Proper 24

October 16, 2005

James Derkits, Seminarian

Those Pharisees. Matthew’s gospel wouldn’t be much of a story without them. Today, in our Gospel, they have gone and plotted a way to entrap Jesus. They came up with a plan so good, that they decided to send their disciples in instead of themselves. They also sent along some Herodians, or, some local politicians for good measure. Official witnesses.

They approach Jesus showing the most honor they can muster: “Teacher’ they say ‘we know you are sincere, and teach the way of God.’ Jesus must be suspicious at this point. “You show no deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality.

Tell us, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?

The standard party answer for the Pharisees at the time would have been no. They believe that God is their only King, and the only one who should be paid tribute. This may be why they threw in the line about not showing partiality…God is the only one to be paid deference, no one on earth.

This is why they brought along the Herodians. If Jesus is going around telling folks no to pay taxes, Herod, the local King, would want to know about it. This is all part of their plan to trap Jesus.

But Jesus does something they don’t expect. I mean after all he is God. Jesus asks for a coin that they would use to pay taxes. He asks who’s image is on it, and who’s name. So, he says, give to the Emperor what is the emperor’s. But give to God what is God’s. Now there’s the tricky part. This is the piece at which they were ‘amazed, to such a degree that they couldn’t respond. The thing is, he didn’t just tell them about paying taxes. He shifted their whole perspective. One moment they were tricking this wayward preacher, the next minute the wayward preacher took an ordinary coin and showed them that while the coin was marked as the emperor’s, ultimately, even the coin, and even the emperor is God’s. They were focused too narrowly, they had managed to place the emperor in a ‘worldly’ category, and their own religious life, along with God in a separate ‘spiritual’ category. He made them ask the question “What is God’s?”

When I first moved to Houston, I had to ask myself this same Question. I grew up surrounded by forests and went to college in a small town with a river running right though the campus. In those developing years, I had learned to seek God in nature. In fact, one summer during college, I was working in Jasper Texas, away from my group of friends, and with some folks I didn’t exactly get along with. I began a practice of prayer while I was working, walking though the woods. I would try to notice the deatails of the natural world around me, and remember that God’ had created all this, that God’s creative work was all around me. My spiritual life was focused on finding God in nature…then I move to Houson.

I found myself in a place lacking of the Great Outdoors. I found myself surrounded by concrete and crowds of people who seemed to be consumed with greed. Working long hours, driving fancy cars…I found the whole city, a very “worldly” place. In our xn tradition, some want to separate the ‘worldly’ from the ‘spiritual.’ Some would have us believe htat this world Is not of God, and that only a heavenly realm is God’s. This world is somehow separate.

That’s how I felt about Houston. I though back to the natural settings I loved, where I had learned to pray “God’s in-print is here, in this tree, in this river…”

Then I remembered a story a bishop had once told me. His spiritual life had hit a dead end. So his mentor explained to him the Hindu greeting Namaste. The concept is the supreme in me greets the supreme in you. The hands are placed together to symbolize the coming together of two parts of the same whole. The head is bowed in respect. This bishop said he was sent to the DC subway to sit and practice Namaste with a Christian spin. He was to see each person, and pray “Christ in me bless the Christ in you.” After doing this for a time, he was to add the prayer “The Christ in you, bless the Christ in me.”

I began to practice this. Trying to remember X’s presence in those around me, and I realized that the ‘worldliness I had seen before was just the reality of people’s lives. The messy playing out of caring for families and following dreams. I saw those in my community at Christ Church Cathedral coming on Sundays not to enter a spiritual place leaving behind the evil world. I saw that they were bringing themselves and their worlds close together with God to make sense, and ask the question: “What is God’s?”

When Jesus told his questioners to give the Emperor what is his and God what is God’s he put a new spin on the question. Yes, this is worldly, but ultimately it all comes from God. Ultimately it all Goes back to God. All things are God’s. Even the emperor was a creature of God,

What do we think of in our lives as being God’s? This space is Holy for us, but it does not make the rest of our lives un-holy. When we gather we don’t escape from the evil world and enter into a spiritual realm. The worldly and the spiritual are here together. We remember that in this simple meal of bread and wine. We eat together as we remember ‘you are what you eat.’ We go out from here recognizing that the X in us does bless the X in all those that we meet, and the X in them, also blesses us.

We are called to remember that X is in us and others. If we ask what is God’s, the world begins to look differently. We can realize that at times we must give to the emperor what is the emperor’s, that our lives are in this world, and they are messy…but our lives and our world is also God’s creation. It is only when we forget that all things are God’s, when we try to separate what is worldly from what is spiritual, when we try to separate anything from the love of God that Jesus stops us, asks us to Give to God what is Gods, and again, we too become amazed.

Namaste.