Ananias, Sapphira & Me
May 10, 2010
Wait, what? Did God just kill some dude and his wife? In the New Testament?
Yes. Yes, that just happened.
I don’t think any of us were reading Acts 5 for the first time yesterday, (if you were, nice. you pulled it off well.) But I don’t think any of us have gotten used to it either. I kind of hope we never do. Ananias and Sapphira sell some land, and only give part of the proceeds to the church. Peter’s tirade against Ananias suggests that it would have been fine to keep it, or maybe even to give only part of the proceeds (5:4). The problem is that they acted like they gave everything. They lied. They “put the Spirit of the Lord to the test” (v. 9). And they both die. First Ananias, then later Sapphira, and both at Peter’s feet.
Why they did it in the first place is an interesting question. Barnabas was just held up in the previous verses for selling a field and giving everything, so maybe they just wanted to come off as pious as Barnabas. Maybe they even had a legitimate concern for those in need and thought their money could help. Either way, their keeping some for themselves tells me that they hadn’t bought all the way in to this Jesus-following thing in the first place. Twice already (2:44; 4:34), we’ve been told that the reason church members sold their stuff was to take care of “any who had need.” Why would you be afraid of giving all you owned to a group who took care of “any who had need?” If you ended up in need…you’d be taken care of. Either they didn’t believe this, OR they wanted to be more than “taken care of.” Distrust, or greed.
The more interesting question is why do they die for it? Over the last couple of months, I’ve built a nice neat little answer to this: Ananias and Sapphira are the first members of the church to sin against the church. The church in Jerusalem was a tiny point of light in a vast, dark, gospel-less world and these two greedy, distrusting jerks are the first to dim that light. If this was allowed to continue, it might have gone out all together. In oppressive darkness, every bit of light must be preserved. God had to remove the threat.
But that makes the most interesting question “why am I still alive?” I distrust the Church (a lot) and I’m sure I hold back because of it. I’m also greedy. And while I can’t think of any way in which my greed has directly harmed the Church, I have to admit that it probably has. I’d love to believe that because there’s so much more light coming from the worldwide Church, my little dimmer switch is no longer cause for termination. But that’s too self-serving, isn’t it? And if God meant to stamp out distrust and greed in the church, the plan failed.
We ended with Derek Webb’s song The Church for a reason. He calls the church a “harlot and a whore” but also reminds us that Christ is active through the church. The church is the “body of Christ” and as such, we have to realize that it’s both human AND divine. Like all of us, it is not holy, but it is being made holy.
Hopefully.
Thoughts?
May 10, 2010 at 5:26 pm
What you are saying makes sense for that time, I can totally see that. But then I start thinking of how disgusting and corrupt “the church” got.. Their selling of indulgences etc and I wonder why nothing happened to them. I thought Jesus was how we saw God on earth.. and He says “forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do” yet God would strike them down dead for one little sin. This doesnt make since. Leaders of “the church” molest children, and God doesnt strike them dead. So is God all forgiving or ready to strike me dead at any given moment? I mean its easy to think about Ananias and Sapphira as just a story but I mean they were people too, just like you and me.. So if God decided to strike them down, why wouldnt he me?? Thats considered an unhealthy thought.. but why?? Thats contradictory.. If it happened to them, it could happen to me.
May 11, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I hope you’re not looking for THE answer to all this from me. This chapter has thrown people off for centuries. The “lectionary” is a list of readings that a lot of churches use and if you read all 4 readings each week, you read almost the whole bible every 3 years. Ananias and Sapphira, however, are skipped.
Yesterday on twitter, i wrote “So..if I understand why Ananias and Sapphira were killed, then I don’t know why I’ve been left alive.” But the fact is, I have been left alive and I’m going to do the best with the time I have.
Doing good just because you’re afraid God will kill you if you don’t…that doesn’t seem healthy, you’re right. But ignoring the fact that all sin has consequences, that’s not very healthy either. I don’t think God kills us for it, but our mistakes hurt others in the church and that’s bad for everybody. The Church is important, and so is how we involve ourselves in it. That’s what I get from this story.