October 16, 2011
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
What belongs to God? What belongs to the government? How much of my time and resources belong to my boss, my teacher, my coach, my neighbor or my family? Is there anything left for me? Today, Jesus proves one good question is worth a thousand words. With a single question Jesus confronts three major idols of his day and ours: money, the state, and religion.
Now I don’t suppose the temple leaders were really wanted to hear Jesus give advice about taxes. They only wanted to trip him up. They hoped his answer would either be treasonous to the Roman authorities, or sacrilegious to the crowd of gathered in the Temple. All eyes were focused on Jesus in those days. We know how this story ends: betrayal, arrest, torture, and crucifixion on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Today, we begin to appreciate that the first two days of Jesus’ final week were equally vexing.
Despite the pressure, Jesus’ answer is witty and on point. By contrast, how many times am I still tried to find the right words even days later? As our Outreach Minister Stan Wood pointed out to me on Wednesday, this Sunday would have been a much better week to hand out dollar bills –don’t you think? Well, we win some and we lose some.
Jesus is pretty sharp. The trick question elicits a trick answer from Jesus. First he asked them to produce the coin used to pay the state tax, then he asked them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” (Matthew 22:20)
Most likely the coin in question bore the image of the emperor Tiberius who ruled Rome during those years (AD 14–37). One side of the coin would have identified Tiberius as ‘son of god’, while the other side would have honored him as the ‘chief priest’ of Roman polytheism—which is to say both sides of the coin were an affront to faith. Roman currency was the coin of the occupier. Money-changers set up in the Temple so the faithful could exchange this offensive foreign legal tender with cash minted by the Temple to transact their sacred business.
When his questioners reach into their purses and produce the Roman coin in the sacred precincts of the Temple, it becomes evidence that exposes them—not Jesus—as deceptive and hypocritical compromisers. They are the ones carrying around Caesar’s money, not Jesus; they are the ones who have the emperor’s image in their pocketbooks; they are the ones who have already bought into the pagan system. (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, p. 251)
In effect Jesus says, ‘Give to the Emperor the things stamped with the image of the Emperor. Give to God the things that belong to God.’ But what belongs to God? What is already marked and bears the image and likeness of God? You are. I am.
In the beginning “…God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness (Gen 1:26-27); “…for in his own image God made humankind.” (Genesis 9:6). What are we to give to God? The things stamped with God’s image — us! We are to give God ourselves — our whole selves — not just some part.
Lutheran tradition is fond of its two-kingdoms theology. God has established both civic and religious authority in order to establish public safety in which freedom to practice religious faith may flourish. I do like this idea very much. But I don’t think this is what Jesus has in mind here. Instead the point seems to be that everything belonged first to God before it was handed over to us.
We cannot say that “this part belongs to God, so I will give it to God.” Everything we are and everything we have belongs to God. Everything we are and everything we have we are to give (back) to God. We are but mere managers or stewards of these gifts God has given to us.
Although we are yet a good way off from the season of Lent and Holy week, here in our gospel today, Jesus is not. Could Jesus be pointing at the life that God offers us that is just the other side of the cross? The resurrected life? The abundant life that is ours in Christ and the waters of baptism?
How much belongs of our self belongs to God? How much to the government? The proper order and balance is established only after we give it all to God. Come and Die. Come and die so that you may live.
Thomas R. Kelly was a Quaker missionary, educator, speaker, writer and scholar. In A Testament of Devotion, he wrote: We are trying to be several selves at once, without all our selves being organized by a single, mastering Life within us. Each of us tends to be, not a single self, but a whole committee of selves. . . . And each of our selves is in turn a rank individualist, not cooperative but shouting out his vote loudly for himself when the voting time comes. . . . It is as if we have a chairman of our committee of many selves within us who does not integrate the many into one but who merely counts the votes at each decision, and leaves disgruntled minorities. . . . We are not integrated. We are distraught. We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all. . . . Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center. . . . Most of us, I fear, have not surrendered all else, in order to attend to the Holy Within.
Writing in the January 2005 issue of Interpretation magazine, Robert Sherman states that we need to order our “lives in such a way that the Lord’s time [becomes] sovereign,” which could “become the means by which a gracious God liberates us from the tyranny of seemingly implacable and ultimately pointless time.” Without allegiance to the Maker of time itself, we are at the mercy of every request. When we place our schedules in God’s hands, however, we are given one day in seven to hold as holy. How liberating it is to be able to say, “No, we can’t attend. [that party, the soccer game, or the sleepover] We’ll be at church.” (Daniel Clendenin, My Journey with Jesus) We come to church to re-center, to die again into Christ, in order that through him, we may breath again.
Our boys have begun enjoy going to youth group –both the one we’ve started in cooperation with other churches in Edgewater, and other youth groups friends from school invite them to attend. The other day in the car Sam asked me about something he heard. “Dad”, he asked, “is it true you’re not a real Christian if you curse, swear, drink and don’t read the bible everyday?” Caught off guard, and at the spur of the moment, I said something unfocused about less swearing, more bible reading and being a Christian. It was later, after raking leaves for over an hour, I went inside and told Sam. Being a real Christian is not about keeping a list of do’s and don’t but following Christ. Lutherans believe there’s nothing we can do or not do to bring God closer to us than God already is. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to do anything. Each of us must do something everyday –like prayer, bible reading, going to church, enacting the gospel in worship of Word and Sacrament—to be live in relationship with God.
What are we doing to put God first? It would be easier if somebody just handed you a list. But real relationships just don’t work like that. Being a real Christian is no different from being a real friend, parent, spouse, or neighbor. You have to put in some real face-time.
Putting first things first is a very old answer for how find to serenity and peace in your life. God instructed Moses to tell all the people, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). It is the answer to slay all idols like money, the state and even false religion. Just bring yourself, all that you have, all you wished you had, your regrets and your shame and place it in God’s hands so that you may be renewed and strengthened, transformed and resurrected, joined in holy communion with all the saints, wise and serene.
You are marked with the cross of Christ. You bear the image and likeness of God in the world. As followers of Christ and keepers of the Word, you now also have eyes to see and hears to hear the presence of God at work in your fellow human beings both inside and outside the church. Share the grace that is already in you. Welcome and celebrate the grace God has already placed your neighbors for strength to build on strength and for you to be grafted into the true Vine of God. Remember, God is always with you. In Jesus’ last days, even in the midst of so much tension and at the spur of the moment, Jesus offers a graceful word that is good news for us and all people: just place your life in God’s hands first in order for God to make you be a good friend, parent, spouse, neighbor, a real Christian and true sign of light in the midst of a hurting and dark world.