Pentecost 18
October 16, 2011
Matthew 22:15-22
A rich man went to his rabbi one day in the midst of a personal crisis. So he asked his Rabbi, what must I do to inherit eternal life? The rabbi spoke with him about the commandments, specifically the second table commandments, honor your father and mother, do not steal, do not kill, do not bear false witness, do not commit adultery. At the end of this list of commandments, the young man wiped his brow in relief…he had not broken any of the commandments that the rabbi mentioned. He thanked the rabbi and was getting up to leave when the rabbi spoke up “there is one more thing you need to do…” Hesitating, the man turned around, “Sell all your possessions and give your money to the poor…” The man could feel drops of sweat form on his forehead…the rabbi had never mentioned do not covet because he knew that the man was so possessed by his possessed that to have made this last statement would be a challenge that the young man was not ready to take on yet. And so the young man left the presence of his rabbi, his head hung low in grief over his wealth.
I tell you this story because I think that the interaction between the rich young man and Jesus can help us frame the encounter between Jesus that the disciples of the Pharisees that we just hear about.
It had been a long day for Jesus when the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians came to speak with him. It was the morning after Jesus had entered Jerusalem and turned the temple upside down…and up to this point in the day, Jesus cursed a fig tree, had his authority questioned by the Pharisees when the returned to the temple and then he told them the parable of the two sons, the parable of the wicked tenants and the parable of the wedding banquet. Earlier that day, the Pharisees had wanted to arrest Jesus…but they did not do so because they were afraid of the crowds because the crowds regarded Jesus as a prophet. But it seems that now the Pharisees have come up with an idea that they think will entrap Jesus in what he says.
So the Pharisees send their disciples, along with some Herodians (a group that almost nothing is known about except for that they were probably Roman sympathizers) to Jesus to ask a simple, but VERY loaded question. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor?”
Now to those of us living in a society where it has been said that nothing is quite as sure in life as death and taxes, had we been there, we probably would have looked at these guys and said “are you kidding? Taxes are a legal obligation.” And in Israel, there were also taxes to be paid. Each year people were expected to pay the temple tax…however, taxes paid to a civil authority was a relatively new thing.
In the year 6 AD, a census tax was instituted by Rome. It is the tax we hear about in the beginning of Matthew that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. According to Roman law, every adult was responsible for paying this tax, the equivalent to one day’s wages, each year. This tax was the source of quite a bit of anger from the people of Israel, especially the zealots, who had gotten quite violent in their protest.
For Jesus to have responded to the disciples of the Pharisees by saying that paying taxes to the emperor was lawful would have upset the people who had been following him so loyally for years. The zealots who followed him would have especially have taken him to task. On the other hand, for Jesus to have responded that paying taxes to the emperor was unlawful, it would have upset the Herodians, who would have run back to the Roman authorities and reported that Jesus was getting ready to take his “occupy temple street” protest outside of the temple, which the Roman authorities would not have liked very much.
Knowing that they were out to get him, however, Jesus gave neither of these responses. Instead he asks for a coin used to pay the tax. His questioners procure for him a denarius, the currency of the Roman Empire. Whose image is this and what is his title? They answer that the currency bore the head of the emperor on it along with his title, “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, High Priest.” In a few words, it was a coin with a graven image that equated the emperor with a god. This secular currency was very different from the religious currency used by the Jews.
And so, in one of his more diplomatic moments, Jesus responds “The give to the emperor, that which is the emperor’s, and to God, that which is God’s.” In this one short statement, Jesus shuts down the aim of the Pharisee’s and their cronies. Instead of giving them what they wanted, Jesus acknowledged the civil authority of the emperor…but he also reminded them that God’s empire is bigger than the Roman Empire.
So what does this mean for us who live in a time hundreds years after the fall of the Roman Empire? We who live in a time of economic uncertainty considered to be the worst since the great depression, where “occupy wall street” protests have spread throughout the country, and both sides are crying “class warfare”? And what does this all have to do with the story of the young rich man and Jesus?
I would propose that it all connects through a question that is not asked in this encounter with Jesus and the Pharisee’s cronies but that I wish that Jesus had asked.
“Whose image do you bear, and what is your title?”
We live in a time when our civil currency and the currency with which we give our financial gifts back to God is the same. It is a time when we are being blasted with ads saying that we need the newest and the best things now…and if we miss the boat on the newest gadget we’re going to lose significant status points. Me and mine have caused many to become like the rich young men, guilty of coveting more and more things, letting their possession take possession of them and their lives. The almighty dollar is in a competition with Almighty God for loyalty and sometimes it looks as if we have let the almighty dollar win.
…and it makes you wonder what Jesus would say if he came back now…it would probably be something that would make us want to kill him again, even though he is really just telling us the truth about our situation.
“Whose image do you bear, and what is your title?” Jesus asks us
When we stop to listen to the truth that Jesus has for us, there is some good news…and the good news is that even with the broad grip that civil authority seems to have, God’s authority is bigger and better than civil authority. And not only that, there is good news in the reminder that the image we bear is the image of God…and the title that we bear is child of God. With everything going on in this world, it is the perfect time for us to be reminded we are not defined by our things, we are defined by the image of God that dwells in us. We have been created and claimed by God to go be caretakers of the things that we have been given, but more importantly, we have been called to be caretakers of one another.
This sermon is unfinished in it's written form. In my process of crafting it, I became so frustrated with coming up with a good ending that I decided that it was time to walk away and let the Holy Spirit take over. I have never done this before, but it worked. God is Good.
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