Month: October 2023

Give God What is God’s

Notes for a sermon preached at St. Augustine’s-Parkland Anglican Church, Spruce Grove AB, Oct. 22, 2023. Texts: Matt 22:15-22; (Exodus 33:12-23)

Some years ago, I called my father for a chat, and he said he was glad for the break because he was “rendering unto Caesar.” Of course, what he meant, in the language of the King James Bible, was that he was working on his taxes. Anyone would like a break from that! And this was in the days before user-friendly tax software and e-filing, which meant wading through piles of forms and declarations and receipts, and in the end, often having to write a big cheque.

None of us really like paying taxes, but most of us would recognize their necessity. In words ascribed to the first president of the USA, “No taxes can be devised which are no more or less inconvenient or unpleasant,” but a later president (FDR) said this: “Taxes are the dues we pay for the privilege of membership in an organized society.” For the most part, we don’t question the legality of our taxes, and when we do, we have a legal system to adjudicate it.

Things were different in Jesus’ time. There were at least three reasons for tax collectors to be routinely lumped in with other sinners.
1. They worked on contract to the occupying power (Traitors!).
2. They took what they wanted for themselves, often at extortionate rates above what they were required to raise (Robbers!).
3. They dealt in coinage which many regarded as blasphemous – the tribute denarius – and collected taxes which many Jewish religious authorities regarded as forbidden by the Torah (Blasphemers!).

Today’s Gospel focuses on that third issue.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

There’s no question of levels of government or constitutional issues. The Roman Empire financed its rule over its territories through taxation. There were some benefits, to be sure, but for faithful Jews, the Romans were faithless and often ruthless occupiers, and paying taxes to them was an affront to their religious and social structure. It’s a legitimate question, but as it is stated, it demands a simple “Yes or No” response. It’s a trap! If Jesus says “Yes,” then his questioners can accuse him of unfaithfulness to Jewish law. If he says “No,” they can accuse him of defying Roman authority. They’re thinking “Gotcha!”

Jesus sees right through them: he is “aware of their malice.” As he so often does, he responds with another question. Asking for the coin shows their hypocrisy – someone in the crowd has the coin! His question is about the offensive coin:

Whose head is this, and whose title?”

Obvious answer: the emperor’s. Then Jesus says this:

Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s,
 and to God the things that are God’s.

The emperor’s image and title are to be given back to him – they belong to him! – but what are we to give to God?

I want to suggest that the crucial thing is the concept of “image.” Remember that “graven images” such as found on this coin are forbidden by the second commandment. Give the image of Caesar back to Caesar, by all means – it offends God! On the other hand, let us recall this:

So God created humankind in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.                                         (Genesis 1:27)

If the image of the emperor is to be found on a silver coin, the image of God is to be found in us – all of humanity, in all our wonderful diversity.

I have heard this text used in a stewardship context, often with the speaker identifying what should be given to God with a 10% tithe, or something like that. That seems to me to do the text a disservice, relativizing what Jesus said, implying that only part of what we are and what we have belongs to God. To get the full impact of Jesus’ words requires us to perceive that nothing we have is of our own making but is a gift from God. As Paul wrote:

What do you have that you did not receive?                                (II Cor 4:7)

Our call is to give to God the image of God, “ourselves, our souls and bodies,” as the post-communion prayer in the Book of Common Prayer puts it. As we hear it in Genesis, “image” does not refer to something visual, like a photograph or statue, but to something much deeper, much broader, much more active.

Being made in God’s image does not mean that we physically look like God. That places God in the realm of the visible and knowable. Even Moses, of whom it was said that he alone met God face to face, did not actually do so, but was only allowed a glimpse of God from behind as God passed by. Artists have struggled with this for centuries. I’m reminded of the story of a little girl who was drawing a picture, when an adult onlooker asked what she was drawing. “I’m making a picture of God,” she said. “But no-one knows what God looks like.” To which the child replied, “They will when I’m done!” Chutzpah!

Pictures and statues are fixed in time and space. We can look at them with awe, but they rarely point toward any kind of action. We must go beyond the visual into the realm of God’s activity: Creating, Redeeming, and Sanctifying. To be made in God’s image means to be called to join with God in God’s activity: caring for and protecting the created order, being one with Christ in living into the redemption of the world, living in the Spirit to help this world become more holy.

The image of God is best found in God’s people seeking to be more like God in all that they do, all that they say, all that they are. It is in our words and deeds that we help make God present to other around us—and everything counts, every word and every deed. Everything matters! To give God what is God’s is to recognize that God has made us in the divine image, to be God’s hands and feet and voices in this world, imaging God in how we live. To give God what is God’s is to dedicate our whole beings to living as beloved children of God—giving all to God. This does not mean that we should all become monks or something like that. It does mean that, as Paul wrote:

“…whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”  (1 Cor. 10:31b)

The good news is that when we give our lives to God, God gives to us all that we require to live out our call to be God’s holy people.

Live for the glory of God!

May it be so.

The Mystery of Grace

Notes for a sermon preached at Holy Trinity Anglican Church (Old Strathcona), Edmonton AB, Oct. 15, 2023. Text: Matthew 22:1-14; (Exodus 32:1-14)

In 26 years of parish ministry, I officiated at around 100 weddings, and was a guest at many receptions. I never once heard of a wholesale rejection of an invitation, with a substitute guest list, and if anyone was ever ejected from one of those occasions for how they were dressed, it didn’t come to my attention. But today we hear Jesus telling a story of those two things happening, in a parable told to the leaders of the nation (the chief priests and the elders of the people), clearly aimed at them.

The story may have been directed to a particular group in a particular time, but I believe it has something important to say to us today. I would suggest that the central act of the story is invitation – the King invites the people of the story to a wedding banquet for his son. By their responses, the prospective guests showed themselves unworthy of the invitation. The King’s response seems violently over the top but remember that Jesus often uses hyperbole like this to emphasize a point. The A-list guests won’t come, so the King invites everyone he can find to the banquet – everyone!

The first invitation might have been a matter of asking his usual guest list who might have treated it as nothing special. The prospective guests find something better to do, like the people of Israel at Sinai, who spurned the covenant made through Moses for something much more exciting – a great feast around a golden calf. “…the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.” Note however: in the Exodus story, God does not carry out the threatened destruction, but graciously relents when Moses intercedes. In Jesus’ story, the people with something better to do suffer dire consequences for their rejection of the invitation.

But then comes the great turnaround: if the expected guests won’t come, the King graciously extends the invitation to everyone. The invitation is not made according to the usual criteria. (Who IS on the A-list, anyway?) Instead, the invitation is a matter of pure grace – opening the doors to all who will come, making a place at the table for both good and bad. No one had to qualify for this guest list. They just had to say “yes.”

Except… one man was not wearing a wedding robe, and he was thrown “into the outer darkness.” We are left wondering,

“Where’s the grace in that?”

The grace of the second invitation reflects unconditional love: it doesn’t matter who you are; God loves you and wants you at the banquet. But the removal of the improperly-clad guest looks like love with strings attached – putting limits on God’s infinite love.

Unconditional love means that God loves us just the way we are. God loves all his creation! But with that comes the realization that God’s love is beyond our imagining, and that God loves us too much to want us to stay the way we are.

Or as Anne Lamott wrote:

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace –
only that it meets us where we are
but does not leave us where it found us.[i]

I have encountered many congregations in my life in the church, in a variety of settings and roles. Not once have I heard a church say that they did not want to be welcoming. People generally understand on a very basic level that welcoming all is part of living into God’s grace, but we sometimes forget that just welcoming people is only part of the job. The other side of the equation is that God has expectations of us, as individuals and as a church. The church may be a “come as you are” party, but it’s also a “come prepared to change” party.

Being a church that welcomes all is a good thing, but being a church with a mission is also a good thing. Being only a welcoming church can be self-defeating when it develops into as “anything goes!” This seems to be one of the major subtexts of Matthew’s gospel: some in his audience believed that the Law had been set aside, and they were free to do as they pleased.[ii]

Being only a missional church is likewise self-defeating when it presents as welcoming people only according to their ability to fit into the mission. Down the one road lies chaos as everyone does what pleases them, and the church loses sight of its reason for being. Down the other road lies exclusivity, as insistence on “fitting in” drives people away.

How to fix the chaos? Invite people to share in the church’s mission.

How to fix the exclusivity? Welcome everyone – without question.

The “chaos road” is characterized by what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace:

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.
Cheap grace is the preaching of
      forgiveness without requiring repentance,
      baptism without church discipline,
      Communion without confession…
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross,
grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[iii]

In a church dominated by ideas of cheap grace, nothing really matters. Bonhoeffer challenged the church of his day (in pre-war Germany) to realize that everything matters; that following Christ is a matter of life and death.

He wrote (edited for inclusive language):

When Christ calls a [person], he bids [them] come and die.[iv]

The balance between welcoming and exclusivity is never easy, and it is never static. Churches constantly swing between the two poles. Healthy churches understand that swing as a response to the mystery we call the grace of God, on guard against both chaos and rigid exclusivity. Healthy churches invite and welcome people to join with them in the mystery of grace: meeting us where we are but calling us ever deeper into a life ruled by the love of God, seeking to be part of God’s mission.

All are invited to this place. All are welcome. And all are challenged to learn day by day the mystery of costly grace, which calls us ever forward into new life in Christ. So today and every day:

Come to the table – all are welcome.
Come to the banquet of the King – all are welcome.
Come to the wedding feast of the Lamb – all are welcome.

Yes, come, but come expecting to be changed.
Come with open eyes and ears and hearts and minds.
Come with your spirit laid bare to God.

Put on the wedding robe of those who seek to know and serve Christ in all things. Come into the mystery of God’s grace – and give thanks.

Amen.

[i] From “Traveling Mercies”
[ii] Matthew 5:17-20
[iii] From “The Cost of Discipleship”
[iv] Ibid.