August 24: St. Bartholomew, Apostle

Today is one of those Sundays which can go in two directions. As the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, some parishes will keep time holy as does Daniel B. Clendenin at Journey with Jesus with his commentary on the appointed readings: Isaiah 51:1–6, Psalm 124 or Psalm 138, Romans 12:1–8, and Matthew 16:13–20. Many pastors will be preaching on the Gospel narrating Peter's confession that Jesus is "The Christ, the Son of the living God." Other pastors, however, may ask us to observe that today is also a time to remember St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve Apostles known to us only by his being listed among them in the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. What we know about Bartholomew, as the Lesser Feasts and Fasts tells us, is very little:

His name means "Son of Tolmai," and he is sometimes identified with Nathaniel, the friend of Philip, the "Israelite without guile" in John's Gospel, to whom Jesus promised the vision of angels ascending the descending on the Son of Man. Nothing more is heard of him in the four Gospels.

There are, not unsurprisingly, a good many legends about Bartholomew, one being that he was flayed alive at Albanopolis in Armenia. On the whole, however, there's really not much to say about him.

It seems to me, however, that "not much" says a lot, both about Bartholomew and about us. Not much will be said about most of us. We may get an inch or two in the local obituary listings after our deaths, but after a decade or two, "not much" will be about all that can or will be said of us. Who were you, Andy? Not much. Who were you, Bill, Mary, and Sam? Not much. Except, of course, in God's remembering and mercy. God will always remember us in Christ, and that is the great comfort of this Sunday for those who remember "not much" Old Bart, as a friend of mine once named him.

After all, it is always God who does the Great Remembering. He "re-members" us; that is, moment by moment He puts our "members" (the parts of us: body-parts, spirit-parts, soul-parts, mind-parts, heart-parts) together, especially by placing us in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. As the people of God gather for worship and Holy Communion this morning, God will again "re-member" us, turning Bartholomew's and our "not much" into the Body of Christ, partakers of His divine nature, the "muchness of Christ."

No wonder we want to pray one of this day's collects:

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to prach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.