I have been reading Romans 8 with a view to both Christmas and my brand-new cancer diagnosis. It led me to some other thoughts sharable here.
   The people who are called “those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) are also called “God’s chosen” (v. 33). God’s choosing, expressed in the verb rather than the adjective, is described in 1 Corinthians 1:27–28:

God chose what is stupid in the world to shame the smart, what is weak in the world to shame the strong, what is low and despised in the world, even things that are nothing, to bring to nothing things that are.

   When I was a kid, the occasional bully liked to beat me up because I was tall but easy to beat up. And (did I mention?) I was rather mouthy. The proceeedings often included verbal reminders that “You [meaning me] ain’t nuthin’,“ so I’m glad to know that my nonbeing has a part in God’s salvation actions.
   1 Corinthians 1:18–31 is about “God’s chosen,” both (a) “Those who are in Christ Jesus” and (b) Jesus himself. “God chose us in Christ” (Ephesians 1:4), so the two are inseparable.
   In regard to the former (a), we also have a near-echo of 1 Corinthians 1 in James 2:5:

God chose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.

That’s about literal poverty and, in context, on the other hand, about people who despise poverty (vv. 1–6).
   My sister (also literal) has recently downsized her living quarters, had to fight city hall to some extent for the right to do so, and has been for quite a while an advocate for people over cars in urban places. I know a little bit of what she speaks because, like Isaiah and his “unclean lips,” I “dwell in the midst of a people” (Isaiah 6:5) whose ambitions are expressed to a great extent by bigger vehicles, bigger houses, and bigger debts.
   In regard to (b), Jesus as “God’s chosen” and therefore as “what is weak in the world”: In a little reading about this word “chosen,” I ran across something like “of the Messiah, as the most exalted office possible.” Having written The One Story, I knew to respond that to be Christ is also (or, better yet, just is) the most despised position.
   So, while you listen to the angels singing, remember the smells of the dirty stable, the uncouth shepherd-visitors, the lonely and difficult flight from Herod‘s death squads, and the one who was

despised and rejected by the people,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
He was despised,
one from whom people hide their faces.
We did not respect him.
(Isaiah 53:3)