So,
Imagine yourself being at worship one Sunday, and someone comes into the service, puts a check in the offering plate and then drops over dead!
That would be just insane. Yet that is basically what happened in Acts 5:1-11
Welcome to one of the strangest stories in the New Testament!
Especially so, since it immediately follows the story of the faith community’s willingness to let go of property and things in order to take care of those who were in need.
The Christ followers in Jerusalem had come to understand at the deepest level that in order to see God’s blessings flow, then God’s blessing of them had to flow out into the community.
Once we stop blessing others, we stop being blessed, individually and as a faith community. Our open hands and open hearts are the conduit to God’s blessing for us and for others.
The transformation was amazing to see, because everyone, filled with the Spirit, did what they could do to make a difference. So, when the story of Ananias and Saphira opens, we are quickly confused and deeply uncomfortable!
And while for the us the juxtaposition seems very jarring and harsh, that clash seems to be essential to Luke’s story. It is his intention to help us see the power of the Holy Spirit when it is present in a faith community. We are to see here that, as Martin Luther once said, that security can become for us the “ultimate idol”.
And God doesn’t tolerate idols.
Luke wants us to see that the Christian Community being blessed is dependent on the community passing the blessings along! I can’t say that enough times!
Being blessed is dependent on us passing the blessings along!
Some of us studied this story in the Wednesday night bible study a few weeks back, and we really struggled with the deaths of Ananias and Saphira, partly because we were trying to see them in the light of God’s mercy and grace.
How could a loving God demand the lives of his servants simply because they lied?
It seemed just the opposite of what Jesus had been teaching about forgiveness and God’s love.
Why couldn’t Peter simply forgive them? Why couldn’t God?
And don’t get me wrong, those are excellent questions and ones I don’t pretend to have a good answer to.
I am aware, and I am quite willing to share with you what I do know, that our God is amazing, and while forgiveness and love are some of God greatest attributes, holiness, righteousness, and justice are others.
So, Ananias and Saphira’s plotting to lie to the Apostles about the money earned on the sale of a piece of property they didn’t have to sell, and money they didn’t have to donate, and for which there was no requirement that they give the whole amount was a really bad plan! Cheating on God is always a bad plan!
They had seen the power of the Holy Spirit.
They had seen the way it moved people to gratitude and generosity.
But for some reason, what it also did for them was to move them to try and act like everyone else, while keeping a secret about the amount of the sale, from God, from the faith community, and then going another step and lying about it!
What is at work here is not the Holy Spirit, but the spirit of pride.
They wanted to look good.
They wanted the praise of the people around them without any understanding that God and God’s servants would know all about their deceit.
It is a hard and harsh lesson, that while God loves us and forgives us, God is also willing to discipline us when we wander completely outside his grace. We are to be people filled with the Holy Spirit, growing, learning, listening.
And, plotting, lying, and giving into pride are not part of the plan.
Once we stop blessing others, using the gifts God has given us to bless others, we stop being blessed, individually and as a faith community.
We have an opportunity to open hands and open hearts so that we become the conduits of God’s love.
It matters. It is a really big deal!
We are God’s children, faithful, and ready to move heaven and earth on God’s behalf, to be a blessing every day.
May it be so, in Jesus name! Amen!
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