic; you can imagine Peter shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Well, we might as well baptize them, because like it or not, God’s already done His part.” These first gentile Christians didn’t choose Christ; Peter didn’t choose them. God chose them.
Just as God has time and time again. Jeremiah insists he can’t prophesy, but God chooses him anyway. David is just a shepherd, and God makes him king. Sarah laughs at God’s promise to give her a son, just nine months before she gives birth. God is always choosing the strangest, unlikeliest people. Like you and me.
This reality blows that American tourist in Vienna’s question out of the water, because the answer really doesn’t matter. “Sure, I’ve accepted Jesus.” Only because he chose you first. “I don’t know, I guess I’ve always been a Christian.” Well, God chose you before you even thought about it. Or even: “Nope, I don’t believe in any of that God stuff.” Well, too bad, because God believes in you. And if that sounds like radical theology, I promise you, it’s not. Lutherans have always believed that faith isn’t a work; its a gift from God. God gave us our faith. God chose us, even in that.
But there is one warning in all this, you know, just in case you think I’ve made this too easy. Being chosen comes with responsibility which, I’m sorry to say, is just as “like it or not” as your chosen-ness.
Last night, I had the privilege of seeing Gretchen DeMarsh, Julie Bardon, and David White in West Boylston High School’s spring musical. These young people, like many others in our congregation, have been chosen to carry artistic gifts. But they’ve also taken those gifts and cultivated them; they’ve worked hard to shape them into things that they, their parents, that God can be proud of. They have understood the responsibilities being chosen.
And that needs to be true for all of us as God chooses us. Jesus tells us that we have been chosen not just to be loved by Him, to abide in His love, but “to bear fruit, fruit that will last.” And that fruit is expressed in his command to each of us: “That we love one another.” Being chosen means that we have a responsibility to love each other and the world around us.
In two weeks, we’re going to be celebrating the rite of confirmation with eight of our congregation’s youth members. In it, they will profess their faith. But that’s not all they will do. They, and we with them, will repeat the promises of our Baptism: to live together, to listen for God’s word, to serve all people, and to strive for peace and justice in all the earth. These are hard things to do! But they are the very core of what it means to live as God’s chosen people, dwelling in the love He has for us.
Sisters and brothers, even more than our worldly mothers and fathers, God our heavenly Father loves you. He has chosen you to be the recipient of His love. How will you carry out your responsibility, to love one another, to love your neighbor, to love the world?