‘You did not choose me, I chose you’

Sermon preached at All Hallows by Annie Heppenstall-West on 21 May 2006
Sixth Sunday of Easter

Readings:

1 John 5:1—6
John 15:9—17

‘You did not choose me, I chose you.’

This was the line that leaped out and grabbed me from the readings today, so that is what I am talking about. I found the thoughts that flowed as I wrote were almost entirely from my own personal experience of responding to that statement, so all I can do is share that.

You did not choose me, I chose you. The gods we choose, and the God that chooses us, and what that has come to mean to me.

We live, I think, in a culture that celebrates the right of the individual to have choice. And I revel in that as much as anybody, so I’m not trying to say it’s a bad thing. We have massive choice.

We choose our leaders and what they say they stand for. We choose things — clothes, cars, things for the house, things that express who we are, our world view — how we want the world to see us, what makes us feel good somehow. Consumerism thrives on it. We can become spoilt for choice.

Something I used to do, ages ago when the Dark Arches, down Granary Wharf under the railway, when it actually used to have a bit of character, you might remember it used to have amazing, dingy, slightly dodgy bazaar-like shops full of stuff from cultures all around the world. Well, I used to go along and buy gods. I had studied Hinduism and Buddhism a bit, and fancied I knew about the significance of the different images, their inner meaning, so I’d go and pick one that suited my frame of mind.

I wasn’t buying idols to worship, I don’t believe that’s what they are intended to be at all, I was buying symbols of sacred thought and devotion. What’s wrong with that? Not much, I don’t think; but what I was doing, looking back, was being very selective — choosing which ones I wanted. I looked for symbols, pictures, sculptures, that said something in line with my idea of God, of truth. And there are some notable ones missing too, because I didn’t like them so much at the time. Rejected gods that I didn’t want to deal with. But in Hinduism they say there are 33 million gods and goddesses, and that’s like an expression of endlessness — the endlessness of divinity, which actually is also only One. The only One.

So, I went out and chose my gods, not because I wanted to go deep and use them in devotion, as icons into God, but because I wanted expressions of my spirituality that suited me at the time, and the intellectual pleasure of being able to say to guests, ‘oh, this represents the abundance and generosity of God…’ or ‘this represents the soul’s longing for God, as a lover for the beloved’ … Superficial religious artefact consumerism — tut tut! It was not about me finding God or going deep into devotion, which is what these sacred things are made to assist, it was about me finding myself, my ego.

Thinking about it, I realise I haven’t just chosen my god in picking symbols to put around my house. I’ve chosen the face of God I want to see in many ways — what scripture justifies my lifestyle? What supports my politics? What helps me win an argument? My customised religion. And it’s all subject to change, of course. Scripture is great because all life’s in there — I can design my god to be however I like. I want a god of justice, a god of peace, a god for women, a god that’s on my side. Of course god is on my side, I picked my god’s attributes very carefully. Sometimes I even go to the scriptures of other faiths and nick bits of their texts out of context if I like them — self-assembly religion.

I’m not alone here, actually, I think. It’s a game people have played through the centuries. Look at the extremes that happen when it gets taken too far, horrors that have been justified by picking out bits of the Bible that fit the cause: slavery, racism, misogyny, the death penalty, homophobia… it’s egocentric use of scripture, it’s abusive of the scripture itself and abusive of people who don’t know the texts well enough to be able to come up with an argument.

It’s abusive, and it’s also limiting: it shackles us, prevents us from genuine, honest openness to the Spirit.

The deeper reality of God doesn’t work like that. God is not a commodity, not something like a fitted-kitchen design, where all the appliances somehow have to fit into all the spaces. God is not within my grasp. God is not something to be tidied up, filed away, pocketed, labelled, confined or compartmented. God will not fit tidily into my world view. God is not there as part of the furniture, some appendage that I parade in order to create a certain image about myself or fall back on to shore up an argument.

The living God is beyond my comprehension. My favourite name for God is Dakota: Wakan Tanka, Great Mysterious. It’s not even a noun, it’s two adjectives: Great Mysterious. And I like the Hebrew name Yahweh: I AM. Existence itself. All that is. Mind-blowing names, not containing names. God is beyond our control, outside our realm of knowledge and experience: we can’t wrap God up.

So if choosing God is a bit of a lost cause, what does it mean to be chosen by God?

In the Gospel passage Jesus says ‘I chose you.’

And there had been people in his ministry who had tried to choose him. Remember the conversation in Matthew 8:19 — A scribe then approached and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ In other words, ‘you won’t follow me when you realise how uncomfortable it is.’

And there were hangers-on who asked for leeway — fit into my plans — let me wait till my father’s death. Let me go and get approval from my family and friends. Let me come for a week and see if I like it. Let me check my diary, see if I’ve got a window. Let me have some control, let me get on with my life, let’s get real, you’ve got to see I’m trying to earn a living here… you’ve got to see that’s asking too much of me… you’ve got to see my family will never speak to me again…

But Jesus choosing, is Jesus saying ‘follow me’. Follow me now, put me first. That sounds scary, I think. It’s incredibly challenging. I have spent years resisting it, ignoring it, running away from it, arguing with it, twisting it round to mean something else, but it won’t go away. When Jesus chooses, he says ‘put me first and let go of everything else’, and my response has been no. No, because I love these things and my love is my service to God. But deep down I mean ‘no, I am afraid to lose them.’ I have wondered sometimes whether I can call myself Christian, because I never felt I dared do it: Oh come on, you don’t really mean I should put you before my family, my job, my house, my reputation… but he does. And my response has been fear. No way, you gotta be joking.

I spent years saying ‘no, don’t choose me, I want to choose you. I want to decide for myself what you are and on what terms I will follow you. You can see I’m trying to make something of my life, you can see I’m not going to prioritise you over my husband and child or my job, that’s crazy! I love them!’ Or, ‘I am afraid of being without them, and my love is tied up in my fear. I will not let go of these things, I want money, I want partnership and I want my child, but apart from that I will try to find a way of following you. I’ll follow you while I’m working. I’ll follow you while I’m at home. Isn’t that good enough?’ But it never was enough. It was fear, controlling my life. Fear was my master, my lord, not Jesus, not Love.

I created, I chose, false gods, works of my own hands. I built up a career. I thought I was going to be a deputy head, then a head, then an advisor and give other people the benefit of my experience and wisdom. I was going to be financially independent and do something useful with my life. I was going to be great, and God would like all the good things I bestowed on children in my care, and other good causes, because of my wealth. I would follow Jesus by being kind to children and full of integrity in my work, and ethical in my spending. Jesus would be glad I was a successful teacher. Then after 10 years I had a breakdown. I needed 12 weeks of counselling just to get me back through the school doors to have a meeting with the head. My career came crashing down, my false god, my false security that I’d chose, came crashing down too.

Running parallel to the teaching, I spent seventeen years developing my marriage. Almost half my life. Jesus would love the way I was kind and loyal, supportive and understanding, full of forgiveness and love. But it was harder work than I’d realised, it often didn’t seem to work; my confidence in my own loveliness wavered; my assurance in myself, and my capacity to be endlessly forgiving, got lost. When I had my breakdown, my husband provided for me. He was the one who gave me material safety and security at a time when I was totally helpless. I felt safe, he gave me time to recover. Then last year, after years of strain, he decided our partnership had no life and no joy left in it and left. What I had set up as my security, my god, was not my security or my god.

The third thing was my house. I found my house, I felt it was meant for me, it’s in a lovely place up by the woods. This was something else I didn’t want to leave, I put my house before the call too. But now, with divorce looming, I have had to make the decision that actually, I might have to let it go, or face 25 years of insolvency.

The things I had point-blank refused to surrender, in order to obey the call of Jesus, have gone anyway.

The one thing — not thing, person — I have been refusing to let go of, the one person I could not envisage it ever being right to put second to anything, is my son. I have wept over this. How can a loving God demand that a person lets go of everything, just because God has chosen you?

But last time I went to ‘Holy Ground’, the evening service we celebrate here, I felt I got an answer to that question, which melted something inside me. It melted the fear of letting go. It told me, perfect love casts out fear.

I had lost my voice, so instead of joining in vocally, outwardly, I went inside myself and meditated, and a picture came to me. I saw myself struggling to carry Luke up a steep grassy hill. A figure appeared at the top of the hill, surrounded in sunlight, and simply said, ‘put him down’.

Put him down. Of course it seems obvious now, he is too big for me to carry him; the burden of responsibility that I feel is better put in God’s hands. So I put him down, I let go of him, and we went up the hill together. I let him go, in my head, and I felt free. I didn’t feel like I’d abandoned him, I just suddenly felt able to trust God with a life that is loved by God.

Suddenly the call to let go of everything meant something different. It no longer meant ‘I will take everything, you will have nothing,’ it meant ‘Trust me.’ In that moment of clarity, let go was not the frightening letting go of a person hanging on for dear life at the top of a cliff, terrified of plunging to their death, it was the letting go of a person who discovers how to float in the water for the first time. God is not trying to terrify the wits out of us; I thought that because I was afraid. God loves. God wants us to let go, because only then do we realise how much we are supported, as water supports a boat. Only when I felt that I had nothing, did I realise that it’s God that holds everything and we all exist together in that holding. Perfect love casts out fear.

I have been talking today about my own experience, about choosing my gods, and the thought of God choosing me instead, but I don’t see that as an exclusivist thing — I want to finish with a thought about the big picture. Jesus’s call, his choosing of followers, reaches way back in time. It is the call of God to Abraham:

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you… and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis 12:1—3)

In his willingness to follow, all nations will be blessed.

And Isaiah 56:7b—8

My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.