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Art Historian, Dr Jim Harris

Last night at our house we were watching TV.  But this was not old-school, corner-of-the-sitting- room, collective TV. Oh no. This was modern, hand-selected TV, bespoke TV, individually curated for a unique, personal experience.

In other words, Susie and I were both tired and both watching catch-up.  I was watching the one with the Irish teacher and the American ad guy who start a family. It’s very funny. And Susie was watching the one where nearly everyone gets a virus and turns into a zombie, which isn’t funny at all.

The thing about both programmes though, is the extent to which they depend on choice.  In the funny show, two people choose each other for fun and end up choosing each other for life.  In the zombie show, all the people who aren’t zombies, when they’re not killing zombies, are endlessly having to choose who to trust, who to share with, who to love.

Now, people have a huge capacity to love but, no matter how great, there’s only so far we can be stretched, so we all make choices about who we love, who our favourites are.  And because of that, we all know how special it feels to be chosen, not in a fighting zombies or picking-sides- for-football way, but in a way that makes us know we are truly wanted and needed.

Christians believe that God, on the other hand, has an infinite capacity for love and, more to the point, that he has no favourites at all but is interested in the whole world. St John’s Gospel repeats the idea again and again: God gives light to the world, he gives life to the world, he forgives the world, he saves the world.  He loves the world.

In other words, God chooses us.  All of us.  God chooses to love the whole world and everyone in it – black, white, female, male, gay, straight, old, young.  Everyone. We are all loved.  We are all chosen to be loved.  And I reckon that in a world where the limit of my weary Tuesday night ambition is to get to choose my own TV, that’s a pretty amazing thought for a Wednesday morning.