As we near the conclusion of a month of re-imaging the particular role Jesus played in being
both "the carpenter from Nazareth" and the "Messiah of God" we are also being asked to look
at the role of such "dualities" in our individual journeys of faith. In today's lections we going from
trying to see the face of God which is elusive to say the least, to confronting the face of our current "Caesars"
which can be found easily in the nearest pocket. In a similar way, last week we stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai
where they produced a golden calf to calm their fears, and this week we stand at the foot of the Temple steps where
Jesus asks them to produce a different kind of idol, "a coin." Bottom line, we are going to be talking
about competing images for a glory which should be reserved for God alone.
Muslims go to war with the words Bismillah alRehman alRaheem. ("In the name of God the all-powerful, the all-merciful").
In an interview with The Washington Post on September 23, 2001, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar said, "We are
confident that no one can harm us if God is with us."
The Mullah was expressing a sentiment which echoes through the centuries and throughout cultures. St. Paul wrote
in his Letter to the Romans: "If God is with us, who can be against us?"(Rom 8:31).
Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said , "If we do right God will be with us, and if God is with us we cannot
fail."
WWI German army belt buckles bore an imperial crown emblem with the words Gott Mit Uns, "God is with us."
The belt buckles of the Wehrmacht in WWII had the same Gott Mit Uns together with the Third Reich's eagle and swastika.
Serbian leader Nenad Jovanovic, wrote in the March 1, 2002, English-language edition of Pravda, "Remember
from history that we Serbs have already managed to liberate Kosovo from Byzantium, Turkey, and the Italians and
Germans. God is with us!"
And on and on it goes....
There are far too many times in history, and for the most part, in hindsight, very sad times, when people have
been absolutely certain they knew so much about God that their actions could be conclusively justified as being
prompted by that same divine force. Fred Craddock, once said concerning this proclivity to wax too familiarly about
God that "to hear some people talk, you would think they circled God three times a day and took photographs!"
The same kinds of statements emerge from those who feel they can't see God, or have lost sight of the God they
thought they knew. When tragedy strikes, when war looms, when illness threatens their happiness, when sniper bullets
fly from the darkness, or children are victimized. What kind of a God would allows those things to happen? How
could we trust a God like that? Where did "our" God go?
The truth is that sometimes we can only see the glory of God "after" the fact...when we look back...when
we see the actions of the past that are best viewed from "the other side," and even then we must remember,…it
is only a partial view.
John Shelby Spong makes this point in reference to the story of Moses saying that we human beings are only capable
of seeing where God has been so we are only allowed to see the backside of God (by the way... that word in Hebrew
is, to be polite, "rear end". In an age of intense modesty, when revealing intimate body parts was actually
a sign of deep covenant relationships, this was far less about sexuality, and far more about intimacy.
Moses is hidden in the cleft of a rock to be able to receive this knowledge or familiarity, and is protected by
God's own hand in passing. Often we have thought about that "rock" as being symbolic of our unshakable
faith, or have talked about Christ as being the rock. "Rock of ages, cleft for me,"…or "On Christ
the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." But what if the symbol of the rock refers to a
growing realization that we are actually hidden in Christ from the day of our baptism, buried in the cleft of the
one who has come to save, and that it is only in and through this Christ, that we in our own understanding of how
we live in faith are allowed to see the glory of God?
I spent a good portion of yesterday morning "covering" up individual tulip bulbs for their long winter's
nap. As the soil fills into the hole, those bright onion like bulbs are plunged into darkness, where the sun doesn't
shine, and their growth is unseen. Sometimes we are tempted to believe that only what we see has value. Moses thought
he needed to see the face of God. In truth we give value even to the things we see, or we take value away even
from that which is right in front of us. The money in your pocket, while not changing in size or content is more
or less valuable depending on circumstance. Confederate money, monopoly money, foreign money…just as pretty, just
as substantial has no value at all at the local grocery store. Here in the midst of our current stewardship campaign,
we are apt to come across is if money was the most important thing of all, but a far deeper truth is the fact that
while the Church needs to pay its bills just as you do, it cannot survive on money alone.
Israel was a two-coinage country in the time of Jesus. Temple tithes and offerings had to be made in approved Israelite
coinage devoid of the graven image of the Emperor, which is why there were money-changers in the outer courtyard
of the Temple. The Roman tax however had to be paid in Roman coinage, and there was a tax on just about everything
one needed for daily living. So the Pharisees would have had to have had Roman money to pay the taxes about which
they were questioning Jesus.
The denarius was doubly disliked by the Jews not only for it's "graven image," but also for its inscription,
"Son of the divine Augustus" (or "Majestic son of God"), which implied the divinity of the
very Caesar who dominated them as a conquered people. A reminder every time one reached into their pocket of the
question "Whose God was more powerful anyway?"
This question about "taxes" is thus a question about spiritual allegiance and political opposition. It's
a statement that one cannot avoid talking about religion and politics because one always effects the other. It's
also a story about subtle compliance, the way the world slips in and pollutes the sacred conscience. Carrying the
denarius was a nuisance, an inconvenience, a peccadillo perhaps. The thought of being forced to have such filthy,
non-kosher coins folded in ones' robe, for a Pharisee was like smuggling a pork chop into the synagogue on the
Sabbath day. But on the other hand…having it mad it possible for one to live fully in the "real world."
Every coin has two sides, and while we may prefer heads to tails, the truth is they can't be separated! There are
two sides of God like the two sides of a coin. The flipside of God's awesome majesty is God's equally awesome suffering
in Christ. The Glory demands the devotion. We want to know the security of God with us, the flipside is that we
get the challenge of following the crucified Christ - we see where he has been and we glimpse signs of him with
us even now, and though it is only a partial view, it is enough to follow in his footsteps.
But such faithful following demands vulnerability, trust, and revealing the intimate nature of the soul, both ours
and the divine. The move from simply doing ones' duty to a life of devotion borne from the commitment of the heart…is
the practical application of theological truth.
This is not a text about money, but about understanding the true role of the Holy in our lives. In contrasting
the "hiddenness" of God with the crystal clarity and tangible feel of the almost excessive imagery of
what we are encouraged to value most we are being asked to choose which is more important to us? The text is not
suggesting we can live without either, but that we can only be defined by one or the other. We are literally bombarded
every day with images that want to define who we are.
Owen Barfield, in his book "Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry," defines idolatry as "the
valuing of images or representations in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons; and an idol, is an image so valued.
An idol is an image on its way to becoming an object. Idols were not filled with anything. They were mere hollow
pretenses of life. They had no "within." A representation, which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate
- ought not to be called a representation. It is an idol."
How drastically that image differs from our own definition of the "sacraments." For us the sacraments
are "outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace" -a little water, juice, or bread…but they
have a "within" where idols do not. We may have to live with both, but it's important to know to which
we give the power.
Robert Funk, the founder of the Jesus Seminar points out that there is no indication that Jesus ever returned the
coin to the Pharisee. According to Funk, as Jesus proclaims the punchline-'and render to God the things that are
God's'-he pockets the coin and has the last laugh.
If they had simply based their faith on what they saw…where would we be today?:
Matthew suffered martyrdom by the sword in Ethiopia.
Mark died at Alexandria after being dragged through the streets of that city.
Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece.
John was put into a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death and was banished to Patmos.
Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward.
James was beheaded at Jerusalem.
James the Lesser was thrown from a pinnacle of the Temple and beaten to death below.
Philip was hanged against a pillar in Phrygia.
Bartholomew was flayed alive.
Andrew was bound to a cross, from whence he preached to his persecutors until he died.
Thomas was impaled on a stake at Coromandel, India.
Jude was shot to death with arrows.
Matthias was first stoned and then beheaded.
Barnabas was stoned to death at Salonica.
And while John lived until he was very old - it was in exile.
When the Disciples talked about stocks and bonds, they weren't talking about General Motors and Government issues.
They were talking about the stocks and bonds that prisoners wear. When they talked of chains, they were not talking
about the golden variety but heavy chains of cast iron. They offered their prayers of thanksgiving not from the
decks of their yachts but from prison cells.
We are in the midst of stewardship .. not just a seasonal campaign, but the stewardship of our lives, and we need
to make a decision about our pledge .. is it an empty sign or is it filled with our faith, hope, love, and devotion?
Does it faithfully represent us as we choose to define ourselves?
In a final note, from Deitrich Bonhoffer's "Ethics": "Jesus concerns himself hardly at all with
the solution of worldly problems. When He is asked to do so His answer is remarkably evasive (Matt. 22:15ff) Indeed
He scarcely ever replies to peoples' questions directly, but answers rather from a quite different plane. His word
is not an answer to human questions and problems; it is the answer of God to the question of God to humanity. His
word is essentially determined not from below but from above. It is not a solution, but a redemption."
May such a word redeem us. Amen
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