NRS Matthew 10:1
Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

May God's blessing rest and remain upon you always!

Today's reading from Matthew lists the Twelve Apostles whom Jesus called and entrusted with the ministry of the gospel. We haven't the vaguest idea of what any of them looked like, but that hasn't stymied the imagination of some of the world's greatest artists.

Simon, renamed Peter, consistently tops the list of the apostles.

He's often represented holding keys, symbolic of the "keys of the kingdom" that Jesus promised him after his great confession of faith, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16: 17, 19).

Peter is said to have died a martyr in Rome, where, legend has it, he asked to be crucified upside down because he believed himself unworthy to die as Jesus did.

The apostle Andrew was Peter's brother, and according to Mark, they shared a house in Capernaum (Mark 1: 29).

They were both fishermen before Jesus called them into his ministry. The Gospel of John tells us that Andrew was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, who pointed him to Jesus. According to tradition, he also died a martyr, in his case, in Greece, bound to an X-shaped cross, known to this day as St. Andrew's Cross.

James was one of the two sons of Zebedee called by Jesus. He's sometimes known as James the Greater, and the Gospel of Mark tagged him and his brother John as the "sons of thunder," boanerges (Mark 3: 17).

The Acts of the Apostles says that King Herod Antipas had James killed, making him the first of the apostles to be martyred (Acts 12: 1-2).

John was, like his brother James, another fisherman whom tradition identifies with the Gospel of John. He was present with Peter and James on the Mount of Transfiguration and at the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus' betrayal and arrest.

The Gospel of John refers to him as the "beloved disciple," or the disciple whom Jesus loved. After the resurrection, John and Peter were the first apostles to run to the empty tomb and John was the first to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead (John 20: 2-10). Tradition says that he was poisoned by his pagan enemies, which explains why he's often pictured holding a cup or chalice.

Philip came from Bethsaida, which, according to St. John, was also the hometown of Peter and Andrew.

In that same Gospel, Philip is described as a link to the Greek-speaking Jewish community. An old tradition claims that Philip died preaching, even as he was being crucified.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all identify Bartholomew as an apostle, and in the Book of Acts he's also listed as a witness to the ascension of Jesus. Some scholars think he's the same person that the Gospel of John names Nathanael.

Christian legend has Bartholomew carrying the gospel to Armenia and being martyred in Azerbaijan, where he was said to have been skinned alive before being crucified. This slide from Michelangelo's Last Judgment shows Bartholomew holding his flayed skin on which the artist has painted his own face.

Thomas is known best as the apostle who doubted Jesus' resurrection, demanding to touch Jesus' wounds before being convinced.

He is venerated as the apostle to India, where, in that overwhelmingly Hindu nation, there are still churches that bear his name,

Matthew was the tax collector, or more exactly, the toll-taker whom Jesus called to ministry.

The Pharisees objected to Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, much less including one among his own chosen twelve. Matthew is credited, of course, with writing the gospel that bears his name. Rembrandt portrays him here with an angel whispering in his ear.

James, the son of Alphaeus, is usually mentioned with his mother, "Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses" (Mark 15:40).

In Christian art he's often depicted carrying a saw. The story is that his body was sawed to pieces.

Thaddeus is also known as Jude, which is how he's listed in the Gospel of Luke.

Roman Catholics consider him the patron saint of lost causes and miracles for the hopeless. St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis is named for him. His martyred remains are said to reside in a crypt in St. Peter's Basilica. Tradition associates him with the apostles Bartholomew and Simon.

In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, Simon is known as the Cananaean and as the Zealot in the Gospel of Luke.

His nickname suggests he may have been associated with a radical group of avenging Temple priests. He is said to have died alongside Thaddeus, or Jude, while evangelizing in Persia and Armenia.

This, of course, is Judas Iscariot attempting to return the silver coins he had taken for betraying Jesus to the Temple authorities.

In 2006 National Geographic released a translation of the so-called Gospel of Judas that purports to tell the story of Jesus' death from his perspective. Since the beginning of Christianity, people have tried to understand and explain Judas' betrayal of Jesus.

And here they all are, the Holy Twelve, with Matthias replacing Judas after he was chosen by lots, according to the Acts of the Apostles.

The front four are James, Peter, Matthew, and John.

So here's the million dollar question: Would you have called any of these people to be your ambassadors to the world? For that matter, would you call any of these people to be your pastor?

Even with some of the alternate routes to ordained service now in place, I doubt these guys would have made it onto the clergy roster of our church. They certainly lacked formal education; I don't think any of them could have produced a diploma of any kind. I imagine that many, if not most of them were practically illiterate. You might argue that they did have three years of study at the feet of Jesus, but Jesus himself often calls them slow of faith and sometimes just slow. They didn't always "get" Jesus. Philip and Thomas always seem to be asking very obvious questions, and even when Jesus takes his disciples aside to explain to them a parable or hard saying, more often than not they still miss the point. You could say that they'd make great Bible teachers, given the various books and letters of the New Testament that bear their names. Many scholars today, though, seriously doubt that they wrote any of those texts, but rather, that their names were attached to them only much later as a way to prove their orthodoxy or authenticity.

You may not know this, but before you can even enter seminary today, you have to undergo an extensive battery of psychological evaluations and background checks. That process would probably have also screened out several of Jesus' apostles. Peter, you know, had a very quirky personality. He was very impulsive and very quick-tempered, not what we'd call a good leadership style. And of course, he denied Jesus not once, but three times. Along with Peter, James and John slept while Jesus agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane. Not what we'd call good pastoral presence! Matthew was widely seen as a traitor to his own people and an open sinner. Simon's nickname implies that he was involved in a dangerous political movement.

I don't think I'm being overly harsh here, but it seems to me that, objectively speaking, there's really only one word for these twelve and that word is: Unqualified. They were each uniquely unqualified, academically, temperamentally, and to some extent, morally, too. They weren't the best and the brightest. They didn't have any credentials to commend them. They had no previous experience in public speaking, no discernible management skills, nothing to suggest that they were even remotely capable of launching a worldwide movement. And do you really think that they could have provided any references to support their candidacy to the office of apostle? And yet Jesus, the very Son of God, chose them, the unqualified, to be his living presence to a world sorely oppressed and deeply divided.

Yes, it's a mystery, but this is how God works. The patriarchs, prophets, and kings of Israel were just as unqualified as the apostles Jesus chose. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, unqualified. Saul, David, and Solomon, unqualified. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, all unqualified. But God did not pick any of them, nor did Jesus choose any of the apostles based on their qualifications. You see, God did not select them for the gifts they had, or the training they'd taken, or the experience they'd gotten under their belts. Rather, God chose them for the gifts that God would give them, for the training that God would provide, for the experience that God would open to them. Paul would say that God chooses exactly the unqualified so as to bring life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17), that the glory may all go to God, and not man.

So the next time God calls you, don't say you're unqualified. Don't say you're not able or you don't have the education. Don't say that it's out of your field or over your head or it doesn't match your skill set. That just means you're exactly the person God is looking for.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.