The Scripture readings this week are:
- Psalm 96:1-13 (read responsively from Voices United p.816)
- Matthew 22:15-22
The Sermon title is What Belong to God?
Early Thoughts: In some ways it seems like an easy way out of a tough situation -- something Jesus is pretty good at doing -- turn the challenge back on the challengers. But in turn Jesus may offer us a bigger challenge.
First a bit of a side bar:
20 years ago I was taking my introductory worship and preaching class. I wrote my first sermon for that class using this Gospel reading. As I recall, I tried to work a bit of political reflection into the sermon as we were in the middle of a federal election at the time. I said something about in a democracy where we all have a voice in government formation maybe we were all Caesar to some degree. Looking back, it was more than a bit of a stretch. I wonder if I still have a printout of that sermon in my files somewhere....
Back to this week.
A trap is being set. Is there a clear answer that will not annoy or even enrage someone? If Jesus says it is not lawful to pay the tax the Romans might have a few choice words to share. If Jesus seems to endorse Roman rule by affirming that it is lawful to pay the tax he risks alienating his Jewish audience who are not generally fans of their Roman overlords and often found the tax burden a heavy load.
Jesus sees the trap and finds away to avoid springing it. If the coin one uses (has to use) to pay the tax has Caesar's likeness on it then it must ultimately belong to Caesar, so gift it back to him, give him back his head. (Does that mean the $5 bill in my wallet belongs to a long dead Canadian politician?) That takes care of the question he was asked (and possibly puts those who asked him in a bit of a quandary since that Roman coin has on it a graven image which is prohibited under Jewish Law) without actually making a comment on the legality or morality of the taxation system itself. And then there is that last phrase "and to God those things that are God's". Now we have a discussion.
Well we could have a discussion except the story ends there with the questioners leaving in amazement. So it is up to us to continue the discussion.
If we hear Jesus challenge us to give to God what belongs to God I think we have to follow that up with a few more questions. What exactly belongs to God (as opposed to Caesar [or our modern equivalent] or to us or to our neighbour...)? How do we make that determination? How do we give it to God most effectively? How might that change the way we live?
Scripture presents a strong case that it all belongs to God, everything. As James Manley says, drawing from Psalm 24, in his song Take Off Your Shoes: "Well the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof from the waters beneath to the heavens above. So take, take, take off your shoes you're standing on my holy ground". Does that mean nothing belongs to us, to Caesar, to our neighbour? That would simplify things a bit, but has its own difficulties in how we understand the way that the world works. It makes for an interesting economical and political situation if no one, not even the state really owns anything.
I admit, trying to determine what belongs to God is a conundrum. On one hand we have this Scriptural witness. On the other we have a political-economic system based on private ownership of most things with public/governmental ownership of others. I struggle sometimes trying to parse out the question of ownership in a real practical way.
So in the absence of a clear answer within the political-economic realm, let's stay with the Scriptural answer for now. As a statement of faith it makes sense to me to say that everything we have comes from God as a gift. After all, I grew up singing words from this hymn in Sunday School every week (or I think I did, memory is sometimes less accurate than we like to believe). If everything is a gift from God, if everything belongs to God but we have been given care and stewardship of it for a period of time, how do we give to God what is God's?
That is the $1 000 000 question isn't it? I have said in the past that my preferred definition of stewardship is "everything you do after you say I believe". We give back to God by how we choose to use the gifts that have been entrusted to us. We give to God what is God's when we choose to use those gifts in ways that build up community, that lift up those at the bottom of the heap, that support those on the margins, that help all to have life in abundance. Some of that is done through our personal choices. Some of it is done through collective action, through public policy. Some of it is done through the government and some through non-governmental places -- like the church for example.
Giving to God what is God's will, in the end, require us to re-think our approach in a world that has often tried to teach "what's mine is mine". It challenges us to sacrifice at times. It pushes us to consider questions like the difference between needs vs wants. It asks us to place God's vision and hop for the world above every other vision and hope for the world and then, as good stewards, use the gifts from God in ways that contribute to making that vision and hope real and tangible.
But of course Caesar is always going to want their cut too.
--Gord
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