Religion and Spirituality

Bearing the Cross (Sermon November 2, 2014)

Matthew 23:1–12 (NRSV)

Jesus Denounces Scribes and Pharisees

(Mk 12:38–40; Lk 20:45–47)

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ² “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; ³ therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. ⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶ They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷ and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸ But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. ⁹ And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. ¹⁰ Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹ The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Every year at the end of October the children across our land engage in a festive and fun filled evening of trick or treating. It is a day that has been surrounded with fun, legend, and myth. Called things from the devil’s birthday to a high church holiday for centuries because there is much history behind this holiday, Halloween. Many claim that it is a pagan holiday because it is connected to the Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), which is the holiday that the ancient Gaelic people celebrated which marked the end of harvest and the beginning of winter, which also corresponds to the darker half of the year. Of course this day is filled with spooky tales and mischief, mainly because as darkness falls our imagination can get the better of us. I also mentioned that this time of year is also a high church holiday. How can the church celebrate a pagan feast day one might ask, the answer is actually easier than you might think. November 1^st marks the feast of All Saints or All Hallows, this is the day where the people of the church would remember those great and faithful people that moved the church through the dark days and into light. November 2^nd, All souls day, which very similar to All saints except it focuses on remembering those people that may not have been well known throughout the church but have been of great importance to your own spiritual life. Why do I mention these holidays that we barely know of and as Quakers have never celebrated, because they are very important days.

Before the invention of calendars religious people of all faiths and traditions used the pathways of the sun and stars, and the cycles of the moon to mark time. They became very good at studying the paths and judging what the sun, moon, and stars would do in the future. Making the star gazers seem almost magical when in reality they were just really good at observation. So every religion from the Druids to the Hebrews to the Hindu in India all had their stargazers that would mark the time and would make observations and suggestions. Even scripture encouraged the Hebrew people to use the moon to mark the time for their various feasts. So every religion around the world has holy days that correspond with other religions. There are often similarities to the holy days as well, I am not saying that they are the same but similar because ancient religions would often use nature to illustrate their religious teachings. The transitioning days from October to November is important because that is the time-frame where the days become shorter and nights become longer. Imagine in a time before artificial lights how those days would make you feel. There are powerful teachings that can happen in the days of darkness.

Darkness has always represented fear and death, when the darkness overtakes the day the world itself seems to die just a bit. The days are colder, the plants wither, and the leaves fall to the ground. It is easy to become depressed and frightened, because nothing is growing and the weather becomes harsh, survival is a struggle. That is why All Saints day is on November 1, to remind us of all those that have gone before us that have faced dark days and have carried the light into that darkness. But October 31, All Hallows eve, or Halloween holds another important nugget of history. It was on October 31 in the year 1517 a man nailed a document to a door of a church that sparked a reformation throughout the western church. The document was nailed to the church door on the evening before All Saints day to tell the church that they had failed to live up to their calling and instead of bringing light into the darkness they are snuffing out the candles of those saints that were bearing the light.

I bring up this short little history lesson, because this is the very sort of thing that Jesus is doing in the passage that we read today. The Reformation was not intended on splitting the church apart but was to breathe new life into it. In today’s scripture Jesus is also saying that he was not intending on ripping the Jewish faith apart, but was encouraging all who listened to follow the teachings of the religious leaders. Why would Jesus, who spent so much time criticizing the teachings of the various religious leaders tell his own disciples to follow their teachings? Because they were not totally wrong. They taught from the scriptures, they knew the words to say that would lead to a life with God, but they did lack something. Jesus then said do not do what they do. Jesus was starting a reformation, he was encouraging people to return to the foundations of the faith instead of participating in a show.

Jesus looks out at the diverse multitude before him, there are common people and rabbis, there are lawyers and laborers, there are priest and peasants and He says listen to the words and live by them, but do not do what they do because they do not practice what they teach. He then proceeds to list off grievances that he has with the teachers of the crowd. He speaks about the burden the teachers place on the people, the fashion of the teachers, the titles and honors they give to one another. Which are wonderful if you are the teacher but they do very little to encourage those that are listening.

They make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. This statement may seem foreign to most of us because it is foreign. A phylactery is the box of scripture that the devout would wear on their foreheads or bound to their arms. They were worn to remind them of the law throughout the day, the image of a phylactery is what the Revelation to John refers to when speaking of the mark of the beast instead of the phylactery of God a phylactery of man being bound to the forehead or the hand. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself it is just a simple reminder to follow God in every aspect of our lives, but it became a form of idolatry because they would make highly ornamental phylacteries that would detract attention from the reason behind the ornament and instead direct the attention to the one wearing it. A broad phylactery is a symbol of a very religious person just as a big, well-worn bible shows the world how religious we are today. The long fringes are the white and blue threads that hang off the edges of their prayer shawls and their undershirts, these fringes have a symbolic meaning behind them as a tangible reminder of how to stay connected with God. They are like the prongs of an extension cord connecting a lamp to the power source. Like the phylactery the fringe or tzitzit (pronounced SiSit) represents the commands of God that surround the person. The long fringes are to attract attention to the one wearing the garment instead of being a subtle reminder to the one being clothed to focus their attention to God.

These sorts of things are the very sort of things that sparked the reformation the church as well. The church leadership became focused on themselves instead of on God. They built massive cathedrals to house their bishops to show the rest of the world their own greatness, they used terms and titles that detracted from God and focused the attention of the people to what the man before them could do by giving or withhold grace. Traveling priests would use a day like today, All Souls day, to raise money for themselves or their projects by guaranteeing the faithful that their ancestors would get out of purgatory if only they would give all their money to the priest.

Heavy burdens, flashy attire, fancy titles are things that Jesus would not stand for. Simplicity of faith is what he demanded. You have one instructor, one father, one rabbi, and no matter how long the fringes are on your clothes you have only one way to God. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

The teachings of the early Friends looked at this passage very closely and made it foundational in their faith and practice. They removed all symbolism from their worship, all hierarchy from their governance so that all members were equal and focused on a singular idea. Every person is a minister of God, and lead by the Spirit of God. I liken this reformation to the process of distilling. When one is to distill something like water, you bring it to a boil to create steam, the steam then is funneled through cooling coils where it condenses back to a liquid form free from all impurities, simple pure water. Simple pure faith free from additives and impurities, a faith that is focused on loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Each of the reformation periods of history has done some form of this distilling process, maybe not to the same degree as Friends, but they have removed aspects of religion that detract from God so that God can be praised unhindered by the vanity of man. But as time moves forward often the fire lessens and the impurities again make their way into the faith.

That very thing is what we are seeing all around us. We are seeing the beginning of a new era in church history, an era where there is less focus on the little nuances of the established religious expression and more focus on the reality of the mission. Even in a simple church like the Society of Friends, traditions can cloud the purity of the faithful and the fires need to be stoked to bring us to a boil. But the question is why? Jesus did not condemn religion, he condemned the vanity of the religious.

The first thing that Jesus mentioned was the heavy burden placed on people. These burdens are the very thing that keep people from engaging in a relationship with God. It is the burdens that religious people place on the outsiders that binds them to their sin instead of releasing them to experience the freedom of Christ. They bind the people in their judgment but do not lift a finger to help. Think about that for a moment. As we consider the words and our actions are we adding weight to people’s shoulders or are we helping them along the way.

Jesus says that if we are to be his disciples we must take up the cross and follow him. I have often struggled with this statement, I have walked in faith not knowing what that cross really is. I have often heard people make comments about some struggle in their lives as being the cross that they have to bear, and usually I wanted to laugh at the statement because their cross never seemed as serious as the cross of Christ. But even as I scoff I am pained because I am not really helping them. This week though that statement became clear to me. The cross we bear is one of faith. One hand is stretching out to God as we struggle and strive to live our lives for him, and the other is reached out to those around us in ministry. God and man are pulling our bodies in different directions stretching us as we try to encourage all that we meet to reach out to God as they see us live among them. That is the cross we bear. It is the cross of becoming a servant, the cross of humility where we do not look at ourselves. Bearing that cross we lift the burden of others off of their shoulders and carry it for them so that they are free to reach across our bodies and grab hold of the hand of God.

That is the cross that Jesus bore for each of us, he gave his life so that we could become friends of God. He took on our sin and our shame so that we could freely reach out to the hand that God himself has stretched out to us. And as we take on Christ in our own lives we are there with him on that cross stretching out over the void between life and death, between hope and hopelessness, and on the border between light and dark. Are we willing to become that type of person? Are we willing to follow our God into that type of life? Or will we instead sit back with our big well-worn bibles and fancy clothes patting ourselves on our back that we are so much better than those people? Jesus is calling us to something more, something pure, something better and more satisfying, but the only way to get there is for us to humble ourselves and reach out our arms to those bound by heavy burdens, and to become the light bearers in the dark days of their souls.

As we enter into our time of open worship and holy expectancy, let us remember all those people in our lives that have taken up that cross for us and lifted the burden we had carried so that we could see Christ. Let us praise and thank God for those souls that offered themselves to be used by you so that we could be freed. And let us be willing to stretch out our own arms to become the reflection of Christ, and a bearer of light in these dark days of uncertainty and change.

Love God with All You Have and All You Are (Sermon October 26, 2014)

Matthew 22:34–46 (NRSV)

The Greatest Commandment

(Mk 12:28–34; Lk 10:25–28)

Dallas Willard RESOURCES http://www.dwillard.org Renovation of the Heart

³⁴ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵ and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷ He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

⁴¹ Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ⁴² “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” ⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

⁴⁴    ‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?

⁴⁵ If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Last week we were faced with one of the hardest realities that we must face as followers of Christ. The idea that all that we have really is not ours is something very difficult to consider. That concept that I am sure most of us would rather not dwell on because it goes against much of what we have grown to accept in our cultural identity. There is a reason that it is necessary to bring that concept to light again and again as we traverse the pathway toward eternity, because only when we begin to recognize the reality of stewardship over ownership can we begin to see beyond ourselves to see the image of Christ that is in all people. That one concept defines who is Lord in your life, and I admit that I struggle with that concept daily. I want to own, I want to call something mine, I want to be in control of my own destiny, and to blaze the trail of my own life. I want to be lord… I want to be lord.

Do you see why this simple concept of stewardship verse ownership can be dangerous?

The Pharisees came to Jesus asking Him questions and testing His teachings against their understanding of the Law. They liked how He silenced their opponents in the influence over people. But they needed to determine if He should be considered an ally or an enemy. So one of their leaders, a person that knew the Law intimately, came forward and asked, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” This question is one that is very similar to the concept of ownership verses stewardship, because at the heart of the question is the idea of control and lordship. What commandment is most important? They ask this question so that I can make sure that one thing could be covered allowing them control over every other aspect of their lives. This question is very important and speaks deeply into the spiritual condition of the first century culture in which Jesus made His advent. There has been a shift from the traditional and historical understanding of faith to something a bit more secular. A few years ago we watched a video called, “Everything is Spiritual” and in that video we were given a view that in ancient Israel there was not a division between that that is spiritual and that that is natural. That true spirituality is holistic incorporating every aspect of who we are as human beings. But this question the Pharisees ask shows an emergence of the compartmentalized human. There is an emergence of an idea that one can separate out and personally own one aspect of our lives and still be considered holy as long as we follow the most important commandments. Where did this foreign concept come from and how did it gain ground among a people set apart for the glory of God? This concept came from the western world, the Greek and Roman influence over the people. This idea of a compartmentalized man comes from the polytheistic culture where one can live as you want as long as you bring sacrifices to the temple to appease the gods.

Jesus answers them saying, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Have you really considered what that command is actually saying? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind? In the Gospel of Mark and Luke the same conversation is recorded and they add one other phrase, “with all your strength.” This concept is not new to Jesus but has always been the law, a concept alluded to at least three times in Deuteronomy, but what does it really mean?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart. The concept of the heart is one with very deep spiritual significance, and there is a reason that it is the first in the list every time this concept is alluded to in scripture. The heart was seen as the center of the man, that core or the very essence of who you are. The heart is the rhythm or the beat to which your life revolves. The wisdom of Solomon says guard your heart with vigilance for from it flows the springs of life. Protect the heart, guard it with vigilance because that is the core or the source of who you are. Now they did not have the medical knowledge we have today, but they knew that there was something very important about the heart because when the heart stopped everything else did as well. The ancient understanding of the heart was that all or our hopes and dreams, our passions and our temptations came from that central beat of the heart. It was necessary to guard our heart not because it was the source of evil but because what we allow deep in the core of our being will be pumped throughout. Love the Lord your God with all your heart means make God central above everything else, allow the spirit of God to course through the veins and capillaries of your life, saturating every aspect of who you are. Letting the rhythm of God become the beat by which you live your life.

Love the Lord your God with all your Soul. The concept of the soul is one of spirit or breath. So love God with every breath. May the love of God will every word that we speak, and may the love of God be a fragrance that we inhale and exhale. It is the breath that connects us to the world around us, it is the air that is filled with the spirit of God from the ancient Jewish point of view. That is why the law required their clothing to have a fringe to represent a connection to the spirit that was surrounding them, plugging them into the essences of God.

Love the Lord your God with all your mind. The word translated as mind means thoughts, intentions, and purposes. So to love God with our mind means letting our all of our thought and actions be directed by the wisdom and spirit of God.

So Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, Soul, and Mind literally means every aspect of your life should be devoted to honoring God. Honoring God from your very core, your thoughts and actions and with how you connect with the world around you. Jesus is telling the Pharisees that they have corrupted the faith, they have brought in foreign concepts of religion into a lifestyle of devotion to God, and that the first thing that they must do is God back to the faith of their fathers. Live, breath, and become a holistic person made complete in the relationship with God.

We live in a culture that likes to compartmentalize our lives. We like to be able to have our business life, family life, religious life, social life each aspect of our life divided up into nice little boxes where that are easily managed. We like to be lord. Jesus is telling us that that kind of existence is contrary to the life God intends for us to live. That type of life is disconnected and dead, there is no rhythm, no breath, and no mind. This is the very thing that the early Friends saw when they rebelled against the Church of England, a life that was disconnected and compartmentalized. Where people could have facades that they would wear into the steeple houses that were religious and then a totally different face when they went out and lived the other six days of the week. So they said that all of life should be a sacrament, holy and devoted to God.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your Mind. But that is just the beginning. The Pharisees asked for the most important commandment, Jesus gave them two because they are connected. Love your neighbor as yourself. I want us to stop and consider this along with the idea of loving God with all that we have and are, and connect it to the concept of ownership and stewardship. If we are lord the core of what we do is devoted to building ourselves up, but if God is at the core of who we are then the things of God would then be the purpose of everything that we do. Last week Jesus taught us to give the emperor what is the emperor’s and what is God’s to God. It was mentioned last week during our time of open worship that the image of the emperor was stamped on the currency but the image of God is stamped on the human. That image is stamped on every human. So if God is at the core of all that we have then we give all that we have to honor His image that is in every human around us.

Think about that for a bit. Let the laws of God flow through your mind, the dietary laws, the laws about mildew on clothing and in buildings, and the laws of hospitality and fair treatment of even the aliens living among the tribes of Israel. Every aspect of the law is devoted to honoring and preserving the image of God that is present in every human life. Take care of the body, take care of the dwelling places, take care of those around you, honor God with everything that you have because all that you have is not yours but God’s, because everything we have is stamped with His image.

This leads us to a very difficult questions, do we do this? Do we nurture and feed that which is God in ourselves and honor that which is God in those around us, not that we ourselves are divine but because we have the image of God within us. Do we divide our lives up into nice little manageable portions in which we can lord over or do we allow the Spirit of God to course through our veins and become the very essence of who we are and what we do? Do we hoard up the things of this earth stamping our image on them and saying that they are our own or do we allow the image of God to seen on every aspect of who we are? Are we living our lives, every aspect of our lives, our work, family, our community, environment, and our faith, as a sacrament and sacrifice to God? Are we honoring the image of God in our neighbor, even if that neighbor is different than us in some way?

These are very tough questions and if we are honest we each would have to say no. No. Each one of us in some way has failed to love God completely. Each one of us has failed to allow God to completely weld every aspect of our lives together so that we can completely honor God and love our neighbor. But there is hope. Jesus came because we as humans cannot do this alone, all have fallen short, but Jesus who is fully human and fully God did it for us. He took on our humanity, lived the perfect human life for us so that those that call on his name can be joined into his humanity and stand complete before God, not by ourselves but in Him. And if we seek to join Him in His life He will empower us to be made more like Him, molding us to become the people we were created to be, complete in him to love God completely and to love our neighbor. We join Him in his life by making it our customer to worship to or to acknowledge that we are not God. By taking time to withdraw from our daily grind to join with him in prayer in an isolated place speaking to the Father and being filled and directed by the Spirit, breathing in the very breath of God and connecting with Him so that we can then be directed to love and to live the love of Christ with others. That rhythm of life, that holy rhythm shown to us by Jesus Himself is where we will find the strength and the power to live our lives as a sacrament fully devoted and saturated by God. It is in that lifestyle that we can be covered with the life of Jesus where it is not ourselves but Him that people will see, and we give back to God what is his.

Let us now enter into this time of open worship, seeking to Love God with all of our heart, and with all of our soul, and with all our mind, and be directed in how we can love our neighbor as ourselves.

Who is Lord? (Sermon, October 19, 2014)

Matthew 22:15–22 (NRSV)

The Question about Paying Taxes

(Mk 12:13–17; Lk 20:20–26)

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. ¹⁶ So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. ¹⁷ Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰ Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” ²¹ They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²² When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens in religious groups, something that happens with nearly every type of religious group no matter what the religion is. They make images of a god that meets their personal or corporate desires. In the pagan cultures there were gods of war, goddesses of love, gods of death, and gods of the harvest each of these gods represented facets of our human desires for hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Around each of these gods cults developed with religious rites and activities that one could participate in to gain favor with whatever deity they needed help from. You may say but that is pagan, in our Judeo-Christian culture we do not have a pantheon of gods like that, we worship one God. There is a problem with that statement because often we focus on an aspect of God more heavily than other aspect and even in our monotheistic faith we have set up images of God that often resemble personal ideologies.

I bring this up because faith and culture seems to be highlighted in the media constantly. For many of us we find this to be a great comfort, for others we find it discouraging. Our response has a lot to do with the image of God that we have idolized. But guess what this is not new in the history of religion. Similar situations like the ones we find ourselves in today have cycled throughout history. It was a cycle such as this that brought about the emergence of the Religious Society of Friends from which our church is rooted, it was a cycle like this that brought about the reformation of the church in the days of Calvin and Luther, it was a cycle such as this that separated the east from the west, it was a cycle like this that the first century Jewish culture in which Jesus lived and ministered to found themselves. These cycles are uncomfortable, they make us question everything about our society and the future of the world as we know it, but it is during these cycles that God brings about a new era and revival.

God is about to do and is doing great things around us. The kingdom of God is about to expand in a way that will lead us into a new era of the Church. But as time cycles on those of us caught in the whirlwind of history are left wondering what He is about to do. We look at the world around us questioning if this is the end or a new beginning. The answer can be found in the image of God that you have based your faith.

The first century, in which Jesus lived, was a social and political hot spot, war was always electrifying the very air that the people breathed, thunder bolts striking at any random moment as the energy ignited. There were groups of people drawn together by common goals and ideas, each of these groups would argue and fight over which was right and if for a moment you did not toe the line you would become a threat and an enemy to the common good as seen in their eyes. In today’s passage we meet two of those groups, the Pharisees and the Herodians, but they are not the only two groups by any stretch of the imagination.

It is important to note these two groups because they are not often seen in the same circles. The Herodians were a faction of people within Israel that supported the royalty of the Herod family. This is important because we often see rule of Herod as being a puppet of Rome, so we often think of the Herodians as being those that supported the rule of Rome. But that is not exactly the full truth. This royal family can trace back to the rebellion of the Maccabees which brought the nation of Israel to independence for the first time since their exile in Babylon. Herod the Great gained this kingdom and title by marrying the last heir of the Hasmonean Dynasty. So although he was a king under the rule of Rome, those that supported his rule and the rule of his heirs were not exactly happy with their overlords, but sought an earthly kingdom of Israel.

The Pharisees are a group we are more aware of, but often our view of them is skewed. The Pharisees wanted to bring about a spiritual and pure nation devoted to the books of the Law and teachings of the prophets. They were missionaries that actually converted gentiles into the Jewish faith. The Herod family was one of those gentile families that converted. The Pharisees set up schools, built synagogues, and took the faith out of the temple and into the communities where people spent their daily lives. But they were strict in their teachings. If you were a member of their synagogues you had to follow strict rules or face consequences.

The Pharisees promoted a theocracy and the Herodians promoted a monarchy. The Pharisees promoted a kingdom based on their teachings, while the Herodians promoted a kingdom based on cultural heritage. Both opposed outside influences from the polytheistic empire that ruled over them.

These two groups usually at odds with each other found common ground in their opposition of Jesus, because Jesus did not meet either groups’ ideologies. So they decided to put Him to the test. Notice how they approach, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” They acknowledge that there is truth in what Jesus has to say, yet they reject his teaching. This speak to the image of God that each of the groups hold. They say that He speaks truth because Jesus taught straight out of scripture, but he did not put the same twist on the words that they did. They did not know how to handle his indifference to their idolized images of God. Because He refused to judge people in the same way the Pharisees did He was seen as an enemy of God, and because he did not show partiality to position as the Herodians did again he was seen as an enemy of God. Each group had an image of what God regarded as important and what the anointed messiah would be. The problem with Jesus is that he did not fit in their image.

“Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”  Remember this is a question from the first century not today. Although we can see parallels due to the cyclical nature of history. Is it lawful to pay taxes to a government that you oppose? The conversation continues, “’Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax. ‘And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’”

I want each of us to really contemplate this discourse, let it soak down into marrow of your being. This exchange speaks deeply to our image of God and His relationship with mankind. It leads us to question where we draw the line between what is holy and what is common. It speaks to our understanding of sacred and secular, spiritual and material. It asks, “Who is the lord of our lives.”

This was not an answer that they expected. Both groups wanted Jesus to take a political stance supporting an independent Israel, but Jesus stepped around the question and made them face the reality that their image of God was nothing more than an idol. Jesus looked them in the eyes and told them that their view of God was in error, that they were chasing after the things of man and totally missing what was important in the eyes of God.

So often we equate success and wealth with God’s favor, but it is what we do with what God has given us that matters. These two groups opposed the government that ruled over them, and justified their rebellion in their religious fervor, but what they were actually supporting was not Godliness but greed. That is why Jesus asked to see the coin, and that is why Jesus asked whose image was on the coin. They wanted to keep their worldly wealth to themselves maybe throwing some out into some charitable cause but ultimately they were living in rebellious greed. They wanted the benefits of living in a system that provided their wealth but rebelled against the demands that system required. We could sit on this for some time debating, but we need to move on.

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” What is the emperor’s and what is God’s? Our image of God, the image that so often times is skewed to justify our own actions, will dictate our answer to this question. But there is an inference In Jesus’ statement that is shocking, “You own nothing!” There can be only one ruler over mankind, man or God, and all that we are and all that we have belongs to one those rulers.

I know we do not like to hear that, especially in America. To speak those words makes me sound like a communist, but it is the truth. How can I say such a thing? I say this because where does all the fruit of our labors go in the end, we ourselves do not take anything with us when we go beyond the veil. All we have will be left to others.

We own nothing but are stewards. A steward in ancient cultures did not own the property they managed but was given the authority to make investments for their lord. So when Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” He is asking, “Who is lord?” Are we ruled by the ways of man or are we ruled by God? Do we invest the wealth that has been entrusted to us in the things of man or do we invest in the things of God? Are we building empires of man or expanding the kingdom of God?

How are we answering those questions? Be careful because it may reveal something about our image of God. I hope that it has made us a bit uncomfortable. I hope that these words have caused us to consider, even for a moment, that we might be wrong. I hope that in that discomfort we will be driven to seek an answer.

These were the questions that those of first century faced, and they are questions that we face today. This is the very reason why Jesus came at that moment, because it is in moments like these that the answers shape the future for the next generations. Jesus came to reveal God to us. He came to show us what is important to God and how to live a holy rhythm with Him. He not only show us by the example He has given but provides for us the way to live that life, through Himself. And He is calling each of us to join Him in that life of worship, prayer, and service. Through that holy rhythm we discern how to invest in the kingdom though investing in the lives of the people He has called us to minister to. If we choose to neglect that rhythm we are then ruled by the empires of man.

We own nothing, but are stewards. Are we stewards of man’s empire or of the Kingdom of God? As we enter into a time of Holy Expectancy let us consider this, struggle with the discomfort that it gives us, and consider who our Lord really is. And as we answer that question, ask your lord for wisdom as you invest in the kingdom you choose to live.