Chosen For...

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.

-1 Peter 2:9-10

There's a lot of pressure in being chosen to be God's royal priesthood. Or maybe it just feels like a lot of pressure. I think the emphasis should be on being chosen for the job and therefore given the amazing opportunity to live into it. That's the BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front).

Now I'll say a little more about what it might mean to be God's holy nation and royal priesthood. The author of 1 Peter is making a clear statement about who we are and to whom we belong. Personally I really like this

language. I like thinking of myself as chosen by God because it means I am, first and foremost, defined by what God sees in me and what God wants for my life. I can make my own choices. I can try to, at times, deny what God wants from me, but from beginning to end I have been chosen to be one of God's people. That God-given identity is no longer up for debate. 

We don't all agree about how that begins. Some see baptism as an act of the believer that comes with a conscious choice. Some come from traditions where baptism comes to an infant (with the promise of the parents providing the "choice"). No matter how you were baptized, you have been joined to a whole nation of people whom God has chosen to be a community together.

In this particular passage, the characteristics of being "God's own people" are pretty specific: proclaim the acts of God (not the acts of humanity) and be receivers of mercy. What do those mean for you in your particular setting? Proclaiming the acts of God can be a little challenging. Many people today have been taught to keep their faith to themselves. We have to be very careful about how we talk about our faith in a world that is very sensitive to different perspectives. There's really nothing wrong with having different perspectives, we just have to be careful about how we "talk."

It's not about "preaching" about God, but it is about living in a way that shows what God has done in our lives and what God wants for the whole world. We experience mercy and so we share mercy with those we encounter. This identity with God is something we can hold onto as foundational to who we are and all that we do. This is the opportunity we have as God's royal priesthood.