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CHILDREN'S EDUCATION |
SERMONS The
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost By David Christian What is your ultimate concern? What is the most important thing to you in your life? What do you find yourself thinking and talking the most about? From reading the newspapers and magazines or from listening to the radio and television over the past few years, it seems that the ultimate concern of most people in this country is taxes. How much of my money will the government take away? What can I do to hang on to as much of it as possible? So it has always been. The issue of taxation was of as much concern in first century Palestine as it is today. And it caused just as much controversy then as now. Jews of that day, in fact, paid two taxes. They paid a tax to the government, to Rome, and they paid a tax for the maintenance of the Temple in Jerusalem. So the opponents of Jesus knew that a tax question would be sure to stir up interest, and they knew that it would probably succeed in getting somebody mad at him. They sent Jesus a question. And to be doubly sure that there would be controversy they sent two groups of people with the question. They sent followers of the Pharisees and the sent Herodians. The Pharisees were Jewish purists, scrupulous in following the Law and opposed to accommodation with the Roman authorities. They would be opposed to paying taxes to the Romans. The Herodians on the other hand were supporters of the Jewish authorities, who governed with the support of Rome. They would strongly support the paying of taxes to the Romans. These were the two groups who presented Jesus with a tax question: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Jesus, not being dumb, recognized that he was being set up. If he answered "yes," it is lawful, the followers of the Pharisees would be upset. If he answered "no," the Herodians would be angry. So he had them bring him a coin, a denarius. First he asked them a question of his own: Whose head and title were on the coin? They answered, "The emperor's." Then Jesus gave them his answer, an answer that satisfied no one, but that no one could argue with: "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." There was nothing really for them to say, so they left. Now this incident is important for more than just showing how Jesus could recognize and escape a trap. Jesus' answer says something very important to us about ourselves and our own lives. I am not about to get into the question of taxes; if Jesus stayed away from that issue, I will too. But I want us to look closely at his statement, "give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." The coins were stamped with a picture of the emperor. So, Jesus implies, they are the emperor's. We too, Scripture tells us, have been created with a stamp, an imprint. We have been created in the image of God. If the denarius, stamped with the image of the emperor, belongs to the emperor, then we, stamped with the image of God, belong to God. All that we are and all that we have comes from God and belongs to him. Our bodies and our possessions have been given over to our care but ownership remains with God. We are stewards of what we have been given. This is the essence of stewardship. Living with the understanding that we are caretakers of what we have. This is the reason for giving back to God our money and our time; in order to remind ourselves that it is neither our money nor our time. Giving to the church is not a tip, a little something for God for being good to us this past week. Nor is it paying dues, the price we pay for the right to belong to this community. How much should you give? Depends. Are you rich or poor? How much should you give? Depends. How blessed are you? How much should you give? Depends. How eager are you to see things happen? How much should you give? Depends. How happy do you want to be? Because that's the odd thing about giving back to God the gifts God first gave to us: it makes us happy. Unexpectedly so, in comparison with the feeling we get paying other bills. I suppose that's because giving it back puts us in the right place in relation to our money, and our rapacious culture so wants us to be in the wrong place: anxious, unsatisfied, so that we will buy things to try and assuage our pain. The moment you give money to something that will heal, you're reminded of your health. The moment you give to the poor, you're reminded of your great good fortune in having a roof and a meal. When you give to provide a place for community to grow and flourish, you remember immediately how blessed you have been in it, and how important it is for you that it continue to be a blessing in the world. We do not give to the Church because God needs it. We give to the Church because we need it. Martin Marty is a prominent church historian and writer. He says that every morning when he wakes up and sits up in bed, the first thing he does is mark himself with the sign of the cross. He does this, he says, to remind himself who he belongs to. In the coming week let me suggest that you do something daily to remind yourself who you belong to, whose image is stamped on your being. Remember that we need to give a lot more than God needs to receive. And consider what it is fitting to give back to God of what he has given you; in thanksgiving for all of his many blessings to us, and chiefly for the gift of his son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. David
Christian Proper
24A
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