Sermon: Easter 7

Wisdom as the Way
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Easter 7, Year B (RCL)
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

First, a joke to get us started on this glorious Sunday morning: Why did the Episcopalian cross the road? He didn’t, he stopped in the middle. Since the birth of the Church of England, Anglicanism, and the Episcopal Church, our church and our faith has been referred to as the “via media” or “the middle way” between Catholicism and Protestantism. Those who are more “high church” often times jokingly call themselves “Catholic Lite”, while those tending to be more “low church” many times jokingly refer to themselves as “Protestants with Prayer Books”. From its conception, Anglicanism has made its mark by holding dichotomies in tension through the bonds of common worship; through the glue of our Book of Common Prayer. Even today, though we are far removed in time and place from the Reformation, our church and our faith continues to hold differences in tension; seeking a middle way between our diversity and God’s unity.

This last week, as I read and reflected upon today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles and the calling of Matthias, I was reminded of the via media, of the middle way. Looking closely at the scene, we find a tension among the once twelve. Judas of course has left them. Now, the remaining eleven apostles find themselves with the difficult task of calling another one of their own. Jesus himself had called each and every one of them originally. Now they had to fill his shoes, so to speak, and make the same difficult decision on their own. How do they go about making this decision? Interestingly enough, by choosing the middle way. It is not enough that they democratically elect one of their own to take Judas’ place. Nor is it sufficient that they should leave this decision entirely up to God. It would be highly irresponsible for them to allow just anyone to take Judas’ place, not to mention uncaring. Instead, they take the best from both worlds; they decide to narrow it down to two names through their own discernment process, yet put the ultimate decision as to who becomes the thirteenth apostle into God’s hands by casting lots.

Through traversing this via media, this middle way, the apostles avoid the dangers lying in wait at both ends of the spectrum. They, even more so than we, knew the story of Job. They knew what God’s response would be should they make this decision on their own, live on their own, act as if they had the ultimate power and authority in naming the next apostle. Surely they remembered God’s question to Job, “Shall a fault-finder contend with the Almighty?” And Job’s reply, “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.” It must have been clear to them that calling on God’s spirit to guide them at some point in this process was the right thing to do, even though Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit was still days, perhaps weeks or months away.

Yet at the same time, they also didn’t go to the other extreme and completely dismiss their own God-given ability and gift of discernment. They didn’t just leave it all up to God and in so doing, sacrifice their own stengths and skills and responsibilities. Here, I’m reminded of a story I once heard about the dangers of waiting on God to act definitively, all the while ignoring God at work through the people and in the small stuff of our lives. There once was a horrific flood that overtook a small town. At first, the waters had spilled over the riverbanks and left only an inch or two of water in the street. A police office drove by a man standing outside of his house on his front porch. ‘Sir, you should be gathering your things and leaving your home. The water is supposed to get much higher.’ To this he replied, ‘Oh I’m not worried, God will take care of it.’ Hours later, the water had risen to the roofline of his house. Emergency workers in a boat passed by and saw the man sitting on the rooftop. They called out, ‘Sir, you need to leave your home immediately. Please, come aboard and go with us.’ Again, he replied, ‘I’m okay. I’m praying that God will save me.’ Finally, as it was getting on towards evening, the water had now all but engulfed the house. National disaster relief workers flew over the house in a helicopter, throwing the man a rope ladder. Screaming at him over the noise of the blades cutting the air they demanded, ‘Sir, if you don’t come with us right now you will surely die.’ Once again he replied, ‘God will be coming any second now, I just know it.’ As the helicopter flew off, the waves crashed around the man and he drowned. Up in heaven, he asked God, ‘I had faith and I prayed and I trusted you, why didn’t you save me?’ To this God said, ‘I sent you an officer in a car, emergency workers in a boat, and even disaster relief workers in a helicopter. What more did you want?’ The point of the story – that most times God works through us and our neighbors and not by divine intervention; we can’t just solely count on the casting of lots but must us our gifts and our skills as well to guide us along the way.

Through this process by which Matthias was added to the eleven, the apostles set a precedent and teach the early church and us to value the balance between our own abilities and insights and the Spirit of God that surrounds us and moves beyond us. It is not an either/or proposition where we must choose between our own will and God’s will for our lives. No, it is a both/and process where we use all of the tools at our disposal yet ultimately, after engaging our intellect, our intuition and each other, turn the final decision over to God. The apostles in today’s lesson teach us that we can do something, but not everything; that we can make a difference, but not the ultimate difference; that all things are possible only if we work towards them with God’s help. We hear this time and again in our own Baptismal Covenant. ‘Will you seek and serve Christ in all people, loving your neighbor as yourselves?’ ‘I will, with God’s help.’ We can do it, God can do, but we must rely on each other’s help; we must remain in constant relationship with each other in order to move ahead and in order to make difficult decisions.

One of the greatest prayers ever written, the Serenity Prayer, echoes this relationship between our will and God’s help. The prayer tells us that it is in using our intellect and abilities to do what we can do, changing the things we can, while at the very same time praying to God and casting the lots of life, accepting the things we cannot change; that it is in following this middle way that we find peace of mind and heart. The Serenity Prayer holds in tension those things we can control and those things we cannot; our need to do what we can do and then our need to turn the rest over to God. It is indeed a delicate balance, a balance which we find the apostles striving to achieve in today’s lesson from Acts as they work to control the selection process, stating that the person chosen must have “accompanied [them] during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among [them]”, but then ultimately turn the entire process over to God as they “cast lots for them.” The apostles had the courage to make decisions but also the serenity to accept God’s ultimate decision. They walked the middle way of the Serenity Prayer. It is no wonder then that Matthias, the thirteen apostle who was chosen through this process, is in the Roman Catholic tradition the patron saint of recovering alcoholics.

Today, may we pray for wisdom; wisdom to know the difference, wisdom to know where we stop and where God starts. For that word, ‘wisdom’, even in and of itself is filled with this very same tension between creator and created. For wisdom can be defined as having accumulated learning or knowledge; wisdom has to do with what we can do. Yet is can also be defined as discernment and gaining insight; wisdom has to do with what God can do through us. So to be wise then is to inherently walk this middle way. Today, may this via media be our path and may wisdom be our guide. Today, may we do all that we can and be all that we are, but then get out of the way so that God can work in and through us. Amen.