Ananias – Salvaged Faith

What Happened in Damascus?

Posted on July 4, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 9:1-20

Our scripture today starts with lines drawn in the sand.

Us verses them.

The faithful, orthodox, Jewish leader vs. the rebellious believers of the Way.

Division.

Destruction.

And everyone so sure that they were on the side that was right.

You know, on this national holiday weekend, I can’t ignore how this kind of “us” vs “them” language echoes the kind of nationalism we find too often in the world.

We, the shining city on a hill have been blessed by God.

And in defense of our beloved nation, we’ll come after anyone who disagrees with us.

Anyone who is a threat to our way of life and our values.

That is what Saul was doing, after all.

He believed in his tradition, in the law, in who God had called him to be.

And he was willing to defend it all with his very life… taking other lives if he had to.

If you weren’t with him… you were against him.

But in the same way, that “us” vs “them” mentality was present in the followers of the Way of Christ.

When Ananias receives a calling from the Lord to go to Saul, his very first response is to name that man as doing evil… compared with the saints on his own side.

Good verses bad.

Right verses wrong.

Insiders verses outsiders.

Both have cause for why they believe what they believe.

Each can point to actions of the other that would justify their own positions.

There is that old adage that there are two sides to every story and today, I certainly don’t want to get caught up in excusing either side from their actions.

Nor do I want to say that there is not, in fact, a good… a standard… a godly measure of how we should be that we should all be held up against.

Maybe more of what I’d like to note is a simple observation from Stephen D. Jones, “not many of us are ‘breathing threats and murder’ against our opponents. However, we have all been on wrong paths… We have all been headstrong, stubborn, blinded to our own ambition, selfish to meet our own need…”[1]

And in part, I think this story of what happens in Damascus is a reminder that God is not interested in the lines that we have drawn.

God is not interested in the labels we throw at one another.

God doesn’t care about our nationality or pedigree or longevity with the faith.

God is not interested in our us verses them arguments.

In fact, God flips all of the scripts and expectations on their head to change everyone’s lives and instead orient us towards life in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In our Acts study book, N.T. Wright calls Saul a “hardline, fanatical, ultra-nationalist, super-orthodox Pharisaic Jew.”

And yet… he’s the guy that Jesus calls to reach out to the non-Jewish, Gentile community.

Ananias is likely a newcomer to the way of Christ. Damascus was about 135 miles from Jerusalem and you can’t imagine that in this short of time that the good news about Jesus would have taken a very deep hold this far out yet.

And yet, this non-Israelite is the one who Jesus calls to go to Saul.

This non-apostle, non-deacon, ordinary, regular guy is the one who God uses to heal Saul and who baptizes him with the Holy Spirit.

In many ways, God is telling us that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what your story was…

You, too, just might be called into this inside-out, upside-down, community of Christ.

No one is safe from God breaking in and disrupting everything you thought you knew about your life.

And that… well… that’s a little terrifying.

As a pastor, I sometimes shy away from this story about Saul’s dramatic conversion because it really is just too incredible.

He is a guy who literally makes a 180 degree turn in his life.

He goes from persecuting Christians to preaching the cross of Christ.

His old life dies on the Road to Damascus and three days later, he is born again as an apostle of Jesus.

There are very few of us who can compare our stories with his and William Muehl writes that this can give us a bit of a “faith inferiority complex.”[2]

Or, maybe even more than that, we fear something coming along to cause such a dramatic change in our lives.

Over these last sixteen months, we experienced what it is like to have life come to a stand-still and have everything that we knew to be “normal” upended.

It isn’t something we seek out unless we are desperate or at the end of our ropes.

Maybe that’s why we identify a bit more with Ananias in this story.

You know, the ordinary fellow, going about his day, who gets called to walk down the street and pass along a message to his mortal enemy.

What… that doesn’t happen to you on a regular basis?

I just have to keep telling myself that the main character in this story is not Saul.

And it’s not Ananias.

It is Jesus Christ.

For many chapters now, the disciples and apostles have been talking about Jesus.

But he shows up and calls these two individuals to action.

This is a word about how our Savior continues to show up in the lives of unexpected people to challenge us and push us beyond everything we thought we knew and understood.

Beyond our boundaries and borders and beliefs.

And sometimes, that happens in a heartbeat – like it did on that road to Damascus.

But sometimes, it happens over a lifetime.

Sometimes, truth comes to us in a dream or a sign or a message…

But sometimes it comes through a friend who has the courage to tell it like it is.

All around us, God is moving…

God is pushing us beyond our artificial divisions…

God is opening up our eyes…

God is calling us out of our privilege and bias…

Jesus stands before us, waiting for us to stop breathing threats and running from enemies and to start working together for a Kingdom that is far wider and more expansive than we could ever imagine.

May it be so.

[1] Jones. Stephen D. Feasting on the Word, Year C Volume 2, p 403.

[2] William Muehl, Why Preach? Why Listen? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 11.

Real Church is Messy

Posted on June 13, 2021Leave a comment

Acts 5:1-11, 6:1-7

This summer, as we study together through the book of Acts, I wish that we could talk about every single verse… but we simply don’t have time.

So I hope that you are checking out our daily video devotion – which can be found on our facebook page OR on our church website.

In fact, we made it even easier to find on our website… just go to iumc.org and scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the latest three posted right there!

Today, we are skipping over chapter three and four and diving into more of what it meant for these first faithful folks to live with one another.

Two weeks ago, our Director of Youth Ministry stood here and shared this beautiful, rosy picture of a church community that seemed perfect.

They devoted themselves to prayer and teaching and fellowship and sold everything they had and make sure everyone’s needs were met.

And, if you are anything like me, we hold our own imperfect, human community up to that standard and get a bit discouraged.

But never fear… things were not as perfect as they seemed.

This community was messy.

After all, it was full of humans, too.

Real humans with real problems.

People who are dishonest.

Others who are ignored.

There is jealousy, and complaining, and growing pains.

It is church, after all.

So let’s dive into the dirt and the muck as problems of the church appear in chapters 5 and 6.

First, we’ve got a problem that results from dishonesty and disrespect.

In our short video clip from The Bible Project, we are reminded once again of the temple.

God’s presence once led the people through the wilderness.

Then it was understood to dwell in the temple in Jerusalem… a building… and people would travel to Jerusalem to encounter God’s holiness.

But the story of Pentecost is how God’s presence now fills individuals through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Body of Christ is the temple.

I am the temple of God.

YOU are the temple of God.

And so we have these lovely, good, and holy things happening that would you would expect in God’s presence… teaching and fellowship and reaching out to the needy.

But when we say that something is holy, we also have to acknowledge the danger.

We stand in God’s presence with fear, with awe, with trembling…

There is a line I love in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis which captures this idea perfectly.

The lion, Aslan, is a Christ figure in the narrative and one of the children is apprehensive…

“Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”…
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King; I tell you.”

God isn’t safe.

But God is good.

And God calls us to a better way of living.

We don’t have to be perfect.

But we do need to bring our full selves into this community.

We can’t simply dip our toes into the water and pretend.

In fact, the story of Ananias and Sapphira is not about how this couple should have sold all they had and given it to the community.

It was about the fact that they lied.

They could have chosen NOT to sell their property.

Or they could have sold the property and chosen to be up front about keeping some of the funds.

But they wanted all of the benefits and glory without actually doing the work.

As Peter says, they lied to the community and they lied to the Holy Spirit.

They disrespected the presence of God that was dwelling in their midst and are struck dead.

I started thinking about that scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis think that they can open the Ark of the Covenant and take the power of God for themselves…

Dr. Jones and Marian know that God’s power is holy… They shut their eyes and refuse to look.

But the Nazis have no respect for God… only what God can do for them… and when they reach in to take it with fury and fire, God’s presence overwhelms them and their faces melt off.

Just like the priests in Leviticus who disrespected God in the temple.

You can’t use the presence of God for your own selfish purposes and you shouldn’t reach beyond your own limitations.

When I think about how we might apply this lesson to our relationships with one another today, I think about that idea of respecting the presence of God that dwells within each of us.

We need to respect one another enough to be honest.

If you aren’t able to say yes, then you should have the freedom and ability to say no.

We don’t have to pretend, but can simply bring ourselves and our gifts into this community without apologizing.

Whether they are gifts of finances, or time, or abilities and talents that you might offer.

You don’t have to sell everything you have to be included, or sign up to serve on every committee.

In fact, as we heard in one of our daily devotions earlier this week, you don’t even have to have a penny to your name.

Honor what you have.

Offer what you can.

God’s Spirit dwells within you and your gifts, however big or small, matter.

A flip side to this is that each one of us is called to honor and respect the gifts of others.

Sometimes we find ourselves in that ugly, jealous, comparative mode.

We think that someone is offering too little… and then rub it in or make them feel guilty.

Or we get overwhelmed by what someone else can do and become ashamed about our own value.

God’s presence is working through every person.

Be grateful and honor the faithfulness of each person you encounter in this community.

Our job is not to compare what other people can do… but to celebrate what every person offers.

The second real community problem that this early church struggles with has to do with some growing pains and, to be honest, some discriminatory behavior.

As the community kept growing, suddenly they began to notice there were differences among them.

It was all nice and good and warm and fuzzy to be able to hear in new languages on that day of Pentecost… but it’s a whole other kind of conversation to figure out how all of these different groups are actually going to live together.

And some people began to raise real and honest questions about equity in their midst.

While it might not have been intentioned, the widows who came from a more Greek, or Hellenistic cultural background, were being neglected compared to those who identified more with the Hebrew culture.

Someone stood up, and basically said, “Greek widows matter, too.”

If we are going to be a community that takes care of the needs of everyone, then we need to do what we say.

And when we aren’t living up to that value, if we are overlooking someone, then we need to address it.

What I love about this story is that there is an obvious flaw and problem in the community.

But the leadership listens and calls together the people to solve the problem.

And then they think outside the box.

They don’t just add a task to the job description of those who were already leading, but come up with a new and creative solution that actually allows more people to serve and engage in the work.

The church lifts up new leaders who can help make sure that each person is cared for in the way they deserve.

And these new deacons, servants, are blessed… commissioned… into this ministry of waiting tables.

Friends, we will encounter problems in our church and in our larger community.

There are times when we will be come aware that someone or a group of folks has not been treated fairly.

In fact, I’ve had this on my mind as we think about how this coming Saturday, our nation celebrates Juneteenth.

You know, I’ve never really thought about Juneteenth as a national holiday.

I’m going to be totally honest, I didn’t know what it was and maybe you don’t either.

Juneteenth is the day we commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

This date comes two and a half YEARS after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation… but remember, this was not a time of 24/7 cable news.

It wasn’t until General Lee finally surrendered in April of 1865 and Union troops landed in Texas on June 19^th that the war ended and the word reached these communities that all slaves were free.

Now, every single American should claim this day as our own.

We didn’t always get it right, just as the early Christian community didn’t always get it right.

But we can do something about the harm.

We can listen to the pain and we can work for a better future.

And we can celebrate the steps we have taken, the leaders we have raised up, and claim the task that is still before us.

The early church was not perfect.

Because it was filled with imperfect people who were learning and growing and still discovering what it meant to follow Jesus.

And friends, we aren’t perfect either.

We are going to get it wrong.

We are going to make mistakes.

We are going to have days when we focus on ourselves and what we want and forget about others.

But the word I find in these chapters of Acts is this:

We are the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, and how we treat one another matters.

So we should hold one another accountable.

We should honor the presence of God that lives within us.

And we should keep working to do better every day.

May it be so.

The Spirit of Surrender

Posted on August 13, 2017Leave a comment

A little bit later in the service today, we will be receiving a new member of this Body of Christ.
And we will ask Tom some questions… questions that all of us were asked when we joined this church, questions that our parents and sponsors were asked when we were baptized.
Do we accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
Do we put our whole trust in God’s grace and promise to serve him as our Lord in union with the church Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

In light of those promises, I want to invite Pastor Todd to read a statement that Bishop Laurie has invited all churches in Iowa to share this morning:

Many of you have heard about the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier today. White nationalist and other right-wing groups had scheduled a “Unite the Right” rally to protest the removal of Confederate symbols in the city, including a statue of Robert E. Lee. This afternoon a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring nineteen others. Two others have died. Self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi and hate groups were very open in their intentions to provoke violence, and Virginia’s Governor declared a state of emergency.

The United Methodist Church condemns the evil, hatred, and bigotry that led to this violence, and we ask you to pray for those who have been injured and the families of those who have been killed. We also ask you to pray for the restoration of order and peace for the community of Charlottesville.

At this tragic time, may each one of us renew our commitment by our words and actions to create a world where all people live out the words in this prayer of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.

In today’s scripture from the book of Acts, we find a scene from the early Christian community.
In many ways, those early followers of Christ were trying to create that world in which their whole lives exemplified the teachings of Jesus. In the chapters before this, twice we hear tales of how the believers sold everything they had and made sure there were no needs in their community.
Twice, we have been told of their love and faithfulness and how everyone who joined this community of Christ was full of prayer and devotion and the church was growing exponentially every day.
They were standing up for what was right, willing to die for their beliefs, and always sought to share the love, grace, and mercy of God with one another.

But, living in community is not easy… in fact, to truly commit to living with one another is dangerous.
A community that truly cares for the needs of others is a community where people can share their needs without being embarrassed with them.
A community that heals the sick is a community where people are not afraid to speak the truth about their own disease.
A community that cares for the widows and the orphans and the oppressed is a community where people sacrificially put their own lives on the line for the lives of others.
A community that offers grace and mercy is also a community that speaks the truth and names evil and sin in the world when they see it.

And I imagine that many of us in this room today would hesitate and pull back from that type of life, because there are great risks involved in being vulnerable, open, honest, and accountable to a community.
We might have to take off our fake plastered on smiles and tell the truth about the problems in our lives.
We are afraid of our own tears, afraid of our own weakness, afraid that the community around us will turn their backs if they really knew what was going on.
We are afraid of what those outside the church might think if we took a stand for something that we truly believed in.

In Acts chapter 5, we find the story of this couple who just couldn’t surrender it all to God.
They had seen the acts of sacrificial love and were on the fringes of this community who shared everything in common without worrying about what belonged to whom. And perhaps they were inspired by a man named Barnabas who sold a plot of land and laid the proceeds at the feet of the disciples.
Immediately following his sacrificial act, Ananias and Sapphira decide to do the same… sort of.
They, too, sell a plot of land and bring the proceeds from the sale to the disciples… except they lie about how much they sold it for and keep some of it back for themselves.

In the midst of a community where all are of one heart and mind…
in the midst of a community where everyone cares for everyone else and no one has need…
in the midst of a community – united by the Holy Spirit – where no one says “that’s mine, you can’t have it…”
… Ananias and Sapphira are looking out for themselves.
They essentially embezzle money from the sale and hide it for themselves. In doing so, they reject the community, reject the Holy Spirit, and seek to provide for their own welfare.
Ananias and Sapphira were telling the church – it’s nice what ya’ll are doing, and we want to help, but we’re not going to become beholden to you.
We’re going to stand over here on the sidelines and get praise for our giving but we sure as hell are not going to let you take care of us.
We can take care of ourselves just fine, thank you very much.

What they fail to understand is that the Body of Christ asks every person, every member, to fully participate.
No one is more important than another.
An eye can’t see without a brain to process the information.
A hand can’t reach out to help without an arm to support and extend.
A stomach is pretty worthless without a mouth to bring it food.
For this Body of Christ to work, for it to witness to the world, it asks us each to play our part and to do so with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
We can’t hold back.
And we have to allow others to do their part.

In the last question we will ask Tom as he professes his faith, we invite him to confess Jesus Christ as his Savior, to put his WHOLE trust in his grace, and to serve him as his Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

The reason that we, as Christians, as baptized members of the United Methodist Church, have to look out on the actions of white nationalists and Christian hate groups and denounce their words and actions as sinful is precisely because they go against everything we proclaim in that profession of faith.
As Bishop Trimble wrote, “naming hate, injustice, and the sin of “-ism” is the only way for us to tackle the forces that would divide us and that would have any of us believe that there is less opportunity to reach our highest God-given potential because of one group of people or another.”

I used to think that the greatest sin of Ananias and Sapphira was the fact that they lied to God and the community about how much money they had sold their land for.
But the more I put this story into the context of this community of believers who relied upon a spirit of trust and vulnerability and risk in order to be united, I realized that their sin wasn’t so much that they lied, or stole the money, but that they believed they could follow God without relying upon the rest of the community.
They thought they were better than everyone else.
They thought they had the right to stand apart.
They were not just clinging to their money… they were clinging to their ideology and trying to carve out a space in their life where God and God’s people couldn’t exist.
And in the process, they were denying others the opportunity to reach their “God-given potential.”

We are asked to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
We are to become “living sacrifices.”
Jesus Christ died for us and he wants our whole selves in return.

And here come two people who want to be a part of the community and want to walk with Jesus, but who don’t want to dive all the way in.
They pretend that they do – they want the prestige, they want to be a part of this awesome new movement, but they just are not ready to commit ALL THE WAY.
And you know what is really sad – they didn’t have to. They could simply have said that. They could have been up front with Peter and said “Hey, we want to support the church and see what you guys are doing and maybe someday we’ll be at the point where we can do what Barnabas has done and really place ourselves in community.”
Peter even reminds Ananias that the land was his to do with as he pleased and he didn’t have to sell it and he didn’t have to give it to the church…
but when they did so, and when they lied and pretended to really surrender themselves, when they hid who they were, they were actually putting the whole community in danger.
They were acting directly against the Holy Spirit and the unity it brought to the church.
In their act of holding back their resources, of refusing to fully give in to the power of God, in their lack of surrender of their ideologies and power, Ananias and Sapphira let a Spirit of Discord into the body of Christ.
They said with their actions, “it’s okay God, I’ll take care of myself.”
And God’s response… well – this is the difficult part of the story.
First, Ananias and the Sapphira fall dead.
I find this so troubling because I sometimes hold back, too.
We don’t always let God have our hearts and minds and soul.
We are timid with our faith.
We surrender some… but not all.
This passage makes me uncomfortable, because I realize that I’m really no different than Ananias and Sapphira… what on earth prevents God for striking me dead, right here and right now for holding back, myself?
What we learn in the story of Ananias and Sapphira is that we still worship a holy, awesome, and fearful Lord.
In a world full of grace, we do not simply have a free pass to act however we want.
God is still righteous and just and has every right to punish sinners by death or other means.

We are tempted to simply believe that grace covers all and to run through this life as if our actions do not matter.
We are tempted to rest in the love of God and not consider what the consequences of our sin might be.
And, we are tempted to sit back and not speak out when we see the words and actions and beliefs of others in our community or neighborhood or world… we are tempted to not hold one another accountable for the sin and evil that is perpetuated out of fear.
And yet the consequences of sin in the world is real.
Three people died yesterday… communities and families can be destroyed… when we allow sin to run rampant in this world than we have essentially turned our back on God.
Christ demands all and we give some.
We hold back and don’t fully let the Holy Spirit build up this Body of Christ.
We refuse to surrender and therefore we deny the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts, this church, and the world around us.
We might not be struck dead here in this place at this moment, but what do we stop from growing and living and thriving by our blatant denial of the Holy Spirit?
This path of Christian faith is not easy.
While the book of Acts has begun with all sorts of joyous accounts of healing and transformation and triumph over the powers of evil, these passages remind us that discipleship is hard.
It is a warning to those who are considering this faith: think twice.
Think about the price you are being called to pay.
Think about what is being demanded of you.
But also think about the joy and the possibility and the abundant life that awaits if you are willing to let go of what you think and what you believe you deserve in order to embrace what God knows you need.
Are you willing to let go?
Are you willing to dive in?
Are you willing to let the Holy Spirit transform us into the body of Christ?