7 Easter B

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
May 20, 2012

7 Easter B

When I was in college, I spent three summers as a camp counselor at the Episcopal Church camp in the Diocese of Arkansas. The pay was low~$300 for the whole summer, the food was wretched, the cabins were old World War II army barracks, the temperature climbed into the upper 90's every day and hardly cooled down at night. And the counselors signed up summer after hot summer. Each summer we became a close knit community. We all liked working with the kids, and we could never imagine a time when we would all be grown up, have spouses and children of our own, and go our own separate ways. We thought we would be together forever.

Some 30 plus years later, several of us have reconnected on Facebook, the Internet social networking site whose stock happened to go public this week to great media fanfare. Until we met up on Facebook, most of us have not stayed in touch over the years and almost none of us stayed in Arkansas. Someone posted a photo of the 1979 camp staff on the website, and I’m not sure whether I was more surprised that I could actually identify some of the people, or that I could not even recognize the face of others. Thirty years ago, these folks taught me how to keep giving when I thought I had nothing left to give, to see Jesus in the lives of disadvantaged children from the inner city, and that to sing is one of the most powerful ways for me to pray. Thirty years ago, these people were an integral part of my own faith life and my development as a Christian. Now I wonder if I would recognize them if they walked through the door.

This morning, we listen as Matthias was chosen to take the place of Judas as one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. The remaining 11 apostles had just witnessed Jesus’ ascension into heaven, an event the church marked this past Thursday. Jesus told the 11 before he ascended that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So today we mark that uncertain time between the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. What are the apostles to do during this uncertain time? They do the same thing many of us would do-they get organized. The apostles need to choose a new apostle so that they would be a group of 12 once again. The criteria for becoming the 12^th apostle was that this had to be someone who had accompanied Jesus and the apostles from the time of Jesus’ baptism until the ascension. This criteria is a little quirky since Jesus did not call the disciples until after his baptism, but perhaps the point is that the criteria are impossible. The apostles proposed two people to the larger body of believers: Joseph, who was known as Justus, and Matthias. Interestingly, we know from various gospel accounts that James and the other brothers of Jesus may have actually qualified, yet they were not actually considered. After spending time in prayer, the believers cast lots and the lot fell to Matthias, and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Clearly, the addition of a 12^th apostle was very important to the original 11. We are not told what would happen if the number remained at 11, but apparently that was not an option. The whole gathered body of the faithful, which, we are told, numbered about 120 people, chose the 12^th apostle and they did so in the context of prayer. We are also told that the people believed that God had already chosen the 12^th apostle, and the work of the faithful was to discern who that person was. And apparently, that was Matthias.

So, what does Matthias do as an apostle? Does he cast out demons and cure the sick? Does he proclaim the gospel with such power that thousands are baptized and added to the ranks of the faithful? Is he jailed for his witness to Jesus or even martyred? The truth is that Matthias is never again mentioned in Scripture. Never. We know nothing about his ministry as one of the 12 apostles. One commentator took Matthias to task for not living up to his role as an apostle. Another commentator took Scripture to task for telling us nothing else about Matthias. Yet another suggested that the apostles made the wrong choice because they did not wait for the Holy Spirit to come on Pentecost before making their decision, and that’s why we hear nothing more about Matthias.

While only God knows the real story, there is another way to understand the role of Matthias. My hunch is that Matthias had a clear and important role in the life of the embryonic church at a particular time and in a particular place. After being chosen as the 12^th apostle, Matthias probably went about the rest of his life making Jesus known to those around him, using whatever gifts God gave him. Perhaps he was not a great orator like Peter, didn’t wind up in all parts of the known world like Paul, but that doesn’t mean that Matthias shirked his responsibilities or was an ineffective witness to the gospel. Matthias was probably like most of us who go about our business, doing the work God has set before us, witnessing to the love of God through our actions, and hopefully laying the foundation for God to do great things.

When I think about Matthias, I think about the many people who were once incredibly important in my faith life and who made a lasting impact on my relationship with God, but whose faces I would not recognize now. But we would be remiss if all we took from the story of Matthias was to remember and give thanks for people from our past who had a lasting impact on the development of our faith, however significant that impact might have been. Matthias calls us to remember that each of us, with our words and actions, can be Matthias for others. Like Matthias, there may be no written record of our words or actions, and our faces might not be recognized decades from now. But like Matthias, we are sent out into a particular place at a particular time to do the work God has given us to do, witnessing to the love of God with our words and actions, and laying the foundation for God to do great things. In the end, that is the very definition of an apostle.

Amen.