Sapphira and Me

Ananias and Sapphira. Don't they just have the worst reputation in Christian circles?! What deceivers, deliberately lying (to God!) about the price of the property they sold.  Clearly the moral of that story is that you should not lie about what you are giving to God.  It's a shame they wound up dead. Tsk, tsk.

It's a wonder, then, that I am walking around. Don't I want to be part of radical, amazing work? Don't I want to give it all? And don't I always keep back a little bit for insurance.  I mean, what if God really can't be trusted? If the sacrificial living thing turns out to be a bust... might be nice to have a Plan B. 

Obviously, I am alive to blog about this. But I probably err if I think I am off the hook - Jesus said in order to find your life you first have to lose it. Is that why so many of us are trying to find ourselves? Is that why despite our unprecedented material excess and physical comfort we are dissatisfied and depressed and searching? The joy that goes with surrender, with giving ourselves to the common cause, apparently cannot be replicated unless all chips are cashed in - maybe that's the loss we experience.

It strikes me that in fighting poverty, in building community, no progress is made if people do not unite across divides. Left and right. Black and white. Protestant and Catholic. Government and the people. Rich and poor. It is one thing to approach a school board about ridiculous bus policies on behalf of clients or "the poor." It is entirely different if my kid is affected by those bus policies - I problem solve on a whole other level with a helluva lot more energy.  Until I process, internalize, and accept who my neighbor is, I will never be able to truly build community, or the kingdom of God. 

I suspect that it will always be part of human struggle to make decisions balancing what is best for us personally and what is best for the common good. (Most of us) vaccinate our children, but (most of us) send our children to the best schools we possibly can. I confess that I have never put a child of mine in the worst-performing school in the area in order to be better able to promote change there. And I probably never will. (And that was not a statement inviting argument or defense of that). I have bought property in a blighted neighborhood in hopes of being an agent of change there, and in the end sold that house with an exhausted sigh of relief, never to live in a city again (until - now?). That seems a failed experiment on many, many levels. I kept a job when I no longer believed the organization was working for the best interests of people it served because I knew it was a good paycheck. My fingers are clutched around so many things. I want to let go. I may never be able to, and I do so with the knowledge that my hands will never be free until I do.   

None of that is said to judge anyone. It is statement of my reality; I need to acknowledge what is in my own heart. And I think that's the point. I can't lie, and that starts with to myself. I can't pretend to be a better person than I am if I want to be who I was meant to become.