Sermon: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 16, 2011
Trinity Church
Proper 24
Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13)
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
The Pharisees are not such bad guys. They are just being true to what they really believe. They believe you've got to be very careful in what you do when God is watching. You need to keep your hands clean and not associate with the wrong kind of people and not eat things that good people shouldn't have put before them. They are not so different from each of us some of the time. It's very hard for us not to the think that our religion is primarily a code of behavior, a list of do's and don't's. It is very hard for us not to think that our religion is somehow about being proper as "proper" was understood by our parents and our grandparents. Some people are still offended by flip-flops or short pants in church. There are millions of people starving to death, whose children are starving before their eyes, and there are millions of people who go to bed – or should I say “go to sleep” because they have no bed – go to sleep not knowing whether or not they will be kidnapped or murdered in their sleep, and they need our help – and yet we find time to worry about whose shoes are polished and whose are not. That's what the Pharisees are like.
And the Herodians. They must be doing something right, because they and their friends are in charge. They only want things to keep going along as they are. The Church – the Temple that is – is beautiful and strong. It has plenty of money. It has plenty of programs and plenty of members who show up regularly to do what good religious people are supposed to do. The Herodians don’t want anything to shake the foundations; they don’t want any new ideas that challenge – not so much what they are doing – but the basis on which they are doing it. They keep order, that is for sure, but they do it by supporting a society in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Not to make too fine a point of it, it is conservatively estimated that in our own country 10% of the people control 90% of the wealth. You and I are the beneficiaries of that system. In that sense, we are the Herodians. Not bad people, just people acting according to what they have come to believe.
But Jesus presents a challenge to all of that. And they want to embarrass him. They want to see if they can get him to say something publicly that will get him in so much trouble that he will either be silenced or – if they play their cards right – get in so much trouble that he can be arrested and removed as a public figure.
So they ask him a loaded question – one they think that he cannot answer without falling into their trap: one answer will get him in trouble with the authorities, the other answer will discredit him among his friends and followers.
They ask him about taxes. You only have to turn on the TV or radio to know that even today this is a hot topic – and opposing factions are still using the topic of taxes to stir up the public – and try to win votes.
“What do you think about paying taxes,” they ask him. But Jesus knows taxes are not the real issue. They are not the real issue in our day and time either.
The issue there and then, just as it is here and now, is what should human beings be doing with what they have and who they are? What should governments and businesses be doing with the money and power and influence they have?
The Herodians and the Pharisees ask Jesus about money, and he asks them about themselves. The question isn’t really about money, it’s about what it means to be a human being.
“Show me a coin,” he says. And here our translation fails us. What we heard was “Whose head is on the coin,” but that isn’t what it says. What it says is “Whose IMAGE is on the coin.” Not “head” but “image.” The word is important.
“It is the emperor’s image”, they say. Then let the emperor have it – as long as you also let God have everything that has his image on it.
And that is where the bottom falls out of the Herodian's and the Pharisees' clever trap. The moment they hear the word “image,” they know their clever argument is in trouble. The are good Bible-reading people, and they would know what it says at the very beginning of that sacred book. They would know that right there at the very beginning of the human story are these words:
God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air . . . 27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Gen 1:25-27 (NRSV)
If the money part is about Caesar, then the human being part is about God.
Jesus is saying that before you can worry about taxes and power and government and business you need to know who you are. He said it then; he says it now.
Before you write a check, before you cast a vote, before you make a business decision, before you exercise the freedom you have been given, you need to be sure you understand who you are and whose you are.
You are made in the image of God, he says.
You are made – you did not make yourself. That you exist at all is a gift to you, and everything you have is a gift to you, he says.
Our prayer book has been telling us this Biblical message for a long, long time. There is a moment in the Great Thanksgiving in one of our Eucharistic prayers that says this:
And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, whereby we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies. [BCP, 336 & 342]
Hear that again, “we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies.” Not part of who we are, not part of what we have, not some of what we do – but our entire selves.
In his response to the Herodians and the Pharisees Jesus raises the stakes. And, of course, it makes them angry. From this point forward they will look for a more permanent way to shut him up.
It is that time of year when the leaders of our congregation will speak to us about financial stewardship. And I am going to say something bold that I hope you will take to heart.
I am very, very well aware that a common criticism of clergy and of churches in general is that they talk about money too much. I’ve even – and too often – heard of people leaving congregations because there was too much talk of money. Let me say point blank that I have never known anyone make such a complaint who felt good about their own generosity and willingness to give. Those whose conscience is clear about this issue rarely, if ever, complain, because they are at peace with themselves and with God.
As Jesus points out, money is not an issue separate from our spiritual life. Quite the contrary, it is an integral part of who we are. It is why we place our offering of money on the altar – because in a real sense it represents our lives – and the amount of ourselves we are willing to share with others.
Only you know if what you share with God and with the world God has committed to your care “yourself, your soul and body,” or just some token amount, some part of who you are.
God calls us to give to God what is God’s. And what is God's is everything in all creation, including "ourselves, our souls and bodies."
