Our revised calendar makes today the feast day of St. Matthias. Ordinarily, I would take little notice of the event, but a regional meeting of the Anglican Church Women is happening today, beginning with the Eucharist, at which I will preach.

Acts 1:15-26 tells of the selection of Matthias to take Judas' place among the twelve, using a method that would raise many eyebrows today, but which actually might work just as well as the whole process of elections, IMHO. What the story doesn't tell us is what Matthias was selected to do, other than to complete the twelve. The twelve disappear from the narrative very quickly. There's only one more reference, in Acts 6:2-4, when the twelve find themselves burdened by waiting on tables, and ask for help, so that they can "devote (them)selves to prayer and to serving the word." After that, they disappear, taking Matthias with them.

It seems that we honour Matthias because God gave him the honour of filling the empty seat in the inner circle Jesus created. We know nothing else about him from the New Testament, and the non-Biblical traditions about his later career vary widely. Nonetheless, the pre-Pentecost "church" seems clearly to have understood that completion of the circle was their first task, even before the coming of the Holy Spirit. Even then—perhaps especially then—continuity of leadership was crucial.

Today, we have seminaries and universities and other institutions dedicated to the training of leaders for the church, and every church has more or less elaborate methods of selecting people to fill those roles. For the most part also we are quite clear about what that leadership entails.

Matthias had the same training the eleven received—with Jesus from the beginning and a witness to the resurrection. The method of his selection began with identifying suitable candidates, and then continued with prayer—and we still do that. Then they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias.

I might cheekily suggest to our Synods that we could save a great deal of time and stress by choosing bishops by lot. And I would probably be greeted with cries of derision. But God seems to have known his own mind in this matter—and who are we to say otherwise?