When you see your supervisor, you work. When you do not see your supervisor, you may work, but your work style is likely to slow down. The difference between those two things is the measure of your character and your commitment.
When you see your supervisor, you work diligently. You know that if you do not do your work well, you will be reprimanded. When your supervisor is looking over your shoulder, your work style is focused. But let that supervisor go out of sight, and things change. Once you know the boss is not watching, you relax, you back off. The difference is the measure of your character and your commitment.
When I was a boy it was my job to mow the lawn. We lived in a corner house, with a good-sized yard. I did all right with pushing the mower, but when it came to hand-clipping what seemed like a mile of sidewalk, I shut down. Since there were no Weedwhackers in 1950, it all had to be done with hand-powered shears. Not a pleasant experience.
But my father expected it, and I knew that when it was finished there would be a nice reward in the form of a fifty-cent coin. To today’s generation, fifty cents for mowing a whole lawn doesn’t sound like anything. In the 1950’s, however, it wasn’t bad, and there was something about the heft of the old fifty-cent coin that made it seem like a great reward. Knowing that I would get that half dollar and that my father expected this job to be done was enough to get me started. But not necessarily enough to make me finish – not enough to keep me scooting along the sidewalks and working those shears to trim that crabgrass. I delayed, I dallied, I dragged. I stopped to talk with my best friend across the street. I stopped to laugh at my friend next door, who could do a Donald Duck impression that would send you into gales of laughter. I stopped to tie a clover chain. I lingered under the magnolia tree to enjoy the shade. Anything I could find to do to keep from all that trimming, I did. My father was out of sight, and the fifty-cent reward was not enough to keep me working.
But I had a particular problem. My father was a postal carrier, and he had been assigned to carry the very same street on which we lived. And so, suddenly I would see him come around the corner, a short block away, up and down the steps, delivering that mail. I knew that in a hot minute he would be down to our house and would have something to say about my lawn-mowing. When I saw my father come around that corner, I dropped my dalliances and discarded my delays! The shears clattered with the crunch of crabgrass.
It made a difference whether my supervisor was out of sight. When I could see him, I worked hard. When I couldn’t, I was lazy. The difference was the measure of my character and my commitment.
At His ascension, Jesus gave a command and then rose out of sight. How would the disciples do at fulfilling His command when they could not see Him? “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That’s a huge assignment. The ends of the earth! It puts to shame a hundred yards of sidewalk trimming. How will they deal with this, how diligent will they be, when Jesus is out of sight?
Two men are mentioned in the first chapter of Acts and are never mentioned again. We know almost nothing about them. And yet we can draw some inferences that will teach us what it is to be diligent and faithful even when Jesus is out of sight. The two men are Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas, also called Justus. Matthias who was chosen to be the replacement apostle and Joseph, who was not.
Just a reminder of the background here. Jesus chose twelve people to be His disciples. The number twelve was not an accident. Clearly He chose that number to represent the twelve tribes of ancient Israel, to demonstrate that God was reconstituting the chosen people as the church. There needed to be twelve apostles.
But now the band of twelve was one short. Judas Iscariot had betrayed Jesus and had killed himself. A replacement was needed. And so, according to the story, two men, Matthias and Joseph, were proposed; the group prayed and asked the Lord to show them which He would have as the replacement apostle. Then they cast lots – something like drawing straws – and believed that God had in that way led them to Matthias. That may not be what you and I would do, but it’s what they did. You would probably be a little uncomfortable if the Pastor Search Committee were to say, “Here is our candidate for Senior Pastor; we drew lots and this name came up.” But I have to say that choosing between Barack and Hillary would be a whole lot less stressful if we did it that way! Anyhow, the lots fell. Matthias became the new apostle, and Joseph didn’t.
I
Now, suppose you were Matthias. Imagine yourself in his shoes. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t campaign for this. It wasn’t in your game plan. You were just an ordinary Christian, content to take a back pew and be one of the crowd. And then the lot falls on you! Someone proposes you for the office of apostle, sort of like getting a piece of mail from Publisher’s Clearing House. “You may have already won an apostleship!” And before Matthias could say a word, they all bowed their heads in prayer, and zap! They cast their lots, the moderator said, “Hearing no opposition, Matthias is elected!” What would you have done? What would your response have been?
When they give you a job you don’t really want, either you can say, “No way, not me, not going there. Didn’t want it, didn’t ask for it, look for somebody else.” Or you can trust the process and see God in it. You can believe that the task being handed you came from God Himself. Either you turn it down flat, based on your own self-centered wishes; or you take a deep breath, look for the will of God, and commit to doing what God wants you to do. The issue is how we respond to the expectations of the one who is out of sight. And that is the measure of our character and our commitment.
Someone called me one day when I was a pastor and asked if I would find people to visit and pray with a young woman being brought to Washington from Tennessee because of a serious health condition. Would we look after Amanda, probably for several weeks? I must confess that my first instinct was to whine, “Why me, Lord? Why do I have to do this? With all the other work that is piling up, why does this lot fall on me?” And I looked for reasons not to do it.
But some instinct said that this was an assignment from on high. Our church and I took this on. Several of us went and prayed with Amanda Satterfield and counseled with her family over the next several weeks, weeks which stretched into months. No one from her home knew whether we did this or not; we were entirely out of touch. But we chose to be diligent. Eventually Amanda went back home, still sick, but married, and then less than six months after her wedding, passed away. I thought, “Lord, we nearly missed it. We could have refused this assignment. We could have been lazy about it and no one would have known. But, Lord, You gave us a Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth assignment.” And once we did it, the blessings were tremendous. It was a measure of our church’s character and commitment.
Matthias accepted the task and gave himself to it, even though he didn’t choose it. It was God’s task for that moment and it measured his character and commitment.
II
But now suppose you were not Matthias. Suppose you were Joseph Justus. Suppose you really would like to have been in that apostolic role, and they built you up to think you might get it. But the lots were cast, and you came in second. The job went to Matthias, and they all crowded around Matthias and shook his hand and congratulated him and made over him. “Oh, Matthias, you are going to be such a great apostle. Nobody else can do what you can do, Matthias.” But here you are, Joseph, in your lonely corner, playing second fiddle. You didn’t get it. What then? What we do when we do not get what we think we want is also a measure of our commitment and our character.
I confess to at least one guilty pleasure. For years, I have watched a portion of the Miss America pageant. In particular, the end of the pageant, when the winners are announced. Do you remember how they do that? “The third runner-up is ... the second runner-up is ...”. Now there are only two left standing. One is going to win and the other isn’t. One is going to walk the walk and wear the crown and hear that song, and the other isn’t. With a flourish and a roll of drums, the emcee says, “And the first runner-up is ...” Well, the one who shrieks and cries and jumps up and down is not the one whose name is called, but the one whose name is not yet called, for she knows that now she is the only one left. She gets the prize, she gets the attention, she gets the glory; and Miss Runner-Up is supposed to hug and smile and be gracious, when you know she is actually churning with disappointment.
When you have wanted something, and it does not come, what do you do with that rejection, that slap in the face? When the lot does not fall on you, are you are in misery? I will not bore you nor inflict pain on myself by counting the number of pulpit committees that, during my career, said to me, “You are not the one for us.” That hurt. I was supposed to smile and mumble something about the Lord’s will. Might that have been a measurement of my character and commitment?
Joseph Justus. Built up to think he might become one of the twelve, but now set aside. He is a little like a cartoon I once saw of a man in a hospital bed. He has a visitor. The visitor says, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that our club members voted to wish you a speedy recovery. The bad news is that the vote was five to four.” Even when the news is good, it feels like rejection.
So what choices, now, did Joseph have? How could he have responded to not being chosen? Either he could pick up his marbles and go home, feeling rejected because he didn’t get the glory; or he could pick up his injured pride and see that the work of God is bigger than he is, and get to that work anyway. Either Joseph could go sit in a corner and sulk because he didn’t get the fancy title, the accolades, or the applause; or he could see that the God who loves the church has a place for everyone, and that the task of being His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth requires the diligence of every believer and the commitment of every Christian, including the obscure ones.
Brothers and sisters, we do not have the luxury of stopping to nurse hurt feelings or attending to bruised egos. There is work enough here for every one of us to do. We do not have time to let anger divide us or disappointment derail us. The task is to be His witnesses. The assignment is this Jerusalem Gaithersburg community, this Judea Montgomery County, this Samaria of cultural diversity, this endless world of need. Some folks may not get to do what they think they want to do. They can choose to undermine the church with hostility, they can take themselves out of service. Or they can see the Lord at work, even when He is out of sight. The willingness to work for the God who is out of sight and who gives us a place of obscurity is the measure of our character and our commitment.
Joseph didn’t get to be an apostle. No lot fell on him. But the nickname he received – Justus, a just man – suggests that he got right up from the agony of defeat and found in serving Christ some other way the thrill of victory.
III
Brothers and sisters, this is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. God in His sovereign wisdom is putting into this church those who are needed to carry out this work. There is no one here who is not needed. There is no one in this congregation who has no assignment. All of us can do Kingdom work. The lot may fall on you, or not; but if you accept what you are given to do, your character and your commitment will measure up.
So just as my father would come around that corner and see how my lawn-cutting was progressing, so also our Christ will come again – that is part of the Ascension Day promise – He will come again, and there will be an accounting. What have we done about Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth? The measure of our character and our commitment is whether we do what He assigns us, even when we didn’t ask for it, even when it isn’t what we had in mind, while He is out of sight.
There is a place for you if you are Matthias. Will you quietly and in faith do what you are asked to do, even though you never sought it? If you are Matthias, believe that God will empower you to do that assignment. It will not be a burden when you are committed to the one who, though out of sight, will empower you.
And there is a place for you too, if you are Joseph Justus. Will you in faith and with a selfless heart, find your own assignment, though it carries with it no title and no rewards? If you are Joseph Justus, work not for acclaim but for the one who will come again and reward you. Not with fifty-cents, but with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”.
For after all, both Matthias and Joseph Justus serve the one who for the sake of the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. From that place some day He will come again to measure our character and our commitment.
Isn’t that absolutely out of sight!?
