Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
October 22, 2023 (21st Sunday after Pentecost)
Scripture: Luke 22:15-22
In our "Story for All Ages" times this fall, we have been doing different things with some chocolate coins. Today we pretended that each coin was worth $1Million (or $2Million for the coins shaped like toonies). I asked who wanted a million dollars, and gave the coins out to the congregation; then I asked a couple of questions:
- What are you going to do with your million dollars?
- What do you think that Jesus would do if he had a coin worth a million dollars?
In the church, we say that we are the "Body of Christ" - we have the opportunity to be like Jesus when we decide what we are going to do with the things that we have.
This seems like a pretty
straight-forward story, and I could probably make a pretty straight-forward
sermon out of it. “Give to the Emperor
the things that are the Emperor’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus almost preaches a mini-sermon there for us at
the end of this story.
But did you notice that he doesn’t really explain what he means by this? Is he saying that yes, you should pay your taxes to the Emperor, because taxes are paid using coins with the Emperor’s image on them? That meaning would make him pretty popular with half of his questioners, the Herodians, the people who supported King Herod who was essentially the Emperor’s puppet king in the region; but this answer wouldn’t make him very popular with the other half of his questioners, the Pharisees who believed that our full allegiance must belong to God.
Or instead, is Jesus saying that we should pay our taxes because the Emperor is only able to govern because God ordained the Emperor to govern? Again, a popular answer for his Herodian questioners, and maybe a bit more acceptable to his Pharisee questioners, because this meaning to Jesus’s answer gives God the ultimate authority.
Or, instead, is Jesus saying that we shouldn’t pay our taxes because everything belongs to God including our coins? This interpretation would be popular with the Pharisees, and probably all of the people in the land – no taxes! – but it is the wrong explanation in the eyes of the Herodians, and an answer seen as treason and deserving of immediate arrest.
Jesus never clarifies what he means here. “Give to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.” Is it a split allegiance between God and the earthly ruler with the things of the earth belonging to the Emperor and the spiritual things belonging to God. Or is it all things belonging to God, and the Emperor acting on God’s behalf? Or is it all things belonging to God, full stop? I don’t know. Jesus doesn’t clarify.
We are told that this answer amazed his questioners and they left him alone after that. Were they amazed at his ability to give an answer so ambiguous that all sides were happy? Or were they ashamed at being called out for possessing a Roman coin in the temple where, technically, they should only have been carrying temple currency?
Maybe this story isn’t so simple after all.
For me, the interpretation angle that I tend to fall into is that everything belongs to God, full stop. Even the coin in the story – it is made of metal that came from the earth that God created, so the metal in the coin belongs to God. And the coin bears the image of the Emperor, who, in turn, is an image bearer of God; meaning that the coin bears the image of God on it.
Give to God the things that are God’s. What belongs to God? Everything belongs to God! All of my possessions come from God. All of my skills and my talents are given to me by God. The air that I breathe, the water that I drink, the words that I speak, the love that I experience – all of these come from God.
So here comes simple sermon number 2. Give to God the things that are God’s; and since everything comes from God, we owe everything to God.
How does that thought make you feel? The thought that everything that you are and everything that you have belongs to God?
To say “All things belong to God” may be a simple answer; but it is anything but simple when it comes to practicing it!
To me, it comes back to what we were talking about in the Story for All Ages this week – how would God want us to use the gifts that we have been given? How can we use our gifts in ways that honour God?
All of us, as Canadians, have a certain amount of material possessions, especially when we look around the world for comparison. Jesus summarizes all of God’s commandments into love God with your whole being and love your neighbour as yourself; and so how can we use our material possessions in a way that loves God and loves our neighbour?
One of the greatest gifts we are given is time – how do we use the time we are given in ways that love God, love our neighbours, and love ourselves?
The same goes for the talents that all of us possess (especially evident after our Time and Talent auction on Friday night!). Same question here – how can we use our talents, whether those talents be musical or culinary or public speaking or prayer or healing – how can we use our talents in ways that love God with our whole being, and that love our neighbours as ourselves?
We all have a certain amount of societal power, whether that power comes from the colour of our skin, or our nationality, or our gender, or our sexual orientation, or our class, or the language we speak, or from who we know. How can we use this power in a way that loves God and that loves our neighbour? This question is especially fresh on my mind this week, having spent some time learning how to use my voice and my power as a Canadian voter to advocate for change so that there is no more hunger in the world.
What belongs to God? All that we have, and all that we are belongs to God; and I think that God cares about how we use these things. But when we use them in ways that love God and that love our neighbour… then I think that God is pleased.
Author C. S. Lewis tells a story in his book Mere Christianity in response to a question about why God could possibly care about what we do with the resources that we’ve been given – after all, God is all-powerful, and the Creator of all, while we are merely human.
Lewis compares God to a parent. If a child comes to their parent and asks for sixpence in order to buy a gift for that parent, the parent is going to give them the sixpence. (Lewis was British – maybe we would say that the child asks for a $20 bill to buy the parent a gift!) The parent is going to give the child the sixpence; and when the child gives the gift to the parent, is the parent going to say, “Well, that isn’t much of a gift since it was purchased with my sixpence to begin with”? No – the parent is going to unwrap the gift with great anticipation, and be delighted with what their child has given to them. Everybody knows that the parent is sixpence none the richer for the exchange, but everyone also knows that the parent is delighted with what their child has done.
And so it is with us and with God. When we use our material resources; when we use our time, when we use our skills, when we use our voices in ways that love God and that love our neighbours, God is delighted. For then we are truly giving to God the things that are God’s.
And may this be so. Amen.
(Note: I did clarify later in the service that I didn’t want people to go away with the impression that I don’t think that we should pay taxes. I think that things like health care and education and foreign aid are things that make God happy!)
Our $1Million and $2Million coins
from the Story for All Ages
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