CELC The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost – October 16, 2005

Matthew 22:15-22

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter to a friend, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." Nearly 150 years later Margaret Mitchell used a similar phrase in the book, “Gone with the Wind”: "Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them." Well, I don’t know about childbirth, but I do know that death and taxes are subjects people do not like.

Take John, a member of my first parish. John would not ride in a car if a pastor was driving. His logic is that a pastor has answered the eternal question of life and death and no longer fears death. John thinks anyone driving a car should fear death.

And taxes: what can we say about taxes? It is election time and you know the importance of taxes when the gubernatorial candidates spend a lot of money on television advertising to say their opponent is weak on taxes. By the time you get past the hype in the advertising you aren’t sure who stands for what. All you are certain of is that taxes are important because they come out of your pocket and mine.

Death and taxes are at the center of our gospel lesson today. Death and taxes are what God is about this morning.

First you have the Pharisees and their friends, the Herodians, flattering our Lord Jesus. They are complimenting him because he is his own person, not playing to crowds. They tell him he speaks the truth, unvarnished and in its purity.

You are a bit cautious when you hear things like this. You know that something is amiss, that somehow those who flatter will soon be those who attack. In the case of the Pharisees we know that to be true. It is true of the question they ask to trap Jesus and the actions they finally take to have him crucified. They are about death, the death of their opponent Jesus, the one who speaks the truth, the One who is the Truth.

Their question, though, is about taxes. They want to know if a dedicated believer in God should pay taxes to the Roman Emperor who fancies himself to be a god. Is it lawful, they are asking Jesus, for a true believer to support through taxes the pretend god, this guy known as the emperor?

The Pharisees are pretty shrewd thinkers. They know if Jesus says “yes” pay the tax, then he will be the enemy of the people. Imagine how long a political candidate lasts when they run on the platform of raising taxes. No one is going to vote for them.

However, if Jesus says “no” don’t pay the tax then he is unpatriotic and edging on treason. He could get into big trouble for treason.

So, the Pharisees think they have won. They have Jesus either way he answers.

Our Lord, though, does not answer as they would hope. Instead he asks for a coin and notes that on it is the graven image of the emperor. Then Jesus says that famous phrase: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s…” It is a straight forward object lesson. You look and see the picture of the emperor on the coin, give to the emperor that which already his…the coin marked by his image.

And Jesus knowing that this exchange is about more than taxes, that it is about death as well, adds, “…and to God the things that are God’s.”

How do you give God the things that are God’s? And what are the ‘things’ that belong to God?

Let me answer the second question first: what belongs to God has the image of God on them. I say “them” because in Genesis 1:26-27 we read at the very creating of humankind God makes “them” in the ‘image’ of God. If that is not enough, God lays claim on us once again in our baptism as the sign of the cross is placed upon our forehead and we become part of the new creation in Christ. So it is at creation and through the cross that the mercy of God has made us in the very image of God.

That brings us to our other question: how do you give yourself to God…you who carry the mark of the very image of God? Carrying the image of God through creation and the cross means all that we are and will be is a gift from God. Knowing the mercy and grace of God in the creation and cross we recognize that God has blessed us with all we are, have and even an eternal future.

Perhaps the words of the first verse of the hymn will sing in a few minutes says its best: “We give thee but thine own, what-e’er the gift may be; all that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee.” We give thee but thine own is the truth of the gospel this morning. We who would think that we are self-made discover that it is in God’s mercy and love that we are created and redeemed to give to God all that we are.

This is the unsettling challenge of what discipleship means. Are we willing to trust God for this life and one more? If we do, then it is a life given to God, 100%, not fraction held back.

So the most pressing concern of life is not whether we ride in a car driven by someone who has answered the eternal question of life and death as John, my parishioner, felt. No, the pressing concern is how we can creatively return to God what God has first given us. Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley