May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 22
PROPER: 24A
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: October 20, 2002
TEXT: Matthew 22:15-22 – “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
ISSUE: Jesus is being challenged. The world challenges Christ’s call to be faithful to God. He responds with the clever answer of “Give to God what belongs to God.” The world is challenged in return to a careful examination of what is it that we owe to God, who has already given us everything by God’s grace. It is to return to God the appreciation and understanding of our being God’s sons and daughters.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today we are dealing with one of the most famous of the well known challenges that were ever put to Jesus: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Let me set this exchange between Jesus and his opponents in context. This passage in Matthew’s Gospel account follows the fact that Jesus has already upset the tables of the money changers in the Temple, and he has been offering some of his famous parables to the crowds in the Temple complex. He is gaining significant stature and honor, and this is of course threatening to other honorable leaders. So you have a kind of ganging up on Jesus.
You have two groups confront Jesus, Pharisees and Herodians. You can tell there is some desperation here, because Pharisees and Herodians were themselves enemies. Pharisees were very committed to the Torah and meticulously involved and keeping its 613 laws for the sake of their purity. The Herodians were loyal to King Herod, and thereby were something of puppets of Roman authority. It was safer that way in keeping the peace. Factions that were normally opposed to one another confront Jesus to dishonor him, and minimize his status.
First, they flatter him in hopes of knocking him off guard: We know you are sincere teacher; you teach the way of God; you show no partiality. Then comes the challenge that is designed to entrap him: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? If he says, ”Yes,” the large peasant following will be lost. And, he will be accused of not keeping the law. If he says, “No,” the Herodians will report him as against the Roman Empire for treason, and all the hopes and fears aroused by the triumphal entry into Jerusalem may cause an insurrection. It appears to be a no win situation. So Jesus asks them to show him a coin. And they produce one, which is their first mistake. “Whose head is this, and whose title?” he asks. Obviously it is the emperors. It bears the image of Tiberius Caesar, and the inscription, “Tiberious Caesar, Augustus, son of the divine Augustus, high priest.” Caesar is God. To produce such a coin and image in the Temple was a breaking of the first commandment, their second mistake. It was idolatry, and the characters producing it, are humiliated in the eyes of the people, and lose honorable status. They are seen as hypocrites.
Let me insert here what the tax is that they are discussing. It was a head tax, or poll tax, required of every man, woman, and slave from the age of 12 to 65, (few people ever lived to 65) for the privilege of living in the Roman Empire.
So then, Jesus makes the clever response: “Give therefore (or repay) to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The people were amazed! Notice that in the Hebrew Scripture reading from Isaiah, the prophet acknowledges that God can even use a heathen to restoration to his people. When the Jews had been crushed and exiled by the Babylonians, Cyrus, a pagan Persian, set the Jews free to return and rebuild their homeland. They saw this action, as the action of God working through Cyrus. (Isaiah 45:1-7)
But the real point that Jesus is making is whether or not the Herodians, the Pharisees, and all gathered there that day were paying to God what they really owed God. That is the question for all the centuries and for us today. It’s the question to all who pay allegiance and taxes to the state, and to those who call themselves the people of God: Christians, Jews, or Muslims. Do we pay God appropriately for the privilege of being in the Kingdom, or Realm of God? That’s tricky; be careful. We believe in the complete and full grace of God. You don’t have to pay anything to be in the Kingdom of God. It is free. God’s grace is for free. It is unmerited and unearned. You don’t buy your way into God’s Kingdom. It is tax-free! No charge, free admission. It is the free gift of God’s love to his people.
All this is tricky, because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have Jesus saying that the workers in the vineyard who came early in the day, and those who came late in the day and all get the same wage: the bountiful love, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion of God. And then say, well you have to pay God to be in his Kingdom. None of us have got that kind of money or merit. You can’t have the prodigal son received home with such love, and the angry brother begged to come in to the party by the loving father with great forgiveness, and then say you have to be good to have the Father’s benefits. The grace and love just pour out to all the same. The Episcopal Church says that the appropriate offering to God is tithe of our income. A tithe? A tithe of our incomes is but a pittance, an insult in the very face of God for all we have been given: life, reason, insightfulness, skill, talents, abilities, our children, our families, our world, love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, beauty, freedom! All that for only a tithe? Come on.
Show me coin of what we pay to God. Show it to me! Show it to me! Show it to me!
It is us! We are the coins in the hands of God! Show me the image of who is on the coin? It is you. We are made in the image of God. It was stamped upon us at our creation and acknowledged by the sign of the cross imprinted on our heads at Holy Baptism. We are the valuable and precious coinage of God. God is stamped upon us and within us. “You are sealed by the Spirit in Baptism, and marked as God’s own forever.” We are God’s. We express God’s worth in the world. We are his loyal legal tender currency in the present and coming Kingdom of God. We are given to the world as an alternative form and kind of currency, and economics. We are the worth of God’s love, of God’s forgiveness, of God’s longing for justice, of God compassion, of God’s mercy. We reveal by our loyalty, our faith and our devotion to the Great God Almighty how valuable and worthwhile God is, and how God’s grace is continually and lavishly extended through us, his coinage. We are the channels, the agents, the economy of God that is but treasure for the world that funnels the free love and grace to the world. We extend the treasure; we are the treasure by the grace of God. And God forbid that we should deliberately allow our selves to be counterfeit through disloyalty, indifference, or apathy.
Today we face some difficult times. The American economy is slow, in retreat or recession. But the retreat of the Christian churches in the world in their longing for safety, and lack of concern for human needs, and especially health care for all, and for involvement in justice needs for communities is a far cry worse, and in greater recession. We face a world where people are brutal and violent. The economy and coinage of God’s love must be taught and spread around more to give the world a greater treasure of love and hope than it presently experiences. We live in a country that uses the death penalty as a source of ultimate punishment, as if human lives really don’t count. When the coinage of God is the coinage of compassion and loving grace in opposition to the harshness of the world. We live in a world that solves its problems by violence and war, at the expense of human lives and great suffering, especially that of children. If we face situations where we must and feel forced into war for the greater good of God’s people, it must not be done with joy and a sense of triumph and delight, but with resistance, sorrow, penitence, and without gloating. If we gloat, we diminish the value of the God of peace and justice.
The long and the short of all this, the coinage of God is us. We are given full value, being in the image of God, and valuable to God, Sons and daughters of the high God, We are a part of the royal priesthood of God. Remember what you say at a Baptismal Service of a new person made a part of the Kingdom of God: “We receive you into the household of God, confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his royal priesthood.” How we give, share, sacrifice, love, become involved in God’s world is so very important. We have other commitments too, and we pay the powers that be, what is appropriate, but even the powers that be belong to God. God is gracious, bountiful, and all giving in his love, and we are the continuing expenditure, The coins of his Grace, in a world deeply need of the mercy and grace of God.
Sunday, October 20, 2002
Monday, October 14, 2002
PENTECOST 19
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 19
PROPER: 23 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 14, 2002
TEXT: Luke 17:11-19 – Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
See also: Ruth 1:1-19a
ISSUE: In this healing story, the leper who returns to Jesus to thank him seems at first to be the point of the story. However, there is much more in that boundaries are being expanded to include more people into the Kingdom that Jesus proclaims, the Kingdom of God. Christians are to be aware of that expansion and to respond with loyalty, faith in Christ as the way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ten lepers come to Jesus crying out for mercy, and for the possibility of healing. All ten are healed, but only one of the ten, a Samaritan, returns to thank Jesus. The question is raised why were the other nine who fail to return to give thanks to Jesus. At a first quick glance at this story we are left with the moral that it is appropriated to be thankful, and to praise God and Jesus for the many blessings we have received. It seems like something you learn first of all in kindergarten. Remember your mother telling you, “Remember to say thank you.” Part of my training for the priesthood included remembering to be always thankful, and recognizing gifts with a thank you note. People do like to be thanked and recognized for their generosity. This passage from Luke you might think was a reading that would be assigned for reading on Thanksgiving Day. It isn’t.
Being a thankful person is certainly an important aspect of life. While we may have many troubles and concerns at times in our lives, a deep examination of our lives often reveals that we do, especially as Americans, have much to be thankful for in material terms, and especially as Christians in terms of the forgiveness and love of God and one another which is such an integral part of our being. Being thankful is an important part of our present day modern up bringing, and moral life.
To get the most out of a biblical passage is to understand it in the context of the period in which it was originally written. Ten lepers, nine Galileans and one Samaritan come to Jesus begging for mercy, and healing as Jesus was traveling toward Jerusalem along the border of Samaria and Galilee. The leprosy of the Bible is not Hansen’s disease, or leprosy as we think of it. Leprosy of the Bible was most any skin disease that caused scaling and oozing of the skin. Anyone who had such a disorder was excluded from the community and required to live outside the town gates. They were to touch no one, and to cry out whenever they were in the proximity of other people, “Unclean, unclean, I am unclean.” The fact that they were separated from the community had nothing to do with whether or not their skin disorder was contagious. Many of the kinds of skin diseases were in fact not contagious. Hansen’s disease itself is not extremely contagious, and even spouses often do not catch it from their mates. The issue was not contagion; it was a boundary issue, and the lepers not excluded because they were contagious, but because they were ritually unclean, according to the laws in the Hebrew Book of Leviticus.
Anything that oozed out of the body was often seen as unclean. Women were considered unclean during their menstrual period. Skin was a boundary and anything oozing out of it was breaking through the boundary. When a Jewish person traveled outside of the boundaries of Israel, he shook the unclean dust of a foreign unclean land off of his feet when he returned to Israel. The belief was that you must keep Israel holy, as the Lord is holy. Oozing skin was unholy, unclean, and breaking the boundaries.
In the story you have nine Galilean Jews teamed up with one hated Samaritan, a half-breed and hated part Jew. They shared their suffering and exclusion in common, until they come to Jesus for healing. Pleading for mercy from Jesus, they are instructed to go to the Jerusalem priest to be declared clean. On their way, they are healed. They can go to the priest at the Jerusalem Temple, be declared clean and restored to their community. Except, of course, for the Samaritan. He cannot go to Jerusalem to be declared clean by the Temple priest, because he is a Samaritan. He belongs across another border, and because he was a Samaritan was unworthy of entering the Temple premises. He has only one to whom he can offer praise and thanks, and that is Jesus. He returns falls on his knees in thanksgiving and praise. “Get up,” says Jesus, “go your way; your faith has made you well.” The Samaritan who had been brought up hating Jews had put his faith in the healing power of Jesus a Jew. He returns offering thanks and intrinsic loyalty.
What is the story telling the world? What is its message? It is essentially about Jesus breaking down the boundaries that separate people from one another, from God, from the alienation of themselves from themselves. Ten isolated lepers, who are considered unclean, come to Jesus who is traveling along the border of Galilee and Samaria. Jesus restores them to community be removing the boundary, the leprosy or skin disorder that separates them from the whole community and from the worship of God in the Temple. They are healed and more importantly restored. The hated Samaritan, who has crossed the border or boundary line into Galilee is not excluded because of his heritage and background. He too is healed and restored and embraced by Christ Jesus. In return he gives Jesus thanks, because he has nothing else to give him in return. His only return is thanks and praise for the enormous unearned grace and love he has been forgiven.
In the very beginning of this story, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. We know what happens there; he gives his life for his friends and begins a new Kingdom founded in grace and love. He breaks down all boundaries that separate people from one another and from God. All that is required is loyalty, trust, faith in the mercy and hope of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Samaritan’s loyalty and faith is what saves and restores him, as the most unworthy of all. Interestingly enough, the nine Galileans do not return, because they believe all they have to do is do what the law requires: show himself to the priest. They believe that all they have to do is when they see Jesus again is to pay him back. But, the early church believed we are not worthy to pay back the free grace and love of God in Christ. You return loyalty, trust, faithfulness, thanksgiving for the unearned, unmerited, mercy, love and grace of God.
Let me also include some thoughts about the story of Ruth from the Hebrew Scriptures. Naomi and her husband left Bethlehem in Judah during a period of famine, and to save themselves took up residence in an alien land. Their sons grew up there and took wives from that land, Orpah and Ruth. Unfortunately all of the men died, leaving Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, all widowed. Widows were in poor straights in those days, so Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah to return to their families, and she will return to her family in Bethlehem. Orpah returns to her Moabite family and the Moabite gods. But, Ruth insists on returning with Naomi remaining faithful and committed to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Ruth is not pure Jewish, but she returns to Bethlehem with Naomi, (“Wither thou goest, I will go.”) remarries, and becomes the great grandmother of Israel’s greatest King David, who is obviously not a thorough bred. It is Ruth’s faithfulness and loyalty to Naomi, to God, in spite of the fact that she comes from the other side of the tracks that is important in the story. This story gives still another dimension to be holy as God is holy. God is faithful in his love and mercy, and salvation and future hope is found in faith.
At the present time, we are living in a very complicated and dangerous time. Suddenly we are conscious of many varieties of borders and boundaries, between our country and others, and between our religious faiths. It is a very frightening time, and we look for healing, mercy, hope in the face of a terrorism that limits our freedoms. Where do we turn? What is the right path of action? We fear that aggression will fan the flames of terrorism. We fear that non-action will bring about more and more terrorist acts. It seems like a no win situation. The human condition has confronted us with guilt in terms of why are we hated, with fear of a very uncertain future, with grief and mourning, with hopelessness. A new kind of spiritual leprosy separates us from the good. We inclined to close the boundaries that once were open to people in search of new beginnings and hope. Where do we turn? We turn to Jesus Christ. Lord God, we need healing. We need to be restored to peace and reconciliation. In our uncertainty there is only God to whom we can turn, and ask that the boundaries that separate us be removed, that our humanity and the human situation be returned to one of peace and of new found brotherhood in God. God enable us to rely in faith, loyalty, and trust upon you and your way of life for us. The terrorism we face today is evil. It does indeed confound us, and limits our freedom. In quiet assured confidence we turn to Jesus Christ to enable us to find our way by his grace to the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of peace and love, where old boundaries are torn down, and we find a widening of all boundaries that include all folk of faith and goodwill.
SEASON: PENTECOST 19
PROPER: 23 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 14, 2002
TEXT: Luke 17:11-19 – Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
See also: Ruth 1:1-19a
ISSUE: In this healing story, the leper who returns to Jesus to thank him seems at first to be the point of the story. However, there is much more in that boundaries are being expanded to include more people into the Kingdom that Jesus proclaims, the Kingdom of God. Christians are to be aware of that expansion and to respond with loyalty, faith in Christ as the way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ten lepers come to Jesus crying out for mercy, and for the possibility of healing. All ten are healed, but only one of the ten, a Samaritan, returns to thank Jesus. The question is raised why were the other nine who fail to return to give thanks to Jesus. At a first quick glance at this story we are left with the moral that it is appropriated to be thankful, and to praise God and Jesus for the many blessings we have received. It seems like something you learn first of all in kindergarten. Remember your mother telling you, “Remember to say thank you.” Part of my training for the priesthood included remembering to be always thankful, and recognizing gifts with a thank you note. People do like to be thanked and recognized for their generosity. This passage from Luke you might think was a reading that would be assigned for reading on Thanksgiving Day. It isn’t.
Being a thankful person is certainly an important aspect of life. While we may have many troubles and concerns at times in our lives, a deep examination of our lives often reveals that we do, especially as Americans, have much to be thankful for in material terms, and especially as Christians in terms of the forgiveness and love of God and one another which is such an integral part of our being. Being thankful is an important part of our present day modern up bringing, and moral life.
To get the most out of a biblical passage is to understand it in the context of the period in which it was originally written. Ten lepers, nine Galileans and one Samaritan come to Jesus begging for mercy, and healing as Jesus was traveling toward Jerusalem along the border of Samaria and Galilee. The leprosy of the Bible is not Hansen’s disease, or leprosy as we think of it. Leprosy of the Bible was most any skin disease that caused scaling and oozing of the skin. Anyone who had such a disorder was excluded from the community and required to live outside the town gates. They were to touch no one, and to cry out whenever they were in the proximity of other people, “Unclean, unclean, I am unclean.” The fact that they were separated from the community had nothing to do with whether or not their skin disorder was contagious. Many of the kinds of skin diseases were in fact not contagious. Hansen’s disease itself is not extremely contagious, and even spouses often do not catch it from their mates. The issue was not contagion; it was a boundary issue, and the lepers not excluded because they were contagious, but because they were ritually unclean, according to the laws in the Hebrew Book of Leviticus.
Anything that oozed out of the body was often seen as unclean. Women were considered unclean during their menstrual period. Skin was a boundary and anything oozing out of it was breaking through the boundary. When a Jewish person traveled outside of the boundaries of Israel, he shook the unclean dust of a foreign unclean land off of his feet when he returned to Israel. The belief was that you must keep Israel holy, as the Lord is holy. Oozing skin was unholy, unclean, and breaking the boundaries.
In the story you have nine Galilean Jews teamed up with one hated Samaritan, a half-breed and hated part Jew. They shared their suffering and exclusion in common, until they come to Jesus for healing. Pleading for mercy from Jesus, they are instructed to go to the Jerusalem priest to be declared clean. On their way, they are healed. They can go to the priest at the Jerusalem Temple, be declared clean and restored to their community. Except, of course, for the Samaritan. He cannot go to Jerusalem to be declared clean by the Temple priest, because he is a Samaritan. He belongs across another border, and because he was a Samaritan was unworthy of entering the Temple premises. He has only one to whom he can offer praise and thanks, and that is Jesus. He returns falls on his knees in thanksgiving and praise. “Get up,” says Jesus, “go your way; your faith has made you well.” The Samaritan who had been brought up hating Jews had put his faith in the healing power of Jesus a Jew. He returns offering thanks and intrinsic loyalty.
What is the story telling the world? What is its message? It is essentially about Jesus breaking down the boundaries that separate people from one another, from God, from the alienation of themselves from themselves. Ten isolated lepers, who are considered unclean, come to Jesus who is traveling along the border of Galilee and Samaria. Jesus restores them to community be removing the boundary, the leprosy or skin disorder that separates them from the whole community and from the worship of God in the Temple. They are healed and more importantly restored. The hated Samaritan, who has crossed the border or boundary line into Galilee is not excluded because of his heritage and background. He too is healed and restored and embraced by Christ Jesus. In return he gives Jesus thanks, because he has nothing else to give him in return. His only return is thanks and praise for the enormous unearned grace and love he has been forgiven.
In the very beginning of this story, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. We know what happens there; he gives his life for his friends and begins a new Kingdom founded in grace and love. He breaks down all boundaries that separate people from one another and from God. All that is required is loyalty, trust, faith in the mercy and hope of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Samaritan’s loyalty and faith is what saves and restores him, as the most unworthy of all. Interestingly enough, the nine Galileans do not return, because they believe all they have to do is do what the law requires: show himself to the priest. They believe that all they have to do is when they see Jesus again is to pay him back. But, the early church believed we are not worthy to pay back the free grace and love of God in Christ. You return loyalty, trust, faithfulness, thanksgiving for the unearned, unmerited, mercy, love and grace of God.
Let me also include some thoughts about the story of Ruth from the Hebrew Scriptures. Naomi and her husband left Bethlehem in Judah during a period of famine, and to save themselves took up residence in an alien land. Their sons grew up there and took wives from that land, Orpah and Ruth. Unfortunately all of the men died, leaving Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, all widowed. Widows were in poor straights in those days, so Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah to return to their families, and she will return to her family in Bethlehem. Orpah returns to her Moabite family and the Moabite gods. But, Ruth insists on returning with Naomi remaining faithful and committed to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Ruth is not pure Jewish, but she returns to Bethlehem with Naomi, (“Wither thou goest, I will go.”) remarries, and becomes the great grandmother of Israel’s greatest King David, who is obviously not a thorough bred. It is Ruth’s faithfulness and loyalty to Naomi, to God, in spite of the fact that she comes from the other side of the tracks that is important in the story. This story gives still another dimension to be holy as God is holy. God is faithful in his love and mercy, and salvation and future hope is found in faith.
At the present time, we are living in a very complicated and dangerous time. Suddenly we are conscious of many varieties of borders and boundaries, between our country and others, and between our religious faiths. It is a very frightening time, and we look for healing, mercy, hope in the face of a terrorism that limits our freedoms. Where do we turn? What is the right path of action? We fear that aggression will fan the flames of terrorism. We fear that non-action will bring about more and more terrorist acts. It seems like a no win situation. The human condition has confronted us with guilt in terms of why are we hated, with fear of a very uncertain future, with grief and mourning, with hopelessness. A new kind of spiritual leprosy separates us from the good. We inclined to close the boundaries that once were open to people in search of new beginnings and hope. Where do we turn? We turn to Jesus Christ. Lord God, we need healing. We need to be restored to peace and reconciliation. In our uncertainty there is only God to whom we can turn, and ask that the boundaries that separate us be removed, that our humanity and the human situation be returned to one of peace and of new found brotherhood in God. God enable us to rely in faith, loyalty, and trust upon you and your way of life for us. The terrorism we face today is evil. It does indeed confound us, and limits our freedom. In quiet assured confidence we turn to Jesus Christ to enable us to find our way by his grace to the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of peace and love, where old boundaries are torn down, and we find a widening of all boundaries that include all folk of faith and goodwill.
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