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Gracious God, as we celebrate your love and your grace on this holy day, help us to receive all that you have prepared for us.

"Chosen"                           Cicero United Methodist Church       May 17, 2009

Text: John 15: 9-17            Confirmation Sunday            Jack Keating

Gracious God, as we celebrate your love and your grace on this holy day, help us to receive all that you have prepared for us. Bless the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. Grant that we might hear what you would have us hear, see what you would have us see, and do what you would have us do. Amen.

On the night of his betrayal, Jesus spoke these words to his disciples:

"I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my father. You did not choose me, but I chose you."

Some of the best and worst moments of my life have to do with being chosen .....

I remember being the last one chosen as a child. When the kids in the neighborhood picked captains and chose sides to play baseball - or any other game in fact, I was always the last one chosen - if I was chosen at all - and even when chosen I was rarely allowed to play.

It was a pretty ego bruising thing not to be chosen .... To be left out, to be considered the least valuable person ...

But what a different feeling to be among the chosen ... when one day the baseball coach chose me to play on his team - not because I was good - but mainly because he was good, because he knew that it meant a lot to me to be chosen ... to be a player ...

How good too, it felt later, when I was older, to interview for a position of authority and get a letter with an employment offer in it to work for a company, and then later on, without even asking, to have two different companies write to invite me to consider applying to join their firm.

What a wonderful experience it is to be chosen! To know that we are important to someone, that we are valued, that we are desirable.

Being chosen is important stuff.

Today, in our text, we hear that the Son of God, the Christ, the Chosen One of God, has chosen us - and chosen us not simply to be servants, but to be his friends - and this without us even seeking him, without us even choosing him. In just a few minutes, you members of our Confirmation Class will come forward here in the sanctuary and profess your faith and choose to become members of this fellowship, of this church family, this family of God. But long before you choose to do that, Jesus has already chosen each of you.

This is incredible to me. Incredible and wonderful. We, you and I, are of value, of worth, to Jesus - to the son of the living God.

I want you today to think about what this means.

I am sure that you have had the experience of being told by someone that they love you, or that they think you are very special, and have had a hard time accepting their statement - a hard time accepting it - not because of their behavior - but because of your own behavior, your sense of inadequacy, your sense of sinfulness, or your lack of ability.

So often as we travel through this life we turn away from the love of others, not because of anything in them that puts us off, but because of things inside us: because of the fear that the friendship being promised to us isn't applicable to the "real me", because of the fear that the other person will end up discovering the truth about us - whatever we think the truth is and turn away from us when we need them the most.

So many of us are frightened - so afraid - so uncertain - that even when we are chosen ­we do not feel the joy that being chosen can bring to us.

And again - some of us are so suspicious - so uncertain of ourselves - so afraid - that when we are chosen, we get to thinking that we have been chosen, not for ourselves - but what it is that we can do for the one that has chosen us.

This ought not to be! Not everyone is a user. Not everyone judges by the exterior. Not everyone expects things of us that will end up dragging us down and wearing us out.

Hear this day and everyday, my friends, that you are chosen! Chosen by the Christ, the Chosen One himself! He wants you on his team - not for what you can do or cannot do, not for your abilities or your inabilities, but because he loves you and wants to show his love for you and - through you - to others.

He knows who you are - and he calls you.

He knows what you have done - and what you will do - and he chooses you.

He chooses you - not to be his servant, or his slave - but to be his friend; such is his love, and the love of the Father, for you.

That's what today's Scripture reading says.

Jesus calls those who have been following him, those who have been listening to him, those who have been trying to do what he asks of them, whether they have done it well or poorly, his friends.

"I do not call you slaves or servants any longer", he says, "but I have called you friends." Now that is a saying which should sound even greater to those who heard it for the first time ... than it is to us.

The term "Doulos", which is translated as the slave or servant of God in this passage, was no title of shame at the time Jesus spoke it. It was a title of the highest honor. Moses was a doulos of God, so was Joshua, so was David. Doulos was a title which Paul counted it as an honor to use; and so did James. The greatest men and women of the past had been proud to be called the douli, the slaves of God.

And yet Jesus says: "I have something greater for you than this, you are no longer to be called my slaves; rather I call you my friends."

Jesus Christ offers an intimacy with God that not even the greatest and most worthy people knew before he came into the world.

And being Jesus friend means that we do not need to gaze lovingly at God from afar off; We are not like slaves who have no right whatsoever to enter into the presence of the master, but are simply to obey his order.

We are not like someone in a crowd whose only glimpse of the king is in the passing on some state occasion, but who none-the-less must pay taxes and serve that king.

Rather, we are privileged to enter into the very presence of our God and to speak with him on the most intimate terms about those things he wants us to do. We are allowed to see what is in his heart - to share his joys and concerns - and we are told that he will listen to those things upon our hearts, those things that excite us and those things that disturb us.

A writer tells the story about a woman who worked for many years as a housekeeper to an influential member of the community, who had recently passed away.

"I'm sorry to hear about Mrs. Smith's death, "said a neighbor to the former housekeeper.

"You must miss her greatly. You were such friends."

"Yes, ma'am", said the housekeeper. "I'm sorry she died. But we weren't really friends."             "Why", said the neighbor, "I thought you were. I've seen you laughing and talking lots of times."

"Yes, ma'am. That's so", came the reply. "We've laughed together, we've talked together, but we were just acquaintances. You see, we never shed any tears. And people have to cry together before they're friends."

Our Lord, our friend, our God, has cried with us and for us.

--- He wept over Jerusalem and those who would not come to him for his healing touch and forgiving word.

--- He cried at the tomb of Lazarus for Mary and Martha and for all who were gathered there with him.

--- He weeps most surely today for us and with us ..... when we are hurt and when we are lost and when we are afraid.

He knows us and he loves us so much that he became one of us.

And that is part of what makes the gospel such good news. Jesus has walked our walk­ and he did it as a friend does it --- not simply to show us how things should be done, but to accompany us on our way .... To be our companion and our guide .... our support as well as our teacher.

Jesus is our friend - a friend who shares with us all that he knows of the mystery of God, a friend who opens to us the gates of heaven that we, with him, might rejoice and be glad and enter in.

WE ARE HIS FRIENDS - CHOSEN BY HIM AND APPOINTED TO BEAR FRUIT, fruit that will last .. .fruit that will please the Father.

A final story.........         .

A man went to his pastor to say that he felt there was a lack of friendliness among the members of the congregation and that people were reluctant to greet one another in church. The pastor agreed with him and said that he had devised a plan to change things.

During services the next Sunday, the pastor described the situation to the congregation and said that the following Sunday they would have a brief pause in the service to allow people to turn to those seated near them and greet them with a friendly hello. After the service, the same man turned around to the woman behind him and said "Good morning." And she looked at him with shocked indignation and snapped, "Oh no ... that doesn't start until next Sunday!"

The truth is that some folks aren't ready to be friends of either God or us - but, regardless of their choice, we are called to be friends to them, to choose to act in love not only towards those who love us - but to outcasts, to people we've never met, to anonymous drivers on the road, to little children who are lost, to aged people who need help to take care of themselves, and - of course - to our neighbors in the pew - no matter how grumpy he or she may be ...

As you go forth today - go knowing that Christ has chosen you, that he finds you worthwhile - that he values you - that he thinks you are important, that he wants you for his friend. And rejoice in it! Take the joy in it that Christ wants you to have!

And as you prepare to come for the Rite of Confirmation and then go, go resolved to make friends of others, no matter who they are, or what they are about, or what they have or have not done. For that is what it means to have been chosen and appointed by Christ to be fruitful.

Remember my friends that God has chosen you to be his friends - despite the fact that you - and I - at first - did not choose him. But let us choose, as he asks of us, to be friends to others and then we'll be truly fruitful in our own journey of faith.   AMEN.