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October 8, 2018 - March 30, 2020
They are judging God (v. 19). Of course, these leaders did not imagine they were judging God. But make no mistake, the decision for or against these disciples, and the decision for or against the words of Jesus of Nazareth, and the decision for or against the resurrection from the dead made real in Christ that rewrites all histories, is in fact judging God.
The demise of Ananias and Sapphira (husband and wife) is not glorious. Their deaths should never be celebrated or treated flippantly as some morality test case against lying to God.
There is no justification for killing in the name of Jesus. Indeed they speak no curse. They conjure no evil force. They give themselves no right to take life. Such will never be given to the followers of Jesus. But there is violence.
Although Ananias and Sapphira do their actions as a couple, we read past the malice lodged in coupling and turn each of them into singular sinners standing before an angry God.
Here is where the worship of possessions and money come fully to life: in the two made one flesh. Together they imagine they can do anything. Together they believe in their sovereignty.
The community of Jesus must confront the couple, whether heterosexual or homosexual, with a new truth: you belong to us. We do not belong to you.
The horror the couple creates is to turn love into its possession. It believes the call to the community of Christ belongs solely to the two made one to believe all things, endure all things, and hope all things (1 Cor. 13). And from its temple erected inside the church it seeks to guide faith, direct our prayers, and shape our hope. Too many churches understand themselves as in service to the couple, its high priest and holder of its flame. This couple believed it may lie to the Holy Spirit, and couples now are often led to believe they may do the same, because too many churches have told
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Anytime a community hinders us from coming before Christ as a single individual, anytime a community lays claim to immediacy, it must be hated for Christ’s sake. For every unmediated natural relationship, knowingly or unknowingly, is an
expression of hatred toward Christ, the mediator, especially if this relationship wants to assume a Christian identity.
The great irony of political struggle once again shows itself. Those who want control over people become insanely jealous of those who want to help people. Yet beyond this irony of political struggle is a deeper theological truth. God, through these apostles, announces that creation has
been taken back from the powers and principalities.
