Introduction
Have any of you seen the movie Catch Me If You Can. I have to say before I say it I thought it was recipe for disaster. I mean it starred Leonardo Di Capreo. But actually it turned out to be quite good. It’s the true story of Frank Abignail, who as a teenager runs away from home and starts forging checks. He assumes an identity as an Airline pilot and flys around the world for free. He then continues forging checks and masquerades as a doctor and then a lawyer. Eventually he is arrested and imprisoned but released early when he agrees to help the FBI with forgeries. It’s quite remarkable, this teenage manages to pretend to be a pilot for years and a doctor and lawyer for months. And not once is he suspected. The police track him down because of his forged checks not because anyone suspects he’s not who he appears to be.
The story we read is very similar. It’s about a couple in the early church who were counterfeit Christians. OK, so we assume that at some point they did actually become Christians. But when we join the story, they were up to the old con trick of trying to convince others that they were something they weren’t, or at least doing something that we’re really doing.
Actually the story of Anaias and Sapharia is one that most people don’t really now what to do with. It’s one of those stories that just feels out of place, that we does fit with our views of God, like Jesus making a whip and chasing the people out of the temple, or Jesus telling his disciples to go and buy a sword if they didn’t already own one. Is God not a God of love. What’s he doing striking people dead. Its the kind of story we wouldn’t be surprised at, if it occurred in the Old Testament but here in the New, its not really what we expect. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for including this story, is to remind us that the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. Jesus might have got a body in the meantime but he’s still the same God. But its not the primary reason its here although as I have said before the picture we have of Jesus needs to include these troublesome stories as well as the ones we like, if we are to truly know who Jesus was and what Jesus would do.
Seriousness of Sin
The first level we might approach this story from is that it teaches us the seriousness of sin. We were talking about this in our Bible Study during the week. Sometimes in Christian circles we can loose the seriousness of sin. Its so easy to get forgiveness that sometimes we don’t really think about sin as a problem any more. Oh, other non-Christian’s sins count, particularly the “big” ones like homosexuality, although personally, I don’t believe homosexual acts are the worst form of sin. But us and our sins, well they’re just wee things and we can ask forgiveness so what’s the harm. There will be some who will deliberately go out to sin, knowing they can ask forgiveness when its over. There are others, who are willing to expose themselves to places where they might sin, because if they do end up sinning well, they can always ask for forgiveness. Sin just isn’t worth bothering about because it can be forgiven. And yet this passage reminds us that God still takes sin seriously. Sin is not something flippant to not be bothered about in the life of the Christian. Yes, we can be forgiven, but when we repent and turn away from sin, not while we still intend to do it. Sin is still the thing that breaks our relationship with God, that needs to be restored. Sin is still serious. OK, we’re never going to get it all right before we get to heaven, but there’s a difference between dealing with sin when it happens in a repentant and remorseful manner and just not bothering about it. If the story of Anaias and Saphira tells us nothing else, then let it tell us that sin is a serious thing. That sin matters. God doesn’t want us to sin. We are saved to be like him, to enable us not to sin.
Lying to God
So next obvious point. It’s about lying to God. We shouldn’t lie to God. Only this is only obvious because that’s what Peter says. Where do they get the lying to God bit from? They sell a field that they own and decide to give some of that money to the church. Sounds good so far, but then they decide that they will tell the church leaders that they are giving them all the money they made. The passage doesn’t say they prayed and told God they were giving him everything. They said to men, the apostles that they were giving everything. So why does Peter say that they have no lied to man but to God. There are two aspects to this, one is that the Holy Spirit lives in all Christians. When you become a Christian you receive the Holy Spirit. Therefore when Ananius and Saphira lied to the church they were lying to the Spirit within them. They were in fact lying to God. This has implications for us that we’ll consider later. But for now, because God is present in his church, when they lied to the Church they lied to God. The second aspect to this, is that giving is worship. Its what I try to bring in out by having choruses when we give our offering and most of the time in the words of the songs we sing when we have our offering. When we give to the church we are worshipping God. Therefore because the money was gift to the church, it was an act of worship and directed at God. So again it is directed at God. It was worshipping dishonestly. Lying to God.
But what can we learn from this story. Obviously, if any of you has any property that you want to sell and give some of the money to the church, don’t lie about it. Don’t say its all the money when its not. You don’t even have to say anything about the amount, just give. But now that we’ve cleared that one up and stopped you all just before you made a really big mistake, how does it apply to the rest of us. Well, the passage we read from Matthew may shed a bit of light on the issue. It warns us about two things both of which we can learn from this passage and both of which are linked. Hypocrasy and dishonest worship. It is possible for us to do both of these things nowadays.
Dishonest Worship
Firstly, dishonest worship. How can we worship dishonestly. In the same way that Ananais and Saphira did, they forgot that there worship was to be directed to God. They did things for public acclaim, not because it was what God wanted. How does this apply to us? It’s easy sometimes to forget that worship is directed to God. Why do we sing in church? Do we sing for our amusement, because we like it, because we enjoy it, to fill up the time to make the service last a hour without having to listen to an hour long sermon. Why do we give to the church? To keep it open, to pay for the up keep, to pay the pastor’s salary? We worship because we want to give glory, honour and thanks to God. Because God as the one God and creator of the universe and the saviour of humanity, deserves and has a right to our worship. Any other motive is secondary.
I’m not accusing anyone here of this but there are some people in some churches who’s main reason for singing in church seems to be to let everyone else know that they are a good singer. But we can be caught in more subtly traps than that. Do we really focus on God when we sing and give God our money and worship him in other ways. Is the truly important thing to us that God is worshipped.
I’ve also seen Ananais and Saphira examples when I’ve seen people act talk in services and business meetings. You can see that from the way they are looking for signs of approval from certain people, that the primary thought in their minds is, what is so and so going to think about I’m saying here. Will it be acceptable to them. Will they think well of me for saying it. Or when it comes to testimony times, its supposed to be about glorifying God. One of the reasons I don’t give as many opportunities as some would like, although I had planned some for some evening services following our agm but then cancelled them when the young people came in, as I thought that it would cause problems if they were noisy when someone less thick skinned than me was speaking. But anyway, why I don’t really like testimony times, is because I have had to many experiences of testimonies turning into bragging sessions, where instead of giving the glory about what God has done in our lives, it turns into people trying to out do each other for with what they have done for God. Dishonest worship, the mistake of Ananais and Saphira was to try and get the glory for themselves instead of to God. Of course but Ananais and Saphira lied as well. Well, so do we when we give testimony that is about us and not what God has done for us. If its anything to do with Christianity then it is God working through us and not us doing it.
Worship should be towards God. Its about God. And lets not make the mistake of thinking that right worship is about having the right music or the right instruments. Its about giving glory to God.
Hypocrasy
Then we get to the related topic of hypocrasy. In fact we’ve really been dealing with this already. We’ve been looking at hypocritical worship. But there are other ways that hypocrasy can rear its ugly head in the church. The general way that most people associate hypocrasy with the church is that it is full of people who act holier than thou when in church but in reality are no different to anyone else and are just as dishonest and corrupt as everybody else. Its one of the chief reasons some people give for not going to church. They think there better than us but actually their not. To be fair, they got a point. Some people who go to church are like this. I hope there’s no one in our church like that.
But that’s not the main criticism of Jesus when he called people hypocrites. No Jesus point was not that they claimed to be doing one thing then doing the opposite behind closed doors, but that people were keeping one set of laws scrupulously but neglecting others which were even more important. Jesus did not accuse the Pharisees of making a big show of giving their tithe while actually it was forged money or not the full amount. No he accused them of giving their tithe but neglecting their duty to care for their parents in old age. He didn’t accuse of them of going through elaborate washings in public but not washing when no-one was looking. No he accused them of going through all the rituals but having no love for the poor. We can fall into exactly the same trap. We would never dream of buying stuff on a Sunday, but think nothing of buying products from companies that use slave labour or exploit their workers. We concentrate on being quiet and respectful in church but don’t love our neighbour because he’s young, noisy and disrespectful. We say all the prayers right, turn up to church twice a week and sing the right hymns, but have something against someone else in the church and we will just not forgive or let it go.
The story of Ananius and Saphira
And so we come back to the story of Ananius and Saphira. Why were they struck dead by God? Why such extreme action, after all in Corinthians Paul talks about this one member of the church who is engaged in such appalling acts of sexual depravity that even the pagans are appalled. Why doesn’t God strike him dead? Surely that was much worse that what Ananius and Saphira did wasn’t it? No, it wasn’t, which may come as a bit of a surprise to some. The integrity of the church is very important and things that detract from that need to be dealt with. This wasn’t just a way of dealing with Ananias and Saphira but was a warning to the rest of the church as well. It was setting a precedent in a very clear and unambiguous behaviour that hypocrasy would not be tolerated in the church. God wasn’t going to have his church degenerate into the same kind of problems that Jesus was attacking in some of the Pharisees. As we looked at when I was last preaching, God wants people of integrity. Who can be taken at their word and who don’t cover up sin with a veneer of religiosity.
But this was a one off incident wasn’t it. Well no, just after the bit where we usually stop when reading about Paul’s comments on Communion from 1 Corinthians, Paul goes on to say that some of the same sort of hypocrasy, a veneer of religiosity, this time communion over a sinful lifestyle was the reason why some of them had gotten sick and some had died. No we can’t say that all disease is caused by sin, but we certainly can say that in this case it was. What was their hypocrasy? It was eating communion which proclaimed their unity in Christ while showing up divisions between the rich and poor and showing the poor with disrespect and prejudice. Again, its exactly the same as what Jesus was complaining about, religious observance without a love for all. I think we need to take the warning of Paul seriously and its not just about the communion which we will do later and take time to examine ourselves, but about hypocrasy. About having this veneer of religious observance while missing out on the real heart of it, love for God and everyone else. Are we in danger of death if we disobey. I can’t claim that it will happen. I certainly want to avoid saying it about anybody who has got sick (Jesus also warned against assuming sickness was caused by sin) but I’m not ruling it out either. God has standards. He expects us to keep them. And he is perfectly able to act to enforce them. Remember where we started the seriousness of sin. God takes sin very seriously indeed, especially within the church and we would do well to do likewise.
You see the problem is that we are the church, represent God. Most people don’t read the Bible, they look at us and judge God by us. God is asking that we don’t misrepresent him. When we looked at not misusing the name of God, we mentioned Ghandi who respected a lot of what Jesus taught and actually put it into practice in a way that puts most Christians to shame, but who did not become a Christian because of the example of the Christians he observed. When we have these young people in church, before they hear what is said from the pulpit, before they read the bible, before they listen to what we say to them about what is acceptable and what is not, they will read us. They will look at us and see what we act like. Are we showing the love of God, or are we like everybody else they’ve ever met who is only interested in themselves and doesn’t care what happens to young people as long as it doesn’t cause them any problems or inconvenience. And if there’s one thing we can learn from the story of Ananias and Saphira its that God will not be misrepresented. God is love, are we?
