IN the name of
Jesus. Amen. Dear friends in Christ. Today is St. Mathias day. So what do you know about St. Matthias? Well really not much of anything. He is installed in the office of Apostle in
our text for today, and we hear not of him again. Sure, there are a few traditions, about
planting a church in the region of Cappadocia, the armpit of the armpit of the
Roman Empire, a land comparable to the badlands of North Dakota. However, compared to the other Apostle’s the
details are rather scant and vague. We
know little about the man himself, or what things he did as an apostle of
Christ.
There’s no
accounts in scripture or outside of scripture of Matthias performing
miracles. There’s no glorious
confessions of the faith before emperors or even governors so far as we
know. There’s not even large populations
centers, instead only a few small underground towns and villages carved into cliffs. Matthias goes not to the population centers,
instead he is called to preach the Gospel in flyover country.
And the way Matthias
becomes an apostle is different as well.
He is put forward along with Justus Barsabbas as a possible replacement
for the faithless Judas who committed suicide in despair at the death of
Christ. They both had followed Christ from the
beginning, they both had witnessed what things had taken place, but they did so
quietly from the background. And when
their names are put forward, they are basically drawn out of a hat, and
Matthias is selected.
There’s no booming
voice from heaven, “This is my apostolic replacement, listen to him.” There is no discussion of how good he is with
the youth, or that he is a fantastic public speaker. They didn’t examine his age, or his family
circumstances. They didn’t look to see
if he had any advanced degree, or a trajectory to become a district president
or synod bureaucrat. He didn’t even
write any surviving letters or books which sold so well that CPH had to put
them on backorder. All they cared about
was that he had seen Jesus’s life, death and resurrection, and that God caused
his name to be drawn in the lot.
Yes, God is the
one who made Matthias an apostle. God is
the one who gave him the Word to preach.
God put him in an office, and sent him to proclaim the Word about Jesus,
the word about forgiveness of sins in the blood of the crucified and risen
Lord. God put him in an office to
baptize. To teach. To distribute the mysteries of God according
to the institution of Christ. God sent
him to the hinterlands of the mighty Roman empire to proclaim that Word,
because God cared about the people living there as well.
And so Matthias
goes, and preaches, and administers the sacraments, serving according to the
grace given to him by Jesus Christ. He
serves in the very forgiveness of sins that he proclaims, not earned but given. And does so without glory, or recorded
history, or even much remembrance of his name beyond 3 verses in one book of
the bible.
Dear friends in
Christ. Many of you too are put into an
office by God. You also are called to
serve faithfully, to preach the Word, and to administer the sacraments
according to God’s institution of them.
You are not the smartest pastor in the wider church. You are not the most well-educated pastor in
the world. You do not have the degrees
the world thinks are glorious, for Godly glory is not found in them. You aren’t going to make big money – you
might not even get paid what you ought to be.
But you do have the call of Christ to serve in His office as long as His
grace places you there. You’re no more
than God’s man to serve God’s people.
And the place you
are called to serve is not someplace fancy like Beverly Hills, or the mission
fields of some exotic land. You do not
serve in a big city like Minneapolis or St. Paul, no, not even the sacred and
holy city of St. Louis itself where our church body’s bureaucrats busy
themselves. You serve in a small rural
part of fly-over country which many people of our wider nation think is too
cold to even bother to visit in the summer time. You are the servant God placed by his call to
serve the people of North Dakota.
And you serve here
because God has caused your lot to fall here.
You serve here according to God’s grace.
You serve the people here because God loves them just as much as God loves
you. There’s no glory for self in
it. In fact, in 50 years you’ll just be
a name written in a dusty church record book, or perhaps a picture hanging on
the wall, little remembered except by those who say, “He was grouchier and
longer winded than our current pastor.”
And that’s ok. Because you serve you not to be remembered for your great
exploits, but rather so that through your preaching of God’s Word, God’s people
will be remembered by their Lord.
After all, you are
not here for your own glory, or your own ambition, or self-advancement, or even
as a stepping stone to higher positions in the church. You are here because the Crucified and Risen
Lord Jesus has caused your lot to fall here.
He has placed you in an office.
He has given you a task here, to proclaim His Word here in season and
out, and to distribute His gifts to His people.
And like Matthias,
God is with you. He forgives you the
same way he’s forgiven those you serve.
Christ’s blood was shed for you and your ministry, just as it was for
those you serve. You are his man. He has caused your lot to fall here, and he
will not send you and abandon you. He
doesn’t require you to be brilliant, or good-looking, or even smart, just
faithful to what He’s told you in his Word.
His mercy covers the rest. His
love cares for you and provides for you.
In fact, he even forgives your unfaithfulness, because He is more
faithful to you, that you to him. His
blood covers you. His mercy is
yours. You serve because His grace has
called you.
You might not
become a bigwig in the church. Your name
might not be remembered more than the picture on the wall. But God works through the Word he’s given you
to preach, to serve his people according to His will. Just like with Matthias. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
