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The Twentythird Sunday after Pentecost The breeze of God’s love and grace is ever blowing; may we set our sails to capture that breeze, and may it inspire these words and those who hear them. Amen. I’m not a coin collector, but I am nonetheless intrigued by the images found on our coins. Back when Christopher was just a little guy we started collecting state quarters; you know the ones—each state is depicted in some way with an emblem or logo that represents something that state is known for. We were living in Vermont when this began, and there was a competition to come up with a design that best reflected what Vermont was all about. (A maple tree being tapped for sap, with Camel’s Hump, one of Vermont’s best known mountains, in the background was the winner). We’re still collecting these quarters (only four to go) and it’s been fascinating to see what other states have chosen—a Minuteman for Massachusetts, a peach for Georgia, race cars for Indiana, for example—fascinating because these images reveal something about what we value. Today’s gospel hinges on another coin, a denarius, and on the figure imprinted on it. When our story opens Jesus is on the grounds of the temple where he has been engaged in highly charged conversations with the Pharisees and Sadducees. Now we hear the Pharisees asking Jesus if it is right to pay taxes to the emperor. Jesus answers them by asking for a denarius, the coin used to pay the tax. That detail is sometimes downplayed, but in fact, Jesus wasn’t just looking for a visual aid. The denarius was a Roman coin, and imprinted on it was an image of Tiberius Caesar along with the inscription, divi filius Augustus (son of the god Augustus). The Jewish people found the coin itself idolatrous on two grounds: First it depicted a human image, something pious Jews found to be in contradiction of the first commandment, and second, it referred to Caesar as a god, a violation of the second commandment. Because of that, the Jews were permitted to mint their own copper coins to use in everyday commerce, and there was no real reason for a pious Jew to be carrying denarii, especially in the Temple precincts. But when Jesus asked for it, a denarius was readily produced. On one level, Jesus had his answer right there. If the Pharisees were carrying this idolatrous coin—and carrying it in the temple precincts—they could hardly object to paying the emperor’s taxes. Hence Jesus’ charge of hypocrisy on the part of the Pharisees. But of course, the question and Jesus’ response go far deeper than that. When the Pharisees and Herodians posed this question for Jesus they were intentionally trying to trip him up, to get him to say something incriminating. If Jesus had said no, it is not right to pay taxes to Rome, that statement could’ve been used as grounds to charge him as a subversive, someone possibly inciting rebellion. On the other hand, if he’d said yes, he risked angering his Jewish followers by appearing to support the very unpopular Roman regime. Jesus’ opponents really thought they had him this time. But Jesus, as only Jesus could, turned the tables on them. By asking them for one of the idolatrous coins and by them readily producing it, he exposed their own hypocrisy and complicity with the Romans. But more importantly, with his answer, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” Jesus changed the nature of the debate. No longer was it about something as mundane as taxes or as politically charged as support of the Roman occupation. Rather, Jesus shifted the focus to what is really central in our lives—our relationship with God. Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s because in the long run what is Caesar’s is really not important. But give back to God what is God because ultimately EVERYTHING is God’s. God’s sovereignty cannot be supplanted by an earthly emperor no matter how powerful, how far reaching. For Jesus’ audience, for the Jews living under Roman rule, this was a message of hope, a reassurance that even though they were required to live under Roman law, they were, when all was said and done, still God’s people. We, of course, live in a different time and place. Those of us gathered here don’t view allegiance to our country as something that supersedes or even affects our allegiance to God, so the questions raised in this gospel might seem just academic to us. But in fact, Jesus’ retort speaks to our conditions as well. Giving back to Caesar, as it were, is something we take as a matter of course; it’s the giving back to God we struggle with. We, too, are God’s people and as such we are called to give back to God what is God’s—a notion that has deep scriptural roots, but one that we often find difficult to grasp. And even when we give intellectual assent to that idea, we struggle with acknowledging that everything we have comes from God. Especially as independent and self-reliant Americans we attribute our wealth, our possessions, our status to the dint of our own efforts and we are loath to relinquish the control that accompanies such an attribution. But I wonder how our lives might change if we took Jesus’ words to heart, if we truly acknowledged that everything we have comes from God and belongs to God, if we let go of the illusion of our ownership and the illusion of control that affords us. Noted preacher Barbara Crafton gets to the heart of the matter when she asks this question: What if we thought of our money as really belonging to God? We'd have to ask what God wants us to do with it. And then we’d have to listen. Are we ready to do that? Every year about this time, during “stewardship season” we are asked to think about this, to consider what portion of our resources we might offer back to God for the work of the church. This year, in shaky financial times, that might seem particularly challenging. But tonight’s gospel asks us to remember that stewardship, giving back to God what is God’s, ought to be a way of life, not a seasonal activity, ought to be at the heart of all we are and all we do. Because when it comes right down to it, what God gives us is love—love manifested in creation, in the wondrous world in which we live, and in those with whom we share this world; love manifested in the compassion and mercy God showers on us; love manifested in the person of Jesus, God’s own beloved Son who lived and died and rose again for us. What we give back to God, how we use those resources entrusted to us by God is but a small measure of that love in our lives. It is both a reflection of and an acknowledgment of that love, and we give it out of our own love and gratitude. So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s but give to God what is God’s, remembering that God is the wellspring and the source of all that is. AMEN
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