Your Name Comes Out Of The Hat

Acts 1: 15-17 21-26  John 17:6-19

And suddenly ..your name has come out of the hat!

It must have happened once to you surely.  Clutching those raffle tickets, and finding, yes,  it’s you who’s won.

When I made my first official appearance here at St Matthew’s  it was at a coffee morning in the hall. I was not asked to pray or to preach, but I was asked to draw the raffle.   Picking names out of a hat with a flourish  should be an essential part of any Vicar’s training along with  how to put down a Go Pak table without having your fingers chopped off.

Your name’s come out of the hat – and there is slightly grudging applause as you pick your way across the room to select your prize. Chocolate, wine,  basket of fruit, all the usuals are on offer. We’re justl hoping you don’t take the big prize, the one we’ve all got our eyes on. But yes, of course  you walk away clutching the champagne and grinning from ear to ear, you spoilsport. “Well done” we call out, through gritted teeth.

Your name’s come out of the hat. Did you notice the first ever raffle in the Christian church described this morning and did you notice the prize. The number of the apostles  had been reduced  to eleven through the betrayal of Judas and his place was to be taken by someone, who like the others had been with Jesus from the time of His baptism through to his resurrection.

And Matthias’ name came out of the hat. What a moment for him. To have been elected.  To have been chosen,  To have been promoted. I wonder what poor Joseph called Barsabbas and also known as Justus thought about it all. To not be chosen.

 Quite a  few verses are given over to this event – as if the writer is expecting great things of Matthias – but if you read on, through the next 28 chapters of Acts, if you read write on to the end of the bible  you will discover an alarming truth about this man. He is never mentioned again.

Perhaps  he was  caught up in some power struggle and quietly sidelined. Was he ineffective or a bitter disappointment?  Did his face simply  not fit? Or was he, as some commentators claim,  elbowed aside by Paul , after his headlining conversion.

Or was it that the story of Matthias’s life just got assumed into the greater story of the church as the church became assumed into the greater story of the love of God.

For that’s what can happen to you when your name comes out of the hat in church circles and when the prize is more than lavender soap. When its about you being an apostle – one who sticks with Christ. Then, your own personal story, your sense of life being built around “Me “ is gone forever. .

There is “My story” – the story I tell about myself and through which I gain my personal identity. Today we’ve read about the dizzy heights of Matthias’s own personal story.

But then there is “Our Story” – which is the story that a group tells – a family, a nation, or even a football club – I’d like to think we don’t hear of Matthias again because his life was caught up in “our story”.

Then there is “The Story” – a tale which stretches from Genesis to Revelation. From Creation to the coming of the kingdom – into which, in the end we all find our place.

It is our place in “The Story” that Jesus is praying about in our Gospel reading. That we might find our place in God – share his truth, reflect his glory, follow his purposes, be found as never before – in his love.

When you first stepped over the threshold of St Matthew’s ,you brought your story in with you! And whether you realised it or not, your name was being drawn out of the hat. A prize was being offered,not a voucher for the Harlequin or gourmet biscuits – but the prize of belonging. Belonging here, warts and all.  Your story, come in here off the streets and deciding,, letting it, trusting it to become part of our story. If you want.

That’s what’s so good about the talks people gave in Lent about their lives. Not that the speakers had a good yarn to spin, but those moments when you thought to yourself – yes, that’s been true for me, or when you thought to yourself, wow, that’s something I didn’t know.

That’s the mark of true church. That we accept each other’s unique tale to tell and then, through the word we share, through the prayer we make, through the sacrament of which we partake, we join hands and become part of The Story.

I passed by a boutique once with a great name – “Me! Me! Me!” it was called and in the window were some wonderfully fashionable clothes which it was promised would transform me if I cared to step inside.

The more we become distanced from God – the more “My story” will matter.

The closer we get to God – the more The story” will – and the church – the place where “Our Story” is formed – is the bridge between.

Jesus is God come down from The Story into My Story to lead me out of myself and into him.

Your name has come out of the hat – it’s written on the bread you will be given at the Eucharist – it is inscribed on the chalice from which you will sip.

It wasn’t until next week that the disciples began to get a grasp of all this.  The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost – for on that day the stories of those twelve were whipped up into one story by Holy Spirit and blew like wild fire into the lives of thousands.

We need to show that times have not changed.

RH 24.5.09