Taken from my sermon that I offered at St Chad’s, New Moston and St Mary’s, Moston this morning, using today’s Lectionary readings (Acts 1. 15 – 17, 21 – 26 and John 17. 6 – 19).
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
Life is full of choices isn’t it? We almost have too much choice these days, and choosing things can give us enormous stress if we’re not careful, and to help us navigate it all, we can often turn to different methods to help us.
On Monday this week Kevin and I were trying to sort out things in our loft. We have saved all sorts of things up there, from when the children were little (first shoes and first curls!), schoolwork, awards, certificates, artwork… plus all my study stuff from my bachelor’s and master’s degrees… plus a load of craft materials, half finished projects, Christmas stuff… you know the kind of thing.
Well, we need to decide what we are going to keep and what doesn’t need to be kept any more. Choices choices choices! I have ended up throwing away my study notes, but not my text books (compromising with Kevin there… ) but it is so hard making that decision.
But we have choices every day too, not just those special occasions when we need to clear the loft out.
What are we having for tea? What shall we watch on the telly tonight? You will have your other things to add to my suggestions.
So, I’ve devised a bit of a way to help us make a decision. It involves biscuits – always a good idea!
Have a go at my flowchart to see if it will help you what type of biscuit to choose.
Good fun!
But there’s a serious side to this.
Sometimes we are faced with having to make some really difficult decisions, and some choices are hard to make, and we have to rely on some form of routine or ritual to help guide us into making those decisions.
And it makes me wonder what Jesus’ thought processes were when he chose his disciples.
Over the last seven weeks we have heard what they all got up to in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’s death and his resurrection, but we don’t know how he decided to choose them out of all of the other people he could have chosen. We know that Jesus chose a mixture of people – men and women, grafters, those who worked with their hands and those who were clever with counting money – he chose from the lowly and the outcast, the shunned and the spurned – and he chose someone who he knew would ultimately betray him.
Judas.
Judas Iscariot was chosen to be one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers – a disciple – even though Jesus knew full well that it was his ministry to betray Jesus to the authorities, to hand him over to be crucified.
Jesus knew that, and yet he still chose him.
In our Acts reading today we learned about how the remaining eleven disciples chose the replacement for Judas in their group [after he had taken his own life]. And not unlike the way we just chose which biscuit to have with our brew later, they had a method to it.
First of all they chose a shortlist from those who were one of the followers – those who travelled with Jesus to hear his teaching. Not one of the chosen few, but one of those who felt the call to follow and to hear for themselves what Jesus was teaching.
The shortlist was down to two men: Joseph Barsabbas (aka Justus), and Matthias. These men had been following Jesus right from the very start, right from Jesus baptism by John in the Jordan. They were witnesses there and they were with the disciples here.
And the disciples drew lots for which of them would earn their place as an Apostle with them. Matthias was the winner and he was named the 13th Apostle, taking the place of Judas.
I had a bit of a chuckle at bit yesterday when I heard that, because it reminded me that our Test cricketers are numbered in the same way. There was the original eleven in 1877, beginning with number 1 (Tom Armitage) who were then gradually replaced as they retired or left, and we are now at number 713 with Shoaib Bashir taking that number this year. If you are interested, W G Grace was number 24 joining in 1880, and the 100th person to join the team was in 1896. Norman Cowans was number 500 in 1982.
But there’s something in that numbering system isn’t there? In all of that time since Jesus appointed his first disciples and they became Apostles, that numbering system might have carried on, and I wonder what number you or I would be at now if they kept on with that?
It’s sobering to think that the fellowship we enjoy today as followers of Jesus stretches back over 2000 years, and there are millions of us in that one community the living body of Christ, left behind to carry out God’s mission.
And I wonder how they all arrived at the decision to follow Jesus? Was it something that they were conscious of, or for many, was it something that was simply just “done” as part of the culture of the people they lived with? It is tempting to think that they would have all actively made a choice to follow Jesus, to share the gospel, to sing his praises, to worship him, to pray in churches and worshipping communities together, but maybe they were like we are, and sometimes, coming to church is just something done out of routine or habit, and it’s something that we don’t ever remember making a choice or a decision about.
Not everybody, but there will be people who from one Sunday to the next don’t consider what Jesus means in their lives, and who just come week by week because this is a bit of a social gathering where we sing nice tunes and have a good cup of tea (with or without the biscuits!).
Maybe it’s not every week, but I wonder if that rings true with you now and again?
I confess that there have been times in my life when coming to church was just another thing on the list – it’s different now, and I’ll happily talk to you about it sometime – and there have been times when I chose to do other things than come to church, or to join with other Christians reading the bible together or praying together.
We all have a choice, just as the Apostles had a choice in who they were going to admit into their group. They could have chosen both of those candidates; they could have put them to some sort of test; they could have done any number of things to try them out to see who would fit best; one of them could have even stepped back if the numbers had to be exactly 12… but they chose to choose Judas’ successor this way.
They had a choice – we have a choice.
Jesus has called you to follow him, and God has given us the free -will to respond to that call. We can choose to ignore it, or to respond to it, or more realistically, we choose to respond at a time and in a way that is convenient to us, not necessarily as Jesus asks of us.
That response can be a spontaneous thing, welling up, from inside us,… or it can be an intentional thing… something that we actively choose to do. Like we did with the biscuits, we could, if we choose to, run a similar flowchart for intentional acts of love and faith.
You can see that there are some simple choices to be made here, but ultimately, there are lots of different ways in showing love for one another as Jesus taught us.
So, how are you going to choose to serve Jesus this week?
Is it through a renewing of your commitment to reading Scripture maybe?
Is it through having that difficult conversation with someone about faith?
Is it to pray more, to be more aware of God in the everyday things that you do?
Is it to put yourself out by doing something for someone else?
There are all sorts of ways in which you can choose to serve Jesus this week, and it’s up to you in your own circumstances to decide what service looks like. You may be at school or work and someone needs a bit of support from you. You may be with your neighbour who needs a listening ear. You may be the one who needs to ask for help yourself.
Whatever you choose to do for Jesus this week, know that he chose you to follow him, just as he chose his original 12 disciples. He chose them not for what they thought they could offer, but because he knew what they could offer. He chooses every single one of us in the same way. Not because we think we are unworthy, but because he knows us and he loves us, even though he knows that from time to time, we choose to do things that take us away from him.
Jesus chooses you; will you actively choose him?
Amen