I have a question for you this morning: Can you buy God? Can you purchase the gifts of the Spirit? Are you able to access God through money? Now, you might say, “This is a rather bizarre question” and you are perplexed as to why I would even consider it. But think about it for a moment. We purchase many intangible things in our lives in the hope that they will enrich them and make them better.
We buy, do we not, extra education. We buy things that provide us with pleasure, even though they are not always tangible things: entertainment and fun. We buy an extra little peace of mind and security by buying insurance policies that we hope will take care of us. We buy some medical support and encouragement on the way. We in fact spend our money buying many things that are not always tangible or physical or immediately before our eyes, and we think they are important, and that it is important to do it. So, why not, we ask, think about buying God? After all, if God gives comfort, if God gives strength, if God gives power, cannot this great force be purchased?
If you think that this is such a strange idea, then our passage puts it in a framework that is biblical, for there was indeed someone in the Scriptures who wanted to buy God, and his name was Simon. He was a man who lived in Samaria. Samaria, as we all know, was the place that believed in God, but did not have the same faith as the people of Judah and of Israel. Samaritans were seen as second class spiritual citizens.
Simon was a superstar. He was someone, we are told, who practiced magic and that magic was something that he boasted about. People of both high and low esteem in Samaria thought that he was divine-like, that he had a special power and magic about him. He glorified in it, and enjoyed it. But then, enter the scene Philip. Philip is one of the Apostles.
Philip had gone to Samaria to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. He went to this place that was in many ways a foreign land to proclaim the Good News of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus. In many ways, he was following in the very footsteps of his master and Lord, who himself, as we know, in his ministry had walked through Samaria and performed miracles there. Philip was so persuasive that people wanted to be baptized. They were in awe of this great power that Philip had with his words, but more than that, with the manifestations of the power of the Spirit, with healings and a special power that he had over people.
Simon, himself a magician, was impressed by Philip. He wanted to be baptized by Philip. He thought Philip had something really special and really important, and he came to follow him and went everywhere with him, we are told. Then enter Peter and John. Peter and John enter because word had gone back to the Church in Jerusalem that something incredible was happening in Samaria: people were being baptized, people were experiencing all kinds of incredible things on the part of Philip, and so the Church authorities in Jerusalem wanted to know what this upstart group in Samaria was doing, and what they were all about. So, they sent in the heavyweights: Peter and John. You don’t get bigger than that in the early Church!
Peter and John arrive, and they also start to preach the Good News, but they have a different experience. They lay hands on people, and when the laying on of hands takes place, all of a sudden, even greater manifestations of the Spirit occur. People received the Holy Spirit. Before, they had been baptized, but had no Spirit. Now, they had the laying on of hands and the power of the Holy Spirit. And, Simon now is in awe of this incredible power.
So-much-so, and you can just see it happening, he sidles up to Peter and John, and he says, “Now, look here, if I offer you good money, do you think that I could have that power? Would you give it to me in order that I might have it as well?”
Well, Peter flips his lid! Peter says, “You are not going to do this! You cannot purchase God’s power and the Spirit! Who do you think you are? You need to repent!”
And Simon does. Simon says, “Whatever it is that you have prayed for, may it come about, but if you want condemnation for me, may it not come about.” And Simon believed, and became a follower. Something dramatic had happened: there was authority in Peter’s voice.
Why is this here, this incredible story of the encounter between the Apostles and this man called Simon, who wanted to buy a piece of God? Well, I think the lessons for us in this, and I think one of the reasons why Luke wanted to stress it, was because in the Christian life the reception of the Holy Spirit, as Lee Barrett rightly said, is not a bonus supplement that you buy as an add-on to the Christian life. The reception of the Holy Spirit is an integral part of the Christian life. It is not something that you buy as an add-on, a supplement, an extra.
When you look at this within the context of the whole Book of Acts this becomes very clear. The Book of Acts is written as a story to show what the Apostles had done, but more than being “the acts of the Apostles” it was also the act of the Holy Spirit. What we see in the Book of Acts is a movement from a fledgling church in Jerusalem to this growing church where the Gospel actually reaches Rome, the centre of the Empire. So the Spirit has moved through the Apostles to take the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome.
The problem is that when we read about moments like this, which is a moment between Jerusalem and Rome, the earliest days of the movement, for Samaria bordered Israel, in this moment in Samaria we see, and I am going to stress this in a few moments, the Spirit moving from the confines of Jerusalem out into the life of ordinary men and women and ordinary people, people who hadn’t been within the Covenant relationship of Israel. Often when we read this, over the years, we’ve got hung up about the order of things. We look at the power of the Holy Spirit in this case, coming upon people when Peter and John had come from Jerusalem after the laying on of hands. But when Philip had been there preaching and people had been baptized believing, still we read, the Holy Spirit hadn’t come. And so, we look at this text, and we get hung up on the order.
There have been whole denominations throughout the two thousand years of the Christian faith that have been hung up on the order of the receiving of the power of the Holy Spirit. Some suggest it comes from repentance, and then baptism and then the Spirit. Others say there is a second baptism after the water baptism, and then comes the Spirit. Some say you have to have the laying on of hands, and then only can you receive the Spirit. Some say all you need to do is respond to the Word: the moment you believe you have been led by the Holy Spirit. Others say the reception of the Holy Spirit is simply a matter of faith, and that the order doesn’t matter.
Yet, when you look at the Book of Acts, people receive the power of the Holy Spirit in many different ways and at many different times. Why does this trouble us? Why do we think that you have to have a technique to get the Spirit? In other words, if you do x, y, and z, then you will get the Holy Spirit, as if it is an automatic outcome from a process. Is this not like trying to buy God? Is it not like trying to say, “Well, I am going to try to set up a particular formula and, having set up this particular formula, God will just have to bless us with the filling of his Spirit when all of this is over.”
My very first sermon here at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, fourteen-and-a-half years ago, I preached from the Book of John. In that sermon I suggested, as it does in the Book of John, that we don’t know where the Spirit comes from or where the Spirit goes, that the Spirit is sovereign and free, that the Spirit works where God desires the Spirit to work: you can’t put God in a box, you can’t make God into a commodity, you can’t make the Spirit an item that you can control. And so, there is a sense in which all of the freedom and the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit are there. God cannot be purchased as a bonus supplement and the Spirit isn’t an added extra.
Yet, there are many people, especially in our day and age, who are really enthralled with spirituality. They are enthralled with the idea of possessing all the powers and the gifts of the Spirit, and experiencing the inner peace that the Spirit brings of getting tranquility in their lives or order in their lives. They want all the benefits of the Holy Spirit, but they don’t want to believe, necessarily. They want the manifestations of a spiritual life, and like Simon the magician, they like to be able to wander around and say, “I am great and spiritual and God is within me.”
We are in a day and age where this is happening more and more. But that is sort of like “buying” God without “receiving” God. It is like having all the outward power, but none of the faith that undergirds it. I see it all the time. I see it on television, where we have, for example, people who are like salesmen who say “If you purchase one item then you will be able to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and you will be able to have the blessing of the Holy Spirit.” There are those who sometimes use the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of the purchase of the Holy Spirit.
Recently, there has been an article written in the January issue of Psychology Today, where the argument has been made by a man called Scott McGreal that there are people who genuinely want spirituality in their lives, and who want all the outward benefits of it, but it actually doesn’t always aid in mental health. In fact, wanting the power and the high of the Spirit without faith and a religion that undergirds it can in fact be dangerous to your health. The authors of this study in Great Britain concluded, and I want to quote,” that people who are spiritual but not religious in their understanding of life are more vulnerable to disorders than other people.“
Not having a framework of faith and beliefs can lead to disorders in people who have a need for a spiritual understanding, and that these persons in their quest for mental healing or a deeper understanding find there is nothing there. In other words, you can want all the outward power, you can have all the outward manifestations of spirituality, but unless it is rooted and grounded in something greater than itself, it in fact, can be like trying to purchase God, and it doesn’t make a difference. It is not a bonus supplement! There is something more and that is that you can’t buy love. The Beatles knew it years ago: “money can’t buy you love.” And, money can’t buy you God! And, money can’t buy you the Spirit!
It is fascinating, this text, and that it took place in Samaria. Samaria, as I said before, was an outcaste place, a place of people who were often seen to be somewhat delusional, and having different ideas about what God would do. Would God reign in Mount Gerizim or would God reign in Mount Zion in Jerusalem? This was one of the differences between the Samaritans and the Jews. Yet, they believed in God and they had a faith. Even when they looked at Simon and they saw his magical powers, they thought “Maybe this is a divine power that Simon has.” They were not devoid of spirituality; they had it. But, there was something missing.
I don’t know about you, but when they first started putting entertainment systems in planes. I was very confused, because they were always advertising that on certain flights of a certain length you would have on-board entertainment. I will never forget the first time that I got excited seeing – this is quite a few years ago now – one of the screens on the back of the chair in front of me, and I am thinking “Oh, this is going to be so cool!” I am ready, and I am pressing all the buttons, and I am seeing what is coming on, and there is a movie that I like …and nothing happens!
Finally, one of the flight attendants comes along and says, “Here, you need a headphone to be able to listen to this, and the headphone will cost you $3.25, and we don’t accept cash, we only accept credit cards.” You have all been through it probably many, many times. You need the headphones to be able to listen to the on-board entertainment, but they don’t always tell you that in advance. So now, like so many of us, I have bought a real cheap one about five or six years ago. I keep it in my pocket every time I fly. And, I just stick it in and listen and I am not going to pay anyone anything more than I have to!
You know what is interesting? That is exactly what Samaritan religion was like. It had the promise of something great that God would do, but what they didn’t have was the Word to allow you to hear it and to understand it. When Philip came, he brought the Word, the Word of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And when Peter and John came, they preached the same thing. And then the Spirit came. In other words, what is needed in a truly spiritual life are the Spirit and the Word.
I love Don Lyon, who is a radio preacher in Illinois and is one of the doyennes of radio preachers in the United States. He once said the following, and I have thought about it many times, “If you have the Spirit without the Word, you blow up. If you have the Word without the Spirit, you dry up. And, if you have the Word and the Spirit, you grow up.” He couldn’t have put it any better! If you have all the spiritual manifestations and have all power, but have not the Word, you blow up. That is the danger: Spiritual ecstasy for spiritual ecstasy’s sake. If you have the Word and you do not have the Spirit to interpret it or communicate it to us, then you dry up. It becomes a flat Word, just simply on a page. But if you have the Word and you have the Spirit, then you “grow up.”
Is that not the case with the Christian Church? Is that not the case with our honest walk with God, and is that not the reason why we need the communal nature of the Christian faith itself to help us and encourage us and nurture us, not to control the Spirit by trying to advocate some sort of false order, but simply to manifest the grace of our God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To manifest the truth of the power of the Spirit as it pertains to the Son, as it pertains to God, the Sovereign. Is that not what our faith needs? Whether it relates to meetings in the Church or whether it relates to individual decisions that we make, it is something that we should cherish.
I found a wonderful quote by none other than Margaret Thatcher, of all people! There is no political point I am trying to make here, just that I think it is great: “Ideally, when Christians meet as Christians to take counsel together, their purpose is not or should not be to ascertain what is in the mind of the majority, but what is in the mind of the Holy Spirit, something which may be quite different.”
So true! It is the Spirit that energizes. It is the Spirit that is there in our prayers. It is the Spirit that moves us to preach. It is the Spirit that heals the broken. It is the Spirit that brings comfort to those who are weak. It is the Spirit that lifts up those who mourn. It is the Spirit that invigorates the depressed. It is the Spirit that renews the Church. It is the Spirit alone that gives us the sense of being the people of God.
You can’t buy that Spirit, but you can be open to that Spirit. And open we must be! Amen.