A Sermon from
Valley Covenant Church
Eugene, Oregon
by Pastor Steve Bilynskyj

Copyright © 2005 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj

Acts 8:9-25
“An Obsolete Sin?”
July 24, 2005 - Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

         Three people at our house have already read it. Have you? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a magical publishing phenomenon. It sold almost 7 million copies in the first twenty-four hours. Some buyers, including at least a few of you, were at a local bookstore last Saturday morning to purchase yours at exactly 12:01 a.m. when it was first available.

         So when we open our Bibles this morning and find a sorcerer, a magician, at the heart of the text, the connection is natural. Children and adults are absolutely captivated by J. K. Rowling’s tales of magic. Yet here in Scripture a magician does not come off so well. At best, he is a man of some spiritual confusion. But at worst, many Christians through the centuries have seen Simon “Magus” as a figure of consummate evil. In light of that, you might wonder what business Christians have messing around with tales of magic. You might even be a little worried that your pastor’s family likes such stories. You might be inclined to go along with what the new pope is reported to have said a couple years ago, that the Harry Potter stories are a “subtle seduction” for Christian people.

         As you might guess, I think Harry Potter is pretty harmless stuff, but the pope is right that magic can be a subtle seduction for us. It certainly was back then.

         The setting for Simon’s story is the Samaritan mission of Philip. This is not Philip the apostle, but the second of the seven deacons we met in Acts 6. As I mentioned last week, verse 4 explains how God used the persecution of the first Christians to spread the Gospel. “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” Philip went to a city in Samaria, the first step beyond purely Jewish culture.

         It’s often true today that when the message of Jesus is carried across cultural boundaries to a brand new group of people, God validates that mission and preaching by signs and wonders. There in Samaria, Philip was healing people and driving out demons. It was spectacular. “There was great joy,” we’re told in verse 8. And here is where Simon the magician comes in.

         Verses 9 to 11 give his background. Magic was serious business and Simon was a an accomplished and respected magician. Like many ancient middle-eastern magicians, he practiced exorcism of demons. He probably had a bag of conjuring tricks by which he kept the people of Samaria amazed, as verse 9 says. They even regarded him as semi-divine, giving him the name, “The Great Power,” which meant something like God’s right-hand man or second lieutenant, the “Grand Vizier” of heaven. It must have been heady stuff for Simon—I’m reminded of Muhammad Ali’s fist in the air as he declared himself “The Greatest” or even Jackie Gleason who let himself be called “The Great One.”

         What seems a bit remarkable is that even with everyone calling him The Great Power, Simon recognized a greater power when it came along. When Philip worked his miracles and preached Jesus Christ, Simon joined the crowd who believed and were baptized. People had followed Simon, but now verse 13 tells how Simon began to follow Philip. He shadowed him everywhere, astonished at what he was doing. The deacon’s miracles were the real thing, as opposed to Simon’s tricks.

         It’s hard to know what to make of Simon’s conversion. It says clearly that he believed and he was baptized. That’s all it takes to make a Christian, so on the surface it looks like his faith was real. Perhaps it was. Yet Simon was used to having power. He evidently hoped to do miracles himself, to learn some real magic.

         I think we can understand Simon’s motivation. The aim of magic, after all, is not that much different from that of our science and technology. In fact, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The purpose of both is to control one’s world, to develop skills, techniques and procedures which allow you to manipulate and manage your environment. When it’s dark, I flip a light switch. When I’m hot I turn on the air-conditioner in the office. When I want to talk to someone far away I pick up the phone. All of it would look like magic to anyone from two hundred years ago, and the purpose is the same, to control my world.

         That’s why magic appears as just another academic subject in the Harry Potter stories. Harry and his friends study it like you and I study science and technology. You take classes in keyboarding and computers and biology. Harry studies charms and divination and potions. The magic taught at Hogwarts is a kind of science or technology of the supernatural, just another technique for controlling reality.

         In verse 14 the apostles come to town and Simon was sure he had discovered the method behind Christian magic. No one is quite sure why it is the Samaritans could believe and be baptized, but not have the Holy Spirit, but that’s the way it was. So just as they laid hands on the seven deacons, Peter and John laid hands on the Samaritan believers and the Holy Spirit came on them. They probably spoke in tongues. And Simon watched and decided there was a magical secret in this laying on of hands.

         So in verse 18 Simon did what professional magicians did amongst themselves all the time in those days. He offered to buy the secret, to pay Peter and John for the power of laying hands on people so the Spirit would come down. Confronted with superior magical technology, he wanted it for himself, and he was willing to pay for it.

         Peter rebuked Simon harshly. Literally verse 20 says “May you and your silver go to destruction.” In modern idiom we might say, “You and your money can go to hell.” Peter then paints a bleak picture of the state of Simon’s soul. His heart is not right before God, he is full of bitterness and captive to sin. His only hope is to repent.

         In the first couple centuries of Christianity, the name of Simon became associated with some of the worst sin and heresy. A group of gnostic heretics became known as Simoniacs. And then, Simon had a sin named after him. That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? It’s hard to imagine a worse way to make a mark on Christian history than to be remembered as first perpetrator and then namesake of a particularly heinous spiritual crime. Based on his offer in verses 18 and 19 to purchase the gift of the Holy Spirit, “simony” was the term given in the middle ages to the practice of buying and selling ministerial offices. As the church grew in power, a priest or bishop was able to make a lot of money selling pardons and requiring offerings even to enter a church. The result was that church offices became desirable and those seeking them would pay bribes to be ordained. This practice was considered one of the great sources of corruption in the church. In the Inferno, Dante put those who committed simony in the eighth circle of Hell, only one circle above those like Judas who betrayed loved ones.

         Simony may seem pretty much an obsolete sin these days. With the Catholic church in the United States headed for bankruptcy, it’s pretty clear that being a bishop or a priest is no quick ticket to riches. Neither, for most of us, is being a Protestant pastor. It’s hard to imagine anyone paying very much for the privilege of being Christian clergy in this day and age. That’s one sin you and I don’t need to worry about. Or do we?

         Was Simon’s desire to have some power all that different from attitudes that can exist in you and me? He only wanted to take control of his life again by purchasing some spiritual technology. Perhaps we are no longer tempted to buy spiritual power, but we certainly buy and sell other sorts of power all the time. This afternoon I will probably do as usual and sit down to read the Sunday paper. I will carefully sort through all the advertising flyers, picking out the ones I want to see. Staples, Circuit City, Best Buy, GI Joes, Big 5, all those stores which feature technology. I thumb the pages and lust after additional gigabytes of memory, bigger screens and lighter running shoes. If I just had the money I could buy all the computer and sport technology I need to be in control.

         The same kind of thing is true in realms of life we taken even more seriously. Both the hospitals in our area want to build bigger and better facilities, to make room for the very latest medical technology. McKenzie-Willamette just announced plans to buy a big new expensive machine. And you and I would all like to have the resources, the insurance plan, to afford whatever that technology is when we need it. If we can just pay for it, medical science can help control the unpredictable challenges of our own bodies and minds.

         Arthur C. Clarke is right. Technology, magic, they’re not that different. And neither is our own thinking about it all. We still imagine that the power of money can buy us a kind of magical control over our lives and circumstances.

         On top of all our desire for the magic of technology, we may not even be that far from Simon in our approach to spiritual things. We have been so schooled by our technological purchases that we may be as deceived as Simon was in thinking we can purchase the power of God.

         There’s a risk of something like simony even in the giving of our offerings each Sunday morning. As good consumers—you and I have been taught, and so we teach our children—we have a right to expect something for our money. So if we bring money to God, we easily find ourselves tempted to expect something in return.

         Unfortunately, the church frequently has not been very helpful in teaching us to avoid simony. We often speak as though Christian giving is a kind of spiritual investment, as though there really is a purchase being made, even if it’s only a sense of well-being and blessing. A number of years ago now, a church in California made the news by offering a money-back-guarantee on whatever people gave. If, after a period time, you didn’t feel blessed as a result of your offering, then you could call up the church office and claim a refund. Think about that and suddenly Simon’s sin doesn’t seem so obsolete.

         In fact, go to one of our local Christian bookstores or stop by the church office and page through some of the flyers we get in the mail every day, and it is suddenly obvious that we are busily doing our best to buy and sell spiritual power all the time. Simony is alive and well and you and I are probably guilty.

         The answer to our guilt is the same as for any sin. It’s Peter direction to Simon, “Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord.” The beginning of our repentance is to remember where true spiritual power is found, where the only real magic is. As it always has, it belongs only to Jesus Christ. And He offers it as an absolutely free gift to those who trust Him. Spiritual power cannot be bought, because it is free.

         So we cannot control spiritual power. It doesn’t work like magic. You cannot pray the right words or follow the proper set of spiritual disciplines or give a certain percentage of your income and then expect all to go well with you, either in this world or the next. No, that’s the way the world’s magic works, the way technology works. Learn the technique and get what you want. But Jesus Christ isn’t a magical force. He’s not technological power. He’s a person. All you can do is place your faith completely in Jesus, follow Him even when it feels like things are out of control, and trust Him to control your life as He deems best.

         We don’t quite learn the end of Simon’s story. After Peter rebuked him he experienced some remorse. In verse 24 he says, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me!” Many commentators have read this request as an incomplete and even insincere repentance. Simon doesn’t offer his own prayer as Peter told him, but asks Peter to pray. He doesn’t say he is sorry for his sin, but only seems to want to escape the consequences.

         Who are we to say? Perhaps Simon is so humbled and frightened that he finds himself incapable of his own prayer. And wanting to escape the consequences of our own words and actions probably motivates most of us who turn to Jesus for forgiveness. No, it seems to me that even a wicked magician might find grace in the Lord when he turns from his magic and trusts the true power of God.

         Harry Potter is just a good story. Computer science and medicine are just useful tools. But magic of all sorts can be a subtle seduction for us as Christians. We can trust too much in the magic we perform with silicon chips and keyboards, with scalpels and prescription drugs. We pay out our hard-earned dollars to possess that magic. And if we place too much hope in it all, we may begin to lose our trust in God, we may begin to treat Jesus as just another kind of magic or technology for sale.

         Yet if there was hope for Simon, there is hope for you and me. The Holy Spirit was freely poured out on those Samaritan believers. And our Lord will pour out His Spirit on us when we bow before Him in repentance and faith. That’s the only real magic. And it’s not for sale. It is the gift of God to every repentant and believing heart. May you and I trust again and always in His gracious gift.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2005 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj