Pictures on God's Refrigerator

Pictures on God’s Refrigerator 

• Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13); Matthew 22:15-22 

I have to tell you, I review the scriptures from the lectionary, pick usually two of them, decide on a theme and a sermon title months in advance so that the Music Director and ensemble leaders can choose music selections and rehearse for worship. I have never tried to work so far ahead as I am doing here in Morton. I had to laugh when I got to the sermon title for today’s service. If I were choosing a title today I would have picked “Other People’s Money.” 

I like “Other People’s Money” as a title because no one is ever so rich as what their neighbors think they are. There is something in the culture that has us obsessed with the wealth of others. We also are likely to poor mouth our own circumstances and financial situation. 

I have two full sets of The Interpreter’s Bible commentary, in addition to specialized ones. One set of Commentary was released, volume by volume, throughout the time I was in seminary, and assembles a fair cross section of biblical scholarship at the turn of this century. The earlier set was a gift from a retired pastor, released in the mid-1950’s and represents the heart of the mainstream protestant biblical thinking as I was growing up. I often look at both of these sets, recalling the thinking I grew up in, and then seeing the adaptions influenced by the theologies of feminine, womanist, queer, and the liberation theology of Central and South America. 

This week I was startled as I read page after page in the commentaries of theoretical discussion of how this snippet summarized Jesus take on the faithful person’s relationship with the world of politics. In the 1950s the debate was, do the spheres of politics and religion ever overlap? This was a decided pushback against the “Social gospel” that took root in the 1870s through the Great Depression. 

The Social Gospel worked to define salvation both socially and personally. It became the foundation for labor movements that ended child labor, worked for living wages, and eventually underscored the break up of the monopolies associated with the “robber barons” of that day. After the Second World War, in the blush of national pride and the booming economy, the theology in the pulpits took a decided turn toward personal piety.   

At the turn of this century, there were broad statements carefully trying to limit what “endorsement” of empire Jesus was making in this text. The theologies centered in the perspective of the people at the margins of society, are very sensitive to any attempt to make it sound like it was easy for Jesus to be co-opted by the powerful. These contrasting perspectives remind me of the various kinds of sermons you and I have heard over the years regarding this very same text. 

This story appears in the gospel of Mark, and is retold in both Matthew and Luke. It carries a message well because it is not abstract in the least. Whenever we want to get attention, we make a claim about other people’s money, or other people’s taxes. Almost always, these allegations are made without reference to actual facts, but based on pure conjecture. 

There is a contrast, made clear in Matthew’s telling of the story, as he identifies two distinct groups as the questioners of Jesus. The Pharisees think that by paying taxes to the occupying Roman Empire, you are a traitor, supporting the enemy and not honoring God’s Chosen people in their own land. While they were not as radical as those refusing to pay the tax, they argued that it was a case of honoring a false God. 

The contrasting partners in the cornering of Jesus, were the Herodian’s. Herod’s people count on tax money. Herod the Great was a big builder. He built cities, and palaces and even rebuilt the Temple. It takes a lot of money to maintain huge construction projects. Herod’s son, Herod the not so Great, rules Jerusalem and vicinity during the lifetime of Jesus. The setup is they ask Jesus a “Yes or No” question, “Is it legal to pay the tax to the emperor?” and no matter how Jesus answers, one group is sure to be outraged.  

So Jesus asks for a coin used to pay the head tax. The people in Matthew’s community would know that the tax; 1) was required to be paid in Roman currency; 2) the coins bore a picture of Caesar; and 3) the inscription read “Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.” 

They would also know that the Temple rules were clear that people were expected/required to leave their “foreign” currency out of the Temple. The money changers would exchange their Roman currency for Temple currency, for a nominal fee, in the public space before entering the Temple. These are the “money changers” who experience the wrath of Jesus in our Holy Week stories. The questioners showed themselves idolatrous to have the coin with them. When they produce the coin in the Temple, Jesus has already defeated their claim to superior piety, though this point is not expressed directly in the text itself. 

The debate marked the ability of Jesus to see through a shallow concern of what separates and divides us, and use that concern as a platform to lift up a more clear picture of a better way. Offer to God the things of God.

You and I are made in God’s image. Recently I heard a theologian offer the view that we are born out of God, born out of the same stuff as God. In this manner all that we are, and ever will be, is the very stuff of God. She proclaimed it in such a way as to emphasize the maternal nature of the creator. “Born out of God.” It has a different visual and emotional way of framing our relationship, and the attachment God has for all of creation. 

The call then, is to acknowledge our selves as children of the almighty, invested in an eternal relationship with the everlasting. It is a call to see in each of us, the picture of the divine, and an inscription, “Child of the Divine Creator,” each of us - a prized coin of the realm of God. 

Then as a child of God, we are the pride of the divine parent. Every thought, word, and deed, of love and compassion - registers within the heart of the divine. Rather than count our transgressions, and wait in anger to pass judgment, we might visualize the almighty, seated in peace and surrounded by joyous and beautiful music, selected and rehearsed for this occasion, gazing on images of our acts of mercy and justice, as so many pictures on the refrigerator. The angels of God put up fresh ‘selfies’ of God and child, saving the previous - that are carefully stacked and preserved - to be savored together at the end of the age. 

The tax that we pay to God, is to love - as God is love. We strive to feel as a family might feel, for all of creation. We name and confront the sin of separation and replace it with a sense of belonging to each other, and caring about and for each other. 

We regard those whose behavior marks them as selfish and self indulgent, as immature children who need prayer and need to repent. In the Temple Jesus did not shame those who confronted him. They likely went away, not having their hearts changed, but respecting the power of his intellect. 

As an aside, I often pause reading the gospels and think about those people who got to be in the presence of Jesus. Can you imagine, being so sure of what you think you know about God, that you deny the truth of the vision offered by Jesus himself, and not have it touch your heart. So when I get frustrated by religious leaders in our own day, who become so self assured of a narrow vision of God and God’s love, I do not consider them as anything but sincere. 

Today I have provided you with some specifics about the tax and Temple practices that I did not know 20 years ago. For me, the heart of the text is to show how you and I live in two worlds at once. We have a life that stands in the economic and political reality of our time and place. We must be citizens of the world God created. And, we live in the Kingdom of God, both the Kingdom that is, and the Kingdom that is to come. 

As I read the times, we are challenged to honor our personal relationship with God, and also advocate for a society that honors the integrity of the biosphere, and respect for the peoples of the world. I believe that the requirement to pay our taxes is not all that needs to be said regarding our social responsibilities. 

This text in hand today, is focused on our relationship with God. It is personal and relational. It requires us to let God be the God in our lives. While I fear for the health of our experiment in democracy, I read this text as a reminder that it can be a distraction to permit myself to get so focused on cataloging the evils in the world, that I lose my grip on the priority. Our first step is to love God and neighbor. 

Most importantly, we live with the reality that life in the wider community falls short of the glory of God, and does not represent our allegiance to the God of love and parent to all of creation. We owe to God the things that are God’s. To that end, we are joined together in prayer, and provide here a faith community with a wide welcome, and an intentional respect for diversity. Then together, with the gifts we have been given, advocate for respect of nature and respect for all of God’s children. Amen.