CPCBA Sermon: Who We Are and Whose We Are
In “Who We Are and Whose We Are,” Rev. Heather Schoenewolf reflects on what it means to be fully known, deeply loved, and chosen by God. Drawing on Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18 and 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10, she connects Paul’s encouragement to the young church in Thessalonica with a deeply personal family story about adoption, belonging, and the reassurance of being chosen again and again.
As CPCBA begins a new fall season and program year, the sermon reminds us that being chosen by God is never a claim that we are better or more deserving than others. Instead, our belovedness becomes a calling: to live God’s love out loud, to do the work of faith, to labor in love, and to endure in hope. In a world marked by anxiety, division, and uncertainty, our lives can become living witnesses to the transformative love of God in Christ.
As you read, consider:
What does it mean to you to be fully known and loved by God?
How is being “chosen” different from being considered better or more deserving than others?
Where have you experienced the reassurance that you belong?
What might it look like for you to “live God’s love out loud”?
Where are you being called to do the work of faith, labor in love, or endure in hope?
How can the church offer a visible reason for hope in a world that often suggests otherwise?
Key Quotes from the Sermon
“They would still choose me.” — David’s reaction to his father’s wedding toast becomes a powerful image of belonging: the parents who chose him as an infant would still choose him all over again.
“Before they even had faith, they were known and loved and chosen.” — Heather emphasizes that the Thessalonians’ faithful lives did not earn God’s love. Their faith, love, and hope grew from already being known and loved by God.
“We have this affirmation that we are chosen, that we are loved, that we belong to God.” — The sermon’s central reassurance is that our identity begins with belonging to God and being held in a love that will not let us go.
“We are never to hear that message as a message of exceptionalism.” — Being chosen by God does not mean being better or more deserving than others. Chosenness instead carries a responsibility to extend love to others.
“We, like the church in Thessalonica, are called to live that love out loud.” — God’s love becomes visible through the way we live: doing the work of faith, laboring in love, and continuing in hope.
“May we do the work, the work of faith. May we labor for love and may we endure in hope.” — Drawing on 1 Thessalonians, Heather closes with a call for our lives to become living witnesses to the transformative love of God in Christ Jesus.
The Sermon
I love the fall. Does anyone else here love the fall? All right, I saw someone like, “Yes.” I do not love earlier sunsets. If we could have later sunsets and fall, I would be completely on board. But I love the tinges of crisp air with the sunny skies.
I love the crunch of dry leaves under my feet. I will go off of my path to step on one. It just feels good.
I love the holidays that mark the next few months. And I love that we decorate to celebrate these holidays and how people in the world together mark time, season, and occasion with things like pumpkins and trees and lights.
Now, I love that my neighbor and I were oozing with excitement over the fact that the wig that she ordered for her Cleopatra skeleton would be arriving soon as she makes her display that fills her front yard and her porch. If you come visit me in the city, you’ll see a porch filled with skeletons. That’s not mine. It’s hers.
And I love that fall is ripe with new beginnings. I love that back-to-school energy of new grades in school. Though you can catch me afterwards and I’ll show you my son’s first-day-of-school picture, where the back-to-school energy is marked with also getting a little older and a little cooler. When I asked him to stand in front of our door and hold that sign like parents do, he was not the beaming elementary schooler he’s been in the past. He got there.
I love that there are so many celebrations of new beginnings. That our Jewish siblings just had their celebration of Rosh Hashanah, marking the beginning of the Jewish New Year, and that later this fall, weeks before that ball drops in Times Square, we have a chance to launch a new liturgical year as we begin the season of Advent.
And I love that we start over again: moving back into the sanctuary, kicking off our program year, having the choir singing with us, and Sunday school starting. I love getting back to a fresh but familiar routine of our faith.
So, it would probably come as no surprise to you to learn that David and I got married in the fall.
We got married on a partly rainy, partly sunny, partly cold, partly warm Pittsburgh morning. And in a move of tradition, we asked both of our fathers to give toasts at the reception.
Now, I will say, as we go back to the DVD of our wedding—we got married in the era of DVDs, not VHS, not cloud footage, but a DVD—as we rewatch the DVD of our wedding video, especially since in the last seven years we’ve lost both of our dads, the part of our ceremony or our celebration that we watch the most includes the words our dads shared in their toasts, the blessing they offered us as we began our married life together.
So, when David’s dad raised his glass of champagne and toasted us—and maybe this is also appropriate because it was also the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, and he ended with a “Live long and prosper” salute at the end because we’re dorky Trekkies—but he raised his glass of champagne and at the end of his toast, he looked at David and me and he said, “You know, your mom and I love you and we like you. And if you weren’t already ours, we would choose you to be our friends.”
Now, these words are beautiful, and they do not fall outside of, like, a standard father-of-the-groom sentiment. But David’s eyes filled with tears, and he leaned over and he said, “They would still choose me.”
See, David was adopted when he was an infant, chosen by his parents before they even held him in their arms. We’ll tell you the story someday of the nun and the priest bringing him on a train from Allegheny County to Philadelphia. That’s another story.
But his parents throughout his life have joked about the days that they forgot that he was adopted, about the times that they would call each other to try to get some medical history for a sports form for school, only to have the other person say, like, “Yeah, our family medical history isn’t going to make a difference. Just say, you know,” and like, “Oh, that’s right.”
But as David’s dad assured us that he would choose us as his friends if we weren’t already family, an adopted son heard his dad’s reassurance that he would be chosen all over again and again.
Now, as a people of faith, we hear themes of chosenness woven throughout our biblical texts in the Hebrew and Greek, Old and New Testaments. And these words of chosenness are offered, in fact, in a similar spirit. They are extended to God’s beloved children as an affirmation of God’s unconditional love for us.
In the psalm that Diana read for us today, we heard of God’s intimate knowledge of each one of us, a knowledge that, in fact, precedes our birth and follows us into the world. No matter how far we try to go astray, there is an inescapable hold that God has on us, God’s beloved, reminding us of that familiar line in the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans: there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
And then, in these opening verses of Paul’s letter to this young church in this coastal town of Thessalonica, Paul tells the believers who continue to serve God faithfully even after Paul and Silas and Timothy were hastily run out of town that they are among God’s elect.
That, in fact, they are not only doing the work of dynamic, faithful living, but they are infused by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is evident, for even those who are neighbors among them are reporting this word out into the larger world and saying, “We all have heard of how you are persevering in the work of faith, laboring in love, and enduring in hope.”
Their lives are shining examples of Christ’s love.
Paul holds up that mirror and reflects that back to them, saying to them that they are known and loved not because of the strength of their faith. That is there and true, but it is a fruit.
Before they even had faith, they were known and loved and chosen.
Paul reflects back to them that the love they share with God in Christ is evident, and it is known to all through the quality of their living. Even in turbulent times and persecution and a hostile world where life is hard, they rest in the promises of a God who will never let them go.
Now, Paul’s letter to this fledgling church family celebrates this truth, and he holds it up as an example to others. He says, “You, young church, you’re getting it right. Others are. You’ve heard the gospel message and now you’re living it. You’re transformed. Lives are shining a light for others.”
And Paul raises a glass with some paternal pride that this church that he nurtured in faith and hope and love is inspiring others to do the same.
Now, Community Church, we gather at the beginning of a new season, a new fall, a time of new beginnings. Our messages today remind us of the truth of who we are and whose we are.
Embedded within our hearts and our identity as individuals and as a people is the love of God, a love that will never let us go.
We, like the church in Thessalonica, are called to live that love out loud, to work out our faith, to labor in love, and to endure in hope as we engage a world that is not always friendly. In fact, it is usually hostile to a message to love our sibling as ourselves.
When we step out into the world or doomscroll through our news feed, we are challenged continually to discern what this means as people of today.
We have this affirmation that we are chosen, that we are loved, that we belong to God.
But the writings that we read today remind us that we are never to hear that message as a message of exceptionalism, as a message that tries to suggest that we are better than others, or that we are recipients of something—of a love of God that is not extended to all—but rather, our chosenness, our belovedness, our call as a church is to love.
To live this love with such purpose and conviction and hope that others will see that there is a cause for hope in a world that tries to suggest otherwise.
If I asked how many of you lost sleep this week over news headlines of AI, or memories of the anniversary of 9/11 and where you were 25 years ago when planes hit towers and fields and the Pentagon, I’m sure that more hands would be raised, as hands were raised earlier in our service.
And we gather to worship a God who assures us that in the midst of the turbulence of history and the challenges of our day, God is with us and God loves us here and there and always.
As we begin again, may we live into this truth, and may we do so not just embracing that feeling of what it means to be loved by God, but embracing the call.
May we do the work, the work of faith.
May we labor for love and may we endure in hope, because our lives are living witnesses to the transformative love of God in Christ Jesus.
And for this, let us say thanks be to God. Amen.
