As I was preparing the sermon I will be preaching tomorrow, I noticed something important in the text (while comparing the “everything in common” of Acts 2 and the death of Ananias in Acts 5). This was something I had never seen before, and the more I think about it, the more important I think it is.
It has been common for some people to cite the “everything in common” part of Acts 2 as an example of early communism, where the first Christians would greet each other with a nod of the head and a reverent “peace out, brother.” But there is a world of difference between an outbreak of sharing, which is what this was, and an outbreak of confiscation, which is what every form of socialism is. So much should be obvious.
But this is what I just noticed. I have been accustomed to point to Peter’s statement to Ananias to show that what had happened in Acts 2 was not confiscation. Peter expressly tells Ananias that his property was his to keep, and when he had sold it, the proceeds were also his to keep.
So what was Ananias’ problem then? The problem was the lie, obviously. But what was the motive for the lie? Why lie?
The motive for the lie was that Ananias wanted to appear more spiritual than he actually was. He wanted to come off as being more generous, more sacrificial, than he actually was. But here is the twist. Who does that now? Who today afflicted by the Ananias Syndrome?
The answer is that those who would use the coercive power of the state to confiscate the wealth of others, calling it a “contribution,” thereby counting their confiscatory vote as an act of altruism, are in this respect doing exactly what Ananias did. They are wanting to appear more generous than they actually are.
But in several ways they are worse than Ananias. Ananias was using his own wealth to appear this way — pretending to have given all when he had only given a portion. Ananias was pretending that some of his own money was all of his own money. The modern confiscators are pretending that someone else’s money is their own — that none of their money is some of their money. And so they pretend that their violence is an act of altruism.
The second way they are worse is that there is no record of Ananias wanting those around him (who truly were generous) to appear less so. He was trying to get into their league the cheap way. But the modern confiscators not only want to appear to be more generous than they are, they also want those who truly are generous to appear grasping and selfish and stingy. And why? Because these conservative Christians object to being stolen from. What? Haven’t they heard of the early Christians?
The five-fingered discount, even if the hand concerned is on the end of a federal arm, is not therefore transformed into something else. There are certain things that the Spirit of God does not do, in addition to squaring the circle, and one of them is the miracle of turning taking into giving.