Blessed and Chosen

Many churches have instituted a ceremony that has become very popular with animal lovers called “The Blessing of the Animals.” It is an opportunity for pet owners to bring their critters for a priest or pastor to lay on hands or simply have a prayer for the animals either individually or in groups. Here at St. Andrew’s we celebrate this rite on the Saturday closest to Oct. 4, which is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.  This year it will be on Saturday, October 6^th at 10AM.

At one animal blessing in San Francisco’s Washington Square, a pet owner carried a timid cat named Rusty, who hid inside a duffle bag.

“Rusty is afraid of everything,” the owner told the priest. “He’s like the lion in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ So we brought him here hoping to give him courage.”

One woman brought her fluffy white American Eskimo dog. She was praying for a change in his behavior. She said he eats furniture, destroys floor covering and runs away when he’s called – antics that have earned him the name “Devil Dog.” It’s so bad that she was asking for a little divine intervention.

“He looks so sweet,” the owner said after the priest sprinkled holy water on the unruly 11‑month‑old pooch. “But it’s totally deceptive. When he was blessed, I was really happy that his head didn’t start spinning and green stuff didn’t spray out of his mouth.”

Well, I hope the blessing worked. I hope Rusty the cat gained some courage and that the “Devil Dog” experienced a thorough exorcism. If we find out it did work, perhaps we ought to try having a “Blessing of the Politicians” ceremony in Washington sometime.

Maybe you’ve noticed that one of the words in vogue in our society today is the word “blessed.” The young lady in the drive through at McDonald’s hands you your coffee and adds, “Have a blessed day.”

A friend is talking about her three children. “I am blessed,” she says.

A guy talking about his job says, “I received the promotion that I’ve been waiting for . . . I feel so blessed!” So what exactly does it mean to be ‘blessed’?

In today’s Epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.”

So does this mean that everything is going to go our way? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it means something entirely different.

A fellow named Al Keeney tells of a young man who bags groceries at his local super market. The young man has Down syndrome. On one occasion, he very conscientiously bagged Al’s groceries.  Keeney thanked him and moved to push the grocery cart out the door. But the young man insisted that helping Al to the car with the groceries was part of his job.  So Keeney dutifully followed the young man to the car. He opened the trunk and the young man carefully placed the grocery bags inside. Keeney said thank you. Then the young man did something that caught Keeney off-guard. He put his arms around Keeney and said, “I like you!” Keeney, in turn, said the only thing he could come up with: “I like you, too.”

Thinking about that moment Al Keeney writes something quite touching. “Now, some will say that when I see that young man in heaven, he will have been made whole. In other words, they think he will be like the rest of us. But I wonder if, when by God’s grace I am made whole, I won’t be more like that young man. You see, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 6:22-23). My friend the bag boy was blessed with all those qualities and none of the pride or meanness that so often afflicts me.”

What a beautiful understanding of what it means to be blessed. Usually when we think of being blessed, we think of things like being blessed financially, or being blessed with good health, or an abundance of talent, or an attractive appearance.

But the fact is you can be blessed financially and physically and in terms of such things as talent or intelligence or appearance . . . and lose your soul. Your financial abundance can blind you to the needs of others, your physical well-being may make you insensitive to those who are suffering, your talent or intellect or attractiveness can delude you into thinking that you are self-sufficient and no longer need others or God. Can you begin to see that some of the things you count as blessings can turn out to be the worst thing that ever happened to you?

You are blessed when you live to the best of your ability in the center of God’s will for your life.

In addition to being blessed, we have been chosen by God. Again, that may mean something different than we suppose. Normally we think of being chosen as an honor or an award that we have won. Chosen for the football team . . .  chosen to be a cheerleader . . . chosen for the country club . . . chosen for a promotion, chosen to serve on a board, etc.

Usually we are chosen for some virtue or strength or attribute we have. And this is something that we look forward to. We may even brag about it. We have been chosen. Well, long before we were chosen by God, the children of Israel were chosen by God. How has that worked out for them? Few groups have been persecuted as they have.

In the famous play, Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, the leading character, is a pious Jewish peasant living in a small Russian village who loves to stare up into the sky and argue with God. In one particularly dark moment, when everything seems to be going wrong in his little Jewish community, Tevye looks toward the sky and says to God: “It’s true we are the Chosen People. But once in a while can’t you choose someone else?”

Israel was chosen to be a blessing to the world – not to receive blessings, but to give them. Being chosen was an honor for that ancient people, but it was also a burden.

Being chosen certainly doesn’t mean that God loved them or loves us more than any other people. We are a prosperous people, but it is a very dangerous thing to say we have been chosen for prosperity.

When we say “we have been chosen by God,” it is more like the recruiting posters for soldiers in World War II. They showed a stern-faced Uncle Sam wearing a top hat over his flowing white hair and pointing directly at the viewer. In bold letters across the bottom, the poster reads, “UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU!”

The soldiers who were recruited by those posters were lured chiefly by love of country. They certainly did not expect any special favors. They were being recruited to make the world safe for democracy. They were recruited because they believed in the idea of freedom.

We are being recruited because we believe in Jesus Christ. Our task is to bring people into the family of God. God has in mind a new world order. It means that every person in this world will live in dignity and harmony as children of God under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That is God’s new world order. And you and I are the agents of God’s plan.

We are blessed and we have been chosen to be God’s ambassadors, as Israel was, to be a blessing to the earth.

And where do we begin? We begin right here, right now – reaching out in love to everyone with whom we come in contact. When we as the church of Jesus Christ fulfill that one simple mission, the gates of hell cannot long endure. What a wonderful thing it is to be blessed and chosen. It doesn’t mean that God loves us any more than he loves anyone else. It doesn’t mean that life is going to be any easier than it is for anyone else. But what it does mean is that our lives have meaning and purpose. For we are blessed and chosen to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ.