Day: February 24, 2014

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Matthias

“I am the vine, ye are the branches”

There is something rather disquieting and quite disturbing about The Feast of St. Matthias. He is, after all, the disciple chosen by lot and by prayer to take the place of the traitor Judas, as the Collect so directly puts it. It is impossible to consider St. Matthias without thinking about the kiss of Judas and our own betrayals. To contemplate Matthias is to confront the betrayals of our own hearts. That may be the real blessing for it opens us out to the grace of God which is greater than our hearts of betrayal. Out of Judas’ betrayal comes Matthias’ faithfulness.

To be fair, we only know about his being chosen. That is the burden of the lesson from Acts. About his ministry and personality, we know far less. But that is in keeping with the Scriptures as a whole. They don’t fulfill our Oprah and Dr. Phil type desires; slim pickings for the gossip rags ancient and modern. Instead, they offer theology.

The theology here is most instructive. It is the theology of substitution, the theology of atonement belonging to the logic of redemption. Matthias takes the place of Judas. Why does he have to be replaced? Judas betrayed Christ and out of remorse killed himself. Why not just carry on sans Judas? Because of a larger consideration. The number twelve. The twelve apostles look back to the twelve tribes of Israel and look ahead to the apostolic foundation of the Church. It is all about how we are part of something more and greater than ourselves, namely, the community of redeemed sinners.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Matthias the Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles: Grant that thy Church, being alway preserved from false Apostles, may be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:15-26
The Gospel: St. John 15:1-11

Rubens, St. MatthiasThe name of this saint is probably an abbreviation of Mattathias, meaning “gift of Yahweh”.

Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot after Judas had betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide. In the time between Christ’s Ascension and Pentecost, the small band of disciples, numbering about 120, gathered together and Peter spoke of the necessity of selecting a twelfth apostle to replace Judas. Peter enunciated two criteria for the office of apostle: He must have been a follower of Jesus from the Baptism to the Ascension, and he must be a witness to the resurrected Lord. This meant that he had to be able to proclaim Jesus as Lord from first-hand personal experience. Two of the brothers were found to fulfill these qualifications: Matthias and Joseph called Barsabbas also called the Just. Matthias was chosen by lot. Neither of these two men is referred to by name in the four Gospels, although several early church witnesses, including Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, report that Matthias was one of the seventy-two disciples.

Like the other apostles and disciples, St. Matthias received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Since he is not mentioned later in the New Testament, nothing else is known for certain about his activities. He is said to have preached in Judaea for some time and then traveled elsewhere. Various contradictory stories about his apostolate have existed since early in church history. The tradition held by the Greek Church is that he went to Cappadocia and the area near the Caspian Sea where he was crucified at Colchis. Some also say he went to Ethiopia before Cappadocia. Another tradition holds that he was stoned to death and then beheaded at Jerusalem.

The Empress St Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, is said to have brought St Matthias’s relics to Rome c. 324, some of which were moved to the Benedictine Abbey of St Matthias, Trier, Germany, in the 11th century.

Artwork: Peter Paul Rubens, St. Matthias, c. 1611. Oil on panel, Prado, Madrid.

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