And the lot fell on Matthias

Acts 1:15-26.

Acts 1:26: “And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.”

There are any number of call-stories in the New Testament. Particularly stories of individuals being called to discipleship. Jesus calling John, Peter, James and the rest. Paul with that famous Damascus road conversion. And so on. But there are fewer accounts which allow us to catch a glimpse of how the early church as a community went about the business of finding leaders for their congregations. One of the most detailed, and to my mind, by far the most intriguing, is the story from Acts we just heard read a moment ago. Here Luke tells the tale—and a strange tale it is—of the selection of Matthias as a leader in the earliest Christian community in Jerusalem. It’s a vivid, and slightly unsettling, report of how they went about it then. The very strangeness of the process could make us shy away from the story as a bygone tale of a bygone age—or worse as a cautionary tale of how not to go about doing things. On the other hand, as with many an intriguing narrative in the NT, the fact that it does seem odd, that it has a clear distance and difference from us, can challenge us to think afresh about what we are doing here and now. And why.

1. The first thing that strikes me about the Acts passage is that ghastly bit in verse 17-19 about the demise of Judas. A field of blood; falling headlong forward; bowels gushing out. It’s pretty awful stuff. In fact it’s so awful that compilers of modern lectionaries, who set passages to be read out week by week in church, just quietly drop these verses out when they get to this bit. And it’s not hard to see why. Or to sympathize with the decision to do it. But—Luke wouldn’t; leave it out that is. He put it there in his story of the selection of a new leader for the church. And if he’s giving an accurate report of the sermon Peter preached at the time, Peter saw fit to put it in as well. Why?

My hunch is the answer to that question throws light on something very important about the dynamics of religion in a world like this. It’s great to talk of ministry in terms of pastoral care—the good shepherd and all that—challenging preaching, courageous mission, a loving relationship with Christ and so on. These are central values of leadership in our community. And we must constantly attend to them. But, Luke seems to say to us, don’t get too misty eyed about it all, or about yourself in it. The pastoral care of the flock, the faithful preaching of the word, the mediation of the love of Christ to people can be a tough business. When you contemplate leadership in Christ’s community, Luke says, remember Judas. He was a good man, selected by Jesus himself. What happened that took him from a place of wholehearted commitment to Christ, to a fateful decision to guide those who wanted to kill Jesus right to his very side? Was it ambition, jealousy, disappointment, impatience, greed, fatigue, despair? Who really knows? What Luke wants us to remember is that there was betrayal at the heart of that early community and it wreaked real damage on God’s cause.

Religion around the world today has a deeply ambiguous public image. Not just the church, of course, but religious commitments of all kinds, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu. Such commitments are often viewed with suspicion, fear and even terror. Awful violence has been and is perpetrated in all sorts of ways in the name of faithfulness to God. And if it is true that the nature of God is accurately revealed in the life of Jesus, and God at heart is love, peace and justice, then great betrayals of God are committed almost daily in overt and covert ways by people who claim to be representing God’s purpose in the world.

The press in our country in recent years, with mixed motives perhaps, has seen to it that (so to speak) verses 17 to 19 have not been allowed to drop quietly out of sight. Rather they have been read out in the blaze of public attention and across a whole range of denominations in our land. Our religious field has been called a field of blood; sometimes, sadly, with some justification.

So Jim, you take up your ministry at a tough time in the Australian context, and in the world context. Luke’s message is, don’t give up. The story reveals that the mission of Christ in the world has always been caught in conflict without, and sometimes betrayal within. But it also reveals that God does not give up on the task of redeeming God’s world and renewing God’s church. That is why, like Luke’s early community, we too need leaders—leaders such as this church has been wonderfully blessed with in recent times—who can remind us of God’s faithfulness and show us how God’s love and justice really work. Not by lifting us out of the world or closeting us from its pain and ambiguity and violence; or pretending that human sin is in the end not really so serious a matter, or that it does not really affect the church; but by working for the transformation, forgiveness and renewal of both church and world, right in the middle of its pain and ambiguity and violence. The truth of God’s salvation in Christ has to work in the face of ‘the Judas question’, that is, the corruption of the human heart even at its best, or it cannot really be good news of a new creation at all. The ministry needs to be realistic about our human lot, in the world and in the church, not merely idealistic or worse misty-eyed sentimental.

2. The second thing that strikes me about this story of leadership is the surprising selection procedure. ‘And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias [slightly worrying double entendre there Jim!]. (v 26) Now, in the light of contemporary managerial practice, that process looks pretty dodgy. Who’ll we induct into the ministry today, chaps? Well…let’s roll the dice, toss the coin, draw the straws.

Of course it wasn’t like that. A closer look at the text shows that the community was well aware of the selection criteria they were after. And they are strongly christological. What we need, they said, is someone who has ‘accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us…’ (V 21)

In short, we need someone who knows first hand the story of Jesus. Not just the facts. Not just that Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan then did this, and said that, and went there and upset them, and fell foul of the law, and finally up losing his life in the most unpleasant of ways. Not someone who can rattle of these facts, however fluently. But someone who knows the meaning of the story in its depth. Knows this story—beginning with John, well Mary really, and ending with the ascension—knows this story is the miracle of incarnation. Knows that the story of Jesus’ comings and goings in Palestine is, at its heart and in its depths, the story of God’s comings and goings in the world. Knows that. And can speak it and live it.

It is clear from Luke’s account that there were a number of people who could meet those selection requirements. The community short list them to two: Joseph and Matthias. Good candidates both, apparently. On the face of it, either could do the job. So which is it to be? Throw the dice? No. Not yet. ‘Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen”.’ Only then do the lots come out.

We know from other stories in the bible—the story of Jonah being the most famous—that casting lots was a traditional way of breaking a deadlock of human choice. What lay behind this seemingly dubious way of deciding important matters was a theological theory and an accompanying practice that specifically tried to factor into the human decision-making process space for the providential guidance of God. When they had done all they humanly could to discern the way they should go, these early believers pause, deliberately, and make a kind of ‘space’ in the proceedings where the hand of God can manifest itself, and thus the will of God find genuine expression in the final outcome. The lot is that theological space.

Now we don’t quite toss the coin in deciding on our leaders these days. At least I don’t think we did, did we Graham? But we have our equivalents. You will be well aware, Jim, that around the Baptist world there are a number of people who have the qualities, gifts, dedication, vision, courage needed for leadership here. Qualities we know you have in abundance. We, your community, have gone through the process of shifting and searching for those who have these qualities. But in the end this selection process is more than a human effort at discernment. In the final analysis there is the mystery of God’s election in it all.

We have done our research, we have prayed for guidance, and the issue (the ‘lot’ if you like) has come out here. You, Jim, are called. Standing in the tradition of the church that stretches back to Matthias, you have the right, indeed I think you have the duty, to trust that when as you are inducted as minister of this church, it is ultimately the hand of Christ that touches, marks and enables you to take up this work. Be assured, Jim, this is the faith of our community, too.

3. Finally, and most importantly, this story confronts us with the heart of the ministry you are to take up. An awful lot is expected from church leaders today. You are supposed to be a manager; to iron out inefficiencies in our organizations and make them produce more with less. And then to calm any mooing in the herd that may follow on your efforts! And you are expected to be a visionary and articulate for us the shape of God’s coming kingdom, or if that is too much, at least the shape of this Baptist community for the next 10 years. And you are to be a charismatic front runner. Able to inspire us with hope, till our hearts are aflame for the cause, and our hands strong for the task. And you are meant to be an ever available pastoral presence. To care for the flock, to bind up the wounded, to encourage the faint hearted, to search out the lost.

And you are these things. We know you are. And you will do these things. We know you will. But none of them ultimately defines the ministry. Luke is blunt here. We need, he says, someone who knows the story of Jesus from the inside. But—and this is the nub of it—someone who knows the story of Jesus in such a way that they ‘must become a witness with us to his resurrection.’ (v 22). Organisation, vision, charisma, care, mission these make sense in the church only as they bear upon the witness to the resurrection of the crucified Jesus.

We live in a pluralist context. That’s obvious. Ours is not the only and certainly not the loudest voice on the block. This can tempt us to soft peddle our witness. To look inwards more than outwards. To whisper the hope that is within us, rather than proclaim it from the housetops. And maybe such modesty is an important part of present-day church reality.

And yet this witness, the witness to the resurrection of the crucified Jesus, is still astonishing in a world too full of amazing things; and still good news in a world where bad news sells. Think briefly of what it means.

To become a witness to the resurrection of Jesus is to say to the world: God is! After all, resurrection is not one human possibility amongst others that we may achieve if we put our minds to it. If the rejected and crucified Jesus is risen, it is an act of the living God, or it is nothing.

To become a witness to the resurrection of Jesus is to say to the world: God cares! The early believers struggled hard with the question, not only as to whether it was possible to think that God might actually choose to become embroiled in the pain, passion and possibilities of this world in the life of Jesus, but more puzzling, why would God bother? Why on earth take that journey from Bethlehem to Golgotha? After all, this is God we are talking about. And the answer they came to, and struggled to believe, even as we struggle, is that God so loved the world that God couldn’t resist the temptation to give it God’s best. And God’s best is God’s presence and God’s presence is God’s love. If the rejected and crucified Jesus is risen, God is and God cares.

To become a witness to the resurrection of Jesus is to say to the world: God chooses! The cross is not a game of trivial pursuit. If God is ‘in Christ’ it is clear that God stands for some things and stands against others. Jesus was thrown out of the city and onto the cross because he said (and I’m baldly summarizing here of course) that love is more important to God than power; that life is more interesting to God than religion; that living truthfully is more significant to God than living famously; that making justice is nearer to the heart of God than making money. If the rejected and crucified Jesus is risen: God is, and God cares, and God chooses.

To become a witness to the resurrection of Jesus is to say to the world: God has the final say! In the normal run of events, death has the last laugh. We live our life as best we can, with its joy and laughter, sorrow and tears. But in the end we lie down in the dust with our ancestors. Likewise, the state follows its ambitions through politics and economics, dealing with its supporters and detractors as best it can. But if things get really rough, in the end it declares war, and if all else fails it blasts its opponents into oblivion. Death settles the dispute.

The life, the love, the stand, the vision that Jesus took were thrown out in exactly this way. Death, they said, will put an end to his disturbance in the world, like any other rabble rouser. And yet it didn’t happen. This life, this love, this stand, this vision turned out to be unkillable. And for that reason it has been received by the church as the life, love, stand and vision of God, the immortal Lord. To become a witness to the resurrection of the crucified Jesus is to say to the world: God has the final say! And his word is life, not death!

God is, God cares, God chooses, God lives beyond death, this is what it means to become a witness to the resurrection of Jesus. And this, Jim, is the witness, that above all else you do and in all else you do, we look to you to lead and encourage us in.

So welcome Jim in the name of Christ. Be a realist in your dealing with the world and with the church. Know that you are called by Christ. And never give up on announcing the resurrection of Jesus.

May God bless you, and bless the church and the world through your ministry here.

Amen.

GG 23/8/2005