In the Place of Judas
Acts 1: 15-17, 21-26


Everything is up in the air…everything is a mess. Jesus was crucified and then he appeared to them alive again…he stayed with them, though he was clearly different….he spoke in even more riddles than before…but he told them something was going to happen…and then he left…suddenly, just when they really thought they had him back…he was gone…

What were they going to do? What would happen next?

Being good Presbyterians, they looked around the table…they saw the empty space where Jesus had been…and they knew there was nothing they could do about that…but there was another empty space…that one that had been empty since that fateful Thursday night…

“We have an empty spot on the session” they all seemed to notice at the same time…and desperate for something to do…for anything to restore normalcy or the way things were supposed to be…they went looking among the followers for someone to succeed Judas. For some one to take the place of the one who had betrayed Jesus…had betrayed them….To perhaps do a little to erase that terrible feeling of disappointment and loss that his departure from their trust and from their lives had caused….

And after all, they reasoned to themselves…they had work to do…they weren’t quite sure of what it was yet…They knew Jesus had plans for them…they knew something was coming…but they weren’t quite ready for it yet…but they did need to make sure that when it came, they were fully staffed…

And so they began looking around…Justus and Matthais were the candidates…And I imagine that each of the disciples had their favorites…but a choice had to be made….And since Jesus had done all the choosing at first…they left the choice up to God and cast lots….Now…notice we don’t do it that way anymore…Though I’m sure the congregational nominating committee might go for that next year if all of you are willing…

What must that have been like for Justus and Matthais…one of them was about to have a target painted on his chest…after all, the followers of Jesus weren’t exactly popular with the folks at city hall…and…it’s not like the spot they were taking didn’t have a history…Just like no pastor ever wants to be the one to follow a popular pastor…no one wants to follow a really awful one either…To hold the Judas Chair in Theology took guts and someone who wouldn’t look back…but forward…

And so Matthais was chosen…they rolled the dice…and I wonder…did Matthais or Justus consider himself the winner in that roll? And so Matthais becomes the 13th disciple…the first disciple of the new generation…the post Jesus generation in the church…

And…what happens to him? What great wonders does Matthais perform in this new role?

We have no idea….for after these verses…Matthais disappears into the ether…he is never heard from again…He doesn’t erase the memory of Judas…he presumably just does his job…he takes up the cloak of a follower of Jesus and forever after he’s just one more in the crowd of disciples as they experience Pentecost, as they experience persecution, as they move from being the followers of Jesus to become the church of Jesus Christ…He is not Peter at the head of the group…He is not John, savoring the deep personal relationship of the disciple Jesus loved…he is not Philip or Bartholemew…famous martyrs to the cause…he’s just one of those who does the hard work of ministry in the background…

There are all kinds of legends about St. Matthias…some say he was the leader of the church in Jerusalem and died there…others say he went into Asia and was one of those who furthered Paul’s ministry…Who knows? One thing we do know…with all the talk about all these ancient writings that have been around forever but are just now being talked about…The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Judas….there was actually a Gospel of Matthias…a number of writings from the first 6 centuries talk about it….but it has never been found…No copies are known to exist….Perhaps that will be the sequel to The DaVinci Code…The Search for the Lost Gospel…

But the fact remains that Matthias, was, is, and I imagine always will be…a bit player in the history of faith…a worker bee…in fact he’s the patron saint of carpenters and tailors…artisans who do their work in the background…

Well, I can imagine some of you might be saying about now…hmm…interesting NotShyChiRev…but this is supposed to be a sermon, not a history lesson…what does any of this have to do with us?

Well…perhaps those of us who aren’t Peters and Johns and Philips and Bartholemews, or, thank God not Judases, need our disciple too… Maybe we need someone to look to who models a life of faith that we can more easily identify with…Someone who showed up…for scripture tells us he’d been a follower the entire three years of Jesus’ ministry…ever since the days of John the Baptizer all the way back at the beginning…Yes, Matthias was someone who showed up...who stuck with it…from the pastoral days in Galilee to the miraculous moments along the way…to the terrors of Jerusalem and the joys of Easter morning…Maybe we need to know that the ministry of a virtual nobody can be a gift to the church…can be a gift to God….hmmm…come to think of it, the name Matthias means…a gift OF Jehovah…

I suppose that’ll preach…that the ministry of Matthias…unheard of after these few verses is as important as anyone else’s…contributed as much to the birthing of the church as anyone else’s....Surely that is an important lesson for those of us who live our lives outside the spotlight…

I think Nellie Toll would appreciate the nameless service of Matthais…who stepped up in the face of danger…anonymously…

They were a church going couple, the Wojteks, but they didn’t volunteer for any of the leadership roles in …they baked bread for the hungry and they gave their money when the plate was passed…but didn’t take on any of those “Peter” type positions…Their little town wasn’t anything special…sort of a neighborhood nearby a much larger city…They were just kind of your average nobody from nowhere Christians…And then one day they heard about Nellie…actually about Nellie and her mother. They had been betrayed by neighbors they thought were friends and now they were on the run and needed a place to stay…a place where the authorities couldn’t find them.

Taking in fugitives was certainly not something the Wotjeks had ever done before. But they prayed about it and fretted about it…and they decided to do it. And so they took in Nellie and her mother…hid them in their apartment. Risked being arrested…risked being shot…risked having their friends or neighbors rat them out for the very lucrative rewards that were being offered. You’ve probably already guessed by now that this was Poland during the Second World War… And the town of Lvav was outside of Warsaw.

When the Russians abandoned Poland to the Germans there were over half a million Jews in Warsaw…just a few years later, more than 95 percent of them were dead….but miraculously, 28000, mostly children, survived. Most of them were hidden by Gentiles…Protestants or Catholics or people with no faith at all…Many of them knew they were stepping into the shoes of other Gentiles who had betrayed families like Nellies…Like Matthias stepping into the shoes of Judas, these families…families like the Wotjek’s…nobodies who were never heard from again risked their lives to do the work that needed to be done…

And today, and for countless tomorrows…those nobodies will be remembered by Nellie…and her children…and her children’s children….because they changed the world…and to that family…they will ever be…Matthias….a blessing from Jehovah…

May we be Matthiases too…

(Nellie Toll's book is called "Behind the Secret Window"...It's actually a form of her diaries, and it's written for middle readers....I've seen this town name spelled 3 different ways...and the Wojtek's name is spelt two different ways in the stories I've read about the Toll family.)