Entrusted

Matthew 25:14:30

November 19, 2023

 

            I am not an extreme sports kind of person or a thrill seeker. When I was younger, I used to love going on roller coasters, but now I look at them and think “that’s going to kill my neck.” But even though I have never been one to go looking for excitement-slash-terror, I have tried a few activities that might be considered more extreme or scarier than others. When I was in my early 20’s, I got the chance to try rappelling. I went with some longtime friends and their friend, who was a certified instructor, so he was big on safety. But I was still nervous-slash-terrified that I was about to go bouncing backwards down the side of a cliff. But the instructor and my friends helped me get harnessed and walked me through what would happen. Once the instructor was at the bottom of the cliff with the rope to belay me, he would give me the signal, then I would walk backwards to the edge of the cliff and then I would rappel my way down. No problem.

            All this took place. I took several deep breaths, then I started to walk that backwards walk. I reached the edge and had one foot in the air and one foot still on solid ground when I heard a “pop!” I stopped right where I was and called out, trying to sound calm,

“I just heard something pop.”

The others didn’t know what I was talking about, so I repeated myself.

“I just heard something pop. I don’t think I should hear a popping sound as I’m about to go backwards off a cliff.”

To my mind my friends didn’t seem to be responding fast enough or with the right sense of urgency, so I decided to speak a little louder.

“I. Just. Heard. Something. Pop! SOMETHING POPPED!”

By this time, the instructor and my friends were at my side trying to figure out what I’d heard. There were two carabiners, these little hooks things, that held all the ropes in place. One had a safety closure on it, and the other didn’t. The one that didn’t have the safety closure had come a little undone and that was the popping sound I heard. It turns out I was still very safely harnessed and would not have gotten hurt or, you know, tumbled to my death. So, the carabiner was refastened, and I went through those first backward steps again. And … I did it. I rappelled my way down. Midway, I got some confidence and started to have fun with it. I even went down the cliff a second time. It was an extraordinary experience and I’m glad that I overcame some of my fear and took the risk.

There is no rappelling in this morning’s passage from Matthew’s gospel. But there is risk, and I suspect that fear is closely associated with that risk. Often when we have heard this story, we hear it as part of a stewardship sermon. God, who must then be the man in this parable, has given us a significant number of talents. We must use them, or we risk disappointing God, and look what happened to the servant who did that.

Yet while we associate talents with special abilities that we have been given or skills that we have, for example Brent’s singing, Pamela Sue’s artistry, Kim’s photography, Charlie’s skill at medicine or gardening, in this parable a talent was a sum of money. A large sum of money! One talent was equivalent to what a daily wage earner might make in 15 to 20 years! That’s a lot of talent, and it is a lot of money. One commentator estimated that combined, the property owner entrusted his three servants with approximately 1.5 million dollars in today’s money! 1.5 million! Other scholars have suggested it was even more than that. That’s a lot of money to be entrust to someone. It's a risk to entrust and it is a risk to invest.  

This is the more traditional interpretation of this parable. A second that I have read in several sources this week has been slightly different. Rather than see this parable as allegorical, with God being the master who goes away leaving his slaves with a lot of money to watch over, perhaps the real hero in the story is the third slave. If we are reading this parable in economic terms, and it would make sense that the original hearers of this parable would have been well aware of the economics of it, then hearing about a master expecting his servants to make even more money for him hints in this of economic exploitation. The idea of trading or reinvesting goes directly against specific laws found in Leviticus. And the first two slaves, in doing that, would have been accessories to the breaking of that law. It was only the third slave who understood that what the master was doing was wrong, and in burying the treasure he was given, refused to participate in any economic exploitation. If there is an allegorical angle to this parable, then that third slave would be Jesus, who spoke truth to power just as the slave speaks truth to the master, and who, in a very short time, would also be buried.

I debated which way I should go with this, which interpretation I found the most compelling. But the truth is, I think there’s truth in both. This is a hard passage. This is a hard parable. The parables Jesus are telling are becoming increasingly challenging and dark. He knows that his time is limited. He knows that his arrest and crucifixion is not far away. He needs those who follow him, those who will hear him, to understand the urgency of his message.

The first five words of this passage are “For it is as if …” Seemingly innocuous little words. But they tell more than you would expect. Because this is a kingdom parable. For it is as if the kingdom of God is a man who goes on a journey. But before he leaves, he entrusts three people who are bound to him with talents.

So, is there a way to understand this parable as Jesus reminding his followers that he is entrusting them – not necessarily with money or skills but with mercy, with compassion and forgiveness and the gospel itself? I am entrusting you with God’s good news for the world. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. I am entrusting you, I am faithful to you, and this trust requires faith on your part. It requires you to take risks on your part. It requires you to overcome your fear and trust in God, trust in me.

And is there also a way to hear this parable as a call to be the one who goes against the culture? Just because there is temptation to live as the world lives, to measure success as the world measures success, that does not mean that you should give in. To do what is considered foolish, to refuse to participate in harming others, might just cause you to be banished and cast out and even lose your life. But those who lose their life for the sake of the gospel will save it, and those who save their life for the sake of the world will lose it. Being foolish is what the gospel is all about. We follow a foolish gospel – at least according to the standards of some. But don’t be so fearful of being foolish that you give into temptation. Following the gospel requires risk. And I am entrusting you to take that risk.

I think there is truth in both interpretations. I could find reasons to support either one, but I’m not sure that making a choice is what is important. It seems to me that the crux of the message that we need to take with us this morning, what we need to be reminded of – probably again and again – is that when it comes to the kingdom of God we are entrusted to live as though we believe that the kingdom is really in our midst. We are entrusted with mercy, so we need to be merciful. We are entrusted with grace, so we need to be gracious. We are entrusted with justice and righteousness, so we need to act with justice and live righteously. We are entrusted with peace, so we must be peacemakers. We are entrusted with hope, so we must be hopeful even in the face of what seems hopeless. We are entrusted with love, with love that risks, with love that acknowledges fear but does not let fear stop it or stand in its way. We are entrusted with love that puts its boots on and gets out in the world and works to make love real for others through everything that I just said and more.

We are entrusted with the gift and the call and the responsibility and the requirement of the gospel. We are entrusted to live out and share the good news. And that can be a scary thing, even scarier than walking backwards off a cliff. We are entrusted to take the risk of faith, and that can be more frightening than hearing the pop of a carabiner coming open.

We are entrusted with the gift and the call and the responsibility and the requirement of the gospel. There is no time to lose. There is no time to waste. The kingdom is in our midst. Are we ready to live and to give and to love with all which we have been entrusted? Are we ready to live out the risky business of faith?

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

 

Trim Your Lamps

Matthew 25:1-13

November 12, 2023

 

            In my final year of seminary, I faced my ordination exams. The ords, as we called them, are a series of five exams that must be passed to be ordained. They focus on biblical content, worship and sacrament, theology, polity, and biblical exegesis. As potential lawyers must pass the bar exam to practice law. presbyterian candidates for ministry must pass the ords to practice the ministry of word and sacrament.  

            The time of my ordination exams was upon me. I spent months, well actually four years, preparing. The morning of my first round of exams, I woke up early. I made sure to get plenty of sleep the night before, so waking up wasn’t hard. I went for a walk to get exercise and clear my head. I ate a healthy breakfast. I made sure to have all my materials that I could bring with me the night before. I got to the exam room early. I was calm. I was prepared. I was ready to go. Then a classmate looked at me and said, “Amy, where’s your Book of Confessions?” We were allowed to bring that with us into the exam for reference. I knew exactly where it was. It was sitting on my bedside table in my apartment. I had been reading through it the night before.

            I am not a runner, and when I do try to run, I am certainly not speedy, but I have never run so fast as I did that morning, running back to retrieve the one thing I’d forgotten. Gone was my calm. Gone was the peace of mind that I felt from having such an organized and well planned morning. My heart was pounding. Adrenaline was racing through me, and all the anxiety about the exams that I worked so hard to quell was now overflowing. But I got back to the classroom with minutes to spare. I was able to take some deep breaths, regain a little of the calm I’d felt before, and proceed with my test taking. And, in case you were wondering, I passed.

            Remembering this moment in my life gives me a lot of empathy for the five bridesmaids who are collectively known as foolish. Maybe they thought they were well-prepared for the wait for the bridegroom. Maybe they believed they had done everything necessary to assume their responsibility as bridesmaid. Perhaps they trusted that their lamps were fully trimmed, that their oil was plenty, and that they were ready to go. I can imagine how they must have felt when they realized the opposite was true, how their hearts must have raced when they had to run to the shops to buy more. And unlike me, who made it back before the exam doors closed, these bridesmaids must have felt nothing but bitter disappointment that the door to the wedding was closed on them. They may be known as the five foolish bridesmaids, but I feel for them in their foolishness.

            When I come to this text, I must admit that I have more questions about it than I do interpretative answers. Debi Thomas, in her essay from a few years ago, brings many questions to this text as well, and her questions inspire and provoke many of mine. So here are a few that I have of our passage.

            First question, where is the bride? There are 10 bridesmaids and a bridegroom, but no bride. I know that this is a kingdom parable, it says so right at the beginning. But where is the bride? Who is the bride? Who is the bride meant to be? Is the bride an allegory of the kingdom? Is she God or creation? Who is the bride?

Second, at what wedding is there not a specific time for the bridegroom to show up? When Brent and I planned our wedding, we both knew that at 4:00 pm we were heading down the aisle. This uncertainty about the bridegroom’s arrival makes me anxious.

Third, why are the five “wise” bridesmaids so stingy with their oil? I have a hard time not hearing them in my head as a cross between mean girls and valley girls.

“Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.”

“Like no. There will totally not be enough for you and for us. I mean if we were you, which we’re not, because, you know, ew, we would go find an oil dealer and get some more. So, you better go. No, really, you better go.”

And my final question, why is it that the bridegroom doesn’t even recognize the other bridesmaids when they return? Be angry at them for not planning? Okay, I get that. But not to even recognize them? Shut the door, lock them out, cry ‘I don’t know you’?! I don’t get it.

I don’t get it, and that’s why I’m asking these questions. It isn’t to be irreverent or to make fun of the parable and the characters within it. It is to try and make some connection, cling to some inkling of understanding that might come my way if I only ask the right questions.

But I cannot ask these questions of this parable without asking questions of the larger context around it. This parable Jesus tells does not stand alone. It is surrounded by other stories about people told to watch and to wait. In the chapter and verses before these, Jesus spoke about the end times, about the necessity for watchfulness, and the signs and events to watch for. At the end of our passage today, Jesus warned those who would listen to stay awake. Keep watch. Neither the day nor the hour of the bridegroom’s return is known, so you must stay awake. And unlike the foolish bridesmaids you need to be prepared for the long haul.

Maybe the question to ask of this parable is not so much about the details, but about the message that is being relayed through them. What is Jesus trying to tell people to do in this parable? What is he telling them about the kingdom? What is Jesus saying about the people’s response?

Is Jesus trying to make folks afraid, afraid they will be shut out of the kingdom? Or is he trying to make them let go of their assumptions that they will be the wise bridesmaids? Once again, I too often see myself as the “good guy” in scripture. I assume I do the wise and right thing. But it is quite possible that I am a foolish bridesmaid, instead of one who came prepared. It is highly probable that Jesus is warning me, not the person sitting next to me, to be watchful, to stay awake, and to make the necessary plans for the long haul that is waiting. When it comes to our faith and our understanding of God’s word, should we always assume we get it right? What do we need to hear in these words of Jesus? What message do we need to cling to and what lesson do we need to learn?

A colleague of mine said about this passage that maybe it means that when we are asked to show up, we should really show up. If we’re told to stay awake, we should try to stay awake. If we’re told to watch and wait, then that’s what we should do. Yet waiting and watching and staying awake is challenging to say the least because we cannot skip easily over verse 5. “As the bridegroom was delayed.” 

The bridegroom was delayed. They were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written for a people who were waiting. None of the gospels were written at the exact moment of Jesus’ life.  They were written after his life, his death, and his resurrection. They were written by people for people who were waiting. The first letter to the Thessalonians, which was part of the lectionary choices for this morning, is considered the earliest of all the epistles. Paul was also writing to people who were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written approximately 30 years after that letter. The people who believed in Jesus, who believed he was the Son of God, who believed in his resurrection, also believed that he would return to them soon; maybe not immediately, but soon. Yet here they were, generations after the resurrection and they were still waiting. You can’t really fault the bridesmaids for falling asleep. The bridegroom was delayed. 

Here we are, some 2000 years after the resurrection and we’re still waiting. If you think about it, our faith is based on waiting. We are people living in the interim. We are living in the time between the times, waiting for the promises of God that were embodied in Jesus to come to fruition. I am not shy about saying that I’m not generally an apocalyptic preacher. I don’t focus on the end times to scare people into faith. I disagree with the popular interpretation of the rapture because I think that what passes for rapture theology is iffy theology at best. I often think that we get so caught up in looking for signs of the end times that we forget to be the people God calls us to be right now, here, in the present. But the promise is that Jesus will come again. Again, to reference Debi Thomas, if we dismiss, minimize, or deny that, then we make Jesus a liar. We are almost to the season of Advent, and that season begins not with the story of a baby but of the time when Jesus will come again, and that the world as we know it will be transformed.

So, if Jesus is coming again, and we are called to be watchful and wakeful and to keep our lamps trimmed, than it seems to me that this parable challenges us to think about how we wait. It challenges us to consider how our daily lives connect with what we proclaim to believe. Waiting for the bridegroom is not a mindless state of being. Waiting for the bridegroom calls us to be intentional.  It calls us to be thoughtful about what we do and how we live. Waiting is not passive. It is active. No one knows when the bridegroom will finally arrive, so let’s assume that we are in it for the long haul. Let us wait with intention. 

What does this waiting with intention look like?  In our parable, it’s about being ready.  Amos chastises the people listening to him that they are more worried about correct ritual, then about caring for the least of God’s people. They worship in name only, but their hearts are not involved. It seems to me that waiting with intention is about trying to make our daily lives match up to the faith we profess. I’m not leveling criticism at any one of us. It is easy to say that those two things should match; it’s another thing to do it.  But that doesn’t exempt us from trying, from striving to make our waiting and our living sync. 

Waiting with intention means that we live with hope. We live with hope that the kingdom of God will come to fruition right here and right now. We live with hope that God truly is doing a new thing, in our midst in this moment, and what was flat will be lifted high, and what was high will be made low. We live with the hope that there will be streams in the desert and a way made in the wilderness. Hope may feel in short supply these days with wars raging around the world, and with violence here at home. Hope may even feel foolish in the face of so much hatred and death.

But hope, like waiting, is active not passive. Hope is intentional, and a reminder that our trust is not in ourselves or what we can do or not do. We hope because we trust the One who is the light of the world, and who promised to come again to finally and forever make us and all of creation whole. Therefore, we wait with hopeful intention, living as Jesus taught us to live, siding with the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, doing justice and walking in righteousness, and never taking for granted each day that we are given, keeping our lamps trimmed.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.

 

 

           

As Yourself -- Reformation Sunday

Matthew 22:34-46

October 29, 2023

 

            At the beginning of January, I encouraged all of us to take a Star Word. Star Words are an Epiphany practice that our congregation began a couple of years ago, and the word we pick is really the word that picks us. For whatever reason, whether it’s clear to us or not, our Star Word is a word that we need to live with and live into over the course of the coming year. If you didn’t take a Star Word last January, you’ll get your chance again in just a few months.

            The Star Word that I chose last January – or the one that chose me – was “tenderness.” When I got it, I thought, “Hmm. I guess this means I need to be mindful of how tender I am with people this year. Maybe there will be particular people I need to be tender with.”

            Within just a couple of weeks of receiving my word, my mom died. Five days later, I fell and broke my wrist. Without warning, I went from days that seemed fairly normal and typical to grieving and to hurting both physically and emotionally. And I went from feeling relatively in control to feeling helpless, needing assistance with the small, everyday things I generally take for granted, like taking a shower, opening a bottle, and tying my own shoes. And because so much seemed to be happening at the same time, it took me a little while to realize that the person I needed to show tenderness to was me.

            It should seem obvious, I guess, that I needed to show myself some tenderness during that time. I don’t think anyone would have argued that with me, but I discovered that I’m not very good at being tender with myself. I think I should just push through pain or grief or both. I’m more than happy to help someone else. If someone else in my circumstance had come to me needing help with a small task, I would have done it gladly. I’m sure you would have too. But when it was me needing the help, I was embarrassed and even ashamed that I couldn’t do for myself. But life can be so hard and sometimes we can’t help ourselves, so a little tenderness toward self is necessary.

            I know that I’m not alone in this, in struggling with tenderness toward myself. I think our struggle with is connected to our culture’s equating self-compassion, self-tenderness, and self-love with self-centeredness and self-obsession. And certainly there are self-centered people out there, plenty of them, who take it to the extreme of narcissism. But that’s a whole other sermon.

            The thing is, showing yourself some tenderness, some compassion does not mean that you are self- centered. However, being filled with self-hatred or toxic shame or guilt can make you self-obsessed without even realizing it. Brent and I are big fans of the public radio show, The Hidden Brain. If you don’t catch it live, you can listen to the podcast. About a month ago, Brent told me about an episode that focused on self-compassion and how necessary it is. The guest was a psychologist who told a difficult story about herself from her days as a graduate assistant. I won’t go into the details, but she messed up big time. She made bad decisions, life-changing errors in judgment, and she suffered overwhelming shame, guilt, and self-loathing because of them. In her words, she was a mess. And the more she focused on her shame and guilt and self-hatred, the more inward she turned. The more self-centered she became. Amid this inner chaos and with her outer life in tatters, she was invited to attend a meditation group. She went reluctantly, but through the process of sitting quietly and mindfully, she began to grasp just how self-centered her shame and guilt had made her. It had become all about her, even though it was negative, it was still all about her.  And it wasn’t self-love that did it. It was the lack thereof.

            This changed her life. This changed her research. She quoted studies that have been done that show that people who are constantly berating themselves, beating themselves up, who refuse to cut themselves some slack are more self-centered than those who do. She stated that self-compassion is not about letting ourselves off the hook for our mistakes or not being accountable. It’s about recognizing that we are all a mess. And the people who acknowledge that, who show themselves compassion and tenderness and love, are much better at loving others. To show yourself compassion opens you up to the needs of other people. If you can be compassionate to yourself, you are better at being compassionate to others.

            In this passage where Jesus states what we know as The Greatest Commandment – and it really is – we most often focus on only two tenets of it. We are to love God and to love our neighbor. But as we read this morning, that is not the end of the sentence. We are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. I think we overlook this last part to our detriment. And I think Jesus knew this.

            At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus knows that he is in the last days of his life. He knows that those in power are plotting against him, plotting to have him killed. And as scholar Debi Thomas pointed out, it is interesting that when he is asked this question about which commandment is the greatest, he doesn’t quote doctrine to them. He doesn’t tell them to adhere to dogma. No, he tells them to love God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus isn’t calling them to participate in a feeling or an emotion, he is calling them to a way of living. Love God with everything you are, your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.

            And how did Jesus show this kind of love? How was he a role model and an example of this kind of love? Jesus had compassion for those who suffered. He had compassion for the crowds who were hungry and who were like lost sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion for the blind, the lame, the voiceless, the ignored, and the marginalized. He had compassion for those who were labeled as sinners and therefore less than by others. And he had compassion for those who did the labeling in the first place. He spoke truth to them, but he still did it with love. Jesus’ compassion was not just a feeling. He demonstrated it. He acted on it and lived it. In Greek, the word for compassion relates to the gut. When you have compassion for someone, you feel it in your gut. Your gut twists in compassion for others. When you see the suffering of others, whoever they may be, your stomach clenches in empathy and compassion for them. And you act on that compassion. You act on that twisting of your gut for someone else’s suffering.

            When reading this passage in the past, I’ve thought of Jesus’ words as linear. You love God first, then you love your neighbor, and if you have time, throw in a little love for yourself. But I think that this is far more cyclical than it is linear. Loving God with everything we have, we everything we are opens us up to loving our neighbors, and loving our neighbors opens us up to loving God even more. And loving ourselves makes us more loving of our neighbors, and when we do both, we love God even more. And when we love God even more, we love ourselves and our neighbors even more. It goes around and around and around.

            To love God, to love our neighbor, and to love ourselves is not just an intellectual exercise. It is a physical, physiological, emotional, mindful, active response. To love God, to love our neighbor, to love ourselves is to see suffering and pain and hurt, no matter who is experiencing it, and respond with love, compassion, and tenderness. And to love God, neighbor, and ourselves, is to act on all of the above. Our neighbors here and around the world are suffering. Humanity is suffering. No matter what side you have chosen in this terrible war in Israel- Palestine, humanity is suffering. Humanity is suffering in Ukraine and in Russia. Humanity is suffering in the Sudan. Humanity is suffering in Mexico. Humanity is suffering in Lewiston, Maine and in Nashville and Uvalde and Baltimore and Buffalo. Humanity is suffering, and I’m not saying that all of this suffering would be alleviated or ended altogether if we just knew how to show ourselves a little more compassion, if we took the words “as yourself” a little more seriously. But if we can be compassionate to ourselves, more tender and forgiving to the mess we sometimes are, then maybe we could be more compassionate, tender, and forgiving of the mess in others. Maybe self-compassion helps to widen the circle of love that Jesus called us to follow. Maybe if we could allow ourselves to be human, then we could remember that even those we might consider enemies are also human and worthy of the same dignity and respect that we are, and vice versa.

            One final note, when we love God, we’re not just loving an idea or a concept or even some being in the sky. We’re loving the One who became like us, who took on our skin and our blood and our bones, who took on our frailties and our limits, so we could finally figure out what it means to really be human. And thanks be to God for this, because when it comes down to it, it is the incarnation, the belief that God became like us, that keeps me going. It gets me up in the morning. It gets me in this pulpit, even when I feel that I have nothing to offer, even when I feel as though my faith has shriveled in the face of humanity’s suffering. God became us because of love for us so we could finally learn how to love God and love one another and ourselves. Humanity is suffering, and the Greatest Commandment is needed now more than ever before. Indeed, it is the only thing that will save us.

            Let all of God’s children, all of humanity, say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

The Things That Are God's

Matthew 22:15-22

October 22, 2023

 

            Way back when in the 1980’s a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy was released. It wasn’t widely known in this country, and I don’t remember even hearing about it until I was in college. It was very funny movie, although looking back on it, there were a lot of stereotypes that wouldn’t and shouldn’t play so well anymore. But its premise and plot has remained with me all these years.

            A man name Xi, a member of a remote tribe who had never encountered industrialized western civilization before, was out walking one day when a small plane flies overhead. The pilot throws out a glass coke bottle – clearly the ideas of recycling and not littering were not part of the movie’s consciousness. The bottle lands, unbroken, near Xi who had never seen anything like it before. It seems to Xi that this strange bottle had fallen from the heavens, from the gods.

            He picks it up and brings it back to his people. This small glass object is treated with wonder and amazement. The people discover that the bottle has multiple uses. It can be used to break open large fruit. It can be used to roll out dough for baking. The bottle’s mouth can be dipped in dye and used to decorate cloth. Everyone in the village finds many ways to use this bottle, this gift from the gods, and with each new use the popularity of the bottle grows.

            Here is the problem. There is only one bottle. And the people of Xi’s clan begin to fight with one another over who gets to use this supposed gift from the gods. The desire to use the bottle leads two women to fight over it, and one woman grabs it and hits the other woman on the head with it. What had been a gift of great utility has now become a weapon.

            The woman who hit the other is distraught at what she has done. The whole village is in turmoil. Nothing like this has ever happened between them before. It’s clear that they don’t have a mine versus yours mentality, just what is ours is ours. But the introduction of this bottle changes that. The people realize that the bottle must go. It must be returned to the gods, even if that means taking it to the edge of the world. So, Xi, who brought the bottle to them, takes on the task of returning it. He takes the bottle, and he walks out into a big world, much of which he has never seen before, and encounters the civilization that we take for granted. Misadventure ensues. At one point in the movie, Xi is giving paper money as payment for his help. Money means nothing to him. Just as the bottle turned out to be a problematic gift, this paper stuff is useless, and he leaves it on the ground. And watching this, you realize that so much of what we place value on – things, money – is just made up, artificial. Xi, who had never known anything but his family and tribe, the land, the earth, the sky, the trees, the animals, can’t see the value in the money paid to him because in his world it has none. And the one object that he thought came from the gods caused more trouble and strife than good for his people. If this was a gift from the gods, clearly the gods must be crazy.

            But unlike Xi, we have lived our entire lives in a world where money and objects do hold value, where money is necessary to live. And although economics may play out differently today than they did in the time of the gospels, economics is economics. Economics and politics were the underpinning of the society that Jesus lived and ministered in as well. And that brings us to our passage from Matthew’s gospel this morning.

For the first time in a while, our passage is not centered on Jesus responding to his questioners with a parable. But our story does involve a confrontation with the Pharisees. The Pharisees have been confronting Jesus since he came into Jerusalem and into the temple. But this confrontation is different. Not only are the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus, the Herodians have joined them. We do not read about the Herodians very often. In fact, I think this story is maybe one of two where they are mentioned at all. In a casual reading of this story, we might just accept their presence without question, but it is significant that this group we know little about are siding with the Pharisees against Jesus. Consider the name; Herodians suggests Herod.  Herodians were Jewish leaders who allied themselves with Herod and the Roman Empire. The Romans were the occupiers, the alien force who held them and their land under the empirical thumb. Just as tax collectors were despised and given their own special category for sinfulness because they collected the taxes demanded by the Roman government, the Herodians would not have been popular or loved by the common folks. Certainly, the Pharisees, the religious leaders and authorities of their day, would not have cared for them. But here they stand together trying to trap Jesus. Their collaboration gives new meaning to the phrase,

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

            Both the Pharisees and the Herodians hated Jesus. Both were threatened by him. He had been stirring people up for a long time, but at first, he was just a nuisance, an annoying thorn in their collective side. Now this itinerant rabbi has become dangerous. So, as Matthew tells it, they schemed to entrap him. 

            “‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’”

            Jesus knows what they are trying to do. The text says that he is “aware of their malice.” Jesus turns the question back on them. As one commentator pointed out; the question Jesus was asked was extraordinarily clever, but his response was ingenious. Jesus asks them to show him the coin that they used to pay the tax to the emperor. They produce a denarius, and he asks them to tell him whose head and whose title is stamped on the coin. The emperor’s. Then, Jesus says perhaps some of his most well-known words.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Some interpreters have used Jesus’ words to justify the separation of church and state. That is not a debate that needs to be waded into in this sermon, but I do think that that kind of political and religious separation is our modern understanding. Given the context and the culture of the time, I doubt that anyone listening to Jesus or even the first hearers and readers of Matthew’s gospel would have thought in those terms. Religious law was the law. There would have been no separation between the two. But that is also why the empirical tax was so odious. 

This tax was the Roman census or the “head tax” that was instituted when Judea became a Roman province. The tax was not only considered unfair, but it also went against Torah. The land of Israel belonged to God alone. Since Caesar was a usurper, paying the tax was considered an act of disobedience to God. Not only would Caesar’s image have been on the denarius, but the inscription would also have read something like, “In Caesar we trust.”

The common understanding of Caesar was not just that he was the governing ruler; as emperor, he was, for all intents and purposes, a god. Paying the Roman head tax meant that the Jewish people consistently broke the first two commandments. They put another god before the Lord God, and they used a coin that bore a graven image. I expect that Jesus fully recognized the irony of the religious leaders being able to produce this coin which went against the Law, while he could not. I’m sure that the hypocrisy of the religious leaders having a coin like in this in the holiest of places, was not lost on Jesus. 

Yet even when this passage isn’t interpreted as a reason for separation of church and state, it is used as a way for believers to find their way through a complex world that is driven by money. Just give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and the rest goes to God. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  But real life is a different beast altogether. We are, like it or not, driven by money. It is a reality of our lives. You need a certain amount of money just to survive. If you don’t have it, survival can be tough to say the least. People come in and out of our church office on a regular basis needing help with money to pay gas bills and water bills and electric bills so they too can survive. To be without money is to know firsthand money’s necessity.

            While I think that money is one critical element of this confrontation, I also think that what is being called into question is allegiance. Perhaps when Jesus questioned the Pharisees and the Herodians about the coin, he was also questioning their allegiance. Who do you belong to, God or the emperor? What are the things that are Gods?

            Jesus was the master at turning trick questions meant to trap him back onto those doing the questioning. But the question of allegiance, the question of priorities is also asked of us?  Who do we belong to? Where does our allegiance lie? What do we consider to be the things that belong to God?  

            We might glibly answer that we, of course, belong to God. Along with that everything we have, everything we are, everything in God’s creation are the things that belong to God. Yet how does our answer play out in our daily lives?   

            I must be honest, when it comes to my daily life the idea that I belong to God, that everything I am and everything that I hold dear belongs to God, does not always factor in. When I make a decision, whether it is about a purchase or what to have for lunch, am I thinking, “what does this mean considering the fact that all I am belongs to God?” No. Do I think on a regular basis about how what I do and say reflects my allegiances? No. As much as I want to live mindfully and intentionally, I know that I fall short of this repeatedly.

What are the things that belong to God?

What I’ve come to realize is that this doesn’t stop just with me being mindful of the things that belong to God. Where the rubber hits the road is what I do with that mindfulness. If I believe that the things that belong to God are all things and all people, how do I live that out? How is it reflected in my actions, my purchases, my consumption? And even more importantly, how is it reflected in my interactions with others? If I believe that all things are God’s, than does that include all people? Doesn’t that mean all life holds value, that all people should be treated humanely and with dignity? Even the people who have hurt me. Even the people with whom I vehemently disagree.

The coin that the religious leaders produced to show Jesus bore the image of Ceasar on it. But the hands that held the coin bore the image of the One who created them. We bear the image of the One who created us. And I’ve realized that we don’t get to choose who bears the divine image and who does not. So, if our allegiance is to God, than our allegiance must also be to all God has created. What are the things that belong to God? We are all the things that belong to God. Thanks be to God and may it be so. And may it be so.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.