Emily Lyons

Dear Friends,

Today is the feast of St. Laurence, 3rd-century deacon and martyr. According to St. Ambrose, Laurence refused to hand over the church’s wealth to the Roman prefect, instead distributing it to the poor. When the prefect came to collect, Laurence indicated these needy Christians, proclaiming “Here are the riches of the church.” Laurence’s story is a fitting frame through which to reflect on what today’s readings have to say about wealth and faith.

Looking first at Acts, I have a lot of questions about Ananias and Sapphira. Why did God kill them? God isn’t in the habit of striking people down just for being greedy or dishonest, so Ananias and Sapphira’s offense must be more serious. Clearly their deaths were meant to send a strong message to the fledgling Christian community. But what message, exactly?

St. John Chrysostom claims that their sin was sacrilege, or contempt for the sacred. They intended for their gift to the Christian community to be seen as a gesture of faith. But since they conspired to deceive the community and keep some money for themselves, we know their faith wasn’t sincere. They had to die, John Chrysostom argues, to protect the early church from being infected by false faith. While I’m not completely satisfied by this interpretation, it gets me closer to understanding.

Turning from Acts to the Gospel reading, in John’s account of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus rebukes the merchants and money changers by saying, “stop making my father’s house a marketplace!” I take this to mean, “stop corrupting people’s practice of faith by reducing it to a monetary transaction.”

If this is what Jesus meant, this sheds some further light on Ananias and Sapphira. Their wealth isn’t important. What matters is that they thought that making a show of generosity is all someone needs to do in order to call themselves a Christian. But God demands sincere faith of those who call themselves his followers. To love him with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength is a commandment, not a suggestion.

But what does it feel like to have sincere faith? How can we be sure that our actions are motivated by love of God, and not more worldly impulses? I don’t have the answers, but these are questions we should be continually asking ourselves in order to grow spiritually.

Yours in Christ,

—Emily