Who are God's Chosen?

Acts 9:13-15 (NRSV): God’s Chosen

But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about [Saul of Tarsus], how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.

Denver Moore was a poor sharecropper from Louisiana, living his life in a shack and in debt to his boss. He lived much of his life as a “modern” slave, unable to break free from the debt piled on him by the farm owner for whom he worked. Losing almost all of his family over the years, Denver decided to leave everything behind and hop onto a boxcar headed to Fort Worth, Texas. There, he lived for decades as a homeless man, surviving on the streets with nothing but the ragged clothes on his back and the free meals he ate at the local mission or out of dumpsters. Denver became a callous loaner, bitterly rejecting the company of all people. The last years of Denver’s life, however, were formed in the company of a living saint, Deborah Hall. She and her husband Ron nurtured a nearly impossible relationship with Denver. This slowly unfolding friendship led Denver to become one of the most loving, self-sacrificing people to those around him, including those people at the Fort Worth Mission he once shunned and ignored. Denver’s story is recounted in the book Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together; it is a tale of radical transformation. It is a story, moreover, of God’s grace and how he chooses those we least expect to be his agents of mercy and love in this world.

In Acts 9, Ananias cannot believe that God chooses Saul of Tarsus, a man who has done evil to Christ’s faithful and has imprisoned many in the early church. No one at that time would have chosen Saul to be “an instrument . . . to bring [Jesus’] name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” Saul was the last person anyone in the early church would have expected to become Christ’s voice.

God often chooses the least likely to be his ambassadors of love in the world. Both Saul of Tarsus and Denver Moore exemplify this.

Who, then, is God calling? The question is twofold: Not only should we question our own calling from God, but we should consider who God has called from the least likely among us. Let us examine our day-to-day lives and those we encounter with the eyes and heart of Christ. And let us think who just might be the Saul and Denver among us.

Heavenly Father, our eyes are often closed to the miracles around us, the least likely who are called to do your will. Please grant us the grace to see, love, and support those who are called to be your agents. And when you call each of us, kindly grant us the grace to respond in love. In Jesus Christ we pray, amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan