Chosen
October 2, 2022 § 3 Comments
In meeting for worship this morning, someone quoted Jesus from Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” He went on to say that, notwithstanding the promise, we often do not get what we ask for, and very often doors remained shut to us, and perhaps that is because we are asking for outward things that are not what would fulfill us. That what we are really asking for are friendship and love. (I am reminded of James 4:3, a favorite of George Fox: “You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts [unrighteous desires of any kind].”)
From this seed grew a message of my own, from the gospel of John, from which we get our name as the Religious Society of Friends:
You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth, I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does, but I have called you friends, for all the things that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you. . . . These things I command you, that you love one another.
John 15:14–17
I didn’t say more today—I just quoted the passage—but I have written in the past about how our name is therefore rooted in the commandment of love and in the promise of continuing revelation.
But today I left out verse 16: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
After I had spoken, I realized that I had left verse 16 out—and that I always leave this verse out, or at least that I have never paid much attention to this verse about being chosen and its importance for early Friends. And it was opened to me that this verse was probably at least as important to early friends as the others, maybe—probably, even?—the most important verse of all.
I suspect that this verse was, among others, the foundation upon which they built their sense of themselves as a peculiar people, a people gathered by Christ for a purpose, and that purpose was to bear fruit that lasts. The most concrete and immediate manifestation of this sense of chosenness, this sense of being “ordained,” is vocal ministry, feeling ordained by Christ to proclaim the gospel, not just in meeting for worship, but also in the world—in the steeplehouses and streets, in the courts of the sultan and the pope, in England and the Americas. . . .
Somewhere along the line, we Friends have lost our sense of being chosen and our vision of the fruit we are to bear. Well, “liberal” Friends have, anyway; I don’t know the evangelical branch well enough to know whether they feel chosen anymore, or what their vision of their mission is, beyond, perhaps, winning souls for Christ.
Christ is the key here. To feel truly chosen, someone must have chosen you. Most of us in the liberal branch no longer believe in a Christ who might be choosing us. Now we “feel led.” We use the passive voice to avoid declaring our leader. (Though it must be said that the passive voice is a classic biblical rhetorical device, also: “Your sins are forgiven,” proclaims Jesus (Matthew 9:2); he obviously means forgiven by the Father.)
Now, “vocal ministry” is often expressed as “speaking in meeting,” or “giving a message.” “Vocal ministry” means, etymologically, “spoken service”. Service to whom? There’s a “whom” implicit there. We could say service to the meeting and/or to the other worshippers, and this is certainly true.
But that is not what we originally meant by vocal ministry. We originally meant service to God, or more specifically, to Christ, who is making know to us all the things he has heard of his Father.
We’ve switched from Christ to the Holy Spirit, sans the baggage of the Trinity. Now we pray for “Spirit-led” vocal ministry without tying “the Spirit” to the spirit of Christ.
Well, that actually works for me. I, too, have no direct experience of “the Spirit” as the spirit of the risen Jesus. And I share the modern liberal nervousness about believing we are a “chosen people”. Think of the ramifications.
But this highlights a radical shift in the character of Quakerism as a religion. It used to be about relationship (with Christ). Now it’s about a more vague, diffuse, impersonal spirituality of being led by “the Spirit”. There’s no sentient being on the other side of a relationship. What are the ramifications of that kind of spirituality?
Through the Flaming Sword 
Thanks for these reflections and questions. The Eternal Being with whom I am in relationship is a sentient being–more sentient than a human being, as is the Spirit of Christ.
Quakerism, you write (and very perceptively, Steve!), “used to be about relationship (with Christ). Now it’s about a more vague, diffuse, impersonal spirituality of being led by ‘the Spirit’. There’s no sentient being on the other side of a relationship.” This is to our great loss as a body. But if and when that Sentient Being wills, we will know that He is there, “and every eye shall see him.” Meanwhile, those of us who know we’ve been chosen by Him lurk within the Religious Society of Friends like shy ugly ducklings; many of us uncertain why He chose us, sinners that we’ve been; but we’re there — sinners in recovery, all of us.
I was going to direct the reader to the many early Quaker citations I was sure I’d find attached to John 15:16 in the Quaker Bible Index, and to my shock found none listed! (But I have evidence, in the form of a penciled marginal note, that this was an unintended omission.) But then I “went around to the back door” and searched in the Digital Quaker Collection for uses of the word “chosen” in the works of George Fox, and immediately found “hits” in Fox’s “Primitive Ordination And Succession Of Bishops, Deacons, Pastors And Teachers In The Church Of Christ” (_Works_, 5:172) and “A Testimony Of What We Believe Of Christ” (_Works_, 5:84-154, passim). And this was just the beginning of the many early Quaker texts I found that attest to early Friends’ awareness that they were not merely chosen individuals but “a chosen generation” (1 Pet 2:9).
If you have any trace of a wish to be counted among the chosen, Friend, just tell God that you’re willing to put aside your self-will whenever it conflicts with God’s will, if God will help you live up to that commitment. You will be surprised by what happens.
Thank you for that word “sinners”; it suggests something I’ve been trying to say in my latest (painful) piece of writing. In modern America, the word “sinner” came to mean too many inappropriate things — as if the issue came down to some sort of primitive taboo-violation, a crime deserving punishment (or a plea-bargain in lieu of that)
We need to remember that Jesus didn’t teach better behavior alone, that he was accepted as a teacher first-of-all because he healed. Healing, forgiveness, and doing right in future seem to have been aspects of one thing. That thing was “not about us…”