Pentecost 18 (A-Alternate) – Exodus 33:12-23, Matthew 22:15-22
It’s really nice to be back. For the last two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to do work for my other part-time job, to get around the Synod and do some preaching and teaching and speaking about public policy, about politics. It’s gotten me in a political frame of mind.
And well, look at today’s Gospel reading. We’ve got taxes. We’ve got emperors. It’s political through and through. So pardon me if I talk a little about politics, but I promise not to beat up on the Republicans, and not to beat up on the Democrats, but to beat up on everybody all together.
After all, what else can we do right now? I mean, look at what’s happening in New York City right now. We are in the fifth week of a protest on Wall Street. People are living in tents to protest what’s going on in our government, in our market, and in our world and society. This movement is really interesting to me. It’s not a Republican demonstration; it’s not a Democrat demonstration; it’s kind of everybody altogether. The extreme left and the extreme right are both there, and everyone in between.
But this shouldn’t be surprising because what they’re demonstrating about are some things that are real problems. To begin with, there’s the fact that the government can’t do anything. The last major important measure that our legislature passed was the Health Care Bill back in 2009. And that involved so much deal making that no one is satisfied with the result, not even the people who wrote it in the first place. I’m taking this Public Policy class at the University of Massachusetts now and the big thing that followed it was an environmental bill put together by John Kerry, a Democratic Senator, and Lindsay Graham, a Republican Senator, and Joe Lieberman, an Independent Senator. All three party affiliations together in the same room on the environment, and they couldn’t do it. And they haven’t done anything since, which is especially problematic when our unemployment rate keeps growing up. We’re not quite at a Great Depression rate yet. Someone recently told me that in his town during the Great Depression 70% of people were unemployed. But the 10% in our nation right now is pretty dramatic.
And so they stand there, and live in the park, and try to get someone to change something.
But Ecclesiastes reminds us that there’s nothing new under the sun. And 2,000 years ago they had the same kind of problems and the same kind of protests. In fact, in the year 6, a Jewish leader named Judas of Galilee (Judas was a pretty common name back then) lead a revolt against the Romans who were taxing the life of out people, who were driving the gap between rich and poor to such extremes that the poor couldn’t survive. Of course the Romans were good at those sorts of things, and they crushed the rebellion immediately.
And this is the context in which we get today’s Gospel reading. Jesus is asked a question that’s supposed to trap him: “Should we pay taxes or not?” It’s a good question if its goal is entrapment. If Jesus says yes, then He’s going to lose the support of all his followers who are poor and who are broken down, the unemployed masses that are destroyed by the tax system. But if He says no, then his position is against the government and can He be destroyed that same way Judas of Galilee was.
And Jesus says this brilliant thing instead: “Give to the emperor’s what is the emperor’s, and give to God what is God’s.” There’s a temptation in this to talk about tax codes and tithing and all of that. Especially in a society where we pay around 25% of our income for taxes, and we’re only supposed to tithe 10%—and we don’t really do that, most of us. But then I’d be pretty hypocritical if I preached on that, and anyway, that’s not really what this passage is about. Instead, Jesus looks at the coin that is handed to him, and says, “Whose face is on this?” And the answer is Caesar, the Emperor. This man who leads the country, the empire of Rome, and who declares even on the inscription on that coin that he is God. That’s how you know this coin belongs to the Emperor. It’s got his face on it.
And so give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, but give to God the things that have God’s face on it, that belong to God. And as good Jews immersed in their scriptures, the Pharisees and the Herodians knew exactly what had God’s face on it: You and me. Created in God’s image, made by God’s own hands, formed out of the clay, belonging to God, and loved by God, and loving God, we owe not 10% of our income, not all of our income, but everything we have, and all that we are, and all that we hope to be. That’s what God expects from us.
I think it’s funny, that most of us can’t even manage the 10%, but we really are expected to give our whole selves to God. It’s a really hard thing to do. To give everything that we have to God, to reserve nothing for ourselves, to not involve our own wishes and our own desires and own kind of hopes and dreams and needs, but to focus on God’s will instead in everything that we do. Of course some of those hopes and dreams and needs are formed by God too.
Many of us have children in our lives. For me, they’re not my own children. But I did spend the day yesterday and Friday night with 20 teenagers at this church. That’s how big our Confirmation Class is. If anyone else wants to teach Confirmation this year…
Well, tough, you can’t have it because it turns out to be the greatest joy of my life. I want to do it. I love doing it. It’s so much fun, and it’s God’s will. That love that I have doing this work is placed in me by God. Just as is your love for your own children, your desire, your hope and seeking to do for them what is best, to find the resources and people to fill the needs in their life, to give them what they need, even when you can’t. To care for other children in our community for friends and neighbors. To follow the incredible work that you do in your professional lives. To provide for your children, and spouses, and families, and even parents. And to do the work in those places and those things that God has called you to do that can improve society and fulfill God’s will. All of these things, all of our passions, all of our desires are instilled in us by God.
So is that greatest desire, that desire to know God’s love. That’s what the Old Testament reading today is about. God has been leading the Israelites around the desert in the Exodus, leading them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. God’s been working on this ever since they first cried out for help. And in doing so God has developed this special relationship with his servant, Moses. Moses who leads the people, Moses who speaks to the people on God’s behalf, Moses who carries God’s message to the people. And so God appears to Moses in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He showed up to Moses in a bush burning. He rested on Sinai in a cloud, and appeared to him there.
The problem is, He can’t show up to Moses face to face. Because, well, imagine gazing upon the very face of God. The power, the radiance, the majesty, the sheer incredibleness of God. There is no word for it. It would bowl you over, and the ancient Israelites said you would die from pure rapture.
And yet there’s nothing Moses wants more. This man who talks to God, wants to see God, wants to know God face to face, to get to know that very God with whom he has this special relationship in a whole new way. And so he begs God, “Please, show me your glory.”
And God who knows the answer must be no, says, “Yes. I’ll find a way to hide you in this crag in a rock, and put my hand over so you can’t really see me in the fullness of my power. But you’ll at least get to see the back of me, as I trail away.” God gives his whole self to Moses. Every last drop.
Just as God gives His whole self to us. Dying on the cross for us. Appearing here on our table every week. Letting us touch and taste and smell and feel and drink God’s own self in every last drop. Sisters and brothers, God is an investment banker. But He hasn’t put his money on Wall Street. God has invested Himself in that which He knows has real value—God’s own people. We who have such a hard time giving God our total selves, God has given us all of Himself, dying on the cross for our sake.
Amen.