16 Oct 2011
16 October 2011 - 18th Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 22:15 - 22
In the name of God: Earthmaker, Painbearer, Life Giver. Amen
Some years ago before I was ordained I did an Introductory Pastoral Care Course at Prince Charles Hospital. One of my first visits was to a lady in her 80's. She seemed quite bright and reasonably strong. I asked her when she expected to be going home. "Oh," she said, "I won't be going home. The doctors don't realize it but I'm dying."
We talked for over an hour until the nurse came to give her treatment. She had told me much of her life story and was anxious to tell me the rest of it. I offered to come back the next week but she insisted that would be too late, so I agreed to come back in two days. I did that and she was able to tell me the rest of her story. She talked of her childhood, her parents, her own family, her divorce and remarriage; of things she had accomplished that she was proud of and of things she regretted; of times of tragedy and deep sorrow and of joy.
The next Thursday I called in to her ward to be told that she had died. ‘Quite unexpectedly,' the nurse said.
I wondered who she would have told her story to if I hadn't visited. But when I thought about it, I realized that she had really been telling her story to God. My presence perhaps just enabled her to speak it out loud. It was a prayer really - a thanksgiving, a confession, an offering of self - of the events and circumstances and choices that made her who she was - it was giving back her life to God.
I was reminded of this lady when I was reflecting on today's gospel.
You see when I am writing a sermon there is a process involved. First I read the gospel, a few weeks in advance and let it just sit in the back of mind and percolate.
Then I read some commentaries - consider the context of the story - how it fits in the gospel; the background to the story; relevant details of the culture of the time; what community was this written for and their context and culture; how the story has been interpreted over the years and what commentators are saying now.
After I've done that, I reflect on what this gospel means for me personally; a shift from head to heart perhaps - from study to prayer. What is God saying to me in my life right now through this story and what might God be saying to us as a community right now in this gospel?
So that story I shared with you came back to me in the heart part of that process - from praying the gospel if you like. I still have to reflect more about what God is saying to me - or to you - in that story.
Let's go back to the gospel story and to the commentaries. Today's gospel is a very well known story about Jesus - especially the line which we once translated as "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." William Loader in his commentary says that this is a story that is frequently misunderstood. It [has been] interpreted as justifying a separation of ... religion from economics and politics. It has been used to bolster the view that religion is private;... the church is about getting to heaven, not about how things are run here.
Loader goes on to say "I am sure Matthew would be astonished at such an interpretation. It was almost impossible to separate politics and religion in Israel in his time." 1
So how else can we understand this story?"Give to the emperor the things that are the emperors, and to God the things that are God's."
When Jesus says to ‘give' to the emperor and ‘give' to God, the word he uses is often translated as to ‘give back'. It has the sense of giving back that which already belongs to the other person.
Hence we give back "The things that are the emperors" and "The things that are God's". How do we know what things belong to the emperor? As Jesus demonstrates with the coin, they have his "head" - his image on them! How do we know what things belong to God? They have God's image on them! What has God's image on it? We do - we are made in the image of God and are called to reflect that image in the world.
What then are we to give to God? We are to give God ourselves -- our whole selves, our whole lives. 2
It was a very different world in Jesus' time but some things don't change, taxes still cause passionate argument and controversy. In America, President Obama is trying to reinstate higher tax rates especially on the very wealthy and faith is very much part of the debate. And that should be a good thing surely - Christians applying their faith to their whole lives.
Except I find the way the bible is used by some Christians in that debate is quite disheartening. Not only is it interpreted in ways that seem to me to go against what the gospels teach, but the bible is used as a weapon to attack and to demean those with different views.
If you think about it, this is the way that the Pharisees used the Law against Jesus. Jesus recognised their malice but was able to respond with a wisdom that confounded them again.
How can we as Christians be more like Jesus and less like the Pharisees?
Today's gospel tells us that we are to give to God the things that are God's; that is we offer our whole self to God - body mind spirit and heart. We are reminded that we belong to God and are each called into a unique relationship with the living God.
Reading the bible, interpreting it and acting on it is all done in the context of that relationship with God. Not apart from it. As Paul tells us in today's reading from Thessalonians, the message of the gospel comes to us not in word only but also in the Holy Spirit. 3 If we use the Bible as a weapon, I believe we do violence to our relationship with God.
Rather we bring the word to prayer; into dialogue with God and we listen with our whole selves - with hearts and minds. If we use the Bible in this way it can draw us into deeper relationship with God. As Jeremiah says, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
This week and every week, perhaps, we can reflect on the gospel as part of our prayer; listening for what God is saying to us right now, at this very moment of our life.
Jan Richardson in her internet blog "The Painted Prayerbook," says, "It's one thing to know the surface of the scriptures, and another thing entirely to enter the Bible as a place where God meets God's people. Entering the bible, with the desire to meet God enables us to [ask our questions, and to respond to God] in a dramatically different way. We can travel the scriptures as a tourist thinking we know everything about a place because we've visited it a few times [but if] we travel the scriptures as a pilgrim open to the presence of God in every place, we cultivate a humility 4 that enables us to give our lives back to God.
I'm going to reflect some more on what God is saying to me in that story. I know I feel inspired by that lady I visited in hospital who faced death so peacefully - perhaps because having already given her life back to God, she had nothing to lose.
Knowing that my life belongs to God, if I intentionally give it back to God week by week in prayer, perhaps then, I too can face both life and death peacefully, knowing my life is held safe in God and it cannot be taken away. Amen
Lee Gauld
1 William Loader http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtPentecost18.htm
2 Brian Stoffregan Exegetical notes at Crossmarks http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt22x15.htm
3 1Thess 1:5
4 http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/10/14/taxing-questions/ adapted
