I love a good hero story. There’s often a backstory, explaining how heroes like Frodo, Harry Potter and Batman are chosen. 

We like to think the chosen hold a glamorous, elevated status. But I’m not sure being chosen is all that much fun. 

Did Job enjoy it? 

Or the prophet Samuel, whose life was threatened every time he was ordered to deliver unwelcome news to Saul, the mad king. 

Or Moses, whose people were dubious of his role as God’s selected leader. He wasn’t a “real” Hebrew, was he? He’d been raised Egyptian, a beneficiary of Hebrew slavery. As he led his people through the desert, more than once they turned against him, complaining that they would have been better off as Pharaoh’s slaves. 

We think of these people as heroes, when really they were singled out for persecution. Being chosen might be a burden. 

But Being chosen is not so bad when we have each other. Think of how Jesus deputized his disciples to bring the message of good news for the poor to all the nations of Earth. 

All authority of heaven and Earth has been given to me, Jesus says, and I am giving it to you. Now go and share it (Matthew 28:18-20). 

This good news has the power to revolutionize the world. The kingdom of God could grow up out of the ashes of empire, galvanized by the body of Christ. 

I am chosen. I can’t deny it. The eyes of the principalities of Earth are turned toward me and my people — Indigenous people — and we must do our best to survive. 

We must resist laws and policies designed to remove us from our lands, to extract and pollute our sacred waters and to deny our existence. This is true in the U.S. and around the world, as our lands are encroached upon to access resources like copper, lithium and uranium. 

I am calling on you to resist with us. I am calling on you to stand with Indigenous land and water protectors as we resist the inertia — the failure to act or to change our actions — that is causing climate change.

How can I do this? How can I deputize you? Well, I claim that Jesus shared with his disciples all authority of heaven and Earth.

I am chosen, and so are you. 

A few weeks ago, I participated in a reparations event with Cyneatha Millsaps, an Anabaptist leader in Goshen, Ind. We discussed the role of the church in responding to systemic injustice and how it impacts African American and Indigenous communities. 

We discussed the nature of repair as relational work that belongs to all of us. 

I turned to the room of 75 people and said: “The Spirit is moving. Can you feel it?”  

I could. And so could the others. 

This is not a metaphor. The Spirit is real and among us. 

You are chosen. Do you feel it? Does not your heart burn within you, walking together on this road?