Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 24 Oct 18 2020

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Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Yr A Proper 24 Oct 18 2020

Exodus 33:12-23, Psalm 99, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22

Money, politics, and religion, the only missing ingredient for impolite conversation is sex. So why is it we're not supposed to talk about these things? Maybe because these things are felt to be too personal to discuss in public, and too divisive. People feel very strongly about these things and don't want to be told what to think. Unless, of course, you are in some churches, that tell you exactly what to think about just about everything. Maybe, if we talked more freely about money, sex, power, and religion, we’d have a better grasp on what Jesus calls us to. I'm not going to tell you what to think about any of these things, but scripture and our commitment to follow Jesus definitely informs us on these things, and today's reading from Matthew is all about these things, so, let’s talk.

Money, give to the emperor what is the emperors’.

Politics, everyone has to pay taxes.

Religion, give to God the things that are God's.

But as we well know, it's never easy, or clear, or straightforward. So what's really going on here? What is the kingdom of God like? 

What we have is actually one of the oldest tricks in the book. Entrapment. That’s what the Pharisees are about in this story, pure and simple. They know very well the Jewish law against creating images. We read all about that last week in Exodus. The Israelites took all the gold from their ears, their sons’ ears, and their daughters’ ears, melted it down and made an idol out of it. Not making and worshiping idols is the commandment second only to loving God. 

The Pharisees know what they ask of Jesus creates what we today call cognitive dissonance, the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. it’s the slippery slope. We do it all the time. It’s about rationalizing our behavior, for good or for ill. Simply put, should I eat that doughnut because it is good, or should I eat that apple because I know it is good for me? I want the doughnut because I believe it will make me feel good, because I like it, because I deserve it, because it’s fun… But I eat the apple because I believe it’s good for me, because it tastes good, because I need the vitamins, because it will help me in the long run. 

But of course, what we are dealing with is much more complex than that. How we act has to do with the priorities we choose for our lives. You and I are followers of Jesus, we follow the way of love, and that guides us all of the time. We are very clear with Jesus’ commandment to love God and to love our neighbor, it’s how that gets worked out in our day to day lives that gets complicated. And how we act has to do with our baptismal promises to follow Jesus, and to seek and serve Christ in everyone we encounter.

The Pharisees are trying to entrap Jesus, if Jesus says we don’t pay taxes to the emperor he’s guilty of sedition, but if Jesus says we use these coins with an image on them to pay taxes to the emperor, he’s guilty of breaking the commandment. Caesar or God? This is not just a slippery slope; it is a no-win situation. But Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees' question, as is his answer each time they ask him questions about wealth is really simple. Jesus’ answer is it’s all God’s. It’s all God’s. There is no hierarchy, there is no priority list, and there are no top ten things that belong to God. The question is pointless. It is all God’s. You see, there is nothing that belongs to the emperor. We live in this world as God's beloved, we are God's image, we do not live in the image that the world will make us.

So what Jesus is doing here is showing that wealth is not ours. All wealth comes from God. And wealth includes so much more than money. There are some ramifications of this for us today. All wealth comes from God, and we live in a land in which order is kept by a mutual agreement that everyone shares in the responsibility of government and infrastructure and protection. At least that is the social contract I believe we make as citizens of this country. Therefore, we pay our share and it’s called taxes. But all we have still comes from God. 

Jesus is inviting us to declare our allegiance. Perhaps the key question in this passage isn’t, after all, whose image is on the coin, but rather whose image is on us. We indeed are made in God's image and marked as God's own forever. And that’s what always seems to get lost in conversations about money and politics. For while we may feel strongly about our political loyalties, before we are Democrat, Republican, or Independent, we are God's beloveds, and we are called to love God and love our neighbor. Jesus calls us to feed hungry people, and to liberate captives. 

And while we may be confident that how we spend our money is our business and no one else’s, yet if we forget in whose image we have been made we may succumb to the temptation to believe that we are no more than the sum total of our possessions and that our bank accounts tell a true story about our worth and value.

So, there are no easy answers here. There are elements of our lives that are, indeed, part of the world order and should be “rendered to Caesar.” But our deepest self belongs to God, and if we remember that, all of life takes on greater focus and meaning. And our identity as God's beloveds, will, in turn, shape our behavior, and our decisions, urging and aiding us to be the persons we have been called to be.

And I hope this is not a burden, but rather an empowering reminder of your identity as a child of God, something no amount of spending or saving could change. Maybe it will help to actively reflect on how your faith shapes your daily life and particularly your economic life. God wants more from us, in the end, than polite conversation. God wants for us abundant life. God wants us to know that we are enough. Because while Benjamin Franklin may have once said that death and taxes are the only two certainties of this life, our lives declare that the one who was raised from death shows us that God’s love is more certain than anything else.

24th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 27 Nov 8 2015

24th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 27 Nov 8 2015 Audio

What would it be like if any of us here were eating our last bite of food, or putting our last pennies into the collection plate? Those are the stories that we hear today, stories about widows, on their very last bit of hope, two widows who embrace the question of where will my next meal come from, where will my next penny be, and they do not act out of fear, but instead act out of God’s abundance. 

The Hebrew word for widow connotes one who is silent, one unable to speak. In a society in which males played the public role and in which women did not speak on their own behalf, the position of a widow, particularly if her eldest son was not yet married, was one of extreme vulnerability. If there were no sons, a widow might return to her father’s family if she could. Left out of the prospect of inheritance by Hebrew law, widows became the stereotypical symbol of the exploited and oppressed. Old Testament criticism of the harsh treatment of these women is prevalent, as well as texts that describe God’s special protection of widows.

These widows, though their voices were silenced in their own time, speak loudly to us today. These stories speak to us of our relationship with wealth, our treatment of money. I think they speak over and against the worship of money that we see and experience in our culture. We see many, many people treating money as it were a God; worshiping wealth and sacrificing themselves to wealth, and believing it can give them joy, make them whole, and ensure their security. But money cannot do any of those things.

Money begins as a morally and spiritually neutral medium of exchange. However, it becomes something morally positive or negative, and something spiritually liberating or destructive because of the ways we feel about it and use it. 

What can the widows in these stories teach us? First they teach us about the movement from fear to love and generosity. Our cultural narrative is one of fear; we are taught that if we don’t have enough money we will not be able to have what we believe we must have. We must invest or we will end up old and broke. If we don’t spend and buy the right stuff we will be inadequate or just unimportant. The widows teach us that when we share we will have plenty. God provides for all creation. When we live in joy and gratitude for what we have, and we share with others, that is the path of transformation, that is the path to wholeness. And we can live this way because we are convinced that God’s grace and care for us moves us from fear to love. 

The widows teach us that our money will be with what we care about most. We could ask ourselves the question, where do we spend our money? What Jesus tells us is that the ways we spend and invest our money can create obligations that may come to dominate our attention and energy, and in so doing draw our commitments and loyalties away from where we want them to be. Our hearts will follow our money. We become devoted to the things we spend our money on, rather than spending our money on that which we are devoted to. The question is, “Do we possess our things, or do our things possess us?” 

And the widows teach us that wealth is about much more than money. Wealth is everything we are, everything God has given us, all of our gifts and talents, everything we have learned and will learn. How do we put all of that wealth into the mission of reconciling all people to God? How do we put all of that wealth into this counter cultural mission of love?

We live in a culture in which marketers spend more than $1000 per person per year for every man, woman, and child, that’s more that $250 billion to convince us that we should put all we possess, or at least a lot of it, into comfort, status, excitement, self-aggrandizement and a desperate search for security. Somehow we just do not see the same kind of advertising effort to convince us that the purpose for our lives is not possessing, but loving. 

Where are we putting our treasure? Individually and as a people of faith. Where is wealth leading our hearts? If we look into our bank account registers, we can read the story. Here at Trinity I’d love to see a big chunk of our budget spent on Life-long faith formation and carrying Jesus message into the neighborhood. I’d like to see us budget for advertising in new and different ways, a way to connect with people who don’t use the traditional means of reading the newspaper, so that we can let people know about this wonderful place where God is loved and where people can know that we are Christians by our love. 

One way if testing whether our possessions have begun to possess us would be to reflect on the fear we have of losing them. When we have a high level of fear at the thought of losing our stuff, it is likely that we are holding on to our stuff a little too tightly, refusing the open hand of generosity, thinking of ourselves as owners of our property rather than as stewards of God’s property. Today’s marketing preys upon our fear of losing what we have, on loving what we should not, on our caring more than we should about money, pleasure, and status. I'd like to share a story that shows me what it's like to divest of that which possesses us. The dean at my seminary was a book hound, like many of us. The walls of his office were dense with books. His spiritual practice was to touch each of his books as he counted off ten, every tenth book he would pull off his shelf, whether it was one of his favorites, one of his oldest or most valuable, to give away. This practice freed him from being possessed by them, freed him to be grateful, and freed him to give away that which he loves. And we were the grateful recipients of many good books.

I’d like us to move from fear, to continue to move from a stewardship of scarcity, to love, a stewardship of abundance. We have so much here, we have people with amazing gifts and talents, each one of us is wealthy in such a variety of ways. I’d like us to be like these widows, who gave out of love and abundance, not out of fear of not enough. There is so much that we can do. God is busy in our world, and our job is to get on board with God. We need to move from fear to love; we need to be transformed as individuals and as a community of faith. We need to be about our mission of reconciling all people to Christ. 

Go out and share God’s love with everyone you meet. Do not slave for things that are not live giving, but trust in God’s provision, and give generously of all you have. Amen

19 Pentecost Yr A Proper 24 Oct 19 2014

Audio 10.19.2014

Money, politics, and religion, the only missing ingredient for impolite conversation is sex. So why is it we're not supposed to talk about these things? Maybe because these things are felt to be too personal to discuss in public, and too divisive. People feel very strongly about these things and don't want to be told what to think. Unless, of course, you are in some churches, that tell you exactly what to think about just about everything. I'm not going to tell you what to think about any of these things, but, our faith definitely informs us on these things, and today's reading from Matthew is all about these things, therefore, well, there you are.

Money, give to the emperor what is the emperors's.

Politics, everyone has to pay taxes.

Religion, give to God the things that are God's.

But as we well know, it's never easy, or clear, or straightforward. So what's really going on here? What is the kingdom of God like? 

What we have is actually one of the oldest tricks in the book. Entrapment. That’s what the Pharisees are about in this story, pure and simple. They know very well the Jewish law against creating images. We read all about that last week in Exodus. The Israelites took all the gold from their ears, their sons’ ears, and their daughters ears, melted it down and made an idol out of it. Not making and worshiping idols is the commandment second only to loving God. 

The Pharisees know what they ask of Jesus creates what we today call cognitive dissonance. You can’t act one way without compromising your morals; it’s the slippery slope. We go about rationalizing these things all the time. I do it on a smaller practical scale all the time, should I eat that doughnut, or should I eat that apple? I want the doughnut because I believe it will make me feel good, because I like it, because I deserve it, because it’s fun… But I eat the apple because I believe it’s good for me, because it tastes good, because I need the vitamins, because it will help me in the long run. What we do has to do with the priorities we choose for our lives. If you’re a list maker, you’d list the pros in one column, the cons in another, and make your choice.   

The Pharisees are trying to entrap Jesus, if Jesus says we don’t pay taxes to the emperor he’s guilty of sedition, but if Jesus says we use these coins with an image on them to pay taxes to the emperor, he’s guilty of breaking the commandment. Caesar or God? This is not just a slippery slope, it is a no win situation. But Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees' question, as is his answer each time they ask him questions about wealth is really simple. It’s all God’s. It’s all God’s. There is no hierarchy, there is no priority list, and there are no top ten things that belong to God. The question is pointless. It is all God’s. You see, there is nothing that is the emperor’s. We live in this world as God's beloved, we are God's image, we do not live in the image that the world will make us.

So what Jesus may be doing here is showing that wealth is not ours. All wealth comes from God. And wealth includes so much more than money. There are some ramifications of this for us today. All wealth comes from God, we live in a land in which order is kept by a mutual agreement that everyone shares in the responsibility of government and infrastructure and protection. Therefore we pay our share. But all we have still comes from God. 

So maybe what Jesus might be doing is inviting us to declare our allegiance. Perhaps the key question to preaching this passage isn’t, after all, whose image is on the coin, but rather whose image is on us. We indeed are made in God's image and marked as God's own forever. And that’s what always seems to get lost in conversations about money and politics. For while we may feel strongly about our political loyalties, before we are Democrat, Republican, or Independent, we are God's beloved. And while we may be confident that how we spend our money is our business an no one else’s, yet if we forget in whose image we have been made we may succumb to the temptation to believe that we are no more than the some total of our possessions and that our bank accounts tell a true story about our worth and value.

So, there are no easy answers here. There are elements of our lives that are, indeed, part of the world order and should be “rendered to Caesar.” But, our deepest self belongs to God, and if we remember that, all of life takes on greater focus and meaning. And our identity as God's beloved, will, in turn, shape our behavior, urging and aiding us to be the persons we have been called to be.

So today, I'm inviting you to a way of reminding yourself of your identity, as God's beloved, take

out one of your credit cards, (and if you don't have a credit card, use one of the cards in the pew) and mark it with the sign of the cross. Every time you use it, or see your card in your purse or wallet, you may think about how your faith, your belovedness, impacts your decision about spending. 

And I hope this is not a burden, but rather an empowering reminder of your identity as a child of God, something no amount of spending or saving could change. Maybe it will help to actively reflect on how your faith shapes your daily life and particularly your economic life. God wants more from us, in the end, than polite conversation. God wants for us abundant life. Because while Benjamin Franklin may have once said that death and taxes are the only two certainties of this life, each week we have the opportunity to declare that the one who was raised from death shows us that God’s love is more certain than anything else.

The story that informs us and transforms us is that we are created by God in God’s image, and we are related to all of creation. God’s abundance in creation is already bestowed upon us. Our job is to hold it in trust, and to care for it. This is what we call stewardship. Give to God the things that are God’s, and everything is God’s.