Tuesday, 12 April, 2005

1 Peter 2:9-10
"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."

There are lots of voices that try to tell us who we are and what we should think about ourselves. Nearly every television commercial tells us, at least implicitly, that our value as people is determined by the products we consume and the stuff we buy. If we want to be people of refined taste, we'll have Kohler faucets in the bathroom and a Lexus in the garage-or at least those are the things we'll want to have. And maybe we don't have to have a white picket fence anymore, but conventional wisdom still tells us that I'm only on the right track if I've got a romantic relationship, a lucrative job, and a well-developed portfolio to ensure my comfortable lifestyle into the future. Political voices tell us the same. If we want our opinion to count, our identities need to fit the molds presented to us with labels like "freedom-loving" and "patriotic" or "modern-thinking" and "progressive"-and then we have to buy into the agendas that go with them wholesale. And if we listen closely to those voices, they'll all tell us that we have to do something first and only then will we be people of status. My worth is then either grounded in my tenacity in getting the best for myself, or my ability to fall in line with what some other group calls "good."

The word from 1 Peter, and from the whole witness of Scripture, turns that whole logic on its head. Our worth and our identity do not rest in whether we have chosen the right things or come from the right category first. Rather, they are grounded in the God who has first chosen us and brought us into a new people. Our identity is given to us as a gift of grace, and our value comes from the unswerving declaration of God that we are loved. That faithful love redefines us-it says we are precious when conventional wisdom calls us damaged goods. And it gives purpose and meaning when television can only advise us to aimlessly acquire more and more stuff in the pursuit of happiness. It can almost be scary to live in the freedom of that love, since we no longer have a checklist of things to do or have in order to guarantee our status-only the simple promise of God that we are "God's people." But maybe-no, more than maybe-that promise is enough.

Connection: What might I freed from as I see that other claims do not have the final say on me? What might I be committed to as I let the claim of God take hold of all of who I am?

Gracious God, tell us who we are again-we forget so easily. Open our eyes to see that you have already brought us into you marvelous light, and let us see the possibilities of this new day.