O God, may the finger of your Spirit stir through the clutter of my words to point a new understanding, to bless with a needed healing. Amen.
Similar to how the MNO Synod is gearing up for the Synod Convention, the
Diocese of Rupert’s Land is in preparation for their Diocesan Synod meeting in
the fall. There are two main pieces of discussion that happens at Synod –
motions about all sorts of business items and the filling of all the
committees.
This
year, I agreed to co-chair the nomination committee. It means I need to figure
out what positions need to be filled, gather the list of synod delegates, recruit
members to the team, and then get the team calling delegates to see who wants
to run for the various committee positions. It’s going to be a lot of work for the
team over the next few months, because we all know how easy it is to get people
interested in committee work…
Then
each nominee will submit short bios telling the Synod why they want the
position and describing the gifts they bring to the table. The Synod is then to
spend a few weeks reading these bios and prayerfully deciding who they will
vote for at the meeting. Votes are counted, elections are announced. It’s
really quite the process.
When
I read the passage from Acts that was assigned for today, it reminded me a bit
about this process of ours. I heard someone say that if Pentecost is the
birthday of the church, then Acts 1:15 is the birthday of the church council
meeting!
Peter
has gathered together all of the Christ-followers that he could muster – all
120 of them. These people are stuck in a liminal space, a time between Jesus’
Ascension and when the Holy Spirit is breathed on them at Pentecost.
No
one likes liminal space. It’s unnerving and scary. You know you can’t go back,
but the future is uncertain. I talked quite a bit about liminal space
throughout the pandemic – when we were both church but not at the church,
together online but not in person. There was a lot of in-between time where we
just didn’t know where we were going, but we knew we’d never be able to go back
to the way things were.
That’s
what’s happening with the folks in the story today. They were stuck in that
liminal space, waiting for Christ to come back or for whatever was supposed to
happen next. So Peter did the most logical thing he could think of….he called a
parish meeting.
Those
that followed “The Way” were a small but mighty group who had just lost their
spiritual leader, again, and were stuck waiting for whatever it was that was
supposed to happen next. Peter needed to find the group a distraction and
decided that now was the perfect time to replace that deserter Judas on the
church council, I mean in the group of Apostles.
While
this seems like a make-busy task, there is a reason Peter called for Judas’
replacement. The Books of Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke, and if we
look back into the Gospel at chapter 22 verses 29-30, Jesus says, “Just as God
has given me dominion, so I give it to you. In my reign, You will eat and drink
at my table, and you’ll sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (The
Inclusive Bible)
The
need to replace Judas and return the number of apostles to 12 is symbolic. It
follows the tradition of the 12 tribes of Israel, maintaining the connection that
the Kingdom of God is for both Jew, in light of the original covenant, and
Gentile, in the form of “The Way”.
And
so, Peter called an election. We can imagine people going around, calling for
nominations, figuring out who would be the best representative for the people.
In the end, the community put forth two names – Joseph and Matthias.
Who
on earth are these guys?!
Well,
whoever they are, the people obviously thought that either one of them would be
right for the job with one of the key things being that they “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” (22)
So
here comes campaigning and voting, right? Nope! They cast lots, flipped a coin,
drew straws. "Casting lots" refers to a method of making decisions or
determining outcomes by drawing or throwing objects and then interpreting the
results based on chance. In ancient times, people used various objects, such as
stones, sticks, or specially marked tokens, as lots. The process involved
randomly selecting one of these objects, and the decision or outcome was considered
to be guided by divine providence or fate.
Ultimately,
the person who was to replace Judas on the very first Christian church council
was chosen in a seemingly random fashion. Seems kind of strange to us in 2024
though, and very different from the current state of church politics, or any
other governing board. The Anglican Church of Canada is about to need a new
Primate. I can’t imagine making that choice by choosing a name out of a hat! Or
how about electing the next MNO Synod bishop by throwing a dart at a board?
But
as this was the typical process in Jesus’ time, 120 people prayed on it, asking
God who should be next 12th apostle, they cast lots, and the winner
was Matthias. A seemingly random choice. But if you compare that to the other
apostles, isn’t that how they were all chosen, really? Random in our eyes, but
chosen through prayer and trusting in God’s decisions.
So,
Matthias was chosen as Judas’ replacement but then was never heard from again.
Why? Was it perhaps because only a short time later, in Acts 2, God pours out the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost and breaks everything apart? Was it perhaps that God
had someone else in mind to be the new 12th apostle, some guy by the
name of Paul? Someone that the early church members would never have considered
– I mean, he did try to kill them after all. But we have learned that God
sometimes acts in mysterious ways for reasons known only to God.
And
that’s where I think Peter fell short in calling this church council meeting.
All these people, sitting in worry and fear, Peter felt the need to do
something and the task he chose was to fill a council position. Not because God
said it was time to do so, but because Peter needed something to do, to feel
like he was taking charge of the situation and not just sitting around waiting
in the time between Ascension and Pentecost.
But
sometimes it’s good to just sit in that in-between time, in the liminal space.
To sit quietly in prayer. To listen for God and wait for the Holy Spirit to
guide us. We don’t always need to be doing something. We don’t always need to
be reactive to the situation. Sometimes we need to just feel the situation, to
allow emotions of uncertainty and anxiety to come over us so that we feel them
in their entirety and prepare ourselves to let them go, prepare ourselves for
what might be on the other side.
Just
as Jesus did many times throughout his journey, it’s important for us to slow
down and pray. In a world full of anxiety and uncertainty, it is time for us to
reclaim intentional prayer. To pray with intention is to pray with an act of
active consideration and intentional reflection, an act of humility, and an act
of focus. Our faith in God allows us to trust that sitting in prayer will give
us the chance to hear what God is saying to us, that the things happening in
the world around us are beyond our control, but that God will always be there
for us. Taking the time to pray to God reminds us that we are serving something
beyond our own thoughts, motives, and desires.
Many
of our times are in-between times, where we seem stuck in situations that just
can’t last, that must lead to something, and we just want that something to
happen so we can get on with it. So, we get anxious, and we want to do
something, anything to move things along. But most of the time, we just need to
wait and pray.
Amen.
