Simon the Sorcerer

Week 2 of “becoming” Series

Psalm 1

Acts 8:9-25

How many of you have taken some sort of strength finder or personality test?  There are dozens of them.  I’ve done Myers Briggs, the DiSC profile, the Core Value Index – and more recently I’ve been helped by the Enneagram – a model used for many years in Catholic religious orders.  (Our Fall Retreat will be a time to explore in a personal way the helpfulness of these tools).

Before I became familiar with these personality profiles, I thought I was “normal” and everyone else had issues.  What you learn from these profiles is that there is no one way of being human.  There are a range of differing approaches to life.

 

Richard Rohr, writing about the Enneagram, says that if you want to know your basic personality type, look at yourself when you were 20.  A twenty year old has developed a basic personality or approach to life and is already making choices and reacting to reality in a way that betrays his or her fundamental approach.  You might bend or alter that personality later in life, but you won’t change it.   That’s who you are.  That’s what you have to work with.  That’s the “you” that God loves and values.  That’s the “you” that has depth and beauty and is host to God’s Spirit enhancing and directing your strengths for the good of others.

During September and October we’re talking about identifying our strengths and putting them to work so that how we live makes a difference in the lives of others.  Last week we looked at the healing of the lame beggar in Acts 3.  Peter saw new possibilities for him and offered him healing in Christ’s name – healing that energized and activated him.  I suggested that we’ll never find our strengths if we’re always focused on problems and weaknesses.

This week we’re still talking about finding and using our strengths, but we’re dealing with another potential roadblock.  One of the reasons we fail to recognize and use our own strengths is because they’re tangled up with our weaknesses.  Similarly, one of the reasons we fail to recognize and appreciate the strengths of others is because their strengths are tangled up with their weaknesses too.

We have a drawer at home where we tend to put all the things with wires and cords.  Power cords for phones and computers.  Headphones.  Charging cords for our cellphones.  And all these cords get tangled in one large ball of a knot.  So if you try to disentangle a set of headphones, itt will take you half an hour.  That’s not a bad picture of what its like to be a human being.  There’s a lot going on in you.  Your life is filled with beauty and ugliness, strengths and weaknesses, light and shadow. 

Our reading from Acts today pictures a complicated human being.  He is called Simon the Sorcerer, Simon the Magician, or Simon Magus (Latin).  And the story about Simon is a bit ambiguous or open ended.  We’re left wondering how exactly his life turned out.  Did he, or did he not, persevere in his repentance?  Was he able to overcome the powerful shadows in his life?  Did he stay connected to the community of Jesus’ followers in Samaria?

The tradition has not been kind to him, and assumes the worst.  His life has become synonymous for the specific sin of trying to buy a position of influence in the church.  So in church history, the sin of  “simony” refers to the act of selling or buying church offices or positions.  In Dante’s Inferno, one of the layers of the eighth circle of hell was reserved for those who practice “simony.”   Dante pictures church leaders who bribed or bought their power as buried head-first in holes with their feet on fire. 

This tradition latches onto Simon’s failure and crucifies him for it eternally.  But to me, this is unfortunate.  The text does not quite say what becomes of Simon.  I have hope for him!  He is very much like me.  And like you.  He is complicated.  He’s a tangle of light and shadow.  His strengths are tangled up with his weaknesses.

Simon the Sorcerer was an unlikely player in the early missionary movement of Jesus’ followers.  He wasn’t a very good candidate to serve as a leader in one of the new congregations.  While he was a natural and charismatic leader, he was also addicted to power and money and recognition.

He amassed a strong following from his magic and earned a good living from it.  He had the full loyalty of the people, the “high and the low.”  The people identified Simon as “The Great Power of God.”  And he didn’t correct them.  But when Philip the missionary came to town, the Samaritan people saw Philip’s powerful ability to heal and work wonders, heard the good news about Jesus and received baptism.  When Simon saw the tide going over to this new teaching, he went with it.  He was baptized too!

Now remember, this was very early in the spread of these little groups of people responding to the good news about Jesus.  And Philip hadn’t gotten the message that the Holy Spirit was a gift that accompanies all baptisms.  So when he baptized the Samaritans, he forgot to pray for the Spirit.  When Peter and John arrived from Jerusalem, they fixed the situation by laying their hands on all the baptized so they could receive the powerful Spirit.  Simon couldn’t believe what he was seeing!  These two had the power of God’s Spirit right in their hands, and they were giving it away.

So instead of saying, “Lay your hands on me so I too can share in this same Spirit”  - Simon guides Peter and John over into a corner and says, “Here’s a thousand in cash guys, I want in on this thing.”

Peter confronts Simon, demands that he repent, and speaks critically to him with these words, “I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin” (v. 23).  Now what did he mean by that?  Why was Simon bitter?  Was it because Peter and John had assumed a role of influence that used to belong to him?  Was it because they were demonstrating the ability to lay hands on others and bestow God’s Spirit and he didn’t know how?  Was it because they were sharing power and leadership and he was accustomed to a leadership model that was manipulative and selfish?  And how was Simon “captive to sin”?  Was it his habit of paying and getting paid?  Was it his cynical assumption that all leaders – Peter and John included – were out to line their pockets with bribes?

Simon the Sorcerer had a life-changing encounter with the good news.  Then he had an incredibly painful discovery that there was still much that was dark and unredeemed about his life.  But as far as we can tell, (or at least I hope) he responded in humble and faithful endurance and learned to live with his weaknesses.  He repented and found forgiveness and a new role in the community. 

Now Simon’s particular leadership strengths, along with his addictions to money and power – those might not be your particular strengths and weaknesses.  But his life is a mirror in which we can see ourselves.  His story invites us to a new awareness of the range of skills and abilities in our own lives and in the lives of others.  But it also reminds us that the powerful gifts we have can be bent in destructive ways if God does not help us acknowledge our powerful weaknesses.

One of the reasons we downplay and neglect the gifts and powers God has given us is because we’re embarrassed about all that’s still wrong with us.  We know our own resumes.  We remember our failures.  We recall vividly moments when we’ve been ashamed of ourselves or shamed by others.  We’ve lived with ourselves long enough to recognize unhealthy patterns and obsessions, energy-robbing addictions, and harmful habits.  We know, like no one else does, that we still don’t have our act together, even after all this time.

Of course, we secretly hope that no one else sees what we see.  We’ve tried to keep our skeletons in the closet.  But those who know us also know our limitations and weaknesses, our blind spots and regrets.  You can keep some of the specifics of your life hidden, of course.  But the rough and tumble of life usually cracks open this attempt to live only on the surface.  Usually, who we are and what we struggle with leaks out and comes to expression during times of crisis or stress or failure.  That’s what happened to Simon.  Like him, we fear that others will find out our secrets and our neediness.  And yet being found out is both painful and wonderful, because you finally get to give up the game.  You finally get to confess with other sinners that the path of righteousness and the path of wickedness share space in your own tangled life.

Psalm 1 warns us about two paths, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.  God’s righteous people are to be wary and cautious, lest they walk along the wicked way, then stand, and eventually get so comfortable they decide to take a seat there.

And yet these two contradictory ways of living often pick out not so much distinct groups of people, but different paths or energies that can be found in each of us.  Often our highest aspirations remain tangled up with much lower impulses.  Our best side usually has a shadow side.  The Spirit fits each of us with a range of powers, skills, and abilities that become our best way of helping others.  The problem is that these gifts from the Spirit are planted in the same life where many weeds grow.

There is nothing that will free you from the grip of these dark obsessions with your hangups and failures but the grace of God.  Nothing will unleash the creative energy of your own unique abilities in the world until you find the life-changing forgiveness that God offers to you in Jesus Christ.  There are only broken people who are being healed.  There are no other kinds of people. 

God has forgiven us completely in Jesus Christ, has picked us up, given us what we need, kicked us in the pants and told us to shake it off and get going.  But we insist on rehashing our pasts.  To be honest, many of us are made nervous by the good news that there is no punishment for us, and so we make sure we punish ourselves.  This is one of the ways we sabotage ourselves.

God will use you to bless others even though your strengths are still tangled up with your weaknesses.  God isn’t waiting around for you to get all your ducks in a row.  But if that’s true for you, then it’s also true for everyone else.  Even the people you can’t stand.  Even the people about whom you know something terrible or scandalous.  When we recognize weaknesses in others, we tend to write them off.  Once we see a debilitating weakness, a character flaw, a pattern of moral failure, an ugly habit – well then, it’s all over as far as we’re concerned.  We’ve seen all we need to see.  But then what we fail to see is their strength, their range of skills, what they have to offer. 

Some embezzle and steal.  Some have affairs or cheat on his taxes.  Some lie or boast or speak hatefully.  Some look at pornography and some are lazy.  Some are controlling and anxious and some will do anything for approval.  Some have addictions.  Some are jealous.  Some are greedy.  Some manipulate and overfunction.  Some eat too much or hold grudges.  On and on the list could go.  But everyone else is just like us.  Their strengths are tangled up in their weaknesses.  And once you realize that, you can begin to take a second look at all the people around you.  You can give people second chances.  You can learn to appreciate what other people have to offer.  Because you’re learning to look past their failures and see their impressive gifts.

My prayer for us this Fall is that God will help us see the Spirit’s work in our lives so that we can live and work and serve with joy.  I also pray that God will make us more aware of the strengths and abilities the Spirit has given to others, to receive what others can offer to us, and to be thankful.  Amen.