The Book of Acts II - Inner Truthfulness…or Death

Today’s reading from Acts belongs to the category: ‘Awkward bits of Bible that I’d rather weren’t there.’ It starts well, but then descends into something rather difficult. So, without further ado…

Acts 4.32-5.11

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. “Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!” Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things.

I came across a website earlier this week called ‘evilbible.com’, which includes a section on murder, which has the subcategory ‘God kills for stupid reasons.’ This story wasn’t included, possibly because it’s not clear how Ananias and Sapphira died…which I’ll say more about later. But it is certainly one of those uncomfortable stories, that I know I’d rather not have to try and figure out. However, there it is, and one must do one’s best.

Let’s start with the good bit, which comes at the end of chapter 4. This description of the community life is a stark contrast to the kind of social structures that would have been the norm in the culture surrounding this fledgling Christian community. There’s a unity among them…they are of ‘one heart and soul’ – perhaps able to let go of former divisions and preoccupations in the service of this new vision and new life that had captivated them. And, most strikingly, there’s the giving up of those things that marked out the main social division of all – the one between rich and poor, those with property, and those without it. Rather than the new community perpetuating the rankings of those who have and those who have not, they sought to eliminate that distinction by meeting the physical needs of everyone in the group.

Again, there’s a remarkable consistency here with Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God…teaching that often addressed itself to the injustice of extreme disparities between rich and poor, and to the way that wealth can be an impediment to living out the gospel vision. The way this first Christian community organised its finances testifies to the ongoing presence of Jesus in their midst, continuing to provoke them into this upside-down life, into an alternative way of living a ‘good life’ – one that is based on radical justice.

And then along come Ananias and Sapphira. They do what some of the other land owners had done, and they sold some land, and brought the proceeds to the apostles to distribute. However, rather than bringing the whole of the money, they agree together to keep some of it for themselves.

The important thing to notice firstly is that the problem here is not their decision to pass on only some of the money. The problem is with the deception…that they gave the impression that they were giving the full proceeds to the community. Presumably, they wanted the kudos of the generosity, while also retaining the private security of making sure they would always have enough for themselves. As Peter says to Ananias…that was your property, it was your right to do what you liked with it, sell it, not sell it. And after it was sold, the proceeds were yours to dispose of. The issue is with the lying, and you have lied not just to us but to God.

We can see this as a continuation of the way Jesus pressed for getting things right in the heart, in the hidden and inward places, rather than simply focusing on outward actions. Jesus said, you might not murder, but if you look at another with contempt, then you are equal to a murderer. You might pray on the street corners and wear long robes, but if you have no compassion, or do not honour the weak, then your prayer is empty words. And then, this passage seems to be saying, you might bring money to the community, but if in your heart you desire to be seen as more giving or more generous than you actually are, then your whole gift is a lie.

But a lie deserving of death? Really? This is where the passage gets really problematic. Instead of Ananias and Sapphira getting a little pastoral ticking off, they drop down dead. What’s going on with that? The first thing that I notice is that the passage doesn’t say that God killed them. And even if it had, I would be among those who would say ‘I don’t believe or accept that.’ I don’t believe in a smiting God. If I did believe in a smiting God I think I would have real difficulty explaining why abusers and torturers and war criminals still go about their business, and other people get topped off for obscure religious reasons. But this passage doesn’t say that God killed them, so we probably don’t need to go too far with that question.

All we are told is that they ‘fell down and died’. Maybe they both had a fatal illness or lethal food poisoning that happened to co-incide with this event? Maybe members of the community were so outraged that they killed them, and the text simply omits this detail? Or maybe, it’s like the ‘pointing of the bone’ in the Aboriginal community – the culture of unity was so profoundly strong, that to find yourself on the outside of it is to experience such a degree of shame and internal dissonance that you simply die. Maybe their deaths are simply a narrative device, a story that was told and became part of the community legend because it had a teaching function? We can’t know.

I personally don’t want to defend a community where people die (by whatever means) when they transgress the ethic of that community. I don’t want to defend a morality that people obey or observe because of fear of being found out doing otherwise. So, I’m not going to say that it was a good thing, what happens in this story. And I don’t see it as a very helpful stick to call us all to honesty and inner truth.

But I do want to explore what the writer might have been wanting to convey by telling the story in this way. Because it seems to me that the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira are meant to exemplify some important principle…whatever their physical cause or reality they have a symbolic function.

And to get to that I want to go by way of another problematic death in Scripture, this time in 2 Samuel, chapter 6. David and the men of Israel are carrying the ark of God – the ritual centre of Israelite worship life and the place where God’s presence dwells – carrying the ark on a cart from one place to another celebrating a war victory. Only Levites are allowed to touch the ark, and then only in prescribed ways. But in this story, some poor fellow called Uzzah notices that the oxen carrying the cart are shaking the ark – in some translations it says ‘tipping’ – and so he reaches out a hand to steady it, and God strikes him down dead.

Again, this is not a story whose literal truth I have any wish to defend (and if you choose to read the passage you’ll see that David was pretty unimpressed with God at the time too.) But I can see the purpose of it being to remind the people of Israel about the holiness and otherness of God. The whole elaborate ritual around the building of the ark and what may and may not be done there…the preservation of the ark as an untouchable, undefileable home for God’s presence is to provoke a sense of mystery around the vessel that housed the presence of God. Coming into connection with God wasn’t supposed to be something that ever became casual or commonplace for the people. God’s blessing and favour were very much tied up with awe, and humility.

By the time we get to the New Testament, that ‘untouchable’ nature of God has been replaced by a very touchable divine presence – in the person of Jesus. And then after Ascension and after Pentecost, we have not only a touchable, but also a numerous, diverse, messy, and very human vessel for divine presence – the community of people who would become known as Christians. How on earth is that community to retain any kind of integrity as bearers of God’s Spirit? And how demonstrate the otherness and holiness of God? How could this new ark, this new temple, this body of Christ, possibly be a unified and edifying expression of the Spirit that dwelled within it? It could have been very tempting to make up a whole lot of rules about behaviour and conduct and we can see from the history of the church that this has often occurred as a way of trying to preserve the purity of the community.

But it seems as though in these initial stages, it wasn’t about rules. There’s no New Testament version of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It was about conversion – conversion of heart into this new vision of a new life, and a kind of wholehearted faithfulness to the ethic of that community life – an ethic of justice, generosity, mercy, and truth. As Murray mentioned last week, the more miraculous aspects of the new movement – the signs and miracles – are made possible by, and take their meaning from, the radical new ethic of inclusion, care for the poor, and elimination of social and economic inequities. Where any member of that community betrays or threatens the integrity of that ethic, by reverting to greed, self-protection and self-advancement, or by acting in hidden or deceptive ways, then the validity and spiritual power of the whole movement is radically undermined.

And so Ananias and Sapphira, in effect, defiled the ark. They made an outward show of transformation and generosity, while in reality practising deception. I still don’t think they deserved instant death, but the story of their death certainly serves to underscore how crucially important inner truthfulness is, as the only thing, really, that could hold this new community together.

What are we to do with all this?

Truth in the inner parts

For each of us, there’s the ongoing call to conversion – not as something that happened once long ago when we decided to be a follower of Jesus. But as the continued process of coming to truth, within ourselves. Jeannie a couple of weeks ago shared the importance to her of the verse from psalm 51: ‘you desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.’ As Jesus so precisely emphasised again and again, it’s not what we are seen to be doing and saying that counts for anything in God’s economy. It’s the quality of our inner truthfulness, our integrity, the link between what we do and why we do it, that counts. If our hearts continue to be transformed and converted, then our actions in the world, while they might look wild and strange to others, will be actions consistent with God’s Spirit and God’s vision for the world. Coming to inner truth takes time. There are many ways that we deceive ourselves and deceive others. It takes courage to ask ourselves what is really going on under the surface of the actions and reactions of daily life. And courage to invite others to point out our blind spots. But that’s why this journey with Christ is a journey in community, because it’s as we bump up against others that we have the opportunity to investigate what’s going on inside of us.

Creating the conditions for public truthfulness

I wonder why Ananias and Sapphira felt like they wanted to lie about how much they’d earned from their property sale? Why were they unable to say…we feel like we need to hang on to this amount, and we’re bringing this amount to the community to distribute? Without knowing them, we can’t answer that question. But it is worth looking at the reasons why, in Christian community still today, there can be such significant levels of dishonesty. There’s probably not too much that we can do about individual unhealth, other than trying to be a healthy and supportive environment. But sometimes the unhealth is in the group culture – one where people are tacitly required to mask their reality and present a face that is more ‘spiritual’ or more ‘successful’, or ‘happier’, than is true. Groups can be coercive, and people can be provoked into making commitments they’re not ready for, or acting in ways that they later regret, because of the excitement generated by some extreme few. It’s really important, as a Christian church, to create a context where people’s truthfulness is always welcomed even when we don’t like what what we hear or see. Because as soon as people feel that they need to protect themselves by lying, whether that’s an outright verbal lie or a mask or persona that’s an enacted lie, then we have killed the primary ingredient for spiritual community.

Realise that together, we are still bearers of the presence of Jesus.

The church is not just a group of friends or like-minded people. Look around you. As we gather here, as a specific expression of Christ’s Church, we are bearers together of the life of God, the Spirit of God. That includes the people you know well, and the people who drive you crazy, the people who are outwardly successful, and the people who struggle to get up in the morning. Our purpose is not primarily social, philanthropic, or activist. Our purpose is to be the community of God, to be sharers in the Spirit of God – to manifest the presence of God to others by the quality of our being in Christ. This is not an individual manifestation, but one that comes into being as we gather and relate together.

In practice, this means that we honour each other as people who carry the Spirit. We meet each other’s needs, practical, emotional, relational. We pray, and acknowledge God in our midst. We receive and give grace and forgiveness. We bring our inner truthfulness, our openness of heart, and our humility, to the gatherings of the community. And above all, we let love determine all our talking, all our listening, and all our doing. This is a holy calling. Together, we show who Christ is. What do people see of Christ when they interact with us?