The Apostle Who?
Acts 1:21-26
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
July 2, 2006

At some point in my life, when I was studying for Confirmation, I had to memorize the names of the Twelve Apostles. They were as stated in Matthew’s Gospel:

Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot.”

Easy.

But things aren’t always that simple.

If you were going to ask the question, “Who was the greatest of all the apostles of Jesus Christ?,” the answer would be, Paul.

Paul? He’s not on the list.

And, oh if you were listening to the scripture reading you’d find that this sermon, speaks about the apostle Matthias.

Matthias? He’s not on the list either!

At one point there was great controversy in the Roman Catholic Church over Matthias, St. Matthias. They had a special day for him on February 24 every year. It was the day that the church honored him. But in the 20th century they moved his day to May 14th. The moving of this day caused great consternation.

The Eastern Orthodox Churches, not to be outdone, celebrated his feast day on August 9th as that was the proper time to truly celebrate such a great saint.

In case you were wondering, we in the United Church of Christ don’t have a special day for St. Matthias.

Now having said all of this, you’re probably wondering what it is that this great guy, Matthias, the apostle chosen to replace Judas, actually did that we know of.

The answer is that he’s never mentioned again. The only mention of Matthias in the entire Bible is this mentioning of his being chosen to be an apostle and then he’s never mentioned again. We can presume that he went on to serve God well, that he went on to serve Christianity well, and, I suspect, if we were to learn the story of his life, we would probably be amazed and dazzled by his faith, his courage, and his commitment to Jesus Christ.

This story of Matthias teaches us something.

Discipleship requires some sort of action.

We may not know a lot about Matthias, but we know he said, ‘yes’ and his ‘yes’ meant that he was called to live out his faith by going and doing.

The Letter of James chapter 2, in the Bible tells us that faith without works is useless. Faith that does nothing is meaningless.

Almost 20 years ago the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ developed a brilliant bumper sticker that read:

To believe is to care; to care is to do.

It, in many ways, summarizes James. When we have faith, it means that we, on
some level care; and if we care, we are compelled to action.

Faith is a great thing, it is the centerpiece of our lives as Christians. But faith does not exist in a vacuum. Faith, true faith, demands some sort of a response.

Acts of the Apostles speaks about the origins of the Christian Church. Luke gives us a rare glimpse into life in the early church and that glimpse teaches us something important. It required people working. It required people of faith, but it required, on a deeper level, those people of faith doing.

This coming week we celebrate the 4th of July, Independence Day.

Independence was a dream, was a desire, was an aspiration. Not totally unlike the issue of slavery, independence began to be preached from the pulpits, most especially in New England Congregational Churches. It was a thought and a dream that swept throughout the colonies.

But it began as dream an aspiration. If it remained a dream and an aspiration with no one acting on it, nothing would have happened. We’d still be a colony of England. Okay, I’m sure some would say that being a colony of England would be fine, but that’s not the point. People had a dream, an aspiration, a vision, and if it remained just as that, nothing would have happened.

But people acted and independence became a reality.

Faith is like that as well. The people in Acts had a vision of faith, but they also had the foresight to do something with it.

Sometimes in church we, frankly, get lazy. It’s a place to come and get fed. It’s a place where we get ministered to. In the last decade or so churches have become places to have our needs met. Mega-churches have been incredibly successful in large part because they have great ability to meet needs and allow great anonymity and little action. In fairness to them, they encourage people to live out their faith, to live a life of faith in action, but the size, the accommodations, and the anonymity often create a by-product of people not doing much in living out their faith.

And it’s not just them. All of us, in all churches often have to face this. It’s often a lot easier to stand on the sidelines and watch others do things, it’s often a lot easier to stand on the sidelines and have a running commentary on how others do things, than it is to actually do them.

But faith without works is dead. Faith without works is a great idea, a concept, but something never put into play or action.

Matthias was elected an apostle. He’s not on any list of apostles any of us ever had to learn or memorized. He was not memorialized a great deal and hardly anything is known about him other than the fact that he said ‘yes’ to being an apostle. He said ‘yes’ to putting his faith in action.

And we are challenged to do likewise.