What Belongs to God? Embracing an Alternative Story
Matthew 22:15-22
Presented October 19, 2008, by J.D. Kline
The 23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Stewardship Theme: Celebrating Abundance—Embrace Relationships
Maxie Dunnam, former editor of The Upper Room, some years ago wrote a book entitled Barefoot Days of the Soul in which he likens life in Christ to that memory of early spring days from his childhood when one’s shoes could be kicked off—that exhilarating moment when new life is only just beginning to burst forth, that fresh and freeing moment of spring warmth when all life seems new. It’s a marvelous image, one which contrasts markedly to the dour ways in which faith all too often is portrayed—as little more than a series of rules and regulations, a rigid list of do’s and don’ts, with heavy emphasis upon the don’ts. You know the dour folks I’m thinking of, don’t you? The ones heavy on judgment, far more concerned with right dogma than with right living. The ones eager to debate over minute matters of doctrinal belief, yet giving little regard to the quality of their relationships with God and with one another.
This morning’s Gospel lesson from Matthew, chapter 22, speaks of a time when Jesus finds himself embroiled in conflict with the Pharisees, those religious leaders of his day who invested great amounts of energy into defining the letter of the law, while neglecting the weightier matters of justice, compassion, peaceful living, and loving relationships. Those leaders saw their primary task as centering upon the guarding and the preserving of the law, but tragically, the faith they demonstrated all too often appeared dull and lifeless. It was anything but barefoot days of the soul. Much to the contrary, the Pharisees were unwilling to take the risk of living compassionately; theirs was a faith that had little to do with the imagining and envisioning of an unfolding life of wholeness and well-being and peace. The ancient Pharisees would have little grasped what Francis of Assisi had in mind when asserting, “It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
Jesus’ walking surely was his preaching, and it was this authenticity of faith that the religious leaders of the day no doubt found so threatening. Not only through his words, but by the very manner of his living, Jesus invited the people of his day to experience barefoot days of the soul—barefoot days that led to a markedly new way of living in the world. A way of living based not upon greed but upon compassionate sharing; a way of living based not upon violence and vengeance but upon healing, forgiveness, and peace; a way of living based not upon fear and anxiety but upon hope and trust.
Truth is, it was as if Jesus was urging us to embrace an alternative story as the foundation of our lives, a story based upon relationship with a God who relates to humankind, not with an iron fist of judgment, but with a love that knows no limits; a God who relates to us not with an angry and vengeful spirit, but with a passionate yearning that all humanity might live life in the light of good news—that we are God’s beloved children. It is this alternative perspective towards life that would guide us into radically new levels of faith and trust and hope, into new heights of gratitude, compassion, and joy.
Not surprisingly, the Pharisees find Jesus’ message to be off-putting. While they want a faith they could package and control, Jesus instead invites his hearers to embrace faith as adventure, as barefoot days of the soul. Along the way, Jesus ever reaches out to and includes all manner of people whom the Pharisees would much prefer to be held at arm’s distance, well beyond the reach of God’s love. While the Pharisees seek to define their God rigidly, Jesus ever invites his hearers to experience a God of abundant generosity and grace, a God focused on tearing down walls of suspicion and misunderstanding, a God who would literally stop at nothing to communicate a deep and abiding love for the people of God’s creation.
Jesus wants the Pharisees’ experience of God to be turned upside down and inside out. Is it any wonder, then, by the time Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem during Holy Week, that the religious leaders have begun to plot ways to rid themselves of this One who again and again challenges and confronts their narrow perspective? In this morning’s text, the Pharisees, intent upon entrapping Jesus in an impossible situation, ally themselves with the Herodians, a group they normally hold in contempt. The Herodians, members of King Herod’s party, willingly and easily make peace with the hated Roman rulers, even profiting nicely from their relationship. The Pharisees, on the other hand, chafe under Roman rule, convinced that God alone is the rightful ruler of Israel. But the Pharisees’ disdain for Jesus is stronger than their contempt for the Herodians, and so together members of the two groups come to Jesus, asking a question that they hope will force his hand. “Tell us what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
The question centers upon a delicate political matter—the paying of a tribute tax to the Roman emperor which, while a rather small amount, raises critical issues. Were Jesus to assert that the tax ought to be paid, he would risk the wrath of the crowds whose resentment of the tax ran deep, visible symbol of Roman oppression that it is. On the other hand, were Jesus to speak openly in opposition to payment of the tax, the Herodians can accuse him of sedition against the state.
Jesus’ response to the double-edged question is masterful. The tax could only be paid with a Roman coin—a coin bearing an inscription that would send a shudder through any devout Jew, for the coin proclaimed of the emperor, “Son of God . . . high priest,” blasphemous words to the Hebrew ear, words reserved only for the coming Messiah. “Show me the coin used for the tax,” Jesus says to his questioners, and his opponents quickly do so. The crowd would readily note that it is the religious leaders, not Jesus, who carry the hated coin. “Whose head is this, and whose title?” Jesus asks. “The emperor’s,” answer the leaders. “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” asserts Jesus.
In his commentary Matthew for Everyone Tom Wright reminds us, “Jesus wasn’t trying to give an answer, for all time, on the relationship between God and political authority. That wasn’t the point. He was countering the Pharisees’ challenge to him with a sharp challenge in return.” Sadly, in the centuries since, many have taken these words out of context, using them to announce that whatever Caesar or the current nation state demands, we are to give.
Elsewhere, of course, Jesus makes it clear that the opposite is true; our ultimate loyalty ever belongs to God. The alternative story Jesus offers for our lives is a story affirming that all that we have and all that we are comes to us as gift from God. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann asserts that we live in an age marked by fear of scarcity, a fact brought home to us in recent weeks, with the economic downturn. Yet, says Brueggemann, the gospel offers a radical alternative. Rather than mindless conformity driven by anxiety and fear, the gospel calls us to live lives centered in God’s exuberant generosity. As such, gratitude becomes, in the words of Brian McLaren in his book Everything Must Change, “an act of defiant contemplation, expressing rebellion against the thousands of advertisements a year that tell you to want what you don’t have, and not appreciate what you already have.” Instead, continues McLaren, “gratitude celebrates what you do have, an exercise in contentment. It turns possession-without-appreciation into possession-with-appreciation . . .In so doing, it bonds the heart to the ultimate source of the gifts—God.”
Hearts bonded to God, Source of every good gift in life. Barefoot days of the soul. The defiant contemplation of gratitude—images of the new perspective opened before us as we embrace a new story, the story of Jesus and his generous love, the story that fills us with grateful and generous hearts.
An old Hasidic tale relates the story of a rabbi asking his students, “How can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends and the day begins?” One of the students questions, “Is it when from a distance you can distinguish between a dog and sheep?” “No,” the rabbi answers. Another student suggests, “Is it when one can distinguish between a fig tree and a grapevine?” Once again the rabbi replies, “No.” At that, all the students together demand, “Please, rabbi, tell us the answer.” “It is when you can look into the face of another human being,” said the rabbi, “and you have enough light in you to recognize your brother or your sister. Until then it is night, and darkness is still with us.”
The alternative story Jesus opens before us is a story that enables us to live in the light—the light that affirms all persons as our sisters and brothers, the light that fills our hearts with gratitude, the light that enables us to see and experience barefoot days of the soul, the light that takes us beyond anxious conformity and fearful hoarding to a life of gratitude, generosity, compassion, and peace. Sisters and brothers in faith, now is the time to embrace the alternative story of Jesus. Now is the time to center our lives in the One who calls us to live for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors.
Blessed are you; holy are you; yours is the kingdom of God! Amen.