So, many years ago now...over two decades ago, I guess...before my coffeshop days...I was the President and CEO of Chattanooga CARES AIDS Resource Center and Clinic. My job was pretty tough. I had to maintain proper funding for this multi-million dollar organization – writing grants, doing fundraisers, constantly hitting up the wealthy and politically connected for donations.
I also had to oversee a staff of 50 people, half of whom were medical and half of whom were social workers. This is harder than it seems because the medical staff wanted to “do” for their patients, while the social worker staff wanted their clients to “do” for themselves. It was a hard thing to keep those two philosophies in a friendly tension since so often the patient and the client were the same person.
And I had to see and be seen. I had to join the right civic clubs, be at the right parties and events, seek out newspaper reporters and TV cameras. I had to dress the part in nice suits. Drive nice, clean cars. Smile for the camera. A big fish. An important fish. Or at least it seemed that way.
But, I had this one volunteer. Well, he was one among many. His name was Jason. Jason was 45 years old, and he had HIV. He had almost died of it in the 90s when there weren't good drugs out there. All there was was AZT, and while it could keep you alive, it was like playing Russian roulette with your body. It would keep you alive, but sometimes you wondered if it was worth it.
But Jason endured. Quietly, he kept to his drug regimen and every day he continued soldiering on. Because he didn't want anyone else to get this disease. Even when those new, live-giving drugs came along, even when HIV became manageable, the way diabetes is manageable, Jason worked tirelessly doing what he could, because you never knew: what if a more virulent strain appeared. People needed to know.
He would be at every fund raiser, manning the tables, signing guests in. He would be at all of our walks and runs, helping set up tents, handing out tee-shirts. He would go to churches and schools and civic meetings, telling his story – his story of being unaware, then so very aware. His story of how his friends and family treated him with fear and loathing, how they turned their backs on him, but how some of them, thankfully, managed to somehow see his courage bit by bit. And how bit by bit, they found their way back to him, and he welcomed them back.
His story of long nights alone with nobody to talk to but God. And how God talked back, not with words, but with love and comfort and peace.
His story of how he came to peace with his own life and wanted everyone he touched to be at peace with theirs. Not out of fear, but because there's something bigger than all that, something bigger than all of us, and we need to find it. And he had found it, he would say, in his Christian faith.
And then, one day, Jason stopped telling his story, because Jason died of complications from AIDS.
And a few weeks later, I opened a letter from a lawyer who informed me that Jason had left $750,000 to Chattanooga CARES and we would be receiving it in a few days.
I was flabbergasted. I had no idea. All we knew about Jason is that he showed up on time and did his work quietly and efficiently and passionately. Nobody knew, even his closest friends, nobody knew he was wealthy. Nobody really knew anything about him at all.
Today, the apostles are trying to replace one among them who was lost to them because of his betrayal. Judas Iscariot, for, I assume, a variety of reasons, chose to betray Jesus. And the apostles decide that 12 was a better number than 11 and go about trying to choose a replacement. Casting lots, they pick Matthias. Matthias is chosen to be one of the 12, the inner circle, a person who was chosen because he walked with Jesus, knew Jesus, believed in Jesus, lived a life like Jesus, and loved Jesus. Matthias, who would now be responsible to preaching and teaching and guiding and bringing people to Christ. Matthias, a man on the move. A man with a mission.
A man who disappeared from the Bible and from history as soon as he was introduced.
There are a few stories outside the Bible about this man. But even they are scatter-shot. He either went up into Georgia and Russia and died of old age, or he was stoned to death in Jerusalem, or eaten by cannibals in Ethiopia. I guess when you don't know much about someone, you can pretty much create any story. But really, all we know is that he walked with Jesus, knew Jesus, believed in Jesus, lived a life like Jesus, and loved Jesus. Period.
And, you know, I think that's just fine. Because it means we can all be that twelfth disciple. We can all be Matthias. We don't need a long resume. We don't need to have the right education. We don't need to go to the right parties and know the right people. We don't need super powers or lives of adventure. We don't need to be brave or strong. We don't need to be legendary. None of that matters – in fact, it might just get in the way.
Here's what we need: We need to love one another as Jesus loved us. We need to love Jesus BECAUSE he loved us. We need to do the work he has given us to do: caring for the poor and oppressed, reaching out to those who have nowhere else to go, comforting the afflicted, fighting for justice, easing the burden and the pain and the sorrow that others bring to themselves and to the world around them. Just stepping up and living a life of faith out in the open because it's the right thing to do.
As St. Teresa of Avila said so long ago: We are now Jesus' feet with which he walks to do good,
we are his hands, we are his eyes, we are his body.
We are the ones who leave what we have, the homes, the churches, these buildings. We are the ones who abandon all that makes us comfortable to go out and encounter the world that Jesus encountered. And encounter it with the love that Jesus loved it with.
Jason lived that kind of life, without ever bragging or boasting, a life of a saint, of St. Matthias. He lived that kind of life giving of himself fully just as Christ asks of us all. He lived that kind of life because, having given himself fully to Jesus, he had no other option.
None of us do, really.
Amen