"Who should I choose?

Peter?

That choice was obvious. The first thing that strikes one about Simon Peter was his six foot, four inch frame. He cast a long shadow. Almost everyone looked up to him--physically. A natural leader, decisive, clear, forthright and brutally honest; and at times, a formidable presence. His fault lay in his rashness. He too often said and did things he regretted. Impulsive, perceptive and bright! He was all of these. Jesus thought about it for a moment. Peter's impulsivity was the direct consequence of intelligence. He saw things. Solutions and resolutions often popped into his head; they were so clear to Peter that he was at once done with it, the conclusion inevitable. Sometimes these conclusions were embarrassingly wrong. But Peter was the earthy sort whom Jesus loved. Peter was his first choice. He could find none better. But Peter had a family. What of his wife, Joanna? Would she understand?

Who do you want, Father? Who would be your choice? Peter? Yes, Peter. What of others?

Jesus considered. His first cousins, James and John, the sons of Zebedee and his mother's sister, Salome, came to mind. He thought of them together, Sons of Thunder! A bit silly, he thought, but literally true--as we know from their desire to "call fire down from heaven" on a small Samaritan village. They were a family of means. His Uncle Zebedee had owned his own business all his adult life. He was a businessman, a fisherman, as had been his father and his father's father. He allowed himself to consider their wealth. They would bring financial support to the group. But that is not an issue! Irritated with himself for the thought, It has no bearing on the decision! He dismissed it from his mind. While they lived in different towns, he had known these men and remembered well the occasional adventures they spent together as boys. They were in some respects as close as his own brothers.

The fishing trade produced iron-tough men. Hauling heavy nets soaked with water and filled with fish built powerful bodies and brutally calloused hands. Songs at sea and shouted commands made for boisterous personalities. They were straightforward men. Opinionated. Often intemperate in their language and demeanor. Peter, James and John, sons of sail and sea who stink of fish, were no exceptions. Jesus smiled as he thought about it. They were perfect!

My brothers, Father? The other sons of my mother and my father? Should they be included? Why not? James, Simon, Judas and Joseph--good men all. James seems more sensitive to my work than the others. He thought, but if I chose one of them, I would have to choose all. Again, Why not? He considered this choice carefully. Would they be willing to follow my lead? He thought of the arguments between brothers, himself included, when they were younger and thought better of it. No, his brothers would not do.

The moon hung low in the western sky. A shaded opalescent circle, a dull-orange crescent hanging at its bottom to one side as if anticipating a deposit, a golden, inviting receptacle. To its right several inches, or miles, or eons, or however God takes measure of the universe, hung the brightest star of the sky. Jesus gazed at this sight, seeing beyond it into what for most was stellar darkness, but for him, stellar Light. There he touched the Holy Kernel. There he connected with the Father's heart. With the Father then, both far and near, he prayed into the warm, surrounding Cimmerian shade.

Jesus breathed in the quiet, and then went back to his selection process. I have three, Father. Who else would you want with me? Peter's younger brother, Andrew? Another raw-boned, muscular fisherman. Black tousled hair, dark penetrating eyes, inquisitive, a seeker, an asker of questions. His temples and beard flecked with premature grey. His face bronzed, his shoulders broad, his hair tied back in a tail. Active, energetic, and very protective of Jesus. By the look of him, he was perhaps a year, maybe two, older than Jesus. Quick to wrestle and make sport with his friends. He has a way of making us all laugh, finding humor in simple things. And he knows when to be serious. Fiercely loyal to his family and his brother, he would fight in a moment anyone who challenged him. He and Peter were alike in this respect. No one would dare face them both. Good men to have with me, Father. Number four: Andrew, brother to Simon Peter.

Philip. Consummate cultivator and harvester of fig groves with his close friend Nathanael-bar Tolmai (Bartholomew). Their fruit, both fresh and preserved, could be seen on the tables in the marketplace. "Master," he had once said to Jesus, "I have great respect for John, the Baptist. It requires courage to leave one's family and friends and go off into the wilderness to live alone."

"He is not alone," Jesus had replied.

"I know." Philip continued, "He communes with the Father, and he preaches and he baptizes. I should like to follow his example someday."

"There is only one Baptist." And perhaps there is only one Philip? What of Philip? Another good man, thought Jesus. Philip had followed Jesus for the past year. A man accustomed to producing fruit.

Nathanael! An Israelite in whom there is no guile. Jesus smiled at the amusing memory. While some preferred to think of Nathanael by his ancestral name, Bartholomew, Jesus thought of him as Nathanael; this is the one to whom I promised that he would see the Father's angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Two farmers, Philip and Nathanael, friends who were loyal to each other and loyal to me. Do you approve, Father? His heart warmed with satisfaction. Six.

Jesus yawned and stretched his arms into the air. He felt sleep approaching. He was tempted to lie down in the soft grass, build himself a pillow of fallen leaves, placing a cloth over it to keep the insects from crawling into his ears, and sleep. He had chosen six men to be with him. Perhaps that was enough.

It was not time for sleep. He felt satisfied with the choices he had made but sensed that today's work was not yet complete. He rose to his feet and walked into the darkness observing the path closely. Abishag followed at his heels. After a few minutes of striding in the darkness, on the inclining sheep-path, he felt the blood pounding against his temples and his breathing became labored. His mind clearing of cobwebs and drowsiness, he struggled with the notion that he was not done choosing. Since God's promise to Abraham, the descendants of the twelve sons of Israel have served as those through whom access to the true God was given. Twelve? Yes, he would choose twelve, one for each tribe of the house of Israel. It was settled. It was right. Who, Father? Who else shall it be?

Is it not comforting to know how close the Son walks with the Father in choosing who shall be with him? Shuttling between them, adjunct to both, the compassionate and all wise Spirit engaged; separate, yet the same as both Father and Son, without whom no selection could be made. So it was then, so it is now, so shall it ever be. Three Wills, one Mind; three Spirits, one Purpose; three Persons, one Symphony.

Matthew. A gift from God! For such is the meaning of his name. If Peter was a captain, a leader, a force to be dealt with, so was this publican. There was, however, a wall, an obstacle to overcome where Matthew was concerned. He was hated by almost everyone. The reality that Jesus himself had accepted him is the only reason Peter, John and the others tolerated him, but they did not trust him. How could anyone associated with the Empire of Rome, let alone a Jew who had betrayed his own people for money, be accepted among their number? But Jesus had loved him, accepted him and embraced him as a brother. The others must learn to do so as well.

Two captains then. Peter, and Matthew. Peter the outspoken, brash fisherman; Matthew the quiet-spoken, objective, pragmatic, perhaps even cynical intellectual. They will go in different directions. Peter will draw the most attention, but Matthew will work his quiet genius for the love of his Master that will impact the world.

Matthew did have one friend among the others; Thomas, called "Didymus," whose name called attention to the fact that he was a twin. Thomas and Matthew were not unalike in their personal constitution. The thing that set Thomas apart was his analytical mind. Thomas thought about things. Measured things. Jesus could not recall Thomas ever making a careless remark. He, like the others, had grown up in Galilee, but like Matthew, he was not a fisherman. The industry seemed repugnant to Thomas who made no bones about disliking fish. There is a quality of sweetness about Thomas, thought Jesus. He has a tender heart despite his need for pragmatism. Thomas was chosen.

And what of the sons of his uncle, Cleopas Alphaeus? (No relation to Matthew.) Jesus considered the two of them, James and Simon, the young zealot. And Thaddaeus, the son of James? Cleopas was brother to Joseph, the surrogate father of Jesus. These men, though brothers, were as different from each other as any men could possibly be. Jesus was amazed that they had been raised in the same household.

James was short. It is mentioned only because it was obvious and only because people remarked about it. They called him "James the Less." Because he had been put upon and ridiculed all his life, he had developed a certain toughness, a feistiness and bravado. He would not be pushed around or made to feel inferior because he was short. He had dealt with that all his life. What he lacked in stature, he made up for in arrogance, an arrogance that people did not find unappealing. Perhaps in a short man, such arrogance can be amusing. Incredibly, he was something of a bully. Not many withstood him, for to do so one invited verbal abuse the like of which one does not hear from ordinary men. Moreover, he was irrepressible. His laugh was hearty and quick, often tinged with sarcasm. Yet one did not really feel insulted when James released one of his deprecating invectives. Well, maybe a little. He saw through pretense. He was relentlessly practical and would not brook hypocrisy. He is delightful, thought Jesus. James will keep us all near the precipice.

Thaddaeus? Judas? Lebbeus? This young man has more names than a thief! Like his father and his uncles, an acerbic soul. Sons of Alphaeus. Sons of hell! Thaddaeus was the son of James and grandson to Alphaeus and, despite his youth, served as a check, or a foil, between the other two. The brothers argued incessantly with unseemly pouts and tirades from James. Usually, it concerned Simon's political ambitions. Young Thaddaeus was no less argumentative, no less a participant in the adolescent fights. But then, the Alphaeus men had been doing this all their lives. Thaddaeus, oddly, seemed the rallying point, the glue that kept the other two from killing each other. Yet, each would instantly give his life for the other. Choose one of them, choose them all!

Simon, the most radical, had joined the Zealots, that ragtag army of not so underground resistance against the Roman oppression. He was always spouting off at the mouth. He always had something to say--usually extreme and not well thought through. He held no love for the Romans or for anyone who wanted to try to make the best of that bad situation. He could think only of war. "If this isn't a war," he would opine, "then we are spineless worms." His eyebrows furrowed, his face contorted in manufactured rage. He was bright enough to know that there was little he and his friends could do against so powerful a government, but that did not stop their pseudo-guerilla tactics nor their vituperative rhetoric. James, the eldest, and father to Thaddaeus, just shook his head and rolled his eyes at his brother's recklessness. He often tried to counsel him to be less intemperate, but to no avail. Simon was known to fraternize with some scurrilous people, Barabbas, the murderer among them. How could the Son of God use such an extremist? How could men like Matthew, the publican and Roman sympathizer, and Simon the Zealot ever comprehend one another? How could they ever get along? It was not a good mix. They held in common only their devotion to Jesus--and for quite different reasons. Only their devotion to Jesus? It was this singular devotion that held them all together, that bonded them, that made them feel nothing else mattered. So it was then, so it is now for all of us. I need his passion, his obsession, his youthful energy, thought Jesus. I need such a man as Simon!

It occurred to Jesus that everyone he had chosen thus far came from Galilee. It did not seem necessary for him to select anyone from elsewhere. He, himself had grown up in Galilee. Why look elsewhere? Yet, he felt within himself that he had yet a choice to make. Among the faces that sifted through his mind was that of the young man from Matthew's tax office. Jesus searched his mind for a name, Judas! Did not he say that he came from a town called . . . Kerioth? Ish-Kerioth, a small town in Judea. Judas Iscariot. The man from Kerioth!

Like Matthew, Judas had been with those that followed Jesus since that day in the Office of Tribute. Interesting how a man from Judea has followed along with our Galileans, thought Jesus. He remembered how this young man had come to him as they rested from a day's journey and said to him, "Teacher, I know you have not invited me to follow you as you have the others, but will you object if I stay? I wish to learn." Jesus noticed that while his lips smiled, his eyes did not. "I believe in what you are trying to accomplish." An accountant, Jesus remembered. It could be advantageous to have such a man among us. Perhaps he will serve a purpose within our group. What think you of Judas, old girl? He laid his hand to the dog's head and stroked gently. Abishag whined and looked away.

Three years later, the night before his crucifixion, Jesus would refer to Judas as the "son of perdition," the son of eternal doom and damnation. He said that he had "lost" Judas so that the Scriptures would be fulfilled. Yet the ancient prophecies do not mention Judas or a man from Kerioth, nor do they mention the betrayal of Messiah. They speak eloquently of Messiah's death, but do not mention what specific event that precipitated the crucifixion, as Judas' betrayal did. Did Jesus choose Judas with full knowledge of his awful betrayal? Does Jesus select to be an apostle a man foreordained to eternal damnation? John states clearly that he did. Why would Jesus choose someone whom he knew would betray him over someone whom he knew would not?

During the years I was with him, I quietly struggled over why Jesus had done this; why he had chosen Judas and not Matthias or even me or one of the others to be one of the original twelve. Judas had been a relative newcomer to our company, and we had been with Jesus and the disciples since his baptism. It seemed, from my simple perspective, that any of us would have been a better choice than Judas. In retrospect, however, it is clear.

After having preached for a year in the region of Galilee, many people followed Jesus. So, after an all-night season of prayer and a few hours toward morning for sleep, he appointed these twelve--designating them Apostles--that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach, giving them authority over the forces of evil.

Apostle? What is an apostle? A messenger? An office? A gift? Is there a better understanding of this word?

Whatever it means, it does not mean me. Jesus did not choose me to be an Apostle. Nor did the other apostles when the time came for replacing Judas, even though I was nominated. I was not chosen. The first time, I was not so much troubled. Jesus had a right, I considered, to choose whom he wanted. They were, after all, his apostles. There were many of us who followed him who also were not chosen. It never occurred to me then that he would choose me.

The second time, however, was different. There were only two of us, Matthias and myself, from whom to choose. Had Peter and the others made their decision based on what they believed to be the merit of each of us, perhaps my discomfort over the procedure would have been different. But the method by which the choice was made was pure chance. Dice. They may as well have flipped a denary. How could something as significant as this be decided so irresponsibly? It was an insult to the Spirit of God; it was an insult to Matthias who was chosen; it was an insult to me, who was not.

Now as I look back on this singular event, instead of imagining what my life would have been like had I been chosen, I wonder instead what it would have been like had I not known Jesus or spent those extraordinary years with him. It is he who shaped and formed my life. In retrospect, I can state with absolute sincerity, nothing else matters.