February newsletter

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people… (1 Peter 2:9a)

We used this verse at the beginning of K.I.C.K. to introduce the idea that we are all God’s saints: God’s holy people, not by our own merits, but only because of God’s great love for us. More recently, this passage from 1 Peter was the theme for our Senior High retreat at Luther Crest Bible Camp. (Perhaps you might imagine how it could relate to the “Frozen Chosen” this month as well.) We explored what it means to be God’s chosen people—what does this tell us about God, and about us?

Of course, that’s one of the points: the writer of 1 Peter isn’t talking to us just as individuals, but as a group, a community of God’s people. (My Southern cousins would just say “y’all” instead of “you” to make this more clear.) Part of our calling, then, is to be that community—chosen, not each of us alone, but as part of a larger family of God’s children. That’s part of what we are about in our parish, every day and every week, as we work and live together both as congregational families and as a parish family, all part of the larger Christian family.

How do we know that we are God’s own people? I invite you to look for the signs in the coming weeks and months. There are so many of them! One is the existence of our parish itself. Another might be the cooperative effort of some women in our parish to provide quilts for Luther Crest, or of young people preparing to go without food for 30 hours to support hungry children, or the faithful service, each and every week, of readers and greeters and ushers, in each of our congregations. Or perhaps we might see signs of God’s people at work in our families, our communities, our schools, or our jobs. God is so busy among us!

~Pastor Sarah