Above: Goliath Laughs at David, by Ilya Repin
Image in the Public Domain
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The Collect:
O God of life, you reach out to us amid our fears
with the wounded hands of your risen Son.
By your Spirit’s breath revive our faith in your mercy,
and strengthen us to be the body of your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 33
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The Assigned Readings:
1 Samuel 17:1-23 (Thursday)
1 Samuel 17:19-32 (Friday)
1 Samuel 17:32-51 (Saturday)
Psalm 150 (All Days)
Acts 5:12-16 (Thursday)
Acts 5:17-26 (Friday)
Luke 24:36-40 (Saturday)
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Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy temple;
praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts;
praise him for his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the blast of the ram’s horn;
praise him with the lyre and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe.
Praise him with resounding cymbals;
praise him with loud-clanging cymbals.
Let everything that has breath
praise the LORD.
Hallelujah!
–Psalm 150, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
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The reasons to praise God are myriad, beyond any human capacity to count. One of those reasons is that God frequently works via people some of us (at best) consider unlikely agents of grace.
Consider David, O reader. Yes, I know that 2 Samuel 21:19 has Elhanan, son of Jair from Bethlehem kill Goliath of Gath, and that 1 Chronicles 20:5 has the same Elhanan kill Lahmi, brother Goliath. If that is not sufficiently confusing, David plays the lyre for King Saul in 1 Samuel 16 yet has not gone to work for the monarch yet in chapter 17. These contradictions result from the combining of differing traditions in the canon of scripture. Such contradictions are commonplace in the Old Testament, starting in the early chapters of Genesis. One needs merely to read the texts with great attention to detail to detect them.
I use 1 Samuel 17, in which David, not Elhanan, kills Goliath, for that is the version the framers of the lectionary I am following chose.
In 1 Samuel 17 young David seemed to be the least likely person to rid Israel of the menace Goliath posed. A crucified troublemaker from the Galilee seemed to be an unlikely candidate for an inspiring and timeless religious figure. Apostles hiding in fear after the crucifixion of Jesus seemed to be unlikely candidates for leaders in a movement to change the world. They faced persecution; most of them died as martyrs. As Jesus said,
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
–Luke 6:22-23, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
The theme of seemingly unlikely agents of grace occurs in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It is easy to overlook the fact that many in the original audience found the idea of a good Samaritan shocking, even beyond improbable.
The real question I address is not the identities of agents of grace but human biases regarding who is more or less likely to be one. We mere mortals need to learn theological humility, especially regarding how we evaluate each other. Do we even attempt to look upon each other as God perceives us?
The composite pericope from Acts 5 reminds us that functioning as an agent of grace might lead one to harm. Sometimes people suffer for the sake of righteousness because the light exposes darkness for what it is.
…the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
–John 1:5, The New American Bible–Revised Edition (2010)
Perhaps we do not recognize agents of grace sometimes because we are caught up in the darkness and are oblivious to that fact. Mustache-twirling villains, commonplace in simplistic morality plays, are rare in real life. Most “bad guys” imagine themselves to be good, or at least engaged in necessary, if unpleasant work.
Another reason for failing to recognize agents of grace is functional fixedness. We simply do not expect something, so we do not look for it. We seek agents of grace as we know them and miss those agents of grace who do not fit our preconceptions.
How might God surprise you, O reader, with unexpected (to you) agents of grace? And what will that grace cost you?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 18, 2015 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARC BOEGNER, ECUMENIST
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Adapted from this post:
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BLOGA THEOLOGICA 
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