A, Proper 24 Sunday,
Matthew 22:15-22 By the Rev. Blake R. Hutson
Prayer: To see you Lord is the end and the beginning. You carry us and you go before us. You are the journey and the journey’s end. Amen.
President Bush died and went to
heaven. When he entered, he was greeted
by St. Peter. St. Peter said, “President
Bush, it is so good to see you. Do you
have any requests? “Yes, I do,” he
said. I’ve always wanted to meet
Moses. I have read about his leadership
with the children of
Politics and the Presidency.
It seems like every time we turn on the television these days we are
reminded that we are in the midst of a heated political season. The November elections are right around the
corner. You and I have some important
choices to make on this year’s ballot. In
An election is a turning point, a crossroad in the life of a community, a state or a nation. As Christians, we should weigh in. We should take advantage of the blessing of being able to choose our leaders. But it’s interesting to note that the best we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus did not get involved in politics. In fact he went out of his way to steer clear. Politics just weren’t part of Jesus focus. They weren’t part of his agenda, or something that he wanted to get caught up in.
We see this clearly in this morning’s gospel reading. Jesus is confronted by two different political groups. Now in Jesus’ day there were more than two political parties--they didn’t have a two party system like we do. But the two groups in this mornings reading, the Pharisees and the Herodians, were two of the more influential groups. As you may expect, they had very different political and religious views. The Pharisees were the strict religious sect that took it upon themselves to preserve the Jewish law. The Herodians, on the other hand, were supporters of Herod the Great and supported the Roman regime. These two groups, the Pharisees and the Herodians didn’t agree on much of anything. Yet, these two groups in this morning’s text have banded together against a common enemy.
They have a plan. They shower Jesus with compliments. Then they follow these with a pointed question. It is set up so that whichever way Jesus answers He will offend one group and those they represent. They ask whether it is lawful to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor. That is, whether or not it is against the Jewish religious law to pay taxes to a foreign ruler. As you know, this is a loaded question. If Jesus declares against paying the tax, he would be revolting against the Roman government and he would be subject to arrest by the Romans. If he declares that it is lawful to pay taxes, he would seemingly support Roman occupation and domination. He would be condemned by the Pharisees and anger the Jewish nationalists.
Jesus sees their scheme. We too can see what they are doing. In answering them, Jesus goes beyond their original question of whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor. Beyond the Emperor Jesus points His listeners to God. He tells them the Emperor should get his due...“Give to the Emperor the things that are the Emperors.” Then He declares to His listeners that what is God’s must be given to God.
His answer did two things. First, He evaded their trap, without getting involved in their politics.
Second, he pointed His listeners to God by suggesting that we should also consider what belongs to God in our lives and even …what we might owe to God.
If you think about it, we know what we owe the government. Right, we can go down the list of the taxes that we pay. Federal Income Tax, Soc. Sec./Medicare, State Income Tax, State Sales Tax etc.
But what about God? What might we owe God? Put another way: What belongs to God in our lives? Considering these questions, requires introspection and soul searching. Giving to God what belongs to God requires that we survey our life and consider our commitments and our priorities. Members of both parties were left speechless. Jesus' antagonists didn’t know what to say (vs. 22).
How do we decide what belongs to God in our lives?
A starting point might be found within the passage. Notice that Jesus asks for a coin and asks whose image is on it (vs. 19-20). The answer of course is the Emperor’s head or image is on the coin. Then he declares “Give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.” As you might remember, we are told in the book of Genesis in the Creation story that men and women are created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26). Therefore, the implication Jesus could be making is that human beings are God’s coin and that we bear God’s image. Jesus is making the point that we are made in God’s image and we belong to God just as the Emperor’s coins belong to the Emperor.
As the Creator, God has a claim on and a stake in each of our lives. On a personal level, let me suggest that as baptized, and confirmed believers in Christ we have decided to accept God’s claim and we have declared that our life belongs to God.
What does this mean for us? What does it mean for our lives to belong to God? Belonging to God means that we treat people in a certain way. Made in the image of God, we see every life, every person as having innate value and worth--worthy of dignity, worthy of our respect and worthy of our love and compassion.
Our belonging to God also means that we trust God. We trust God with our lives. We lay our lives before God in prayer and ask for God’s guidance and direction. When we need it, we trust that our sins are forgiven. As individuals that belong to God, we always trust that God loves us.
Maybe you have never thought of it this way, but every time we take time out of our day to pray or when we take time out of our week to come here to worship, we affirm that ultimately, we belong to God.
Your presence here this morning affirms this fact about your life. Everything we do every Sunday morning is an act of ‘giving to God the things that are God’s.’ In our worship service we give God praise, honor and glory because praise, honor and glory belong to God. We confess our faith when we say the Nicene Creed because our faith comes from God. We even confess and give our sins to God because ultimately God has already taken them upon God’s self.
When we come forward for Communion, we receive God’s grace in a unique way. We receive spiritual food that enables and sustains our living a life that belongs to God.
Belonging to God doesn’t just happen in this life. The Good News for us is that we will eternally belong and be with God forever in the next life. As we say in our Baptismal service: each one of us is ‘marked as Christ’s own forever.’
Think about Christ’s instruction this way: what we pay in taxes to an earthly government doesn’t compare to what we have committed to give God. On a personal level, we have committed and dedicated our very lives to God. Some days, some weeks, some seasons of life we live this out better than others. We are made in God’s image, but in our relationships and in our commitments, we sometimes fall short. The Good News is that our Creator does not abandon us. God’s Spirit working in our lives helps us to change, to grow and we are always given an opportunity to do better.
For us, this political season will come and go. You and I may find that over the course of our lives our views change. Maybe even our political party affiliation might change. We are reminded this morning that we are more than a member of a political party. We are men and women who recognize we are made in God’s image; we recognize that others are also made in God’s image like ourselves; and we recognize that we belong to God.
This week Remember: you bear God’s very image in your life. For us this is both a privilege and a responsibility. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to remember: by God’s grace…you belong to God.
Amen.