Today in our reading from Acts we have a mention of one of the lessor known disciples, Matthias, who was the replacement for Judas. I have generally thought of Matthias in much the same way that I think about Sammy Hagar at the time when he joined Van Halen, in that they both replaced Jewish guys who had left the band over artistic differences – but enough of the wisecracks. The story we have today is how all of this went down; that is how was a new disciple brought in to replace the disgraced and now dead Judas. The text from Acts states, “Then they prayed and said, ‘Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.” We don’t know a whole lot about Matthias either before or after this story takes place. There are legends that he went to Cappadocia and possibly Armenia, but really we know very little of the man except for the very few things that we can discern from this all too brief entry and those things are this: 1. Matthias was a follower of Jesus, 2. He possessed certain characteristics that made him a candidate for replacing Judas and 3. We learn that he was willing to take on the roll of Disciple. And I think from this very little bit of information that we have we can learn something; that is we can take these small bits and view them as prescriptive for us and how we live our lives. So today let’s review this information and see how Matthias can be a roll model for us.
So lets start with the first thing, which is that he was a follower of Jesus, which rather obviously we should be too. This may seem a pretty obvious thing for a bunch of people sitting around church and also a rather low bar for things to emulate about Matthias, but it is the place from where all things begin. As Christians we should all be followers of Jesus. Being a follower of Jesus is different than being a church attender or checking Christian as your preferred religion. Being a follower is a call on our entire life. And while something like this may sound rather simple in theory it can be much more difficult in practice, largely because we can be easily distracted and start following other things. Or the other danger closely related to this is that we deceive ourselves into believing that we are following Jesus when we are, in fact, following something or someone else. But Matthias is someone who had his gaze firmly fixed on Jesus.
The second thing about Mathias is that he was chosen. That is, there was something in his life that made people notice that he reflected the teachings of Jesus – that is he was worthy of being a disciple. This may sound like a crude example, but today’s story tells us really about when Matthias went from being in the minor leagues to being called up to the major leagues. And the reason for this call up, just like in baseball was there was something about him that was different, that showed people just how adept he was at being a follower of Jesus. It would seem that in being chosen Matthias had shown that he got it. He had moved from purely an intellectual ascent to the teachings of Jesus to having those teaching permeate his entire being. For it is one thing to say that we believe that Jesus is who he says he is and quite another thing to actually have it change who we are. Where our following is exhibited in all parts of our life. And it is not just doing it, but doing it well and wonderfully. I don’t want to belabor this major and minor league Christian thing too because all metaphors can become ridiculous if pushed too far. But I think some of the difference comes down to the fact that both of them know the scriptures and the call that Jesus makes on our live, but it is only the major league Christians that fully follow Jesus and submit their entire will to the will of Jesus. And when this happens it is something that is recognizable. Those who do it are followers in thought word and deed –all day and every day.
The last thing that we see in Matthias is that once he was chosen, he willingly submitted to his new role. Now I don’t have the specifics of the job description for an Apostle and how it differs from just some dude who followed Jesus, but I am fairly sure that it involves more work and more responsibility. Essentially, what you see in this is that Matthias was such a follower of Jesus that it showed through in his life, but because of this God asks him for more - and Matthias accepts. And this is part of the Christian walk that we sometimes forget. We never reach a point where we are finished. Matthias is chosen for more because he has done such a good job and God wants to see more of what he can do. Put into other terms we might call this stretching. That is when God has seen what we can do and is now asking for us to do more. Now to clarify, I may be making this sound like God wants to add one more thing to our plate. That is our reward for doing a good job is that we get more work to do, but that is not necessarily what stretching means. It is not saying you are good at these two things let’s add two more, but rather it is calling us to something else, something more. Think of it like when we learned math. We learned addition, then subtraction, then multiplication and so on. These things built on one another. You did not have to continue all of your addition homework when you started to learn subtraction; instead you used your knowledge of the former to better understand the latter. In 1 Corinthians 3:2, Saint Paul writes, “ I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.” In this passage Paul is acknowledging that there is a progression, that the place where we start is not the place where we end up – we move from milk to solid food. Part of being a Christian is growing more towards God. The Great fourth century theologian Gregory of Nyssa developed a concept called epektasis, which basically means perpetual progress. He stated, “never cease straining toward those things that are still to come.” Matthias shows us today that he was ready for the next step, for the higher calling of God and we should be ready for the same.
And so let’s review the example of Matthias. He was a follower of Jesus This following of Jesus permeated his entire being and he was not content with that but willingly strained towards the things that were to come. Or put another way, he believed, he did and he wanted more. All in all a pretty good example from a rather forgotten guy. May we follow the path that Matthias has trod so that we may grow ever closer to God in thought, word and deed now and forevermore.