What’s the Point?

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred and twenty people) and said, ‘Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus— for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.’
So one of the men who have accompanied us throughout the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.’ So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.’ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

For continuity’s sake, I decided to stick with the book of Acts for this stretch of the church calendar. So let me start this sermon with a little apology, because this passage isn’t the very exciting. See, the first chapter of the book of Acts is all about the nitty gritty logistics of choosing leadership for this new Jesus movement, now that Jesus has ascended. To add some confusion and, on the surface, some pointlessness, to the kind of dull logistics of this passage, the two men named here, Matthias, who is ultimately chosen as an apostle to replace Judas, and Justus, the one not chosen, are never mentioned again! I’ll be honest, in my first reading of this passage I thought “What’s the point of this?” But I’ve committed to this study on the book of Acts, so I’m gonna push through and find something relevant here.

Now, the process of choosing between Matthias and Justus is definitely a little archaic—“casting lots” is essentially flipping a coin or rolling the dice. While surely they were praying for God’s intervention in how the casting of lots ended up, it was ultimately by chance that it landed on Matthias. But the part that interests me, is how they got to the point of picking Matthias and Justus. What caught my attention was the criteria required of one who may be considered an apostle. “So one who has accompanied us throughout the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.’” To be an apostle in this time immediately after the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, one had to have been following Jesus for the entirety of his ministry. It was essentially required that an apostle be an eyewitness expert on the life and ministry of Jesus. You see, Luke, the author of Acts, was writing at a time in which this movement was brand new; early Jesus followers were still being persecuted and they needed to work extremely hard for legitimacy, so they needed to be absolutely sure they had trustworthy and honest leaders to tell the story and spread the news. It was a time of great change and transition and they couldn’t take any chances, they couldn’t just have any random disciples, no matter how passionate or enthusiastic, joining them in leadership, they just weren’t qualified enough. It had to be someone who was there. It had to be someone trustworthy. It had to be an expert on the life of Jesus, and authority on the life of Jesus.

A few years back, in 2016, the Oxford Dictionary word of the year was post-truth. Unfortunately, today in 2021, it’s still a sadly relevant word. In Bible Study this last week, folks were grieving the fact that after over a year of witnessing so much trauma, so much sickness, and so much death, there are still people who will say to nurses, to doctors—who will look these people in the eyes and talk at them to proclaim that this whole COVID thing is one big hoax—that it’s just a money-making conspiracy. What happened? How did we get here? When did we stop trusting experts? When did we start disregarding the people who want to help us? In this post-truth world, I wonder what would happen if Jesus came back. I wonder if we would believe our own eyes if we saw him perform a miracle. I wonder if we would listen when he preached truths about prioritizing the hungry, the thirsty, the poor. Or would we look at him skeptically, whip out our phones and say “I think I’ll do my own research and get back to you.”

In the early days of  this Jesus movement, the reason these apostles were so successful in spreading the Good News was because they were deliberate in who they chose to help them evangelize. No matter how enthusiastic of a disciple one may be, if he or she didn’t have that eye witness testimony to the life and times of Jesus, how could they be believed? How could this be legitimized? That being said, another excellent insight that came up in Bible Study this week was that this seems sort of incongruent with so much of what the Bible and our faith encourages and proclaims— remember Jesus’ light scolding of Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But as I thought more about it, I realized that this is the exact reason they had to be so deliberate in choosing experts. They knew how unbelievable this story was, and they knew how risky it was, especially at this early time when people were still very confused or even threatened by this new Jesus movement, that people would look for ways to delegitimize it, that people would not be likely just believe the word of a random enthusiastic believer who hadn’t actually witnessed everything Jesus had done.

I’m really struggling with this—because on one hand, this is extremely relevant for today, in that it’s more crucial than ever that we trust people who are experts in their respective fields, those whose priority is the well-being of humankind, or the well-being of this planet, or whose priority is the well-being of our fair democracy. But on the other hand, in this post-truth world, it’s easy to throw up our hands and say what’s the point? What does it even matter who is in leadership, or how reliable or honest people are if the best and the brightest are ignored in favor of pride or an overzealous belief in individualism? Church, I confess, I sometimes fall into holes of despair thinking, what’s the point if the truth means nothing anymore? What’s the point if science is disregarded—whether it be regarding the transmission and contagiousness of a deadly virus, the effectiveness of vaccines, or even bigger than these things, the fact that God’s earth is getting hotter and hotter every day? What’s the point if those whose life’s work has been healing people or eradicating illnesses are ignored and scoffed at? What’s the point if we have people of color telling us about their true lived  experiences of being over-policed, of being racially profiled, or being discriminated against and we have people the ruling class denying their truths, talking at them, assuring them that it can’t possibly be that bad, they must be exaggerating, when we truly have no idea. It’s just too easy to fall into this holes, thinking what’s the point?

Anyway, before we all fall into a what’s the point hole and all have matching existential crises, let’s talk about Judas for a minute, because this whole passage is about finding a replacement for the spot that he left empty. At the end of this passage, it’s written, “Judas turned aside [from this apostleship] to go to his own place.” His own place. We’ll never know what Judas’ motives were for betraying Jesus, or what his feelings were after the fact. And we’ll never know if he did it for simple greed, for some silver but then felt regret to the point of taking his own like Matthew claims; or if he was possessed by something as Luke and John both infer; Mark doesn’t even attempt to find a motive for this betrayal. But Judas was one of the original twelve, witness to so many incredible things, a part of something so huge and amazing and perfect, but he “turned aside to go to his own place.” I wonder what turned him off. I wonder what made Judas rethink everything he was doing. Surely thirty pieces of silver couldn’t have been the only reason. That he went to his own place makes me believe he was overwhelmed, he was scared, and he was selfish. That he went to his own place makes me believe that maybe he thought there was too much change too soon, or that he panicked seeing how reviled Jesus and the disciples were by those in power and he was scared for his own life. That he went to his own place makes me believe that he was looking for his own place of self-preservation—a place where he wouldn’t have to worry about giving up everything to follow Jesus… a place where the status quo could be maintained… a place where he would no longer have to worry about other people, or worry about the poor, or worry about getting crucified himself. So because of this fear, Judas turned away from God, turned away from Jesus, turned away from the truth. He turned aside and isolated himself in his own place.

Church, I believe that the reason we currently live in a post-truth world is selfishness, is panic, and an irrational and anxious self-preservation. There is no denying that we’ve been living during a time of crisis after crisis. As your resident millennial, I will tell you my entire adolescence, young adulthood, and now adulthood has been constant crises—just constant school and mass shootings, 9/11, seemingly endless war in the Middle East, the recession of 2008, constant police brutality and racial violence now caught on camera, a hopefully once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, an attempted insurrection based on lies, not to mention the ever looming presence of global warming. Church, it is too much. And when things are too much, when we feel overwhelmed, we have a tendency to go to our own places, don’t we? We have a tendency to withdraw, to isolate ourselves, and to try to make sense of it all.

In recent years, as many of us are aware, wild, dangerous, and often racist and bigoted conspiracy theories have run rampant. This is a turning away from the truth. The common wisdom about why people turn away from the truth to their own place, why people believe in impossible theories is that, and this is a quote, “People often adopt conspiracy beliefs as a balm for deep grievance. The theories afford some psychological ballast, a sense of control, an internal narrative to make sense of a world that seems senseless.”[i] So you add this frame of mind to a world of constant crises, plus a culture that puts individualism above all else, and you have a perfect storm for a broken and polarized world. You have a perfect storm for a world in which everyone goes to their own places. We’re not listening anymore. We’re not accepting the truth because we’re not accepting change. We’re not accepting change because we’re scared. Things are falling apart around us, and we don’t want to lose our tenuous grasp of control. It’s like that infamous meme of the dog in the hat sitting in a room on fire saying “this is fine.” We don’t want to face the difficult truths that cause injustice and violence in the world—truths of a broken system that cannot be fixed by thoughts and prayers alone. So we make up our own mythology, our own truths that take the blame off of us. We rationalize decisions that benefit us but harm others, God forgive us.

So what’s the point? Well, I don’t know. That’s really the ultimate existential question, and I always readily admit that I don’t have the answers. But if we’re supposed to look to the Bible for guidance and for answers, I believe that this passage shows us we can fight this post-truth-ness by listening to and advocating for the experts. I believe we can practice humility and defer to those who know better. I believe we can be humble and ask for help when we need it. I believe we can be honest with ourselves and one another and admit when we’ve wronged someone, or admit that we benefit from systems of oppression, and work to take down this systems. I believe we can lean on one another, and join together collectively, instead of turning aside, and isolating ourselves in our own respective places. Matthias and Justus weren’t chosen because of charisma or riches connections. They were chosen because they had been faithful, humble followers from the very beginning. They were chosen because they were truth-tellers. So let’s go from here today listening to truth-tellers; let’s go from here today being truth-tellers. Amen.

[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/health/psychology-conspiracy-theories.html