Taking Care of Business [Acts 4.32-5.11; 6.1-7] (29 July 2001)

Accompanying Presentation (opens in a new window)

We have been going through the book of Acts during the past few weeks. We have seen from Acts 1 that the church age is one characterized by the Holy Spirit. To live correctly in this age we need to be acutely aware of the prompting of the Holy Spirit in the various situations with which we are faced. From Acts 2 we saw that the death and resurrection of Jesus changed things at the cosmic level. The outpouring of the Spirit, which was the marker of the new age of God’s reign, has happened while the current age continues. The clash between two diametrically opposed eras, with two markedly different agendas, is the reason for much of the conflict true Christians face. Then from Acts 3 we saw that healing is something that God still does. Those of you who came forward last week either for prayer or for proclamation of healing, please let us know what God’s response has been. We have faith that he does heal because he is the same God who reversed the barrenness of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel. Those reversals show that God has power over death. And the supreme demonstration of that power is the resurrection of Jesus. If God can reverse the sentence of death, then surely he can also heal! And he heals by his Spirit. 

So much talk of the Spirit! The number of references to the Spirit in Acts boggles the mind—that is, it boggles the mind if one does not realize that the church is a body created and sustained by the Spirit. Without the Spirit there would be no church. If this is so, what was the life like to which the Spirit called the early Christians? To answer that question, let us take a glimpse into some of the information Luke provides us with. I have asked Rocio to read for us the text for today’s sermon.

Thanks Rocio.

What in the world do we make of these events from the early church? Not quite the rosy picture we would have liked. In fact, the way Luke writes, we get the impression that it was not quite the rosy picture he would have liked. It was not smooth sailing for the early church. Quite the contrary, Luke tells us about Ananias and Sapphira and about the food distribution problem. While the second problem is solved quite amicably, the first ends in a terrifying way. What does Luke want Theophilus to understand through these stories? To answer that, let us consider the stories in turn.

Luke begins his story about Barnabas by telling us about the economics of the early church. “No one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” For those who have grown up in America, this smells of Communism—something more suited to Cuba than to Capitalist America. And I have read some American books, which blame the later destitution of the Jerusalem church on their practice of communism. But the way Luke writes, he wants us to think of this practice as a good one. In fact, he cites Barnabas as an example of this practice. And Barnabas is the only prominent character in Acts, who does not have a blemish on his reputation. So, according to Luke, the communism of the early church was a great practice.

But it was not institutionalized communism like in Cuba. Luke does not say, “No one had private property” but “no one claimed private ownership.” There is a marked difference. The first statement, “no one had private property” would imply that the church owned the property as a corporate body with some sort of finance team handling the buying and selling of such real estate. However, from Acts 6 we see that the church was hardly organized enough to handle even food distribution! The second statement, “no one claimed private ownership” implies that no one was selfish, that those who did have private property treated it as though it wasn’t exclusively theirs. I hope you get the crucial difference. Rather than an institutionalized communism, the early church had an ad hoc, need-based communism. Landed people sold their land as and when liquid assets were needed among the early Christians.

The early church was a community based on self-less giving. This is the kind of community that St. Francis of Assisi wanted to start. Born into a wealthy family, he sold all his inheritance and distributed it to the poor. Then he requested permission of the Pope to start an order of monks—known today as the Franciscans. One of the rules of the community was that each monk had to accept voluntary poverty. This meant that someone born poor could not become a Franciscan monk because poverty was then not a choice. He wanted the monks to be able to understand what it meant to surrender all their possessions in service of Jesus. St. Francis’ example has inspired many, not least in our lifetime Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

Now Luke is careful in these stories to indicate that proceeds from real estate sales were placed at the apostles’ feet and not in their hands. Placing it in their hands would imply that the proceeds were a personal gift for the apostle concerned. However, placing it at their feet implied that the monies were for the community but could be distributed by the apostles.

After telling us the positive story of Barnabas, Luke contrasts it with the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Now their fault was not that they held some proceeds for themselves. As Peter indicates, even after the sale of their land, they had full authority in the matter of distributing the cash. They could have kept every denarius if they wished. Their fault was that they gave part of the proceeds to the church claiming that it was the full amount they had received from the sale. So Peter charged them with lying. Now most translations have the phrase “to lie to the Holy Spirit.” Quite literally, however, the Greek reads, “to falsify the Holy Spirit.” That is, by their act of secrecy, Ananias and Sapphira brought false testimony about the Holy Spirit and what the Spirit was doing in the church.

What was the Spirit doing in the church? Remember, when we learned from Acts 2 we saw that the pouring out of the Spirit was the sign of the new era that God was birthing while the present era continued. The new era of God’s kingdom is one in which, as Jesus repeatedly said, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It is an upside-down kingdom in which the king dies for the subjects, in which the subjects are therefore called to live self-sacrificial lives that emulate their king.

But Ananias and Sapphira conspired to hide things from the rest of the body. On the one hand, it would afford them prestige within the church. “Ah!” people would say, “have you seen the generosity of Ananias and Sapphira? They have given the entire proceeds of the sale of a piece of prime real estate. Much like Barnabas. What a selfless couple.” Yes, such words of praise would have been exchanged among the early Christians. On the other hand, if the church did prove to be a big mistake, they would have some funds as an escape route. In Acts 5 Gamaliel advises the Sanhedrin to wait. He says that if the church is a human effort, it will fail on its own. If, on the other hand, the church was God’s work, nothing could destroy it. And the church is nothing without the Holy Spirit. So by keeping for themselves a secret escape route, the couple were actually calling into question the existence of the Spirit in the church. After all, if the Spirit was in the church, the church was going to be around for the long haul. No plan B would be needed in that case. But Ananias and Sapphira kept a plan B.

Their dual motives—seeking prestige and having an alternate plan—constituted a falsification of the Holy Spirit. And if it is the Holy Spirit that is responsible for the spread of God’s kingdom in and through the church, then falsifying that Spirit is what Jesus called the unforgivable sin. The actions of the couple meant that they did not seriously believe that it was the Spirit that was fueling the church. At some level they believed that some other power was at work. But, as Jesus indicates, to ascribe to a foreign power what it evidently the work of God’s Spirit is the unforgivable sin.

Both Ananias and Sapphira recognize the gravity of their error. They understand that they have sinned grievously. When Peter says, “You have falsified the Holy Spirit,” they realize that they were guilty of the same offense as those who accused Jesus of working by the power of Satan. And with that knowledge both of them died.

We should avoid seeing in their deaths lightning bolts from the sky. The text only tells us that they fell down and died. We are certainly to view their deaths as judgments from God but we should leave the mechanism of judgment ambiguous as Luke does.

Now we should also attempt to understand this couple. Living the life in the Spirit is not easy. And nowhere does the bible say that it is easy. The easy thing is to go the way of the world and to seek prestige and to find security in money, as did Ananias and Sapphira. To emulate king Jesus is to swim against the tide of human experience and expectation—kind of like Harrison Ford’s character in Mosquito Coast. Having messed up his dream to bring technology and money to a jungle tribe, he lies dying in a boat, which his son is rowing. And as they are floating downstream, he asks his son, “We’re going upstream, right? We’re going upstream, right?” His son lies and reassures him that they are going upstream. And the father responds, “Good! Because the only things that go downstream are dead.”

In this age of self-centeredness, God’s Spirit brings us to life in Jesus so that we too like him can swim upstream. We can swim against the currents of this era that tell us to seek prestige, that tell us to find security in money. To swim with the currents of this era is to concede that we are dead. 

The third story we heard today dealt with the selection of seven servers. In connection with the Barnabas story, Luke tells us that among the early Christians there was none who had any need. What Luke means is that no need was overlooked for here in chapter 6 we see that there indeed was some need and that the need was subsequently met. Luke introduces us to two groups of Christians—those who could speak Hebrew or Aramaic, whom he calls the Hebraists; and those who could speak only Greek, whom he calls the Hellenists. We are still dealing with a fully Jewish early church. So the distinction is a linguistic one and not a racial or ethnic one.

The widows among the Greeks speakers were disadvantaged not because of some intentional discrimination. Rather, most likely their ignorance of Hebrew and Aramaic may have kept them ignorant about the food distribution times. It would be like going to the heart of Mexico and announcing to them in Russian that there was food to be had. Someone who did that would have only himself to blame if all the food went waste!

When the oversight was brought to the apostles’ attention, they rightly point out that administration of food distribution was not their calling. Note that it is not a question of one ministry being better than another. The apostles were called to be witnesses to Jesus. Hence, others had to be found to manage the food distribution. And here we should learn from the apostles. Rather than keep control within the circle of Hebrew speakers, they hand over control to the Greek speakers. After all, if the ministry were among Greek speakers, who best to understand the need and meet it than the Greek speakers themselves? The Greek speakers best understood the need that had to be met.

St. Ignatius met with a similar response. He was appalled at the lack of biblical knowledge among the Roman Catholic priests. So he went to the Pope and told him about the ignorance rampant among the clergy. He wanted the Pope to start a school for training priests. The Pope, however, told him to start an order of monks who would study the bible and be the theologians of the church. And so was born the order of the Jesuits. The Pope argued, as did the apostles in Acts 6, who best to meet the need than the one God led to identify it?

This should be a lesson to us today. When we bring the gospel of freedom to people dying to hear it, let us not then enslave them to us. We should not make people we are ministering to dependent on us. Rather, let our presentation of the gospel be in such a way as to promote only the humbling knowledge of their dependence on God.

So what is God telling us through these stories? Let’s consider them in reverse order. Acts 6 does not describe a soup kitchen that caters to people not connected with the church. It is not an evangelistic strategy that Luke describes. Rather, it is a process of meeting the needs within the community of faith. How many of us know of needs within NUPC that are waiting to be met? If God has brought to your notice a need, then he is also calling you to make that need known to the leadership. We leaders are human also and therefore have many blind spots. Because of that, we need your input. If you see someone in the body suffering, do not be silent. We have to work together to discern creative ways in which we can alleviate the suffering. That is why God has placed us in a body.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira warns us to be careful of what we do in the body of Christ. Everything we do must be in accordance with the Spirit that is at work in us. Let us, therefore, not serve in order to be noticed or applauded. Rather, let us serve in order that we might be more like Jesus. Like Jesus let us look for our praise from God. And God does praise us. It is he who says, “Well done good and faithful servant.” And let us not serve half-heartedly. The church is one basket in which you want to put all your eggs! It is after all fueled by God’s Spirit. It is after all here for the long haul. It has been around for the past twenty centuries and is not showing any signs of fading. Therefore, if anything, it is a good investment to serve in the church.

The story of Barnabas tells us that each of us has something to contribute. Remember, each of you is unique. No one else can take the place in God’s kingdom that is reserved for you. If it does not seem that NUPC right now has a place where you can serve and feel fulfilled, bring that to the notice of the leadership. Tell us what is on your heart. Share with us the paths along which God is taking you. Open our eyes to new possibilities of spreading God’s kingdom.

This is how the church is supposed to work—each one of us serving in the capacity to which God has called us; not one of us being forced or coerced into serving in a way unsuited to God’s calling on our lives. This is how we can take care of the business placed before us—by living as members that fully benefit from and fully contribute to the health of the body. And it is the health of this body that we now proclaim and promote as we move on to celebrate communion.

Entering the Joy of Our Lord - III : Serving God Generously [Matthew 25.14-30] (21 January 2001)

Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory. That was what Johann Sebastian Bach inscribed at the top of every piece of music he wrote. Though he died in the mid eighteenth century, his music—especially his church music—lives on to this day while numerous other composers have become passé. He had learnt what our text for today intends to teach us.

Two Sundays back we dealt with serving God faithfully as a means of entering into the joy that Jesus has for NUPC. The passage we learned from was Matthew 24.45-51. We saw then that Jesus defended his practice of associating with people who were otherwise considered to be beyond God’s blessing. He ate and drank with gluttons and drunkards, tax collectors and prostitutes. We saw that the task for NUPC as we move to a new place further from the University and inside the community is to be the bearers of God’s love and grace to various groups in the community who we are told are beyond God’s love and grace—the poor, the homeless, single parents, pregnant teenagers, gangs members, drug addicts, pushers, prostitutes, people with AIDS, drunks, gays.

Then last Sunday we learned from Matthew 25.1-13 how to serve God expectantly. We saw that Jesus urged his disciples to be in a state of relentless anticipation—a state in which there are no easy answers. We saw that, as NUPC is poised for wonderful things, we should make plans—plans both to disciple the Christians at NUPC and to reach the community with God’s love. And we should expect God to revise our plans.

Today we will learn from Matthew 25.14-30. On the Tuesday before he was betrayed, Jesus and his disciples went to the temple. As they were leaving, his disciples brought to his notice the wonderful buildings of the temple. In response to this Jesus pronounced a curse on the temple. Surprised at this, his disciples asked him, “When will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” These words form three questions: 1. When will this be—that is, when will the temple be destroyed; 2. What will be the sign of your coming; and 3. What will be the sign of the end of the age? Please stand to hear part of Jesus’ answer to these three questions.

[Here read Matthew 24.36-25.30]

Please be seated.

The passage we are dealing with today is a parable. In the parable a wealthy man entrusts three of his servants with money and leaves on a trip. Now Jesus is careful to add the words “to each according to his ability.” The servants receive different amounts of money not because the master shows favoritism. Rather, the master recognizes the abilities of the servants. He probably bases this on their past endeavors for later in the parable the two servants who are called faithful are given greater responsibilities based on their performance. So what sets the servants apart is not how much they are given but what they do with what they are given.

The third servant did not put his money to work for two reasons. First, he was afraid of reporting to the master with less than what was given him. So he took his single talent and buried it in the ground. This, according to some commentators, was considered the best way to guard against theft. We can picture him stealthily making his way to a remote part of his master’s property at night, under the cover of darkness, when the other two servants were busy working. There, as silently as possible, he dug a hole in the ground, probably cursing every time the shovel rang against a rock for someone might hear him. The hole dug, he quietly placed the money into the womb of the earth and covered it. This servant was not concerned with putting the money to use.

For, he was motivated by fear, as he himself says. Why else would he hide the money in the ground? And how many sleepless nights did he have wondering whether someone would inadvertently dig up the money? Driven by fear that paralyzed him, he was able to take only the solitary act of burying the talent. He did not want it stolen. But it did not occur to him that he could use it. He was probably counting the days till the master returned so he could get this burdensome treasure off his chest. He was short sighted.

Much like the old member in a church who objected to the proposal to buy a plot of land adjoining the church yard to increase burial space. “I have measured the yard,” said he, “and have counted all our members, and find there is just enough room left to bury all our members without buying more land.” But what about new members? This man had a sure fire plan the kill the church!

Now the third servant had one thing right. He knew that his master would return someday. And he knew he would have to account for what had been given him. But he saw the master as a harsh man. His master would ask him to give an account for the talent that had been entrusted to him. If he was not able to produce it, the master would be furious. He could not risk having to come before the master empty handed. After all, a talent would have amounted to fifteen years worth of wages! It was as though the master had given him a million dollars. He had hit the jackpot without even playing the lottery! But he knew the money was not his. Paralyzed by fear he was like the person in the Yiddish proverb who can’t dance but complains that the band can’t play.

Since he was afraid of having less than what had been given him when the master returned, he decided to play it safe. Much like Dan Bricklin. Do not be surprised if you haven’t heard the name. I hadn’t heard of him either till I read an article about him in the US News and World Report. So all my information about him is from the article. It so happens that this man is a genius. He invented the first computerized spreadsheet. Today we can hardly do any job without resorting to some sort of number crunching on a spreadsheet. All thanks to Dan Bricklin. But when his contemporary Bill Gates dropped out of college to concentrate on Microsoft, Bricklin decided to play it safe and complete his M.B.A at Harvard. After all, a Harvard M.B.A almost spells job security. But today Gates is a household name, even if a notorious one. But hardly anyone has heard of Bricklin. For he played it safe.

Why did the third servant play it safe when the other two servants did not? What gave rise to the paralyzing fear he himself said he experienced? See what he says to the master: “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid.” There it is! He was afraid because he saw the master as a harsh man. If that were the case, if the master were indeed a harsh man, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering where he did not scatter seed, the servant should have at least made a safe investment in the bank. That is what the master tells him in response. Certainly he could have found a reasonably stable bank which would have ensured that he would receive a fair amount of interest by the time the master returned.

Yet, for some reason, he chose to bury the money in a barren hole in the earth. What could this reason be? Let us probe his words a little more. He ends his words to the master with, “Here you have what is yours.” Now when the master had entrusted the three servants with money, he had given them what was his. But the first two servants manage to double what was given to them. Technically, the first servant possessed five talents that belonged to the master and five talents that were the product of his own hard work. Similarly, the second servant had two talents belonging to the master and two that were the fruit of his own labor.

“Here you have what is yours,” says the third servant. What does he imply? Is he not saying, “Master, you gave me one talent, which rightly belongs to you. Had I put it to work, you would expect me to give you even what my hard labor has produced, much like you have with these two servants whom you have commended. Since the product of my sweat should belong to me, and since you insist on having even that, I decided not to put the money to work. So here you have what is technically yours. I’m sure you can’t fault me for this.”

You see, the third servant not only did not want to go before the master with less than he had been given. The second reason why he did not put the money to work was that he also did not want to go there with more! For he was unwilling to let the master have possession of what he had earned. This is the second way in which he stands in stark contrast to the other two servants. They willingly give the master even what they had earned along with what they had been given. They realize that they would not have been able to earn anything had the master not given them something in the first place. The first two servants seem to have the view that whatever they earn with the master’s money should belong to the master. But the third servant is different. He believed that the master owned only the principal. He thought that the earnings on the money should belong to him. He knew that the master would expect all the money returned. His own selfishness and greed made him see the master as a cruel and harsh man for having such expectations. The way we are, the kind of people we are shapes the way in which we view others.

In his book Virtuous Passions, Father G. Simon Harak narrates the following story. Three students decided to go to the movies. One of them was a former Marine sergeant. The second had studied karate for a number of years. The third had no such training in violence in his background. After buying their tickets they regrouped in the lobby. The former Marine addressed the other two, “Did you see that guy on the other side of the ticket booth?” “Yes,” replied the former karate student, “He sure was cruisin’ for a bruisin’, wasn’t he?” “You know,” said the former Marine, “the look on his face...I was just waiting for him to try something.” Saying that, the former Marine thumped one fist into the other palm. The former karate student started to say, “If he had made a move, I would’ve...” but the third student interrupted them by saying, “What guy?”

The two students who were trained in violence were disposed to taking things in a certain way. They were, in every sense, looking for trouble. But the third student was not. His background of nonviolence made him expect nonviolent behavior from others. He might have indeed perceived the belligerent man but did not perceive him as belligerent.

In the same way the three servants in our parable had the same master. There is nothing to indicate that the master used to treat them differently. Sure he gave them different amounts of money. But he rewards the first and second servants in exactly the same way with exactly the same words. Though the master used to treat all three in the same way, the third servant had a decidedly different picture of the master.

He saw the master as an exacting, cruel man. So he treated the master in the same way. He saw the master as a miser, so he gave the master miserably in both his work and his repayment. He did not work and he gave the master exactly what had initially been given to him. But the first two servants recognized the master’s generosity. They worked generously and gave back to the master in a generous manner.

How we view God will determine how we treat God and the gifts he has given us. If we view God as a miser, we will give him miserable work and use our gifts in a miserly fashion. If we see him as harsh, we will address him harshly. If, on the other hand, we view God as generous, we will give him generous work and use our gifts generously. If we see him as gracious, we will address him graciously.

Now, the way the three servants viewed their master had consequences. The parable does not end with the servants giving back to the master. Rather, it ends with the master giving again to the servants. To the first two he gives dominion over many things. To the third servant he metes out punishment.

In a sense, all three servants get something at the end of the parable. Quite a few of you have probably heard of the computer-speak word WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get. For all practical purposes, the experiences of the three servants are like that. The first two servants see the master as gracious and generous. The third sees him as miserly and harsh. All three work for him in accordance with their perception of the master’s character. And in doing so, their characters are changed. The first two become more like the master. The third becomes more unlike the master. And at the end the master rewards them all with what they saw in him because they have become like their perception of the master. The first two are rewarded with grace because, in seeing the master as gracious, they had become gracious. The third is rewarded with harshness because, in seeing the master as harsh, he had become harsh.

This is revealed in the way in which the master addresses the third servant. “You wicked and lazy slave!” he says. Note the order. The first charge is that the slave is wicked. He is wicked because his view of the master reveals him to be wicked for only a wicked person could accuse so gracious a master of being harsh. And his wickedness leads to his laziness. He fails to work because he does not want to work for the master. And he does not want to work for the master for, on account of his own miserable character, he sees the master as a miser.

So what does all this have to do with NUPC? Why have we labored three weeks through this greatly misunderstood portion of Jesus’ teachings?

God has placed us in a place of tremendous opportunity. We have members from all over the world. And we are moving right into the heart of possibly the most diverse community in the world. Are we going to shrug off the responsibility to which God is calling us? Or are we going to be faithful like Jesus the faithful slave par excellence?

Let us not be reticent in fulfilling this responsibility. God is waiting for us, to meet us in the midst of our fulfilling the tasks to which he has called us. We may not read his timing or ways infallibly. But have no doubt that he is eager to take us where we can scarcely dream of going. Are we ready to serve him with expectancy? Will we serve with each moment charged with anticipation that God would reveal himself to us?

And let us not think that we are small and have but little to offer. It does not matter how large a church we are. What matter is the largeness of heart with which we serve this gracious God who has, of his incredible generosity, called us to be partners in and heirs of his kingdom. Will we respond by serving him generously? And will we serve him with an attitude that does not grudge him the glory he rightly deserves?

If we serve him in this manner—faithfully, expectantly, and generously—have no doubts that we will be entering into the joy that Jesus has for us in the near future. And it will be a sweet foretaste of that greater joy for which we eagerly wait when he will at last be revealed to all the world in his magnificent glory.