{"id":1166,"date":"2020-10-18T08:13:47","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T12:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2020-10-18T08:13:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T12:13:52","slug":"living-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2020\/10\/18\/living-treasure\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by The Rev. James E. Eaton, Pastor \u2022 \u00a9 2020 All Rights Reserved<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

20th Sunday After Pentecost\/A \u2022 October 18, 2011<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Matthew 22:15- 22<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Then he said to them, \u201cGive therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor\u2019s, and to God the things that are God\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>http:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=470022615<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s yours? What\u2019s mine? As far back as we historians and archaeologists can peer, people have argued about this. In the Ten Commandments, we\u2019re told not to steal things and not to covet something that belongs to someone else. Torah, the original law for God\u2019s people, contains endless specific rules about ownership. Some historians believe writing originated as accounting for stored grain, a way to keep straight what belonged to who. But what\u2019s yours and what\u2019s mine takes on an even greater importance when we ask the fundamental question: what\u2019s God\u2019s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Real Issue<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the issue Jesus raises in the story we read today. The issue is very partisan, very political and some enemies are hoping to trap him, the way politicians do to each other. What\u2019s gone on in their country in the last few years has caused division, hatred and even violence. Years before, the Romans had taken over Judea and installed Herod as King. He was widely hated and depended on Roman support just to stay alive, let alone in power. The Romans had introduced a head tax, called a census. But this census wasn\u2019t like the counting we do, it was a tax on every person. In just a few weeks when we read the story of Jesus\u2019 birth, we\u2019ll hear about this tax again because it was precisely to be counted for the tax that Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem.\u00a0 The tax had to be paid in a Roman coin called a denarius. A denarius was worth about a day\u2019s pay and it had an image of the emperor on one side and an inscription saying he was divine on the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a people whose deepest heartfelt religious expression was the Shema Yisrael<\/em>, the prayer that says, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and who believed there were no other Gods and who further had been explicitly told in the commandments not to make images\u2014well, it was unthinkable to have such a coin. So there was division: the Zealots who refused to pay, the establishment who wanted to overlook the religious issues and pay up, the Pharisees who were in between. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now they set a trap for Jesus by asking a question with no obvious easy answer. \u201cTell us, is it lawful to pay this tax?\u201d If he says, \u201cNo!\u201d\u2014he will be arrested, branded an outlaw, though a popular one; no one likes taxes and this tax was particularly hated. It\u2019s the answer his followers want to hear, it\u2019s the answer the crowd hopes to hear. But in giving the answer he will convict himself. If he says, \u201cYes,\u201d he will be seen as a coward who compromises with power, afraid of the Romans, and he will lose the faith of his followers. \u201cJust another appeaser,\u201d they\u2019ll say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now there is quiet as the question hangs in the air and then, his answer, which obviously surprises  them: \u201cShow me the coin\u201d. He\u2019s caught them at their own game\u2014because they produce the coin, showing they have already violated Torah, just by having such an image. Now he takes the coin, looks at it, perhaps turns it over and looks up, asking, \u201cWhose image is on the coin?\u201d\u2014everyone knows the answer: Caesar. And finally: his answer: \u201cThen give Caesar what is Caesar\u2019s\u2014and render to God, what is God\u2019s.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Belong to God<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s yours? What\u2019s God\u2019s? We bear God\u2019s image\u2014we belong to God: that\u2019s the view of the whole Bible. One of the Psalms says, \u201cThe earth is the Lord\u2019s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it\u201d [Psalm 24:1]. At the other end of the Bible, when Paul writes to Philemon and asks Philemon for a favor, he points out that Philemon owes his various life to the same God Paul represents. So the question of what is yours has a surprising answer: what is yours is yours as a steward for God since you yourself, each one of us, belongs to God. We are God\u2019s living treasure. What\u2019s God\u2019s?\u2014we are, every single one of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s Caesar\u2019s? We don\u2019t live alone, we live in a community and we need its assets. Water, power, sewer: our lives together are unthinkable here without them. Many of you know Jacquelyn and I have a sailboat and we sometimes cruise on it. When you live and sleep on a boat for days at a time, you learn just how many services you take for granted. Power?\u2014it comes through a wire from a battery, and if you don\u2019t charge it, there isn\u2019t any. Water?\u2014it comes from a tank that has to be filled periodically. Sewer?\u2014well, yes there is that and we\u2019d probably rather not think about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s Caesar’s?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Taxes have become a partisan issue, with one party endlessly claiming to want to lower them, one wanting to provide better services which may cost more. Surely we owe something to our community. All the things we use, all the things we need, don\u2019t magically appear, they are bought and through our taxes we buy them. We forget that often and take those things for granted. We\u2019re like the waiter a friend talked to once in the south. She\u2019d never had grits but of course in the south, grits just come with breakfast. So she asked the waiter, \u201cWhat exactly ARE grits?\u201d He looked at her as if she was crazy and replied, \u201cWell, ma\u2019am, grits is grits.\u201d Trying to make herself clear, she pushed on: \u201cWell, where do grits come from?\u201d He thought for a moment and then said, \u201cThey come from the kitchen.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, grits, like everything else, do not magically appear in the kitchen. Everything comes from somewhere and everything from your the water you drink to the light you turn on depends on a whole community sharing the cost together through their taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics is  the name for how we make decisions about how to balance community needs with individual payments. \u201cNo politics in the church!, is a tradition here. But historically, Congregationalists have been deeply invested in politics. Some of the first Congregationalists were imprisoned because the idea of a covenant community where people voted threatened England\u2019s monarchy. Later, another generation of Congregationalists and Puritans led a civil war in England that ended with the execution of the king. Congregational Churches in New England were a school for civic participation and the tradition of a town meeting comes from Church Annual Meetings like the one we\u2019ll hold today. Later, following the lead of the Society of Friends, Congregationalists became heavily involved in the movement to abolish slavery, one reason you\u2019ll find few of our church in the south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So trying to avoid politics, most preachers veer off at this point and focus on what we owe God. But it\u2019s fair to ask here: what do we owe Caesar? What do we owe our community? Notice how Jesus connects what we owe our community\u2014what is Caesar\u2019s\u2014to what we owe God. \u201cGive Caesar, give God what is God\u2019s.\u201d Now the Psalms and the Torah are clear: the earth is the Lord\u2019s and everything in it. We are made in the image of God, we are God\u2019s and from the beginning, Genesis says, we were given a mission of caring for creation, including our community. In fact, we are the point at which earthly things like empire and nature meet God. We are the bearing on which the two mate and rub against each other. Our task then, is to take to God the needs of creation and bring to our community God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing Our Community to God<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We bring our community to God through prayer. So many of us have experienced recently the bitter divisions of a politics driven by a secular push for power. I wonder how things would be different if instead of scoring points, we offered prayers. I wonder how things would change if instead of shouting insults we said a prayer. Of course, a prayer isn\u2019t just words. If you pray for the terrible pandemic to stop, wearing a mask, staying apart, are ways of making your prayer concrete. If you pray for someone insulting you instead of conjuring a better insult, you can\u2019t post your response on Facebook or Twitter. It takes faith to pray and the results aren\u2019t always evident; faith is not faith that demands immediate visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We bring God to our community through our lives, through living in the light of the Gospel. That means sharing ourselves in the community. Voting, for sure; after all, what is a vote except you sharing your best thought toward the advancement of our whole community. Demonstrating the mind of Christ, as we\u2019ve been talking about, living in a humility that listens to others, values others, and refuses to let the world\u2019s boundaries keep love from spreading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive Caesar what is Caesar\u2019s and God what is God\u2019s\u201d\u2014  that\u2019s what Jesus said to the Pharisees and the disciples and it\u2019s what he says to us today. We are God\u2019s living treasure. If we bring our community in faithful prayer, the whole testimony of the gospel is that God will hear and heal. If we will faithfully, prayerfully, hopefully give God what is God\u2019s, God will work with it like a baker making bread; that God\u2019s spirit will come into it like yeast and raise it up until all God\u2019s children are fed and realize the wonderful love of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are God’s living treasure in our community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[101,109,108,3,2,69],"tags":[264,263,16],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-pentecost","category-matthew","category-scripture","category-sermon","category-worship","category-year-a","tag-church-and-community","tag-politics","tag-prayer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}