“What We Owe”
This time last week, I was worshiping at Trinity College Chapel in Dublin. What was funny was afterward, they invited us to a reception - kind of like coffee hour - only there they had wine - port, I believe. When I explained how we had coffee hour with no wine, someone commented on the barbarism of it all. But I missed the coffee!
Hard to imagine it was just a week ago. But this has been a busy week for St. James’. A Vestry meeting, a new monthly service at the Hyde Park Assisted Living Center, the inauguration of this year’s Reading Adventures program, Regional Council’s Executive Committee Meeting, and just yesterday we had the men’s group, a funeral, and of course, our final Graveyard Tours of the season last night. This afternoon, the youth group will be raking leaves - and tomorrow, we observe the Feast Day of St. James’, our Patron.
We are an involved church, and I owe a debt of thanks to all those here who work so hard to make St. James’ a light on the hill. That’s part of what these new pictures on the walls are about - a way of recognizing how we live our faith.
But all this activity (and the fact that today begins our Stewardship Season) does beg the question: what do we owe to God? Our time? Our talent? Our treasure? How much?
Today’s gospel seems uniquely suited to address that question.
You see, the whole trap that the Pharisees and Herodians set for Jesus was designed around the question, "What do we owe to the emperor vs what we owe God?"
There are other questions: what do we owe ourselves, our posterity, our society, our economy...
But in the gospel, it could be reduced down to those two options.
Now, it was an odd group who tried to trap Jesus, an unlikely collusion between Herodians (who collaborators with the Romans) and the Pharisees (who hated the Romans with every fiber of their being) But they both feared and hated Jesus enough to come together. Besides, they thought that together, they had the perfect trap. They publicly asked him whether Jews should pay Roman tax. If he answered "Yes", then the Pharisees could publicly condemn him, and even his own followers would reject him. If he answered "No", then the Herodians could publicly condemn him, and he would most likely be arrested by the Romans.
Of course, Jesus was ready for them. He asked for the coin for the tax - a coin with a graven image on it probably produced by a Herodians (or from the money changers, though he had cleared them out the day before) - and they produced a Denarius with Caesar's image. And he uttered that famous line: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.”
In essence, he has just told them that they have to decide for themselves what they owe to the emperor vs God. They have to decide for themselves where their hearts lie and what they value. God or the things of this world?
And that's the question facing us. What do we owe to God vs all the emperors of our lives? It's an apt question in this Stewardship season: after all what is stewardship if not using the resources God gives us to further God's kingdom of love on earth? What is Stewardship if not caring for that which God has placed before us, whether it be people, places or things.
That’s what we strive to do at St. James’ - further the realm of God using the resources God gives us.
Those resources are made up of both things and people. This building, the parish hall - our graveyard ... and all the wonderful people who work so hard to show and share God’s love.
None of them - none of us - is perfect, by the way. Things fall apart, they smell, there are holes in places there shouldn’t be... and frankly, you could say the same about most of us, too.
But neither people nor places have to be perfect for God to use them. And this church has been a superb place for God’s presence to be made known for more than 200 years.
The ancient Celts had a phrase that could describe us well. They would call St. James’ a Thin Place, a place where the veil between physical world and spiritual world is so thin that there is communion between the two. Where the divine is more easily made known to the world.
That is one of the great values of the church - here is where we open the broader world of God’s presence to those who are trapped in the world of the emperor.
Those pictures on the wall? They show how we breach that veil, how we connect the world to the realm of God. We are the reminder that God is everywhere, with us always to the end of time. That is who we are.
And yes, this work does require things like buildings and staff and - by golly even taxes to the state. That’s what it takes so we can make available space for people to encounter God's love. That is what we owe to God - and we do what it takes to fulfill that obligation.
Sure, everyone has competing interests. We have our own taxes, our own housing & food, our own entertainments (which God does not begrudge us when they are healthy). But as we approach our considerations of what we owe, think about about Jesus with those folks trying to trap him. What was it he said that stumped them so completely? "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs God"
The catch in this statement - something that they all knew in their hearts, just as you know it in your hearts - everything is God's.
All belongs to God. In the coming weeks as you consider your pledge, consider those Pharisees and Herodians. Consider what belongs to the world and what belongs to God. And may we, when we offer our pledges in November, lift them up to God with the words we say at 8:00 when we receive the offerings: "All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee."
Amen.
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