A letter from the Pastor on Acts 5:1-11
Hi, Trinity--
Over the past month, we have been studying the book of Acts together. While we are not able to teach on every single passage, we earnestly try to deal with the passages that help us to understand the practices of the early church and how they are meant to be formative for us today.
There is one particular passage that I will not be able to teach on, but I did not want to ignore. More specifically, I didn’t want you to think that we were avoiding culturally unpopular passages. In Acts 5:1-11, there is a conspicuous story about a husband and wife named Ananias and Sapphira who God judged swiftly causing their immediate death. (If you haven’t already, give it a quick read now!) This passage is extremely difficult to swallow for people with modern sensibilities. Isn’t God being overly harsh? Shouldn’t this passage be embarrassing for Christians?
I want to spend just a little time thinking about this passage with you. My aim is not to make the sting go away. It should sting. God is not tame or domesticated. Nevertheless, I want to take a closer look to ensure that we learn what God has for us.
It should sting. God is not tame or domesticated.
As I have mentioned in my sermons, the book of Acts chronicles the origins of the church. God was doing really powerful things and the church began to grow in supernatural ways. As a result, the threats to this fledgling movement began to surface. The source of these threats were external, as well as internal. Certainly the various religious establishments were trying to squelch the fervor of the young Christians. But there were also threats from within the community. And these internal threats were extremely dangerous. The story of Ananias and Sapphira is one such story.
At this point in the story of Acts, the church is enjoying powerful and idyllic conditions. The church was growing. There were tons of conversions. The young church was experiencing the Spirit doing amazing things through them as they served one another with deep generosity.
In chapter 4, a believer, Barnabas, sold his property in order to donate the proceeds to those in need. This was not under compulsion. It was his joy to do so. Sacrificial generosity was becoming more common among the early believers. In chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira elected to do the same thing, but with one difference. Instead of donating all of the proceeds, they feigned such generosity, and instead kept a portion for themselves. Did they have to donate it all? No. Could they have kept a portion of the proceeds? Sure. What went wrong? Spiritual embezzlement. They wanted the glory of generosity without being generous. They became glory thieves. This couple did not want to serve the poor. They wanted validation from man. Their money wasn’t offered to help others--it was self-promotion. Because of their deception, the money became a repurposed strain of cancer that could threaten and poison the young community.
The Apostle Peter prosecuted this offense immediately. In short order, both Ananias and Sapphira fell dead. The risk of the cancer spreading was contained.
Understandably, this passage seems puzzling. There appears no opportunity for repentance. There is no “due process”. The punishment feels excessive. I get it. I really do. Part of the difficulty is that this same type of offense would not even make the headlines of a sultry magazine like the Enquirer. To be frank--their offense is simply not offensive to us. It feels excusable to our modern sensibilities.
He had a sense that through stories like this we are just barely feeling the weightiness of God’s holiness. This story was included on purpose, precisely because it confronts our vision of God.
So why is this episode of the early church included? Shouldn’t Luke (the author) have been really embarrassed that God did this? Shouldn’t he have conveniently left out this story, and made God more appealing to us?
Luke was not at all embarrassed by this story. In fact, he had a sense that through stories like this we are just barely feeling the weightiness of God’s holiness. This story was included on purpose, precisely because it confronts our vision of God. On occasion, we mistake God’s infinite mercy with a sense that we are owed such mercy. Our discomfort is built on the presumption that God owes us forgiveness, or just overlooks the culturally accepted sins. We relate to God on the supposition that God’s actions must make sense to us, otherwise, we are permitted to reject them...and Him. Putting God on trial has been normalized.
But this story doesn’t let us do that, right? When God begins to act in ways that are holy (and wholly) mysterious to us (and out of sync with our culturally located opinions) then you can be sure that you are really getting to know Him. Don’t expect God to be just like you.
This reminds me of the scene in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when the young child Susan first hears about the Great Lion, Aslan. Understandably, she was afraid. Even a child knows that a lion can effortlessly tear a human apart.
So, she asks Mr. Beaver the obvious question, “Is he quite safe?”
"Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe?! 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
There is something here that we need to recover about our vision of God. We are so glib with the Lord. This story of Ananias and Sapphira pushes up against our flippancy, doesn’t it?
Please read a little further and let me make a few more observations, that perhaps, still linger. This story in Acts has a symbolic “echo” to the story of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were living in idyllic conditions. Generosity was the standard practice in the garden, but God made one request. “Don’t eat the fruit… for on that day you shall surely die.” They ate the fruit, and they were immediately excised from the community. Kicked out.
Here’s the thing: their punishment was laced with mercy. See, God removed Adam and Eve from the garden so that their corrupted selves would die. In the garden with God, they would have lived forever. So they had to leave. Death is awful, but living eternally in their sinful state is worse. There is a mercy in God’s justice. Similarly, Ananias and Sapphira sinned and were immediately excised from the community. The cancer would not spread. So many people were protected from the horror that could have ensued. This punishment too was laced with mercy.
So were Ananias and Sapphira Christians? Are they with the Lord? I think so. Why doubt it? They were meaningfully a part of the spirit-filled community of God. Were they an utter and total mess? Yes, that too. Perhaps the best evidence that they were Christians is the harsh punishment itself. In the Bible, God’s most severe judgments are always against his own people--not the “gentiles” and “skeptics.”
When we fear death above all things, it shrinks our imagination, and we become unable to sit under difficult stories like this one.
Death is an awful thing. It has caused me to pause even as I type this short letter. But, somewhere along the way we have come to believe that there is nothing worse than death. That death is the worst possible fate for Ananias and Sapphira. Every soldier knows that there are worse things than death, and for that reason he will jump in front of a bullet. Have we forgotten this? What a small life we live when death has become our slave master.
When we fear death above all things, it shrinks our imagination, and we become unable to sit under difficult stories like this one. The puzzling part of this story is not the fate given to Ananias and Sapphira. The puzzling question is why isn’t this even more common?! Why is this story the exception to the rule? God has the right and the responsibility to punish all sin and injustice. Why not strike me dead too?! He would be justified in doing so.
It is because our Father in Heaven is slow to anger and abounding in mercy and grace. The Lion does roar on occasion. But God’s holiness is never transformed into bald anger. It is always laced with grace and mercy.
Let us not be glib with our Holy King.
Let us not see ourselves as morally superior to God (as if we can even see all the angles).
Let us not be slaves to death.
Let us not be presumptuous with God’s patience.
Instead, let us humbly sit under God’s mercy which was secured by his own Son, who was struck dead, so that our death would not last forever. Amen.