May 28, 2006
(Seventh Sunday of Easter)
An Accidental Apostle
by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
Acts 1:15-26 or Exodus 28:1-4,9-10,29-30 • Psalm 68:1-20
or 47 • 1 John 5:9-15 or Acts 1:15-26 • John
17:11b-19
(From
The Lectionary Page)
A long time parishioner here at the Cathedral tells of her uncle who routinely would respond to the innocently asked question, “What’s new?” by snarling, “Too doggone much.” We all can probably think of at least one relative or friend – or who knows, maybe the person we see in the mirror – who responds to newness with something less than eager enthusiasm. The paradox we live with is that while as a culture we Americans tend to embrace newness, innovation and change, we as individuals and institutions often do not. And we’re not alone in this. Certainly innovation and change was viewed with suspicion in the Greco-Roman empire, as well as in Judaism in the time of Jesus.
Which, frankly, makes all the more astonishing the context and the content of our reading this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. In very short order in the grand scheme of things, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, died, and was resurrected. His betrayer died, and the eleven disciples who remained were commissioned to continue the work of ministry in the name of Jesus who promised to send the Holy Spirit to empower their apostolic witness. Jesus then left them again by ascending to the Father – we marked that feast day last Thursday.
This is a lot for a bunch of Galilean fishermen to deal with. It would be a lot for any group of people to deal with. Most of us would expect that these tumultuous changes would result in more than one boat getting rocked, so to speak. Usually when the equilibrium of a system is disrupted, anxiety mounts, people get reactive in one form or another, agendas spring forth, coalitions form, and a fair amount of emotional chaos develops. Happens all the time, even in the best of churches.
But what we hear instead in our first reading is the calling of Matthias. Matthias was not one of the twelve, as Luke typifies Jesus’s disciples, but rather part of the larger body of followers. The grisly demise of Judas created an opening in the apostolic ranks. The eleven remaining apostles discerned that Matthias and Justus were fit candidates, and they cast lots to make the decision. Matthias won.
And that’s the first and the last time we hear of Matthias in the entire New Testament. Presumably, he is included whenever Luke refers to the Twelve in the book of Acts. No miracles are attributed to him as they are to Peter and Phillip. He takes no prominent leadership role as James does. Even those Johnnies-come-lately Paul, Barnabas and Timothy, get more press than Matthias does. He is an accidental leader, one whose promotion is less about him and more about what God is doing in the midst of the faithful band of Christ followers. He is a laborer who brings experience and devotion if not name recognition. He is, or ought to be, an icon for us all.
He reminds me of my great, great uncle Fred Hayward. Fred’s father, Giles, my great, great grandfather, was one of the founders of a small Episcopal church in southeastern Minnesota. But it was Fred – the bachelor son – who endowed the parish with money, who sat on the Vestry for decades and who gave at least one important church furnishing, though heaven only knows what that was. The parish merged about 15 years ago with a larger congregation and the building was demolished. In our dining room, sitting on the floor in the corner for want of a better place, is the bronze and wood plaque honoring something that Fred had given to the church in the late 1800’s. Don’t have a clue what that something was, and the merged parish’s archives are of little help. I keep the plaque because it is a Matthias Thing. Here was a man, like Matthias, devoted to the church. He gave his time, energy, treasure, and a something befitting a 37-lb plaque. Lives were touched and the gospel proclaimed in part because of his work and his witness. And while the details are lost to the dust of history, they are not lost in the reign of God.
Matthias was called to apostolic witness at a unique moment in the history of the infant church. The brief time between the Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a time of transition. When Jesus moved to a different sphere of reality, space was created in the lives of the disciples for the astonishing work God would do next in the sending of the Holy Spirit. It was a letting go of one thing, so that a new thing could take hold and flourish. In the case of the disciples, the new thing would be the gift of the Holy Spirit, enlivening them, empowering them for a kind of ministry that even days earlier would have been unthinkable.
And how astonishing that in this time of transition and uncertainty and newness, the eleven did something that, for them, was out of character. They trusted in the fullness and the grace of God. They knew somehow that God would make fit for ministry those who, by faith, had followed the Son. That, to me, is the REAL miracle of the Ascension: that in that awkward, liminal time of transition, when they "should" have been overcome by their own anxieties and agendas, that they didn’t implode; that they chose instead to trust that God would guide them in their next steps, including the decidedly unorthodox method of adding Matthias to their ranks.
The enduring good news from our first reading is that the Church is not about us. It’s for us that together we might restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. The blessing for us all, if we can but hang onto it, is that the church is enriched and strengthened by all of us together. Lives are touched and the gospel proclaimed in part by all of our work and all of our witness. And while some of the details are sure to be lost in time to the dust of history, they are never lost in the reign of God.
Help is on the Way
by The Rev. Bryan England,
Deacon
The gospel reading for today is out of sync with the church year, simply because we are in the 10 days between the Ascension of Jesus, which was celebrated on Thursday, and the feast of Pentecost, which is next Sunday. There is virtually nothing in the gospels about this period, because the gospels that mention the Ascension end with that event. There is only the first chapter of Acts to tell us what was going on during those ten days.
Today's gospel lesson foreshadows the period when the disciples are without their master. It is set during the Last Supper. The disciples are still in the upper room, and Jesus has just washed their feet. Afterwards, they will go out across the Kidron valley to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus will be arrested by the temple guards. But first he prays what has been called his "high priestly prayer," which is unique to John's gospel.
The prayer can be divided into three parts. In the beginning, Jesus prays for himself, that God would glorify him, so that he could glorify the Father. But soon Jesus' prayer turns outward. He prays for his disciples, that they may be kept in unity with God, with Jesus, and with each other. Then, in the final part of the prayer, he prays for those who believe because of the disciple's witness, that we might be one, and that the world might believe. The parts of Jesus’ prayer that touch on unity are especially poignant as we approach the Episcopal Church’s General Convention. Some are coming to this convention with the avowed purpose of sundering the very unity for which Christ prayed on that last night of his earthly life.
Today's reading, however, is from the central part of Jesus’ “high priestly prayer,” where he prays for his disciples.
Jesus prays, "Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me . . ." We don’t choose Jesus, we are given to him by God. The Spirit of God moves our hearts to respond to the call of Jesus. Jesus protected his disciples throughout his ministry on earth, but now that he is returning to the Father, he turns them back to God's protection. But he is very specific about the kind of protection they, and we, are to be given.
"I am not asking you to take them out of the world," Jesus prays, "but I ask you to protect them from the evil one." Jesus does not pray that we might find escape from life, or from adversity, but that we might have victory over adversity. We are in the world, and are subject to everything everyone else is, the good and the bad. We live and we die, we hunger and we thirst, we develop cancer and heart disease, we have accidents, and are victims of crime and natural disasters.
But that's all. We are subjected to nothing more than anyone else. During a Bible study once, my Linda was required to memorize this verse from First Corinthians, "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." Mother Teresa of Calcutta acknowledged this when she said, "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much."
We also have something that the world does not have. Jesus says, "I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves." The joy of someone who truly knows Christ is unsurpassed. I'm not saying you can't be a Christian and be depressed, or in grief, or in pain. But I am saying that if you profess the Christian faith and don't possess an inner joy that passes all understanding, you need to find a spiritual friend who can help you discover the joy of Easter.
Christians are in this world, but not of this world. We are sanctified in the truth, as Jesus prayed. Sanctified. Consecrated. The word used here is hagios, which is usually translated "holy," but its basic meaning is "different" or "separate." In a society where everyone tries to fit in, a Christian stands out. And in the context of today's gospel reading, the word means set apart for a special task. But what task?
For me, today's gospel lesson gets really scary at this point. Jesus prays to his Father, “As you have sent me, so I have sent them." We get our word "apostle" from the Greek word used here for "sent." We are an apostolic church, not because we are a Church founded by the apostles, but because we share the mission of the apostles. Mull that one over for a second. As God sent his only son to the world, so his only son sends us, you and I. To do what? To do what Jesus did.
Attending church once a week is not enough. Reciting the Nicene Creed is not enough. Attending vestry meetings is not enough, although it's close. When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask whether Jesus was the expected one, Jesus doesn't respond with yes or no, or what he believed. He said, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them." Jesus told them what he had done. He had brought the kingdom of God among them.
As the Father sent the Son, so the Son sends us, to do what he would do. The reason for our existence, indeed, the reason the sun continues to come up every day is so that we might have another day to spread the good news in both word and deed, to bring about the kingdom of God on this earth. Think for a moment what this world would be like if everyone lived as Jesus taught us to live. That is our task.
“All right, Jesus!,” you say. “I give up. I'll do it! I'll go out and do what you did in the world. I'll heal lepers! I'll raise the dead! I'll preach good news to the poor! But how? I can't heal lepers, and even if I could, there are a lot more lepers than I can handle. And there are more poor than there are lepers. I can't raise the dead.” My wife contends I can't even take the trash out correctly. How am I going to bring about the kingdom of God on Earth?
And Jesus didn't even hang around to help! He ascended into heaven last Thursday, and is sitting at the right hand of the Father, leaving us to do all of the work! How can we do it? Did he just dump this mission on us, and then take off?
If this were a television show, right about now it would be occurring to you that it is almost time for the show to be over, but that there is too much plot left to be resolved in the time remaining. Then those dread words, “to be continued,” creep across the bottom of your television screen.
No, Jesus did not just dump this mission on us, then ascend into heaven, and leave us on our own. But in order to find out what he did do, you will have to come back next week, same time, same place, different preacher.
I'll give you a hint to how it ends, though. Help is on the way.
