Sermon for the Feast of St. Matthias

admin | 24 February 2017

“I am the vine, ye are the branches”

“I am the vine,” Jesus says, “ye are the branches.” It is one of the greatest of the so-called “I am” sayings of Jesus with predicates – metaphors which have to do with God’s relation to us through the divine self-relation. In this case, the metaphor is that of the vine and the branches that belong to the idea of indwelling, our dwelling in God and God in us. As one of the “I am” sayings it points us to the divine revelation of God to Moses through the Burning Bush, “I am who I am.” It is a strong endorsement of the essential divinity of Christ and a powerful image about our life in and with God sacramentally. It is significant that this is the Gospel chosen for the commemoration of St. Matthias.

Why? Because of the interrelation of the two concepts of substitution and indwelling or incorporation into the body of Christ. Matthias is the disciple chosen by lot and by prayer to take the place of the traitor Judas. As the Collect reminds us, we cannot think about Matthias without recalling Judas’ betrayal. He is chosen to take Judas’ place not as a betrayer but as a faithful apostle. He is chosen to be an essential part of the apostolic fellowship which lives and can only live from Christ. The imagery of vine and branches is something organic and dynamic. The life-blood of the Church as the body of Christ is Christ’s life in us sacramentally.

The Gospel and the Lesson are most instructive. The Lesson from Acts focuses on the act of choosing, implicitly confirming the origins of ecclesiastical polity but as based upon a theological insight. What is that insight? The form of our indwelling God through the Word made flesh and the way in which that truth is made known to us.

What The Feast of St. Matthias shows us is the further logic of the Incarnation which is about the theology of substitution. Christ has come to die for us. Such is redemption. “While we were yet sinners,” Christ, the one who is like us in all respects except what makes us nothing, namely sin, “died for us”. By a further extension of that miracle of salvation, Matthias is chosen to take the place of the traitor Judas, not as another traitor, but as one who knows a deeper truth, the truth of our abiding in Christ, our abiding in the love of the Son for the Father, a love which is greater than our treacherous hearts and a love which is only possible by the Incarnation.

The love that redeems and restores is able to make something even out of our treachery and betrayal. Matthias takes the place of Judas as a faithful Apostle. What does that mean? The Collect suggest what is needed, namely, “faithful and true pastors,” a concept grounded in the apostolic ministry, all our betrayals notwithstanding. Powerful stuff especially in a world and age which demands conformity to itself. But that is the way of Judas not Matthias. His feast day calls us to the nature of our life in Christ.