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Readings: Ezekiel 36: 24-28; Acts 1: 15-end
Today we meet on the Sunday between Ascension Day and Pentecost. We’ve been keeping that Easter season when we recall the resurrection appearances Jesus made to his disciples. They were left in no doubt that he had returned to them, but his presence was different. He also encouraged them not to get used to his physical presence. To Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter morning he said “Don’t cling onto me, because I have not yet ascended to my Father in heaven.” And his appearances were fleeting; he was able to come and go at will.
Then on Ascension Day he was taken from them. The account in the Acts of the Apostles relates that as the disciples were gazing up toward heaven, two men in white, angels perhaps, said to them, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” It’s as if they were saying, “Why are you still hanging round here: there’s work to be done.” Jesus had previously promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come upon them; he gave them a commission to go and call people to repentance, to preach, and to baptise.
One of the messages of the Ascension, then, is that in our Christian lives we must learn to stand on our own two feet. The disciples had maybe become too reliant on being with Jesus, and on his physical presence. In many parts of the gospels we get the impression of the disciples as being very much led by Jesus, sometimes appearing a bit clueless; not showing much initiative. Perhaps while he was still around it was too easy and comfortable to go on like that; but he was calling them to something more. From the time of the Ascension they were to be more responsible, and to learn to stand on their own two feet. How easy it is to rely on a key figure in any organisation or family, and to avoid taking on responsibility. One is reminded of this as Annual Church Meetings take place; with people sometimes so reluctant to take on duties, or to fill the shoes left by someone else. It doesn’t help with what they call ‘succession management.’
The disciples were faced with something of the same dilemma. As we heard in the reading from Acts, they had lost Judas Iscariot, and were therefore ‘a man down’. If you play with a team member short, other people’s responsibilities are increased. The number of apostles had to be kept to twelve. One reason was that the disciples seemed to work in pairs; indeed, Jesus originally sent them out in pairs. But, perhaps more significantly, Jesus had called twelve, perhaps to mirror the twelve tribes of Israel. It was as if the Church was to be the new Israel; and the prophets had foretold that Israel would be re-gathered. Notice from the reading that the whole company of believers numbered about one hundred and twenty; perhaps each apostle had responsibility for ten people.
So, Judas needed to be replaced. There seemed to be two obvious candidates, Justus and Matthias, and we know nothing about either. How would you choose your next priest, had this one been run over by a bus yesterday? Come to that, how did you choose this one? It may not have been too arduous a task, as I was the only person who actually applied for the job, as far as I know. But you might not have thought that I was suitable.
What would you be looking for? An Oxbridge graduate? A good fund-raiser? One parish in a smart part of London made it clear that their incumbent would be expected to entertain on a grand scale! Other parishes highlight the need for their priest to be good with children and young people. The ‘situations vacant’ pages of Church Times seem to get more numerous as the years go on, and the expectations of applicants greater.
And models of ministry are vastly different from when I was ordained in 1988; with more interim posts being advertised now, or part-time positions, or both. Methods of ordination training have also significantly changed in the last half-century, with many of the residential colleges closing, and many people now training for ministry while they continue their day jobs. Nevertheless, throughout the Church of England large numbers of clergy posts remained unfilled, often for years.
So what criteria did the apostles use to replace the missing man? Incidentally, don’t worry too much about the selection procedure – the drawing of lots. How the choice was made was not as important as the things they were looking for in the candidates. They needed one of the men who had accompanied them throughout the time that Jesus was with them – somebody who had actually known Jesus, not who had just heard about him. And then they required this person to be a witness to Jesus’ resurrection; somebody who would show others that Jesus was alive, and not just a figure of the past or a holy man of the past, but a living Lord.
Today, of course, we can’t fulfil the first of those requirements, that of being around when Jesus was. Nor did the apostolic band insist on keeping the number of twelve going. Soon, the original dozen would either have been killed or died naturally, and there was no attempt to keep the significance of twelve figureheads. One reason was that Church structures were developing, and we begin to read of people being appointed as bishops, presbyters (or priests), and deacons.
So Matthias joined the other eleven apostles. They didn’t rely entirely on ‘succession management’, but on a greater power. Jesus had promised the outpouring of the Spirit, which we shall recall at the feast of Pentecost next week. The passage from the prophet Ezekiel is chosen for today as it expresses the hope of a new start, when God’s spirit was to be gifted to the people after the Exile. The people were in exile because they had fouled up everything they had touched. But now God was to give them a new heart and a new spirit. They weren’t to begin to tell themselves that the Exile was unfair or undeserved. Nor was the gift of the spirit to come until some drastic surgery on their spiritual lives had taken place: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols….I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
Somebody has likened what Ezekiel is describing to open-heart surgery, the replacement of diseased organs with ones that will pump life-restoring blood around bodies again. Of course, Ezekiel didn’t know about open-heart surgery. But he thought of the heart as the root of all thought, feeling and motivation. We still use those sort of metaphors today, talking about people who have no heart, or who have a heart of stone.
So we can understand the metaphors Ezekiel uses: symbols of the radical change that God would bring about in his people before they would be fit to live again. The earlier part of Acts chapter 1 tells us that the apostles and others stayed together in an upper room devoting themselves to prayer and expectantly waiting the bestowing of the Spirit that Jesus had promised. And the Spirit was given for a purpose. May this be a week when we ask God to melt our hearts of stone that we may be ready to accept a new heart and new spirit, ready to explore God’s will for us and his purpose in our lives. May we be known as people who actually know Jesus, not who have just heard about him. And may we be witnesses his Jesus’ resurrection; people who show others that Jesus is alive, and not just a figure of the past or a holy man of the past, but a living Lord.
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