Sunday: 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Matthew 22:15-22
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

"We're now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time." That is how Fareed Zakaria opens his cover story in the current Newsweek. The issue goes on to tell us how unemployment is over 6%, how the national debt is over $10 trillion, and how there are currently 300,000 foreclosures a month.[1] I don't blame Joe the Plumber for not wanting to pay thousands more in taxes. There is a feeling of scarcity in the air. Our gospel reading from Matthew speaks to our situation. It is not precisely analogous, but then when is the Bible? The underlying issue in the passage was whether a financially burdened people should have to pay one more tax to an imperial power. Jesus, a master debater, shifts the focus away from concern about taxes to concern about God. Although we tend to remember "Render unto Caesar," really the 2nd half of that sentence, "Render unto God what is God's," overwhelms the 1st half and is at the heart of our passage. Matthew calls on his readers (and us?) to not be consumed with financial burdens but to seek to order our lives around God.

The Jews in 1st century Palestine faced constant and serious financial burden. Taxation in the ancient world came primarily through the farms where almost everyone worked. Jews living in Palestine in the 1st century paid numerous taxes: taxes to the temples, custom taxes, and taxes on the land. 2/3rds of their agricultural production was taken by the Roman and local elites.[2] The farmers were left with mere subsistence incomes. It is with that as a background that the Herodians and the Pharisees in our passage were questioning whether it was o.k. for Jews to pay the annual tribute tax to Rome. Jews were divided about this tax. The Temple authorities who collaborated with Roman rule endorsed the tax. But Jews sympathetic to the resistance to Roman authority rejected it. The questioners try to trap Jesus using a very live issue. If he is against the tax, he is in trouble with the Romans. If he supports the tax, the people will see him as unaware of their economic struggle. Jesus' answer confounds his critics and presents a way of ordering our lives. He addresses the question and condemns the questioner in one quick move. By asking for a coin that had the picture of the Caesar and an inscription ascribing divinity to Caesar, he points out that they had already broken one of the Ten Commandments-the one that prohibits "graven images." Why quibble about taxes if they are already deeply in Caesar's system? The first part of his response sufficiently answers their questions: if you have that coin-give it to Caesar.

What stands out then is the second part of Jesus' response, "Render unto God what is God's." Jesus turns the question on its head. What's a few coins (or a few thousand bucks in Joe's case) if your focus in on properly ordering your life around God? You can see how this would have attracted Matthew's original readers-most likely a group of Diaspora Jews and Gentiles who had little sympathy with the plight of Palestinian Jews but great interest in someone supporting their radical commitment to Jesus. But I think it can also appeal to us. There is an old tradition that as the coin was to Caesar, we are to God-stamped with God's image. Not a strict interpretation to be sure, but a good one. The coin is made in the image of Caesar-give it to Caesar. We are made in the image of God-give ourselves to God.[3]

So, how do we render unto God what is God's? How do we live into the reality that we are stamped with the image of God? I read one answer this week in an article on Slate about how Monasteries are filling back up. The demise of Monasteries that began in the 60s/70s has been reversed by a return to traditional monastic garb, strict discipline and Latin masses. As opposed to the near secularization of monastic life after Vatican II, new successful communities are learning that seriousness attracts monks. These men, many my age, who are going to the monastery are certainly serious about rendering to God what is God's. Now what separates me from these monks? (I like my lady friend!) Are they somehow more serious about ordering their lives around God than we? I strongly say no. See, I think that all truth is God's truth and every arena is an appropriate arena to live out a serious Christian life. Ordering our lives around God has everything to do with tax policy and government takeovers. While I don't doubt that God can be found in beautifully chanted Latin Psalms, God is not found only in escape from the world. God is found in the very marrow of this world. God is found on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, on 53rd Street and on Halstead Ave, on the streets full of foreclosures and on the avenues of lost opportunity. Those are the places where we must live our lives for God. We can be as intentional about our budgets, our investments, and our voting as the monks in their flowing robes are about their prayers.

Our gospel reading today calls us to not be consumed with financial burdens but to seek to give God what God is owed. One thing our gospel passage doesn't say is how we know what to render unto God. Jesus suggests what it might mean earlier in Matthew 11 when he told his goals to John the Baptist: "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them." What would a life oriented around God look like? More opened eyes, more cleansed lepers, and more poor hearing good news-in every sense that those things can be meant.

Let's take a very current test case. Today we are embarking on our annual giving campaign. What an economic climate in which to do it! We need to honor the very real suffering in our community and still live out our mission as fully and joyfully as we can. That will take generous giving. Don't get me wrong. I am not drawing a direct parallel between rendering unto God what is God's and giving generously to the mission of SPR. But I do think that the church is a place where we can practice our ideals. Giving generously, giving sacrificially, is a way of reminding us that we should live generously, live sacrificially. Rendering unto God might mean 1,000 other things as well, but today we are asked to think about what it means in terms of our financial support of SPR.

The poor 1st century farmers wanted strategic help from the radical Jesus on how to resist the empire and keep their money. Jesus tells them not to sweat that stuff, pay your taxes if you need to, but focus on rendering unto God what is God's. We are facing one of the greatest financial panics of all time. And we are being asked to support our community mission at SPR. The financial strains need to be attended to. The church needs to be supported. Jesus reminds us that neither should be considered on their own, but should be viewed through the lens of ordering our lives around God.

1 Newsweek, October 20, 2008.
2 Marcus Borg, "What Belongs to God," Beliefnet.com.
3 Douglas Hare, Matthew (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993).