A Podcast of this sermon can be heard at the following link:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/stushie/Acts_05-01-11.mp3
Acts 5:1-11
1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. 3 Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." 5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?" "Yes," she said, "that is the price." 9 Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also." 10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
Of all the passages in the New Testament, this is the one that I like the least. In fact, I don’t like it at all. It seems so judgmental, unjust, and completely over the top. It comes under the category of using religion to destroy other people. It just doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Jesus, His Joy, or even the Gospel.
But then I look at it closer and I realize that this event has everything to do with Christ and in particular His views on greed, insecurity, and money. Poor Ananias and Sapphira suffer from the same character flaw: they don’t trust God with their needs. They want to squirrel away some of their resources to look after themselves, which normally isn’t a bad thing. The trouble is they also want to appear as very generous, charitable, and saintly people to the faith community.
It was Sir Walter Scott who once wrote these famous words:
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we set out to deceive.
Ananias and Sapphira have seen Barnabas give over to the Jerusalem church all of the money he received from some land that he sold. He gave it for the benefit of the faithful community to feed the thousands of people who had become Christian converts in Jerusalem. They had nowhere to stay; they had no work to do; they were separated from their families, but every one of them had needs of food, shelter, and clothing. If the Young Church was going to survive, it had to meet the needs of the faithful. The ministry came from Christ, but the Church and its people were the mission to be supported, financed, and cared for.
Those who had extra resources were counted upon to help the rest. Barnabas sold his land because it was surplus to what he needed. He was praised in front of the whole Christian community for his benevolence, his kindness, and his generosity. He did not seek this attention or blessing from the Church. He just wanted to help others in the community, so he helped by giving away what was surplus to his requirements and giving the proceeds to the Church.
Now, please don’t get the impression that I’m trying to make us all feel guilty about what we give to the church and what we keep for ourselves. That’s not the point of this passage. We give to the Church because we cheerfully want to support the work of Christ that is going on here at Erin. We don’t do it out of duty, obligation, or coercion. We give because we are glad to do so. We give because we are thankful for our salvation. We give because the work of Christ is being done in many different ways at our church.
So this passage isn’t about donor guilt or controlling our charity. It’s much deeper than that because it causes the instant death of two people. It’s a matter of Life and faith, as opposed to lies and death.
You see Ananias and Sapphira commit the unforgiveable sin of lying to and grieving the Holy Spirit. They give their gifts and make a public show of themselves, telling everyone that just like Barnabas, they have also sold some land and they are giving all the proceeds to the church.
But this is not true. Instead of giving it all, they kept some back from themselves. Rather than giving all, they want all the glory given to themselves. They conspire together before the gifts are made. They decide to go through with this deceit and this causes their tragic downfall.
Initially, Ananias makes the gift. He doesn’t do it quietly or secretly. We are told from the scripture that he lays his gift at the feet of the apostles. This doesn’t mean much to us today, but in those days laying your gifts at the feet of someone in authority, also meant that you were giving over your life to their service. So when Ananias is giving over his wealth to the apostles, he’s also making a very public gesture to those around him, that he’s giving his whole self to God, to Christ, and to the church. In other words, he’s making a solemn vow to God through the way in which he is actually making the presentation.
Outwardly, he’s making a public promise to follow and serve Christ and the church fully. Inwardly, he’s letting his pride ruin his promise and he is disrespecting God with his deceit. Publicly, everything looks perfect; personally, Ananias is deluding himself but he is not fooling God at all.
Like everyone I know, I love the Charlie Brown cartoons that Schulz drew years ago. I can remember one cartoon where Lucy and her brother Linus are holding hands and cheerfully smiling at each other. Normally, they would be fighting and arguing with each other. When Charlie Brown encounters them, he soon realizes that they are only being nice to each other because Christmas is coming and they want to get on Santa Claus’s good list. When Charlie Brown confronts their hypocrisy, all that they have to say is this: “Santa Claus is an old goofy man; we’re a couple of smart young kids. He’s no match for us.” To which Charlie Brown just shakes his head and says: “Good grief!”
Perhaps Ananias thought that he was looking out for himself and providing for his wife in a good way. Perhaps both of them believed that God would understand and forgive their debts. Whatever the case, the chief apostle Peter gave both of them an opportunity to repent of their lies and seek God’s grace. Sadly, they both opted for deceit and because of this, they dishonored the Holy Spirit which led to their untimely sudden deaths.
They were guilty of selfishly putting themselves first and seeking to be honored for being selfless. They wanted to wallow in their sin and yet still be treated as saints. They wanted to be glorified whilst at the same time they greedily fed themselves. They wanted Christ’s cake and to eat it all at the same time.
We all do this. We are guilty of putting ourselves, our needs, our opinions and ideas ahead of God and others. I saw an example of this the other day. A driver in front of me had a bumper sticker with an American flag and a yellow ribbon to remember our troops. This is not a bad thing to have, in my opinion, but it was what was written underneath that bothered me. You see the words “Faith, Hope, and Victory” were written under the flag. It was an alternative to the Apostle Paul’s words – Faith, Hope, and Charity. Charity, the gift of God and the blessing of grace to others through the Holy Spirit, was being replaced with a military attitude of winning. In other words, God’s grace was being displaced for a jingoistic partisan belief in Victory – at all costs.
Now I’m sure that the person who had this sticker didn’t think of it as a displacement of God, but that’s what was taking place. Even although supporting our troops is very important, as Christians we cannot let our partisan beliefs displace God and diminish the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The whole Ananias and Sapphira event is so tragic because they had forgotten one crucial thing: everything belongs to God. We never really own anything, we just possess things for a while. Whether its land or property, possessions or collectables, the one true reality is this: when we died, we can’t take any of it with us. Ananias and Sapphira thought that they could set aside a little something for themselves to keep themselves secure, but like the Big Barn Builder of Christ’s parable, they died that tragic day and everything was completely taken from them. Whatever future plans or rainy days that they kept the money for, none of it was ever going to be spent in their lifetimes.
(Prayer)
