Chosen By God!
By Rev. William Dohle
13 years ago, August 22, 2000, God touched my life. With the hands of friends, my head was touched with his Hand. In the voice of the presider, I was called by God. With the grace of my wife, God placed the stoll symbolizing the office of pastor upon me. In that moment I was called into ordained ministry. God touched my life. It's been 13 years but I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Ordained ministry for me began that day when I stood before Bishop Egertson from Southern California, heard my name called out, and answered timidly the call I believed was from God.
It's been 13 years since I was ordained a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...but I'm just starting to understand what it means. Being a pastor I am learning isn't a destination. It's not something you became, but rather something you are becoming. It's not a place you go, but rather the call to a journey beyond where you are. Ministry is a journey into learning how to be a servant to others, learning how to put aside one's own interest for the sake of others. It's a journey into listening and knowing when is the right time to speak and act. It's walking the way of the cross. It's grappling with death and life, depair and hope, with a community of faith. And it's a journey in understanding and describing how the grand Story of God affects the tiny story of our lives.
Ministry is a journey into understanding what it means to be set apart and chosen...for service to God and to others.
The people of Israel began on this journey back at the foot of Mount Sinai. After seeing God's wonders in Egypt and traveling through the wilderness to this place, God makes a covanent with the people of Israel.
"Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Alghouth the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."(Exodus 19:5-6)
This moment sets Israel apart from the rest of the world. They are no longer like their Gentile neighbors. Nobody can claim they are chosen quite like they can. In that moment, God called them out of all the nations to be His nation!
This moment marks their choosing, it ordains them as God's chosen people, but ordains them as something else. Notice what God makes Israel to be...
"...a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
God doesn't make them into kings and princes to rule over the surrounding people. God doesn't choose them to have a special place in heaven nor do they get to lord it over. God doesn't make them masters of others.
God makes them priests! A kingdom of priests!
And anyone who knows what priests SHOULD be like, knows that priests should be like servants. They should serve the people around them. They should pray for others, nurturing them in their faith. They should teach others what God has given them to teach, to pass on the words of God for others. They are to encourage others, support others, and finally (hopefully) lead others to God as well.
They are not suppose to lord it over others, make others their slaves, or demand with the sword that others agree with them. They are suppose to minister and love and cherish others and be the arms of God to a world desperate for God's love.
Christians too have been invited into this chosen priesthood. It is no accident that Peter, taking the words found in Exodus, applies them, not just to Jews but to all Christians.
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."(1 Peter 2:9)
These words are straight from Sinai. Peter declares these promises spoken to Israel back at the foot of Mt. Sinai to all believers. In Christ Jesus, Gentiles also have been brought into this covenant. We too are God's chosen people. Chosen, by the way, not to insist on the world conforming to us or just becoming like us, but chosen to bring God's transforming light to the world, that the world may be transformed and changed by God.
WE are called and chosen for this task, not just ME. I may be chosen and called by God and this community of faith, but you too share this calling. For together, as the people of God, we are all called to be priests to each other. We are called to be God's people, though we once were not.
"Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."(1 Peter 2:10)
I believe our call and the call God spoke to the Jewish people long ago are the same. We are all to be ministers of God, witnesses to his love, faithful servants and priests to him, until the day when we stand together with the whole world under God's great glory on that New Day, clothed as the kingdom of priests that we are called to be.
O God, as you called the people of Israel long ago and renewed their covenant through the ages, so we pray you would call us and renew our covenant that we might join them in declaring your love. Amen.
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