Reflection for Sunday May 24

For one in place of Judas
The apostles sought God’s choice
The lot fell to Matthias
For whom we now rejoice.

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke, is puzzling in some respects.  It seems that an important position had to be filled.  The twelve apostles were now only eleven in number.  Yet there were supposed to be twelve of them.  Scholars speculate that the need for twelve stems from God’s use of that number throughout the Bible to represent God’s people: the twelve sons of Jacob leading to the twelve tribes of Israel (Jacob’s other name), the twelve gates of heaven in the Book of Revelation, and so on.  Whatever the reason, today’s story is set in the midst of some pretty stupendous goings-on:  first the witnessing by the apostles of the ascension of Jesus into heaven, followed by a number of days spent in prayer, and the ultimate event, the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

Sensing that the event we now call Pentecost required a full complement of witnesses, during those days of prayer the eleven decided to find someone to fill the place of Judas.  The person selected should be a former follower of John the Baptist, a consistent witness to Jesus’ ministry, and a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.  The apostles selected two individuals, one with a legacy of respectable names:  Joseph called Barsabbas also called Justus, and the second one called Matthias.  Apparently the two men presented excellent credentials, and the apostles were stymied as to the selection they should make.

For the moment put yourself into the sandals of those men.  Although each had followed Jesus from the time Jesus presented himself to John the Baptist through the days of ministry, through the passion and resurrection, neither had been called by Jesus to be one of the twelve apostles.  Did either want to be?  What was the advantage to being a known member of a group of people marked as followers of Jesus, preaching unbelievable happenings to sometimes unbelieving crowds, although Jews by birth and tradition somehow beginning to doubt the restriction of salvation to Jews alone, somehow beginning to suspect that the way things would turn out wasn’t what had always been anticipated?  Those apostles, after all, were not exactly members of an elite country club.  Nor did they sit on boards of powerful corporations.  Yet, apparently, both Justus and Matthias accepted their “nomination” to become an apostle, at the same time knowing that only one would be chosen.  Or to put it another way, knowing that one of them would not be chosen.

This is where each of us can identify with Justus and Matthias.  How many times have you put yourself into a situation in which you could come out the apparent loser?  Did you apply to a college, not sure you would get in?  Did you apply for a job not knowing what the odds were?  Did you run for class office?  Did you apply for an apartment, or a mortgage?  Did you seek membership in a club or civic group?  Did you try out for a sports team?  In general, did you ever put yourself on the line to reach a goal?  But of course you did.

Now here comes the interesting part:  the phrase “they cast lots for them.”  The casting of lots is an event appearing frequently throughout the Bible.  The process was used to make decisions falling into certain categories:  those involving the making of a just decision, a resolution of a dispute between two strong parties to avoid strife, and the seeking of Divine guidance for an appointment of a person to some office or the selection of an entity for some part of a ceremony.  So the apostles were familiar with the process as a means of seeking God’s help when faced with a difficult decision, one for which no apparent solution was evident.

The casting of lots was not a matter of voting.  Rather it was more akin to tossing a coin, heads Justus becomes the new twelfth apostle, tails Matthias does.  As we know, the coin came up tails, and Matthias became the “winner.”  The advantage to the process was the certainty on the part of all that God indeed had chosen Matthias.  From another standpoint, the advantage to the process was the certainty on the part of all, including Justus, that God had not chosen Justus.

Some questions arise.  The first is—what became of Justus?  We don’t know, because there are no further references to him in the Bible as we know it.  For that matter, though, there is no further mention of Matthias.  Apparently the point of this story in Acts is not to introduce us to the new Apostle, Matthias, whose adventures we will follow in the stories ahead, nor is it to introduce us to Justus so that we might profit from his example in stories to follow.  Neither man merits further attention.

Then why the story?  Some scholars argue that the purpose of the story is the process that is outlined for making the selection.  Criteria are set for certain roles in the new church, and a process is outlined that implies that even though candidates may be equal in their qualifications, God’s choice can be divined by prayer and the casting of lots. Today the latter has taken the form of actual voting, supposedly inspired by the Spirit whose help has been sought in prayer.  As our diocese moves forward in the process of electing a new bishop, we will hear more about the role of prayer and discernment in the selection of that person.

Finally, what about the rest of us?  Are we not the Justuses of the world?   We have not been called to ordained ministry, yet we are faithful witnesses to the ministry, passion, resurrection, ascension of Jesus, and we proclaim the coming of the Holy Spirit. We take risks in this witnessing, risks that at times don’t lead us in the direction anticipated.  We look for the good in whatever outcomes we experience.  Sometimes the college we didn’t get into resulted in our experiencing a much better education in another institution of higher learning.  Sometimes the job we didn’t get led to employment in an area more suited to us.  Sometimes the mortgage we were denied led us to another choice of residence in which we lived very happily.

Right.  But what about the other times?  This is where it helps to realize that just as Matthias could take comfort in the fact that God and not humans has chosen him as the replacement for Judas, so Justus could take comfort in the fact that God had not chosen him.  Having lived so intensely as a Christian during the past three years, that certainty and comfort probably came easy to Justus.  Sometimes that comfort and certainty doesn’t come easily to us.  Those are the times when we need to reaffirm our credentials as apostles:  witnesses to and participants in the ministry of Jesus, the passion, resurrection, ascension of Jesus, and receivers of the Holy Spirit.  As we rejoice in the selection of Matthias, we also rejoice in the non-selection of Justus, knowing that we are protected in Jesus’s name, through the word of God and the coming of the Spirit.

The world in transformation I

What we do today – as an individual, as the church, as our society, as our species – will have an effect on tomorrows world.  We leave our footprints; some will fade with time, others won’t.  It can take hundreds of years to replenish an over pumped ancient aquifer, thousands to restore a heavily damaged ecosystem – if it can be restored at all.  The crude oil converted to the gasoline that we’ll convert to carbon dioxide and water vapor is gone forever.  Every species that becomes extinct will diminish creation forever.  Therefore, though it’s difficult, we are obligated to think about the future and how our present lives will influence it.

Of course in the vast majority of cases our footprints will merge with millions of others and whatever we can do will have a negligible influence on the larger future.  However, there are those rare and unpredictable cases where some tiny step leads to another and another and in the end a major change occurs.  Chaos theory (also see) provides some very necessary insights into any consideration of the future.

God works through chaos.  Most real world dynamic systems (weather, the stock market, where we live, how a tree branches, the shape of a coastline, etc, etc) are chaotic.  Chaotic systems, though they may look random, are not.  They are fully determined, but their path is extremely dependent on initial conditions.  As a result of this dependence, our ability to predict the details of the future is very limited – no matter how powerful our computers get!  It’s the very often  misinterpreted butterfly effect: “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”  Basically, very small actions can trigger changes that over time result result in major – but totally unpredictable -  changes and a dramatically different outcome.  Do you set off the tornado or stop it?

Though the future is not predictable, sometimes, for long time periods, it can be reasonably safe to assume that the future will be defined by an extension of the present or the recent past.  Obviously, this is not always the case.  Civilizations eventually collapse and sometimes populations crash.  However, there are lots of known forces at work, and though they can’t tell us the future, they can tell us a lot about limitations and possible directions.

I can envision little pieces of a future that is just and sustainable – and a lot different from today’s world.  I’ve also experienced little bits of that possible future.  The visions I’ve had or seen are not and cannot be universal – they are limited to particular regions, situations, and population density.  However, the biggest stumbling block I see is not where we’re going but how can we get there in the least painful and most loving and just way!

On spirituality, morality, theology…

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St. Paul’s in transformation

St. Paul’s transformation story really starts with the arrival of Rev. Pat Gallagher as half time vicar back in th fall of 2004. From what I’ve heard, the time before her start was characterized by divisions and disagreements – as well as a a rather rapid burn through of the endowment. That period ended with a significantly smaller congregation, but one that was deeply committed to St. Paul’s and its basic values.

I think of the first stage in this process of transformation then as the period defined by Rev. Pat’s leadership. Those roughly four years saw healing and renewal, together with a strengthened commitment to ministry. [Disclosure: Near the beginning of her stay I came to a service - a renegade Lutheran with a dim view of the mainstream church - and absolutely no interest in becoming involved in a church. Looked around and there were the "nice" middle class ladies that you would expect. But there also were people closer to the edge, people who would be marginalized in most churches. Here they were a real and accepted part of the congregation. I kept coming back.]

This first stage ended with Rev. Pat’s retirement (her last service was on September 7, 2008), the sale of the church property to the Covenant Soup Kitchen, a partial resolution of our financial problems, and the strength to continue. The news from this period has been reposted here so the process of transformation for St. Paul’s – with all its twists and turns – will be covered from its beginning.

The second stage has just begun. Last November saw the arrival of Jackie Sheldon as Eucharistic Minister – but her exact ongoing role has not yet been defined. Major questions remain: how do we develop ways to overcome the financial limitations on our ministries; exactly how are those ministries going to evolve. I believe that there will be positive answers to our questions; these answers – whether positive or negative – will be the subject of this blog.

The world in transformation II

The world is at a unique point in history. For the first time a single species – us – dominates the entire earth and has developed the power to make drastic changes in the environment. This dominance has been achieved in an extraordinarily short time frame when considered in evolutionary or geologic time scales. Furthermore, the forces of globalization have ensured that no place is isolated from what happens in the rest of the world – there’s no place to hide. At the same time, a number of interrelated problems have reached a critical stage.

Some problems that come to mind:

• Hunger – by UN estimates one billion undernourished people before the year is out
• Energy limitations (peak oil, natural gas not too far behind) -
• Rapid climate change
• All kinds of water related issues
• Major irreversible degradation of the environment
• It takes a lot of time and money to build large energy, infrastructure, etc, projects
• Without force it takes a lot of time to change people’s habits
• Conflict with deep rooted causes
• A fundamentally unsustainable greed based global economic system

The first thing to keep in mind is a fact usually ignored: everything is related. There are no independent variables in the real world – you can’t separate consideration of oil from energy, from transportation, from food, from climate, from environmental degradation, from geopolitics, etc, etc, etc. – they’re all related, they all affect each other. Similarly, all life is related, and no living thing can exist except through a huge number of cooperative relationships with other lifeforms.

Looking at the problem list makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that there are just too many people on earth. Certainly that problem list gets much easier to deal with if there were a lot less of us around. However, it really looks to be much worse than just a few too many people, it looks like population overshoot.  Overshoot happens when a population grows larger than the long term carrying capacity of its environment. In our case this was enabled by using up stores of oil, natural gas, water in ancient aquifers, deep, fertile old soils, etc, etc.

Populations that go into overshoot eventually crash – a very painful process. Their attempts to survive cause them to do maximum damage to their environment thereby lowering its carrying capacity well below what it originally was. As a result, they usually end up at population levels very much lower than they were at their peak.

The earth now is supporting almost 7 billion people – but how many of us can it support in the long run? Lots of estimates out there – an interesting one, the Earth Manifesto, makes a good case for one billion or less. But how would we get there?  To be continued….