Reflections on Ananias and Sapphira and the Community’s Call to Redistribute Wealth
Acts 5:1-10
A man who typically attends the 8:00 AM worship at Westminster, grabbed me a few weeks ago about ten minutes before worship began. He said, “I got a joke.” A robber broke into the home of a family who was gone for an overnight trip. As the robber was pillaging the house he heard a voice say, “Jesus is watching.” Thinking it was nothing he kept about his business. But then again he hears the voice, “Jesus is watching.” “Where is that coming from” he thought. Continuing on he enters a room and hears the voice in a very clear way, “Jesus is watching.” He flips on the lights and notices it was the family parrot. So the robber says, “Did you say that parrot? What is your name?” The parrot squawked back, “Moses!” The robber says, “What kind of idiot names their parrot Moses.” The parrot says, “The same idiot who named that Rottweiler Jesus.”
Sermon series on the Book of Acts usually sail pretty smoothly until the preacher hits Acts 5. Over the first four chapters of Acts Luke describes the nature of a growing movement – this body known as the church – which seeks to correlate the activity of the community, to correlate the life and practice of the church with the nature and character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. So far so good – the community is demonstrating to the world the fellowship, love, generosity, kindness, and humility of God in ways that draw people in – so much so that 8000 people have been added to the number of the church. If God is the God who takes care of the poor, if God is the God who generously shares fellowship with all of creation and generously shares divine love, then the form and content of the Christian community should bare the same direction. The early followers of Jesus were focused on embodying the character of God by the way they lived, loved, and practiced faith and life together.
So is it any wonder that we preachers, we church folk hesitate when we come to a text like this one? A theological storm confronts us in this text: is God a judge who is willing to strike down those who demonstrate greed or who are liars? Is God going to strike down all those who withhold a tithe to the church? I thought God’s judgment and wrath was enacted and satisfied on the cross of Christ and overcome in the resurrection. I thought the community was called to be forgiving because God was forgiving. In the case of Ananias and Sapphira there appears to be no wiggle room. The couple withholds what they were expected to give, they lied about it, and then bam – they both die in turn on the spot. Look out, Jesus is watching!
As we try to navigate this text for our own formation for service in God’s mission for the world we may notice the parallels between the Ananias and Sapphira story and the story of Genesis 3 – Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Both involve partners or couples. Both stories involve a direction which should be followed and both stories include a deception, a hiding away, and a lie. And both stories present significant consequences. Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden, out of the presence of the Lord and Ananias and Sapphira are essentially cast out of the community viz a viz their death. Both stories are about a pursuit of or a clinging onto more than we need. For Adam and Eve it was a pursuit to be like God and for Ananias and Sapphira it was the pursuit of keeping more than they should have kept.
Leo Tolstoy once wrote a story about a successful peasant farmer who was not satisfied with his lot. He wanted more of everything. One day he received a novel offer. For 1000 rubles, he could buy all the land he could walk around in a day. The only catch in the deal was that he had to be back at his starting point by sundown. Early the next morning he started out walking at a fast pace. By midday he was very tired, but he kept going, covering more and more ground. Well into the afternoon he realized that his greed had taken him far from the starting point. He quickened his pace and as the sun began to sink low in the sky, he began to run knowing that if he did not make it back by sundown the opportunity to become an even bigger landholder would be lost. As the sun began to sink below the horizon he came within sight of the finish line. Gasping for breath, his heart pounding, he called upon every bit of strength left in his body and staggered across the line just before the sun disappeared. He immediately collapsed, blood streaming from his mouth. In a few minutes he was dead. Afterwards, his servants dug a grave. It was not much over six feet long and three feet wide. The title of Tolstoy’s story was: How Much Land Does a Person Need?
Stories like Tolstoy’s, stories like Adam and Eve, stories like Ananias and Sapphira can serve our cultural and religious imagination as good moralistic stories; warning us against greed and idolatry and deception and encouraging us (or frightening) us toward honesty, generosity, and truth telling. It would be easy to finish here. To wrap this sermon up by saying, “Give your money! Don’t cheat or lie to God! Always tell the truth! You don’t really need that much. Amen!” The problem is that we are still left with an unresolved meaning of the dire punishment all the characters in these stories receive as a result of their choices. What is more, particular to Acts 5, we are still left with unanswered questions. Why do Ananias and Sapphira receive the fate they do for simply withholding the purse of their land sale? Why is it so harsh?
I think one of the reasons this story is told by Luke, why we are even privy to this harshness, is because money and membership mean something in the life of the church. The early church possessed a cherished and deep belief that their witness to the world would only be as effective as the way they treated one another; more specifically, how they shared their money and possessions and how they took care of one another and the needs of others in their community. There are dire consequences communicated to the reader of Acts 5 because the very character of God requires a community of character who cares for the needs of the church and the world. Ananais and Sapphira at some point choose to be members of the church. At some point they said “Yes” to Jesus and “Yes” to participation in his body for the sake of the world. They are not forced or obligated or coerced into it. Part of that “Yes” included a generous and cheerful spirit. So important is this part of the commitment, so vital is this part of the covenant that the most extreme consequences await the one who neglects them.
Luke has this habit of pushing the envelope – a son called prodigal who squanders his father’s wealth is welcomed back with open arms, a man left for dead is tended to by a Samaritan, those on the outside are brought near and those on the inside are left out. At the outset of Acts we are told about Judas trading life for thirty pieces of silver which results in death and in Acts 2 and 4 we are told that the believers share their silver, which looks to all the world like death but really brings life. Here again Luke brings a tough word: when you say “Yes” to Jesus and “Yes” to Christian community you are expected to share – you are expected to give. The character of God and the character of the community demand it. Why? Because it reflects a faithful witness to the world where the community of faith trusts God and where the community of faith believes that its financial resources are not for them alone.
As we continue through these choppy waters we come face to face with this theological storm’s eye: Ananias and Sapphira sin because they refuse to redistribute their wealth. The concept of redistribution of wealth is an interesting one. In many ways it is a hot-button phrase – some people believe it is code for “socialism” others believe it is the essence of “social justice.” I remember speaking to someone a few years ago – she is part of a well known American philanthropic family – and I was asking her some of her opinion on redistributing wealth. She said, “Taxes are obviously necessary to keep infrastructure in place. Taxes are a baseline form of redistributing wealth. As a political conservative I want that baseline to be low. As a Christian, however, I look at the concept of redistribution of wealth from a different perspective. The New Testament, which is a book for the Christian community not the governments of the world, calls us – no, demands us” she said, “to redistribute wealth to take care of the needs of the community and the needs of the world.” In other words, her belief was that the church should be the welfare system of neighborhoods and communities. I found that to be interesting. Unfortunately with an average giving rate of church folk hovering around 2% of annual income that number simply won’t cut it. Even if taxes were lowered we would expect to see a rise in giving? Would the church really embrace its role as an outpost to meet the needs of the community in a full and present way if we were the only outpost charged with such a task?
A few years ago a prominent theologian was invited to dinner in Manhattan which included the top leadership of several denominations in the city and the mayor himself. At one point in the conversation the head of one particular denomination said to the mayor, “Mr. Mayor we have a serious homeless problem on our hands. Every day I walk by our churches and there are homeless people sleeping on our steps, sleeping on the sidewalks outside of our sanctuary. Mr. Mayor, your government needs to fix the homeless problem. What are you going to do about it? Now the theologian in attendance, someone who is known for speaking his mind, interrupted at that point. He said, “Mr. Mayor, don’t answer that question.” And turning to the other leaders of the church he said, “What are we going to do about it? What is the church going to do about all the homeless on the streets?” I am all for calling the principalities and powers of this world to account – there is biblical mandates to do as much. But let’s first take the log out of the church’s eye before we take the speck out of the government’s eye
One of our core values out of our Outreach team here at Westminster is the redistribution of wealth. Right now we redistribute approximately $160,000.00 per year in mission-outreach. That money feeds the hungry, houses the homeless, fights for death row inmates who have been wrongfully accused, sends folks to Honduras and Mexico to participate in God’s work in those locations, and facilitates justice and peacemaking initiatives in our country and around the globe. In a larger way, our church redistributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to staff and ministry initiatives which are caring for the sick and bereaved, facilitating healing and wholeness for the addicted, tending to the spiritual needs of children and adults alike. As a leadership team we are hopeful that in the coming years we, as a community, can deepen our commitment. We hope and pray we can live into a community character modeled after the character of God. We hope and pray that we, as a church, can open ourselves up to God’s grace to form in us a generous and cheerful spirit. For the sake of the Gospel and the sake of the world we pray it is so, Amen!
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