Leave Room for the Holy Spirit. To Kill People.

I just want to say that I really like this post's title.

This past weekend at my church, Seacoast, the message was about Ananias and Sapphira. If you aren’t familiar with the story, it takes place in Acts 5:1-11. At the end of Acts 4 we have the famous “they had everything in common” section, where the first Christians ensure everyone’s needs are met. One of the ways they do this is by selling possessions, including houses or land, and bringing the proceeds to the apostles. Joseph (aka Barnabas) is named as one such man who sells some land and gives the money to the apostles.

Chapter 5 begins with a man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira also selling a piece of land. This is a good example of where the chapter/verse structure of our Bibles does us a disservice. Ending chapter 4 with Barnabas and starting chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira ruins the contrast of the two actions. It feels like a totally new episode in the story but it is actually the end of the “all things in common” moment of the early church. After Ananias and Sapphira lie about their generosity, we never again read about the sacrificial, communal generosity of the first Christians.

Acts 4:32-37 has incredible momentum. It feels as though the kingdom of God has truly arrived and is remaking not just hearts but the entire community. If there is an idyllic period of the Church, this is it. In the two thousand years since, every tradition and denomination has pointed back to this moment as what the Church could be. And I think when Ananias and Sapphira are put in chapter 5, we lose a bit of the narrative flow. We don’t appreciate how abrupt an interruption their sin was.

Here’s how the end of chapter 4 and beginning of chapter 5 read without verse markings or the chapter break:

Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. (Acts 4:36-5:2, ESV)

Ananias and Sapphira enter the story sort of like how the serpent enters the garden back in Genesis. After an extended period of Creation, where each new act is proclaimed “good,” something else enters the story. In both cases, the reader knows that this isn’t good but it isn’t clear right away just how momentous the transgression is. Ananias and Sapphira created a rift between the people and the apostles (Acts 5:13 says that no one “dared” to join the apostles afterwards, though they were feared and respected) and a rift within the community. My guess is that after this, every gift of money was viewed with a tinge of suspicion. Mistrust had irreversibly marred something beautiful.

During the midweek run-through for Sunday’s message, I joked with the speaker that we talk about God’s life-changing power all the time so I was excited that we were finally covering Gods life-ending power. Really, though, why don’t we talk about it? Did God kill Ananias and Sapphira and think, “Oops, accidentally got a bit of Old Testament into my New Testament. Gotta remember the rules are different now”?

Ananias and Sapphira by Heinrich Jenny

There’s a really fascinating verse in 1 Corinthians 11. It’s in the middle of Paul’s rant at the Corinthians for how they celebrate the Lord’s Supper. In the early church, Communion was often celebrated at the end of a communal meal. Paul says that during this meal some Corinthians are gorging themselves while others don’t even have enough to eat. He is understandably furious at this, and says that the Lord’s Supper isn’t just a meal, it is a deeply spiritual act. Then in 1 Corinthians 11:30 he says, “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

Yes, Paul casually drops in that God is killing people for taking Communion in a sinful, dishonoring way. I have never once heard a sermon on this verse. I do sort of understand why, on a practical level. “God might kill you if you take Communion wrong” is a challenging teaching assignment. It’s difficult in part, though, because our theology tends to exclude the possibility that God might still act in such a way. Do people still get sick and die for taking Communion unworthily? Do people still drop dead for lying to God and causing division in the Church? I don’t see why not, but do we ever talk about it? No, because that isn’t how we talk about God, at least in the church tradition I am a part of.

Years ago I saw a tweet that I still think about a LOT:

Yes, it’s hyperbole (it’s also very funny), but I think it gets at something real. In our efforts to elevate the importance of our personal relationship with God and also his real personableness, churches in my tradition tend to strip of him of qualities that might put him beyond our grasp or comprehension or even comfort level. I talked about part of this a few weeks ago. Ananias and Sapphira and that verse in 1 Corinthians bother us because many of us have decided that our God doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore.

I have a friend who is going through an incredibly difficult season. When he observed to someone that while God can heal people but usually doesn’t, the person responded by saying that “it may seem that our prayers for healing go unanswered when we focus on our worldly views of answered prayers. God’s healing may come differently than we have expected.” I just have to say that I find that a completely inadequate response (I also considered the word “garbage”). Yes, how “worldly” of my friend to hope for a literal healing instead of being satisfied and grateful for a metaphorical non-physical healing!

The problem with that answer (aside from being insensitive and absurd) is its wholly inadequate theology. There is only room in such a worldview for a God who heals somehow, and no room at all for a God who might ask us to suffer. In the same way, there is no room in many of our churches for a God who might take life. We prefer to imagine a God who wants us to know that on balance we’re doing pretty good and that our sins aren’t as bad as we think. We do not know what to do with a God who sometimes acts in violent judgment because of what that sin does to his people.

Does our theology allow for God to act in ways we do not understand? Is he bigger than we are, at all? Or have we unconsciously adopted a worldview that can only respond to suffering with platitudes, and to judgment with confusion?