On Matthias and the Apostolic Witness: we have failed; God in Jesus saves us, anyway.

Sermon at Parish Mass at the Patronal Festival of Saint Matthias, 16th May 2021

Acts 1.15-26

1 Corinthians 4.1–7

John 17.6-19

Next Sunday we will hold our Annual Meeting, when we will elect the PCC and appoint the officers of the Church and so on. We know how to conduct that meeting because it’s all laid down in Canon Law, the “Church Representation Rules”, if you’re having trouble sleeping at night I can recommend them to you, they’re tried and tested over the years. 

But there has to be a first time for everything. Today in the Acts of the Apostles we read about the first ever annual parish meeting. Well, not quite. But, for the first time in the history of the Church, there was a vacancy to be filled. Judas had betrayed Jesus and turned away from the ministry he had received; there was a gap in the College of Apostles.

It’s the Apostles themselves who decide that this vacancy has to be filled. Jesus has just ascended into heaven. With his departure from their sight he has handed over his mission to the Church, to be the visible proclamation of God’s Kingdom in the world. 

The Apostles knew that Jesus had specifically chosen twelve of them, the same number as the tribes of Israel. Indeed, Jesus told them that they would sit on thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. By choosing twelve as his Apostles, Jesus indicated that he was refounding the people of God, making a people for his own possession. And the Apostles felt that number was so intentional, so significant, that they had to choose someone to fill the vacancy left by Judas.

But look at the College of the Apostles. Who were those twelve? Peter, who denied Jesus. Thomas, who doubted him. The others who constantly misunderstood, didn’t get the point, failed to follow where Jesus was leading. And now, added to their number, Matthias, our patron. The Apostles could just have quietly drawn a veil over the whole Judas incident and carried on with eleven, as if nothing had happened, hoping that nobody would notice. But, no, they knew they had to have Matthias. They had to have that number twelve. And moreover, his presence in the Apostolic College would be a constant reminder – of Judas. Apostles can fail. The College of Apostles, the visible sign of God’s kingdom in the world, is a group of people who can get it wrong.

We don’t know anything else about Matthias, beyond what we heard in the reading from Acts this morning. He is never mentioned in the New Testament again. Pious tradition, of course, abhors a vacuum, and so legend tells us that Matthias preached in Cappadocia, Jerusalem, and the shores of the Caspian Sea. That he was imprisoned and forced to drink poison, miraculously remaining unharmed. This annoyed his persecutors, so he escaped from them by becoming invisible. Another time, when they tried to kill him, the earth opened and swallowed them up.  He is said to have been crucified in Colchis or stoned in Jerusalem. His relics are claimed by the city of Trier, although a portion of them is also to be found at Padua.

But, really, we don’t know much for certain about him. I once wrote an extra verse to the hymn “For All The Saints”, slightly tongue in cheek, for this feast day:

Holy Matthias, Christ’s Apostle true,

Acts chapter one tells all we know of you,

and, after that, we haven’t got a clue!

Alleluia!

But even this tells us something that we need to know about the College of Apostles, and the Church. Not only is it a group of people who get things wrong, it is a community in which personality cults should have no place. Because its business is not about itself, it is to bear witness to Jesus. Matthias was chosen by God, and pursued the mission he had received, but we don’t know where or what fruits it bore, because we don’t need to know. 

We are told about some of the other Apostles, because their example and teaching was important for the Church in future ages. But we are told their story “warts and all”. Nobody is put on a pedestal. As St Paul says in Second Corinthians, “we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us”.

It is through this confession that the Apostles bear witness to Jesus. He is God who will not condemn the world. His Apostles are those who must learn to tell the truth, to confess their own sins. This is the Apostolic witness: we have failed, but God in Jesus saves us, anyway. Just because that is what he is like.

In today’s reading from John’s Gospel Jesus prays for the disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” This is part of the prayer by which Jesus expresses his own high priesthood, his work of atonement, reconciling God and creation. But he prays this prayer also for his disciples, “sanctify them in the truth”, that this same priesthood will rest on them, and be exercised by them. “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” 

The whole Church, through this prayer of Jesus, is consecrated as the priestly people of God, and given the mission of reconciliation, the work of atonement, for the whole world. And to do that, we need to be sanctified in the truth. And that truth begins by learning that we are loved and forgiven, anyway; and in the light of that truth we learn to confess our sins.

This remains the priestly work of the Church until the end of time. In a world that constantly is in denial about its sins, and does not want to hear that it is loved, our witness is the same as that of the Apostles: we have failed; God in Jesus saves us anyway. This witness is the priestly work of the whole Church. It is the work and witness to which we are called in this parish. 

Truth-telling about ourselves is absolutely necessary to the Apostolic witness. We must be wary of anything that works against that. A cult of personality that puts leaders on an unassailable pedestal, beyond reproach, is not the Apostolic witness. A church narrative that is only ever about success and all being well with us, is not the Apostolic witness. Against that tyranny of a human perfection that we cannot achieve, the Gospel comes as liberation: we have failed; God in Jesus saves us anyway. It’s not up to us. This is the truth in which we are consecrated by the prayer of Christ. And that is the message of atonement and reconciliation that will heal and restore a broken world.