Casting Lots (May 12)

Readings, Psalm 1 and Acts 1:15-26
Image, Nicholas Pope, "The Apostles Speaking in Tongues, Lit By Their Own Lamps,” 2014. Terracotta, metal, wick, paraffin, and flame. Salisbury Cathedral installation.

In the Uniting Church, we have a fairly elaborate process for calling a minister. Written profiles, a Synod committee, a JNC with presbytery representatives and members of the congregation; and here we read we could have just been rolling dice to decide all this time.
 
We’ve stumbled into a little bit of a mini-theme these past three weeks, how to make a Christian decision… how to discern what we, as a disciple, are meant to do when confronted with the unforeseen. It is not unsurprising as these readings follow that interesting time of the early church, stepping out in faith without the immediate presence of Jesus.
 
You might have sought guidance and wisdom from God when making a difficult decision. One time, facing a complex decision, having exhausted the more reasonable paths of discernment, I decided I needed a sign, and so I tried to engineer one. Waiting to cross the road, I decided that I would count the red cars that drove by, if there were more than four, I would go one way, less I’d go the other. Probably not what God had in mind when sending the Spirit to be our wonderful counsellor, but perhaps you’ve tried something similar?
 
Because sometimes we use chance not to reveal the right outcome, but to reveal what we want in our heart of hearts. To use an innocuous example, say you are trying to decide if you want Thai or Italian for dinner. "It's fine," you say, "either is good" - so you decide to flip a coin to choose. But this is the moment (coin cascading back down to earth), that you realise, oh no, I really want Thai, gosh I hope this lands on tails! The coin flip reveals we already know what we want, we just need to be faced with the possibility of the alternative to admit our desire. Perhaps some apostles felt this as the lots were cast. Perhaps their true preference for Justus or Matthias was revealed to them as they waited to see where the lots fell.
 
What is striking though, is that this is not a small decision. The disciples are seeking to replace one of the twelve apostles. And they need to do this because one of the original twelve betrayed Jesus, betrayed them all – a betrayal so pulsating with wickedness that the betrayer simply fell headlong into his ill-bought field guts bursting forth. So, you know, it is not that there aren’t consequences for allowing the wrong disciple into the twelve. Despite the provisions they put in place in terms of someone who accompanied Jesus the whole time, that is no guarantee against potential betrayal, for Judas fit those provisions too. With the stakes so high, how, we wonder, might they have justified such a practice as casting lots?
 
Well, in the first instance, there is simply a difference in culture. Lots were viewed as an appropriate way for the will of God to guide human decisions, indeed they circumvent the frailty of human wisdom. You might remember for instance, that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist was elected to go into the sanctuary whereupon he received his miraculous visitation from the angel after the casting of lots which was the custom of the priesthood.    
 
But I think there is something we can learn from the confidence displayed by the apostles in their casting of lots. It is not to emulate my car trick, nor to develop some new practice of chance as divinely ordained to reveal the hidden will of God. No, I would say that what this story highlights for those of us wondering how to make decisions when discernment and prayer has not settled the matter, is to free ourselves of the fear that one wrong decision will somehow derail God’s plans. That one wrong decision will render for nought all that God is doing through our community. That one misstep will foreclose God’s future in our life. The disciples, having done all they can to discern, trust that Jesus will abide with whoever is initiated into the twelve. If Judas could not derail the plans of God, then neither could Matthias, Justus, or anything else that malevolently seeks to frustrate the kingdom of God. Jesus lives and reigns, and if we abide in love, we abide in Christ. The disciples can make their decision however they choose, because if they do so in love, they do so in Christ.
 
The psalmist sings, God watches over the way of the righteous, and happy are they who delight in the law and meditate on its precepts. Such a psalm can appear threatening at first, for who wants to be among the wicked; like chaff driven away by the wind? But the psalm is not out to create the impression that any of us are one decision away from our innards spilling out onto the field we purchased with blood money. Rather, those who abide in love and seek the truth in humble earnestness are watched over. The good news is that those who seek to make their decisions while abiding in Christ’s love and seeking the movement of the Spirit are freed from the fear that each fork in the road has only one correct decision.
 
Indeed, so great is God’s faithfulness that had Judas not foreclosed his own end, he might not have needed replacing. Consider Jesus’ treatment of Peter; who denies Christ in his hour of need. Even this terrible decision does not foreclose the future Christ had laid before him. Interestingly, Matthew conveys the death of Judas differently from Acts. There, Judas, realises the innocence of Christ and hangs himself. The field is named the field of blood, not because it is where Judas met his ghastly end, but because it was bought with the silver he sought to return. Perhaps the only way to make a truly terrible choice from which even Christ cannot work to restore us to grace and community, is if we give up on the possibility of Christ’s forgiveness. For would not the resurrected Christ, who gathered Peter who denied, Thomas who doubted, and the disciples who fled, not also gather the one who betrayed? Would there not have been forgiveness even for this poorest of choices? And do not we have hope, that Christ who went down unto death, proclaimed good news to the spirits in prison, and harrowed the halls of hell, might not have found a way to gather Judas to him still? Such is the basis of our freedom and boldness, because if there is the possibility of hope and mending for the betrayer, how much more so for us?
 
The lesson is thus: If we love Christ, delight in the scriptures, discern with community, and stay open to grace we can make choices free from fear. Because whether we go left, right, up, down, or round and round, God is with us, and wherever the path leads, God is its end. God is with us before, at, and after each fork in the road, enveloping us in steadfast kindness and calling us to the work of an apostle, a witness to the good news of Christ's abiding love.