Election

They prayed and thought about it for a few days, nominated two candidates, prayed and cast lots. Done. Living in the midst of a painful, confused and hotly contested election year, the description of Matthias’ election to be an apostle in Acts 1:12-26 looks appealingly simple. It is still a helpful model for selection of church leaders even if secular application to political office seems wildly unlikely.

This often-skipped text (between the Ascension and Pentecost) gives us a fascinating glimpse into a gatherings of the first Christians. I, at least, tend to picture them as eleven frightened men huddling in a small place, but verses 14 and 15 let us see a larger group (120 in verse 15) including women, even Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as Jesus’ “brothers,” (half-brothers or step-brothers).

Despite the size of the gathering there is a sense of incompleteness in the fact that only 11 are left of the 12 original and closest disciples, whom Luke calls apostles. As our look last month at Revelation 21 showed, there is a connection between the number of the apostles and the number of the tribes of Israel. As the work of N. T. Wright has consistently argued, the ministry of Jesus was meant to be the symbolic founding of a new and restored Israel. So twelve apostles are necessary to fully represent that new beginning.

In the midst of that large gathering for prayer, Peter arose to point out the problem in verses 16 to 19, the betrayal and demise of Judas. He finds the solution in Scripture, by a reference to Psalm 69:25, which he understands to have predicted Judas’ loss of the field bought with his blood money, and to Psalm 109:8, which implies the replacement of a corrupt leader.

I’ve heard it said that Peter and the rest acted prematurely to replace Judas in Acts 1. There’s a pretty strong theological notion that Paul was the genuine twelfth apostle and replacement for Judas. Matthias, who totally drops out of the story and is never mentioned again, is supposed to have been a hastily chosen mistake, selected without the guidance of the Holy Spirit who is not given until the next chapter.

The view that Matthias was hastily and wrongly elected is probably as bogus as are many of the contentions about elections today, an ad hoc device to secure a candidate preferred by those making the contention. I would contend that the community of disciples was acting properly in its selection of Matthias and that he is a good example of the fact that not every follower of Jesus, not even every apostle, is meant to be a superstar.

In fact, since this Sunday is Trinity Sunday, we can see the communal nature of our God being reflected here in the community of the church. Reflecting God’s own mode of life as a community of persons, the church goes about its business in a communal way. Nominations are received from the whole body and the community prays together for God’s direction through the casting of lots. That melding of hearts and minds in prayer and sensitivity to God’s leading is what all crucial church decision-making should look like.

So I’m quite content to accept Matthias as the twelfth apostle (with his name written on the foundation of the Holy City). Much of church life is like that, a quiet seeking of God’s will with unspectacular results in the moment, but with lasting consequences for the kingdom of God.