According to Sunday’s Lectionary, Jesus tells his disciples, “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit…” But they kind of chose as well – they could have said ‘no’. In this context, the idea that they were chosen makes them truly a part of this big project, to ‘bear fruit’. They need not worry about not being up to the task – Jesus (and the Father) will give them what it needs. Those words may help us at a time when God’s way (locally anyway) seems further than ever from human hearts; and justice and truth and mercy seem like some kind of anomaly.
But let us not forget that ‘choice’ is a slippery idea. From the kind of ‘persuasion’ that helps a powerful man convince a young woman to let him use her body, to consumer ‘choices’ only available to those with spare money, to the five-year choice we all make, which needs accurate information to be truly democratic, ‘choice’ is something inevitably never totally free.
