A Sermon by Jeff Carlson

St. Pauls UCC, Chicago

May 28, 2006

Texts: Psalm 1; Acts 1:12-17, 21-26

The musical Wicked has been playing in Chicago for quite a while now. If youve seen it, youll remember that it opens with the residents of the Land of Oz singing about the Wicked Witch of the West. They belt out, No One Mourns the Wicked to celebrate the death of the wickedest witch there ever was. But then the musical takes a turn and were taken behind the scenes of the Oz we always thought we knew. We find that wickedness is much more complex than the 1939 movie had led us to believe. The Witch of the Wests wickedness is no deeper than the green of her skin. Wickedness in Oz cant be confined to one person. Its systemic. Wickedness goes right to the heart of the Emerald City.

Our readings today are full of wicked people. The writer of Psalm 1 seems to have a habit of calling people wicked. Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, he says. The wicked are like chaff that the wind drives awayThe way of the wicked will perish. Wicked, wicked, wicked – who are all these wicked people in Psalm 1? Theyre not identified, and yet the psalm-writer seems to be surrounded by the wicked. If you take this psalm by itself, without any context, then youre free to fill in the blank with whomever you happen to think the wicked are. And, of course, we do fill in those blanks. Who comes to your mind when you hear the word wicked? No fair looking around you.

In our reading from Acts, its Judas who is wicked. Hes dead, so there are only 11 apostles left. Jesus has ascended into heaven, and the disciples decide that they need to choose a replacement for Judas. Apostles, it seems are like donuts. Youve got to have a dozen.

The good people who choose our readings for each Sunday removed the wicked verse about Judas. You’ll notice in your bulletin that verses 18-20 are missing from Acts 1. Here’s one of the verses that we did not hear, Now this man (Judas) acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. Well, thats gross, and you can see why the gentle souls who put our lectionary readings together omitted that verse.

By the time that Luke wrote Acts, many years after the events hes describing, this story about Judas was apparently making the rounds. Luke tells us that after betraying Jesus, Judas bought a field with the money he received. But when he goes to his new property he slips and trips and takes what can only be called a very nasty fall. And thats the end of Judas. Betrayal does not pay. He had it coming. No one mourns the wicked. As Glinda the Good witch sings, Goodness knows the Wicked die alone. It just shows when you’re Wicked you’re left only on your own.

Its become popular lately to cut Judas some slack. Hes finally even gotten his very own secret Gospel published after all these years. Its part of his makeover. But even the early Christians seem to have had a hard time simply writing Judas off as wicked. In Matthews Gospel, after Jesus is condemned, Judas actually repents. Can the wicked repent? Do we even want to let them repent? Matthew does. In Matthews account, Judas acknowledges his sin of betraying an innocent man and he does not, in fact, buy a field as Luke says. In Matthew, Judas throws the money back at the conspirators. Then he commits suicide by hanging himself. Theres no nasty, gut-spilling fall in Matthew. Why do we have these 2 differing accounts in the Bible? Was Judas wicked? Or was there redemption even in the midst of his suicidal despair?

I think we have these conflicting accounts because its hard for us to know just what to do with the wicked. Wed like to write them off – whoever we think they are – but if were honest with ourselves then I think that we know that there is a fine line that separates the righteous from the wicked. Horrible crimes are committed not by inhuman monsters but by human beings. Its important to remember that maybe not so much for their sakes, but for ours. When we turn wickedness into a caricature of pure evil, then we run the risk of forgetting that we all share the same mixed-up human nature. We share the same human heart.

I suppose that, more than anyone, we think of the Nazis as the embodiment of wickedness. And after the holocaust we said never again, never again. Yet genocide continues to happen in our world, recently in Rwanda and now Darfur, while the international community has sat on their hands and looked the other way. When the righteous turn their backs and do nothing, do their hands remain clean of wickedness?

Judas was not that different from the other apostles. Peter stands up and says to the gathered disciples, Judas was one of us. He shared in our ministry. We knew him. He was an apostle. But he went his own way, and so we need to replace him.

Peter, youll remember, did not come off too well himself in the events surrounding Jesus death. He denied Jesus three times. Judas betrays, Peter denies. Which is worse? Which is wicked? One becomes a saint Catholics call him the first pope. The other repents but is driven to suicidal despair, and his name becomes synonymous with double-crossing false friendship.

It can be hard to account for how people end up where they do and why we call one person good when sometimes hes not that much different from someone we call wicked. I dont think that human beings are quite as easy to divide into the righteous and the wicked as Psalm 1 might lead us to believe. But Psalm 1 doesnt tell us who the wicked are. You cant read it in isolation. You have to keep reading to find out about wickedness.

Psalm 1 is only the beginning of 150 psalms. The word wicked is used a lot in the rest of the book, and its meaning might surprise you. When the wicked are described, theyre often said to be oppressive. They use their power to oppress the poor and needy while at the same time living comfortable, self-centered lives. The wicked in the psalms are often violent. They speak peace to their neighbor while at the same time conceiving mischief in their hearts. The wicked do not live with integrity. They are arrogant. Theyre stingy. They talk behind your back. It seems that wickedness covers a lot of territory.

Secret plotting. Living comfortably while the poor are oppressed. A lack of integrity. Arrogance. Manipulation. I dont know about you, but none of that is very far removed from my own heart. Wickedness is not a list of personal vices that we would never do. Its not some horrific crime that other people commit but that I would be incapable of. Its a potential within each of us.

Human beings are complex, fallible creatures, a mixture of righteousness and wickedness, and we usually fall somewhere in between. The disciples would have known that. They had known Judas well. They lived with him. They walked with him. Jesus even chose him as a disciple and washed his feet. How was he any different from them?

Peter had denied Jesus, yet he remains a apostle. The disciples knew that as well. I suspect that those thoughts would have been in their minds when it came time to choose a successor for Judas. How, exactly, does one choose an apostle? Whats the method? How can you be sure? Jesus is no longer physically with them. Its just them. So, they do the only thing you can do. They use what they know. They use their experience, and then they leave the rest up to God. And that is often the best we can do.

So, two men are put forward, Joseph and Matthias. Both good men, both men they knew well. I know, it seems like it should have been time to give a woman a shot at it. There were women apostles in the early church. Luke just seems to want to avoid talking about them. There were no gender restrictions for apostleship. The requirements were few. You had to have been following Jesus throughout his ministry and you had to be able to witness to the resurrection. Thats it. So, Joseph and Matthias are put forward, but the disciples dont then take a vote. They pray. They pray to the God who sees what they cannot see. They pray, Lord, you know everyones heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen. And then they cast lots – they actually gamble – they draw straws for the 12th apostle and Matthias is picked.

Its a surprising way to choose an apostle, leaving it up to chance. But by doing it that way, they affirm something true about life. Much is hidden. Much is obscure. There is much we cant predict, even with the best-laid plans. And the biggest mystery of all is our own human heart.

The disciples pray to the God who understands the worlds greatest mystery, the human heart. They were undoubtedly thinking of the words of another psalm, number 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart. In their prayer they use a name for God that Id never noticed before I studied this text. They call God the one who knows the heart. Its actually all one word in Greek kardiagnostes. Kardia like cardiac, heart, and gnostes like knowledge. One word: heart-knower.

I like that word. God is the heart-knower, the one who knows us completely – in all of our human mix of righteousness and wickedness, of love and hate, of confidence and confusion. There is someone who understands everything that is going on inside of you, inside of me, and inside everyone we know. Thats what God is like: the heart-knower. And I find in that a great source of hope.

Many of you had probably never heard of Matthias before. We all know Judas, but we dont know his replacement. The only time we find Matthias name in the whole Bible is in this short story from Acts. Like most of the 12 apostles he just disappears from recorded history. Hes simply known as that guy who replaced Judas. Imagine being known by that. There are records of a secret Gospel of Matthias that existed in antiquity, just like the recently uncovered Gospel of Judas. But it has been lost to us. Maybe someday it will turn up under layers and layers of sand in a desert somewhere. But if its ever found, it really wont tell us anything new about Matthias. It will only tell us about the anonymous people who wrote a book in his name decades later.

But we do already know something about Matthias. We know that he was a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. He was capable of so much good and so much wickedness. We know that if he became a faithful apostle it would only have come from relying on the faithful grace of God. He was like all of us, a person who needed to be transformed by the God who knows the human heart.

In some sense, I think that each one of us is called to be the 12th Apostle. There are no gender restrictions and the qualifications are few. Each one of us is called to be a witness to the way of Jesus – the way of forgiveness and love of enemies. A witness to the power of resurrection life in a world that is preoccupied with death. There is a Secret Gospel for each of us. Its the Gospel that God – the heart-knower – is writing in the secret places of your heart.