Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle
There are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of contradictory stories floating around about St. Matthias. Some say that after he became one of the Twelve (to take Judas' place; see today's lesson from Acts 1:15-17, 20-26), he preached in Judea and then went to Ethiopia, where he was crucified. Others say he was, in fact, in Ethiopia, but was not crucified. Some say he preached among the cannibals, was thrown in prison, but then was freed by the Apostle Andrew. Still others say he was stoned in Jerusalem and then beheaded, so apparently never made it as far as Ethiopia. Adding to this confusion is the fact that some people confuse Saint Matthias with Saint Matthew (from whom we have the gospel of Matthew). Matthias, too, is said to have written a gospel, but it has been mostly lost to us and has often been associated with unorthodox teachings. If all this confusion were not enough, throw in the fact that there is some dispute about Matthias' relics: are they in Rome or Trier or both? Worthy Christians dispute even his feast day: Latin Christians observe his feast today but in the Eastern Orthodox Church the feast is celebrated on August 9th.
So to sum up: there is really quite little that we know about Saint Matthias. We do know that he was a long-time disciple of Jesus' but does not attain the status of Apostle until the passage we read for today.
But it is, indeed, today's reading that marks out the crucial difference between being a disciple and being an Apostle. Peter knows that the vacancy left by Judas must be filled but he does not think it right simply for he and the other apostles to vote on who should fill that vacancy. God should have some hand in this too, they think - but how can the apostles go about knowing God's desire when Jesus is no longer with them physically? So they find a middle way: the apostles choose two people that they think are worthy but then pray for God's Spirit to be on them and the lots they draw. We modern people might scoff a bit at the idea of drawing lots as a way of settling an important decision, because drawing lots seems to leave too much up to chance and seems irrational. From the apostles' perspective, however, they were being entirely rational: they had, after all, chosen two using rational measures of those men's character and abilities.
But then the apostles recognize that they have to be willing to recognize that human reason cannot ever match up to God's reason. The way we know to invite God's reason into a decision is to pray about it and wait for God's answer. We know that God answers our prayers, lets us know about God's decision, in many ways. The apostles' prayer was for God to be in the lots. Ultimately, then, Matthias was God's own choice for apostle.
This is reiterated in today's gospel message (John 15:9-17), which should sound quite familiar since we read much of it last Friday as well. Last Friday I focused on the love Jesus has; this Friday it is clear that we are meant to focus on the fact that Jesus says "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain...." God chose Matthias. We may not know much about the details of Matthias' life - as indeed we know little about most of the early saints - but the promise today's scripture has for us is that if God chooses a person, that person will bear fruit.
In our own lives, don't we often wonder if what we do really makes any difference? The good news for us today is that if God has chosen us, what we do does bear fruit, even if we do not see it, even if others don't necessarily recognize it. Thanks be to God for Saint Matthias and for all the ways he bore fruit that remain with us today.
-- Jana M. Bennett