Which Way Shall We Go?

Which Way Shall We Go?

May 12, 2018

Seventh Week of Easter

Christine E. Burns

“Then they prayed, “You, O God, know every one of us inside and out. Make plain which of these two men you choose to take the place in this ministry and leadership that Judas threw away in order to go his own way.” They then drew straws. Matthias won and was counted as one of the apostles.” Acts 1:24-25

"When God throws something your way, catch it!"

Chriscinthia Blount, poet and artist, 21st century

The In-Between-Time

We have all known liminal, in-between-time, a time when leadership changed, when Jesus seemed to disappear, when our vision for the future is uncertain. What should we do? Today, we will learn what the early followers of the Way, or early disciples did after Jesus died, they cast lots and called a new leader, Matthias.

The in-between-time, liminal space is an unsettling time. You are neither here nor there. Neither up or down and for me, for me that means my stomach flip-flops, I have trouble sleeping, waking in the middle of the night worrying and struggling to sort out all the what- ifs and the should haves and why-didn’t-I’s of the day or years past. You may not suffer from insomnia or worry, but it’s a common human condition, especially in liminal times.

I invite you to humor me for a moment and picture yourself in the air, on a flight home to your hometown, your birthplace, a home state or country far from Massachusetts. Those of you who are from here, pretend that you are flying home to your beloved’s home and imagine that you are looking out the window at a cruising altitude of 34,000 feet. The cabin is pressurized and smells of recycled air and too many bodies packed in like cattle cars. Your knees are contorted almost to your waist as you squeeze into economy class and as you didn’t pay for an upgrade such as inviting window or winsome aisle, you lucky one, are stuck between two strangers who are angrily typing on their computers and spilling over into your tiny seat. Luckily, you managed to gulp down a Dunkin Donuts coffee prior to the flight and your one goal is to make it for the four and a half hour flight without any major mishap, hopefully not having to get out of your seat for any reason.

I invite you to look outside. If you are lucky, the clouds are puffy, the light is bright enough for you to see beyond the wing of the plane before your inviting window neighbor pulls the shades and cuts you off from the outside world so that he can watch some movie on Netflix. Air travel, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. TSA, unhealthy food, crabby passengers, flight delays, and general discomfort interrupt even the most routine of flights. And I love to travel, it’s just that economy class is minimal at best. Gone are the niceties of air travel. We pay for every ounce of space and humanity as we travel. This is the in-between space I want to invite you into.

Why, why have I done this to you? Why dear pastor, have you reminded me of the discomfort of air travel? I want to be comforted, held, reminded of the Good News of the Gospel. Well, my dear congregants, today’s scripture is not comfortable. It’s not clear. It’s a difficult text. Here we learn about the in-between-time, the time after Jesus has died and ascended to the Father in Heaven.

Our text for today comes from the Book of Acts, a history of the earliest days after Jesus died and the early church written by Luke, the author of the Gospel of Jesus according to Luke. It’s a sequel to his bestselling gospel story and the translator of The Message, Eugene Patterson, describes the Book of Acts writing, “Of the original quartet of writers on Jesus, Luke alone continues to tell the story as the apostles and disciples live into it into the next generation. The remarkable thing is that it continues to be essentially the same story. Luke continues his narration with hardly a break, a pause perhaps to dip his pen in the inkwell, writing in the same style, using the same vocabulary. The story of Jesus doesn’t end with Jesus. It continues in the lives of those who believe in him. The supernatural does not stop with Jesus. Luke makes it clear that these Christians he wrote about were no more spectators of Jesus than Jesus was a spectator of God-=-they are in on the action of God, God acting in them, God living in them. Which also means of course, in us.” (Introduction, Acts, p.1492, The Message)

The apostles, and all who loved Jesus, were distraught. Jesus has left them, ascended to heaven and it felt like the end of the world. And it was. It was the end of the world they knew and loved. Their beloved teacher died, he rose again, but he has left them. And boy did they feel deserted. Desolate. Distraught.

Have you ever known that sense of abandonment?Has anyone you loved left you? Perhaps through no fault of their own, death can separate you from your loved one. There are many other separations that wound us as well; divorce, break-ups, job loss and firings, failing a class or being kicked out of school, health scares, feeling abandoned by your own body when cancer flares up or your brain chemistry acts out leading to addiction or mental health challenges. If we look deeply into our own family systems, if we stop ignoring and rewriting history, we will see that most of us have experienced some abandonment in our past or present, and we may experience it in the future. I suggest that it is part of the human condition. When we love, when we are human, when we are part of a family system, a church, a work environment or even a club, people will inevitably leave, move on, argue, die, disagree or separate. Not everyone, not all at once. But, change is inevitable. What is that famous line? Only two things are inevitable: death and taxes.

Because of this, because the story of Jesus had to go on, even though Jesus could no longer travel with his apostles we find ourselves here in the story of Acts. We encounter a text where an apostle is missing. In the lectionary, they cut out the strange part, the weird and uncomfortable part about Judas the betrayer who committed suicide in one Gospel account and here has a strange death bothare a result of betraying Jesus, but I am adding it back in here in our sermon so that we can be authentic to Luke’s rich history, a history that can teach us how we deal with what may seem to be the end of the world. What appears to be the end of the world, instead will become the beginning of a brave new world, a future where the apostles live out the life that Jesus lived, a life where they become followers and teachers of the Way. A time where Christianity is born.

Read Acts 1:18-20

“As you know, he took the evil bribe money and bought a small farm. There he came to a bad end, rupturing his belly and spilling his guts. Everybody in Jerusalem knows this by now; they call the place Murder Meadow. It’s exactly what we find written in the Psalms:

Let his farm become haunted

So no one can ever live there.

And also what was written later:

Let someone else take over his post.

Judas must now be replaced. The replacement must come from the company of men who stayed together with us from the time Jesus was baptized by John up to the day of his ascension, designated along with us as witnesses to his resurrection.”[1]

Some of us may not like to hear about the villains, like Judas, but I have a soft spot in my heart for him. I believe that Jesus loved Judas as much as he loved the other men, the other followers. Jesus needed Judas to follow through with a kiss of betrayal to live out and die for all of his people. The fulfillment of the prophesy that Jesus would be crucified, lie in a tomb and dead for three days and then become a resurrection story would not be possible without a villain named Judas. And most plots need action and a villain. Judas carries out the inevitable, with a kiss.

The lost, and bewildered, the clueless and depressed apostles struggled with the question of who should lead them in the meantime. It is an interim period and they, like most of us, do not like uncertainty. The men gathered around and cast lots, it’s a fancy way of throwing dice, to pick the next leader. There were two choices: two men who had been hanging around Jesus since his baptism. They were second row guys. Perhaps the original twelve men were power hungry, constantly jockeying to belly up to the bar beside Jesus, their main man. But now, Jesus is gone. They are down in the dumps and the work remained. The work always remains. The show must go on, and they look to the bull pen. Who else has been waiting in the shadows? Who else is ready to go, saying “Put me in coach, I’m ready to play?”

The two players are Joseph Barrabas, aka. Justus and Matthias. They both pray and hope for the best. It’s not much of an interview system, casting lots, but it was two thousand years ago, and it was more a who you know rather than what you know kind of a system, so the dice are thrown around the flickering campfire light and one man is chosen, Matthias.

Was he ready?

Are any of us ever ready when God comes a-calling?

It’s been a difficult time for the apostles, like it is for many of us in liminal time, that in-between-time at 34,000 feet when we don’t have time to transition between two worlds. I remember flying back home to Colorado after extremely difficult academic years at Harvard and just being at a complete loss on how to move my body, spirit and mind between the two worlds: school and home. Landing on the strip and gazing out at the Rocky Mountains that always welcome me home, I was never quite ready to step back into my homeland again and yet I was so done with competition and Harvard.

Try to remember that if you have been away from someone for a long time. If your child is returning home from college or visiting from living as an adult far away and they return to your home this summer. Both of you have been hurtling off into space in two different directions, evolving into different human beings as you have grown, adapted and aged over the past few months or years. Permit each other to grow up, forgive each other for the things you have left undone, don’t expect miracles because it happens to be Mother’s Day Weekend, a Hallmark greeting card industry holiday that somehow manages to make most of us feel a little sad or less than perfect, and many others get down-right distraught over the losses we sustain around our own mothers or lack thereof.

So, be especially tender with others, and with yourself. If you feel like it’s the end of the world, remind yourselves that is exactly how the apostles felt after Jesus had died and they felt abandoned. There is that great old African American hymn called “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” If you feel that way, let the arms of your dear Mama God, wrap you up, enfold you and circle around you. If you feel frightened or afraid of what you should do next, remember what Dr. Seuss wrote in Oh, the Places You’ll Go! ,

“You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

SO….

Be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray

Or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,

You’re off to Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way![2]

1

[1] Acts 1:18-22, p. 1494.

[2]Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss, Random House, 1990.