Matthew 22:15-22 Before my grandparents went into an assisted living apartment, they had to go through their stuff and determine what would go to one child or another, or a grandchild or, what would go into a sale. My grandparents had a LOT of stuff. My grandma was an only child..(her brother died when they were children), and she had an aunt who never married. My grandparents had all of their stuff, not to mention what my grandpa and grandma had collected for themselves over more than 50 years of marriage. Kelly and I had gone up to Iowa to visit and were helping them do this sorting out. Because we happened to be there, my grandpa asked me if I wanted just about everything they had. I am not a collector of things. They had 3 sets of china, I already had a set that was my mothers. They had bowls and vases and countless other things. What I took was a green bowl that is in my office filled with candy. It was the bowl that was used to baptize my great grandfather in his home over 100 years ago. The point is that it was hard for my grandfather to think about WHO things should go to. Most everything went into a sale because he just didn’t want to make the wrong decision and appear in any way to favor one person over another. Figuring out who things belong to is not always easy. This morning we are confronted with the Pharisees and the Herodian’s coming together to back Jesus into a corner. These two groups of people did not work together on anything. The Pharisees were agents of the Jewish faith in which they felt could not align themselves with anyone as their king but God alone. The Herodians were the agents of the Roman Government. The two group sat on the opposite side of the isle on every issue and taxation was no different. While the Jewish people who were citizens of the Roman Empire were required to pay the censes tax, they were definitely opposed to it. The Herodians on the other hand were in full agreement with the tax as they were supporters of the Roman Government. Neither group was happy with what was happening with Jesus and his followers. The answer to this question would benefit both of them no matter what the answer was. If Jesus says yes pay the taxes, then the Jewish community would rise against him for not supporting their belief that they should not pay this tax. If Jesus says no, don’t pay the tax, the Jewish community would be happy, but he would be arrested for speaking out against the government. For either of these groups, it was a win, win proposition. But it is not yet time for Jesus’ work to be finished. He had work left to do before that time came. So Jesus does what Jesus does so well and he doesn’t really answer the question with a yes or a no but rather with a matter of principal to consider. Render to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is Gods. He does not say WHAT exactly is Caesar’s and what God’s. It is a very open ended answer that honors both sides. The Lutheran church is very acquainted with the idea of living within 2 kingdoms at once. It seems a great deal of our theology finds us standing on a line trying to sort out the toys, determining what goes where. We are people no longer bound by the law because we are saved by the Grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. BUT, we know the law draws us to an understanding of that need for God’s grace as we are completely unable to live by the law. So, do we follow the law or do we not? Out of our understanding of God’s love for us we follow the ways of Christ BECAUSE we are saved by his grace, not in order to be saved. But what does it mean to follow? That is the very dilemma Jesus leaves the Pharisees and the Herodians with. What exactly belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? We are people that live within two kingdoms at one time. We are fully citizens of this world. There are rules and laws and practices that are important for us to follow so that good order can be kept within the society we live in. To have no laws would mean to have no order for life and that simply doesn’t work. On the other hand, we have an even higher calling as citizen of the Kingdom of God. What Jesus says to the leaders this morning he says to us today, give to the world, the government, what belongs in this world and give to God whatever belongs to God. Now we can all go home. We have the answer. Pretty simple right? NOT. Lesson number one of this text….. Don’t back Jesus into a corner. You will lose. Gotta love us human beings. We like things to have definitive answers that allow us to make check marks on our lives to know we are as good as we think we are. I went to school and graduated from high school…. CHECK. I went on to college and got a degree…… CHECK. I have always had a decent paying job and been able to take care of myself and my family for the most part (have had help along the way) ….. CHECK… I go to church every Sunday…. (even when I wasn’t the pastor) …… CHECK. I am kind to people (most of the time)….. CHECK. That is how we want life to be. We want to know what the measuring stick is so that we can be certain all the time and ultimately to pat ourselves on the back. It also allows us to look out at the world around us and make note of all the check marks that are not made on the list of someone else’s life. We may be fully aware that we are not perfect human beings and we do cannot always say CHECK to the things we should be doing as people of God, but, we most certainly are doing better than those people over there! We really want the Bible and the words of Jesus to give us very definitive answers to life, and Jesus seldom does that. When we back Jesus into a corner and we take a few words from scripture here and a few more from over there and then put them together to claim that we know what is on the checklist of faith, we are going to find ourselves in the place of the Pharisees or the Herodians. No matter what that check list may consist of, we will be missing the boat somewhere. So, how do we live lives of faith? How do we follow Jesus if Jesus leaves so many que stions open ended? This is exactly why it is so important for us to be in the scripture on a daily basis. This is why we should not just be reading the Bible sitting in our easy chair at home, though that is nice; but reading it and studying it with other people. The way for us to know how we could possibly live in the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God all at the same time is to know what the kingdom of God looks like. The way we do that is by reading and studying. Instead of taking a verse here and a verse there and putting them together, we need to read the gospels completely, and repeatedly so that we become so aware of how Jesus lived his life on earth that we can’t help but follow. We have a lot of finger pointing going on in our society right now. It is only natural considering it is nearly election time. Every side is pointing at the other and saying how messed up they are. There is a shred of truth in every ad and, there is a lot of spinning that happens with that grain of truth. We are blessed to be in a country where we do get a vote and I hope that you exercise that right in the coming weeks. But the finger pointing does little good to anyone in politics, and it does even less good in matters of faith. If we dig into the gospels and become intimately aware of how Jesus responded to people in his world, we can better understand how we are to deal with people in our world. When Jesus pointed his fingers, it was always at the leaders of the faith community. Jesus held the leaders of the faith accountable for not allowing God’s love to rise above the laws. As we have read through Leviticus and now Numbers, it is always the religious leaders that get confronted. But when Jesus went into the community, he simply shared love and grace and forgiveness. He embraced the people who no one else would have anything to do with. He ate with people and talked to people and in those moments, lives were changed. When Jesus see Zacchaeus, a tax collector and not great guy, in a tree he doesn’t say, hey you, give back what you have swindled and then I will come to your house for dinner. Jesus says come down because I am coming to your house for dinner. After this encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus’ life changes and he gives back more than what he has taken from people. We never see Jesus telling him he had to do this. Jesus simply loved him. When his heart was changed, his life was changed. When Jesus gives any sort of directives they are always to tell us to care for those in need. Feed my sheep, pray for those who persecute you, love those who hate you, give to those in need. These are the things that Jesus tells us to do. This morning, Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is Gods. What is the Lords is our entire being. Who we are and how we live our lives day to day belongs to God. Sometimes that means I have to talk to people that make me a little bit uncomfortable. That means I have to sit with people I completely disagree with and treat them with respect and show them grace and trust that the lord will change both our hearts. Going to work and paying taxes and following the laws of the land we live in are all a part of being a citizen of this world. How I go about doing all of these earthly duties; how I respond to the people I encounter; if I share love with others; if I share grace and forgiveness, these are the things that belong to God. My very being and how I live in this world is what I have to give to God. Some days I really blow it and for that I am forever grateful for the grace and salvation we receive through Jesus Christ. But some days we get it right, and some days we see God work through us to touch the hearts and lives of those in this world. To change lives is the job of the Holy Spirit. To share God’s love and grace with the world, that is our offering to God. AMEN
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 13:16:00 +0000
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