Proper 24 A
October 19, 2008
Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 99
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
When folks come to see me from outside the church, if they give me half a chance, I bring them here into the nave and give them a brief overview of who we are, how we worship, and what matters to us. They’re always surprised when I tell them that in the Episcopal Church we follow a lectionary, which means two things: One, that we read nearly all of the bible in Sunday worship over a three year period. And two, that preachers in this church don’t get to preach on whatever we want to. A vital piece of our faith tradition is that a preacher of the Gospel of Christ should (you rarely ever hear me say, should, in a sermon but today I use the word deliberately) -- we believe that a preacher should be regularly confronted by scriptures not of our own choosing. If nothing else, it keeps us humble.
For example, with a little more than two weeks until the big election, what preacher in her right mind would choose to stand in front of people who have probably already chosen a side in a heated match to win the presidency, and talk about taxes. But that’s what I have to deal with today in this Gospel not of my own choosing.
The two political groups in today's Gospel are the Herodians and the Pharisees. They were political in the sense that both groups had a major influence in ordering and governing the social structure of that region at that time in history. There were two sets of laws existing or at least attempting to exist together. Imperial law, which came from the mouth of the emperor, and the law of Moses, which the Pharisees believed came from the mouth of God. The Herodians were loyal to the emperor. They didn’t mind paying taxes. That was what citizens of the
I don’t know if you’ve ever sat in a witness box in a courtroom. My one and only time was back in 1978. There is a rhetorical technique that lawyers use and if they learn to master the technique they will win more cases than they lose. It is to control the testimony of a witness by controlling the words of the witness so as to minimize or maximize the witness’ ability to persuade either the judge or the jury. Rhetoric is persuasive speech, plain and simple. Whoever controls the rhetoric wins.
1978: I was twenty-three years old and there are a lot of places I’d rather have been than in a courtroom. I raised my hand as I was told, I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth, to the best of my ability. The lawyer whose side I was testifying for asked me some questions which I answered as best I could. Then the lawyer for the opposing side asked a question. As I started to answer he interrupted me and told me he only wanted me to answer yes or no. The problem is, neither of those two words was the truth as I knew it. One would have been a complete lie and the other one would have distorted the whole truth that I promised to tell. When I voiced that predicament the judge stepped in and invited me to answer in my own words.
This is the same rhetorical technique the Herodians and Pharisees used in their attempt to trap Jesus with the tax question to get him to write his own fate with his own words. They crafted their question in such a way that it was a lose-lose for Jesus. If he said no, that it was not lawful for Jews to pay taxes to the emperor, he would have been arrested by the Herodians on the spot. If he said yes, that it was in accordance with the law of Moses for Jews to pay taxes to the emperor, he would have validated the Pharisees’ suspicion of him. In fact, they would have received a yes answer from Jesus as a moral affront to them and to the religion they defended.
The Jesus of the Gospels is himself, a master rhetorician. He spoiled the well-devised plan of the Herodians and the Pharisees to trap him with the tax question, by asking them to look at a coin that would be used to pay the tax. This story is much better in its original language. There are nuances in Greek that don’t come across in English. Whey they said to Jesus in English, "we know that you do not regard people with partiality…." in the Greek it’s, "we know that you do not look into the face of men…"
It makes sense then, that Jesus would respond by asking them to look at the face of the coin. And of course, this whole exchange about taxes is not really about taxes. The entire ministry of Jesus, his life, death, resurrection and ascension, and the great commission is summed up right here in this piece of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus DOES look into the face of men, and women, and children, and when he does, the image he sees is the image of the One who created them. Just as the image on the coin is the image of the one who created it. "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s" is the ministry Jesus did and continues to do through the church. That is to give back to God those who bear the image of God.
When I bring people here, they look around and inevitably the first thing that strikes them is the stained glass window. It’s not so much the images that first catch their eye as it is the brightness and light behind them. After a little while of standing with them with as few words as possible, I take them over to the window so they can see the reflection of the stained glass hovering over the columbarium. I tell them that the ashes of people we love are there in that brass cross, ashes that once held the breath of God, and that when I see that bright reflection above them, it reminds me of all the brightness of God, what I imagine is the glory of heaven. And you wouldn’t believe their responses! They tell me they have goose bumps. They are struck speechless for a few seconds. Sometimes they just weep.
I seldom can give any of the people who come to me what they come asking for. But when I invite them to look out that window, what they see helps them to imagine a reality beyond this one. They get a hint of the mystery that is God and their encounter with that mystery gives them something – hope, maybe, I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that it’s why I’m here. It’s why we’re all here. It’s why the church is here. It’s why Jesus came to live among us in the first place. To give back to God those who belong to God and are here in the world. Those who were created by God, those whose face God looks into and sees God’s own image.
We are asking you to pray over the next few weeks and come up with an estimate of what you plan to give to the church in the coming year. We ask to remember that when you give to the church those things that bear the images of past presidents, you are participating in the ministry Jesus entrusted to his Church, of giving back to God those who bear the image of God.
