{"id":4164,"date":"2024-07-09T08:13:57","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T15:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/coloringoutsidethelines\/?p=4164"},"modified":"2024-06-26T10:13:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T17:13:10","slug":"you-are-loved-and-chosen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/coloringoutsidethelines\/2024\/07\/you-are-loved-and-chosen\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing God’s Word: I got you, Beloved, & I’m proud of you"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last Saturday, I gathered with a few of my neighbors in the backyard. As often now happens at Garden Club, we gather in one garden initially, but then we migrate from one garden to another, to see one another\u2019s places and sometimes get something only their yard can provide.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d trapsed over to one neighbor\u2019s backyard because she promised the rest of us lemons. Seeing as I have a lemon tree that hasn\u2019t yet produced the fruit I so desperately want, I carried a paper bag from my house to hers, eager to fill it up.<\/p>\n

And, indeed, she had lemons. And she had fava beans. I took fistfuls of each, eager for the lemonade that would eventually, inevitably get squeezed, eager to try fava beans for the first time.<\/p>\n

Then, she took us around the corner, to a shaded part of the yard. She lugged over a stool, placed it under a large leaf, and lifted it up to reveal a huge stem of BANANAS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bananas, growing right there in the middle of East Oakland. Bananas, like nothing I\u2019d ever tasted before \u2013 a little citrusy, probably the way bananas were intended to taste before mass production took over.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why, then, am I standing behind a pulpit, talking about bananas on a Sunday morning? Because, this:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAre not two sparrows sold for a penny?\u201d Jesus asks. \u201cYet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I marvel at my own marveling of bananas \u2026and can\u2019t help but think of God\u2019s marveling in return. Surely, God wonders, God marvels<\/em> at bananas and sparrows, but how much more <\/em>God marvels at us \u2013 for \u201ceven the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid, [for] you are of more value than many <\/em>sparrows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus spoke these words to his disciples before sending them out, but as you may recall, Jesus spoke similar words to a huge crowd gathered before him.<\/p>\n

In the Sermon on the Mount,<\/a> he says:<\/p>\n

"\n***
** Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
** Could part of our invitation today be to enter into the marvel and the wonder as God sees us, <\/em>to know and believe and really trust, beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are God\u2019s beloved?<\/strong><\/p>\n
** That we, the children of God, are loved and chosen for exactly who we are, as we are?<\/p>\n
** It\u2019s like God peeks out from between the old hymnal and the wooden pew, whispering directly to us, Beloved, I have counted each and every single one of those hairs on your head \u2013 the ones that remain and the ones that keep growing, the ones that you\u2019re losing and the ones you wish you had more of. I know this number because I know YOU: that\u2019s how much you matter to me. So, really, stop your worrying: I got you, for you, my dear, are dearly loved.<\/em><\/p>\n
** Of course, we see hints of this in today\u2019s Old Testament passage and in the psalm as well: In Genesis 21, an Egyptian slave named Hagar is kicked out because of another woman\u2019s jealousies. Some might say Sarah, the jealous woman, the kicker-outer, had every right to be jealous since her <\/em>husband fathered both boys. Had Jerry Springer (God rest his soul) been around in early 2nd<\/sup> millennium BCE, this chapter would have gotten strong ratings.<\/p>\n
** Hagar is kicked out of her home, sent away with bread and a \u201cskin of water,\u201d along with her child. She knows she\u2019s been sent to die, so she does the only thing she can do: she shows mercy by placing her child underneath one of the bushes. Maybe someone will find him and care for him. Maybe she will be spared from watching him die.<\/p>\n
** Whatever her reason, it is here <\/em>that God begins to speak to her. God calls from heaven and says, \u201cWhat troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.\u201d For her and for her son, God provides and God accompanies; God continues to be with Hagar and <\/em>with Ishmael as the years go on.<\/p>\n
** God becomes the one who sees.<\/strong><\/p>\n
** Now I don\u2019t know about you, but how might the words God spoke to Hagar also be words God speaks to us? What troubles you, \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00adSt. Paul\u2019s Episcopal? What troubles you, dear one? \u2026 Do not be afraid, for I am the one who hears and sees and knows every hair on your head. <\/em><\/p>\n
** Might this be the case?<\/p>\n
** I also see this in the Psalm: although I\u2019m normally drawn to the words that declare who God is and what God\u2019s about, when I sat with the passage this last week, I couldn\u2019t help but notice the words the psalmist spoke about himself: I am poor and needy. I am devoted to you. I cry out all day long. I lift up my soul, I call on you.<\/em> Just as the psalmist shouted truths of God, he shouted honest, vulnerable truths of himself \u2013 truths that were real, truths that weren\u2019t always so shiny and polished on the outside.<\/p>\n
** What then would you shout of yourself?<\/p>\n
** ***If I were to write my own psalm, I\u2019d probably say, \u201cSpeak kindly to me, for I can be way too sensitive to tone.\u201d \u201cJust because I exude joy, doesn\u2019t mean sadness doesn\u2019t live inside of me.\u201d I don\u2019t know what it would be for you, but for all of us, I know this: we are loved and we are enough, just as we are. For we are God\u2019s beloved, and that\u2019s all that really matters in the end.<\/p>\n

Image created on Canva by Cara. Share it!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Grace Eventually<\/em><\/a>, one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, tells a story that happened in the Sunday school room every Sunday morning. At the end of their time together, she would sit on a couch at the front of the room, while all the wiggling, little preschoolers sat on the floor before her.<\/p>\n

\u201cClass, we\u2019re going to play Loved and Chosen,\u201d she\u2019d say. She\u2019d glance around the room slowly, sometimes in a goofy sort of way, and then she\u2019d say, \u201cIs anyone here wearing a blue sweatshirt with Pokemon on it?\u201d<\/p>\n

A four-year-old would look down at his chest, astonished to discover that he matched that description. What are the odds?<\/em> He\u2019d raise his hand and she\u2019d invite him over to sit on the couch beside her. Finally, she\u2019d look him in the eyes. She\u2019d called him by name, and she\u2019d say, \u201cYou are loved and chosen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamott would repeat the exercise over and over again [and I would do the same, choosing and telling stories of two parishioners equally loved and chosen in that moment.]\n<\/p>

I don\u2019t doubt it\u2019s the same for us: as much as God loves the bananas of the trees and the birds of the air, how much more God loves you. <\/strong><\/p>\n

For you are loved and chosen, beloved.<\/p>\n

Receive the good news today.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

This is from a sermon preached on June 25, 2023 at St. Paul\u2019s Episcopal Church<\/a> in San Rafael, California. If you liked this post, you might also like \u201cThis Jesus, This Jesus, This Jesus.\u201d<\/a> In the meantime, remember: you are loved and chosen.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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