A sermon based upon Acts 4: 32- 5:11
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 30th,, 2018
(5-14) Sermon Series: Church: Then and Now
“What tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
Sounds like Shakespeare, but it’s not. It’s Sir Walter Scott from a play he wrote way back, around 1800, about a love triangle where people were deceiving each other. That’s play was written a long time ago, but the realities of life haven’t changed that much. People still weave tangled webs of deception and deceit. And there is nothing more painful to the Christian witness, than people who pretend to be something they are not.
As I was sitting down to work on this message, new came out that Bill Hybels, the founder of Willow Creek Church, one of the very first, and one of the leading, model contemporary churches, admitted sexual misconduct allegations against him. It reminds us again, that Christian are sinners, with weaknesses, failures, and flaws, just like everyone else. But still, when a prominent, well-known, and trusted church leader falls it hurts all churches. And the greatest hurt is not the failure, it is the ‘deception’. Some Christians leader is trusted, but the truth has to be told to them instead of them telling the truth to us.
Years ago, when Pat Buchanan was running for president, he encouraged everyone to buy American, even while he was driving a foreign car. What he said and told people to do was not what he did. The press pointed out the deception and the hypocrisy. It’s not the fault of the press when they point out human hypocrisy, whether it be political, religious or any other. And, even though it is just a small percentage who ‘weave’ this ‘tangled web’ of deception and lies, it is the lies that get all the coverage.
Perhaps this helps us understand why, in our text today, Peter did not put up with any kind of ‘deception’ when it came to the church’s early witness. When Peter realized that Ananias was pretending to give ‘all’ the proceeds, but was holding back, he confronted him saying, “Ananias, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit?” (v. 3)…”What made you think of doing such a thing?” “You have not just lied to human beings, but you have lied to God? (v.4). Realizing that he has been ‘caught’ in a lie, we read that ‘immediately’ Ananias ‘fell down and died’! (v. 5).
…LAID THEM DOWN AT THE APOSTLES’ FEET (4:35)
What is a story where God strikes people dead without any chance of forgiveness, grace, or mercy mean in a gospel of God’s love? Surely, we all know that people lie to God or deceive people in much worst ways all the time and God doesn’t strike them down. Just what kind of story is this?
In order to understand, it helps to go back to the beginning of this story which really started back in the last chapter. Here, the text describes some of the rather extraordinary events taking place. These were not ‘normal’ days. The Spirit was a work in some ‘white-hot’ ways, and people were very open and receptive. In this particular moment, after being arrested for preaching, Peter and John had just been released. As they returned, earth-shaking miracles of healing were taking place. The apostles preached with even more ‘boldness’ and the ‘multitude’ of believers were ‘of one heart and soul’. They had ‘all things common’ (31-32) because ‘great grace was upon them all’ (33).
We should understand that this is not just a repeat picture of the church filled with the Spirit in Acts 2, but here, in Acts 4, we see an amplification of growth along with even greater trust and unity. Perhaps the most revealing indicator of this new spiritual situation is displayed as ‘all who had possessions’ (34), including a prominent Levite named Joses, nicknamed Barnabas (son of encouragement), ‘sold‘ material goods and brought ‘money’ and ‘laid it at the apostles’ feet’(Acts 4:35, 37). Barnabas was one of the most important new Christians in the early church, who went on to encourage Paul and become a missionary himself. He was also role model of generosity, inspiring others to share in the community of caring, sharing, and giving.
Karl Marx, the founder of communism, said that all human attitudes could be traced to economics and material concerns. Acts is certainly not preaching communism, but Acts is proclaiming what community looks like when a change of heart is proven to be real as the desire for material treasures and wealth is transformed by the Holy Spirit (Luke 13:34). When the church ‘laid’ their ‘money’ ‘at the apostle’s feet’ we see outward proof of the inward conversion of soul by the change of attitude with the ‘pocketbook.’ As Martin Luther said, ‘there are three conversions necessary for every person: the head, the heart, and the purse.’
On the wall of Lyndon Johnson's White House office hung a framed letter written more than 100 years earlier by General Sam Houston to Johnson's great-grandfather Baines. Sam Houston's signature makes the letter valuable, but the story behind it is much more significant. You see, Mr. Baines is the man who led Sam Houston to Christ. The General was a changed man, no longer coarse and belligerent, but peaceful and content.
The day came for Sam Houston to be baptized - an incredible event in the eyes of those who knew his previous lifestyle and attitude. After the baptism, Sam said he would like to pay half of the local minister's annual salary. When someone asked him why, his simple response was, "My pocketbook was baptized too." (Randy C. Alcorn, Money, Possessions and Eternity, Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1989).
We must not quickly pass over this image of ‘money’ and ‘possessions’ being ‘laid at the apostle’s feet’. It is the key to understanding what happens next with Ananias and Sapphira. This gift of ‘goods’ was a vivid picture of humble submission of heart, since gifts normally given to a King or Lord were not placed in their ‘hands’ but were ‘laid at their feet’. This signifies the spiritual ‘Lordship’ of Jesus Christ now entering the material world as human ‘pocketbooks’ were being impacted.
Most importantly, this was not commanded, coerced or forced, but it was a a ‘voluntary’, ‘willing’ and Spirit-guided response made from grateful and generous hearts. The generosity of God’s grace gave shape to what ‘life together’ was supposed to mean when people are genuinely inspired by a generosity of ‘sharing’ rather than the succumbing to the greed of ‘taking’.
WHY LIE TO THE HOLY SPIRIT? (5: 3)
It was in the context of this new, ideal, spiritual reality, that Ananias ‘lies to the Holy Spirit’ (3) and thus, lies ‘to God’ (4). As Ernest Becker noted, when trust in God erodes, as it has in our Western culture too, money assumes a god-like quality in our lives.’ When money becomes ‘god-like’ we try to assure our immortality with things and all kinds of stuff, rather than by living in the Spirit that calls us to live with faith, hope, and love.
In the teachings of Jesus, especially in Luke’s gospel, Money is not a sign of ‘divine approval’, but money is a danger. When you understand just how much Jesus spoke about money, you realize that riches can become the number one challenge to living a Christian life. Jesus called the man with money ‘the Rich Fool’ (Luke 12: 16-21) and Jesus also said it is ‘hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God’ or ‘heaven’ (Like 18:24, Matt. 19:23). (Willimon, William H.. Acts: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (p. 52-53). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”, we have all heard from the Scriptures. Of course, money is not evil in and of itself, since we all need some money to live, but the ‘love of money’ or ‘love for’ money, as we might express it today, is still ‘the root of all kinds of evil’ (1 Tim. 6:10). This happens because money becomes the way we deceive our hearts into thinking things are good and right, when they really aren’t. Even worse, when we love money, we can deceive our hearts into the terrible idolatry of thinking we can control our own destiny or save our own souls. This was exactly the ‘deception’ of the ‘rich fool’ who built bigger barns, thinking he could ensure his future, but then right after building them, thinking he had many years left, he died unexpectedly (Luke 12:20).
Who knows what the exact rationalization Ananias had for his deception, which his wife went along with? Whatever it was, it was such a ‘tangled web’ of deception that when they both were confronted, at different times, they were so ‘twisted up’ into this ‘knot’ of lies, that their lives were ‘cut off’ by God’s truth, and they died. This story sounds harsh and cruel, since both had no chance to repent, but the point of the story is not what God did to them, but what they did to themselves. This is how quickly and suddenly death can come when we ‘weave’ the ‘tangled web of deceit.’
We should never be surprised or have any illusions about what people can do to themselves or to each other. We humans can be more savage than animals and beasts. Nothing in nature is so well equipped for hurting or hating as a human person. Psalm 139:14 has the Psalmist saying: "I praise you, O God, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." We are wonderfully made, but we are also fearfully made. Confuse and frighten us and we will lash out at anything. Crowd us and we will rob and destroy. Deprive us and we will retaliate. Impoverish us and we will burn down our own cities in the night. Excite us, frighten us, anger us in a crowd and we can become more devastating than swarms of locusts or herds of animals. We are made as free beings in who are also capable of great harm.
Harold Warlick, retired pastor in Blowing Rock used to be Chaplain at High Point University. He’s been associated with campus ministry or churches near university campuses for many years. Sometimes he taught an honors section of a religion course. But, he once told, he also had nineteen of his former students go to prison. Those nineteen would have make a great class all by themselves. They were academically as bright and capable as any honors class. Why did they go to prison? Their reasons were varied: one strangled her own baby, newly delivered in the residence hall shower, and hid it in a shoe box in her closet; one murdered his girlfriend with a shotgun; another robbed one of her city's pharmacies in broad daylight. He said that after being a pastor and college chaplain, that he now had no idealistic illusions about human nature. The line of good and evil goes right down the middle of all of us. Even good, talented, wealthy, decent humans are capable of doing anything, either to themselves or to others.
Perhaps the greatest illusion in human life is money. And to believe that we can bring security to ourselves is the ‘ultimate idol’, Luther said. Some of us are willing to exchange anything---our family, our health, our church, the or even the truth, for a taste of security. This is why the church, through the preaching of Peter, confronts this ‘lie’ of ‘tangled deceit’ with the gospel truth that there are only ‘two ways’ that are very different: one leads to life and the other leads to death.
The church was called to take the road that leads to life and to become an ‘alternative’, ‘witnessing’ community in the world, as a fellowship ‘filled with the Spirit’ who have decided to live differently because we take the ‘road less traveled’ which ‘makes all the difference’ in who we are and who we become. Such a newly born church had to confront the lies, the deceit, the greed and the self-serving attitude of people like Ananias and Sapphira, or it would have meant the death of the church even before it got stared (Here, in 5:11 Acts uses the term ‘church’ for the first time). The book of James (1: 9-11; 2: 1-7) reminds us that other congregations were actually destroyed by the failure of Christians to keep riches, money and wealth under the control of the Spirit.
GREAT FEAR CAME ON THEM ALL (5:5)
It was upon this occasion of someone trying ‘to have their cake and eat it too’, that the first Christians realized it wasn’t just about sharing and caring, but that they were also called to be community of ‘truthfulness’. In fact, you don’t really ‘care’ when you avoid the truth or try to live a lie.
In this story of Acts, Luke paints an overly positive picture of the early church community, but it is not any kind of romanticized, idealized, or imaginary portrait. While there is ‘boldness’ in preaching and the frequent occurrences of miracles, these are still real people who are pulled in different directions by the same real tendencies which tug at us still today. “These are real congregations where, on any Sunday, one is apt to meet both faithfulness and foolishness seated beside one another on the third pew from the left” (From W. Willimon).
There is a well-known story about a preacher that went out to talk to a hard-hearted man about his soul and was trying to get him into church. The man just sat there with an expressionless face listening to him, not making any response whatsoever as the preacher presented the gospel. Finally, with a look of disdain, thinking he would brush the pastor off, he said, "Well, preacher, I hear you have a lot of hypocrites in your church.
The pastor shot back, and said, "John, you're right, we do have a lot of hypocrites in the church." Then he paused and put his hand on the man's shoulders and said, "But John, there's always room for one more” (As told by James Merrit)."
The fact of the matter is, there's a little bit of hypocrisy in all of us. We too are real people struggling to be faithful in a world which where faithfulness is difficult and challenging. There will be disappointments, unpleasantness, disputes, and some who put their hand to the plow will look back. (See Willimon, William H.. Acts: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (p. 55). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
Sometimes, those who are look back, or who fail to tell the truth, or play games with God, and are the Ananiases and Sapphiras of the church are us. But thank God, Jesus not only died for Peter, James and John, he died also for Ananias and Sapphira, as Jesus also died for us. Through this tragic story, God’s keeps telling us the truth so that we don’t make the same mistake of living and dying by our own lie. Amen
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