Sermon Text

I’ll bet you think you already know where this sermon is going. I mean, we’re all familiar with this story, and the preacher is now going to tell us, more or less skillfully, just what’s what in church-state relations. He won’t tell us whom to vote for, because our preacher doesn’t do things like that, but we know where this sermon is going, anyway.

Well, if that’s where you think this sermon is going, I have a surprise for you. It isn’t! Oh, there are definitely implications in what I want to say about how the church relates to the nations in which it finds itself, and how individual believers should relate to their nations, but that isn’t the main point I want to address this morning.

I want to start off by recognizing that this story, as is also true of fully one-third of the parables told by Jesus, has to do, first and foremost, with MONEY. Money is a powerful force in most of our lives. Although most of us have what 90% of the world’s population would consider to be an overabundance of it, most of us would like to have more. We form at least some of our notions about self-worth around how much we have, or how much we earn, or what we can get with it. We show as a society which jobs we consider to be worth more by how much we pay entertainers and athletes. A study done by the American Baptist Convention showed that Americans in general spend considerably more on buying tickets in state lotteries than they do on contributions to their churches.

But I’m getting away from the story. Just remember that the Pharisees and Herodians had decided to entrap Jesus, even though they didn’t really like each other very much, and they decided to do it with money, and what money represents for us.

It’s clear from the outset that this is a trap. The Pharisees and Herodians first flatter Jesus, and then they ask him what they think is a lose/lose question. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” If Jesus says yes, then many of his followers would be disillusioned with him, because many people felt that paying the Roman poll tax was an intolerable burden, and an offense to observant religious faith, as well. Even handling the coins with Caesar’s image on them was offensive to some. The Pharisees could then denounce him to the religious authorities. But if Jesus answered no to the question, then he would be guilty of treason, and the Herodians, who were on better terms with the Romans than the Pharisees, would be able to turn him in to the civil authorities.

On one level, Jesus’ response is cleverly evasive. He doesn’t answer the question directly, but throws the issue back to his questioners and to those in the audience, who are going to have to decide for themselves where to draw the line between the emperor’s jurisdiction and God’s jurisdiction.

But on another, and I think deeper, level, this is more than just a story about how Jesus outwitted the opposition. When Jesus asks for a coin, he then asks, “Whose image [eikon] is this, and whose title?” Because of a little book on Biblical coins that a friend in Little Rock gave me, I can now answer that question for myself. The coin had a picture of Tiberius on it, and the title read, “Tiberius, Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, High Priest.” The coin bears Caesar’s eikon, and so, says Jesus, it belongs to Caesar.

We humans, however -- crowd, disciples, Pharisees, Herodians, Presbyterian seekers and believers in Houston, Texas -- we all bear the image, the eikon, of God. We may pay the tax, we may participate in Caesar’s political or economic system, we may make small or large compromises with our sense of what’s right and wrong in that relationship, but the fact remains: we belong to God. We belong to God.

That belonging has some powerful implications. First of all, we need to notice that Jesus is not portraying God and Caesar as equals, and they are not merely symbolic names for separate realms. If they were, then we could be led to believe that the emperor has his realm, in which he can claim our ultimate allegiance, and that God is relegated some another realm. Quite the contrary is the case. We humans bear God’s image, and wherever we live and operate -- whether in the social, economic, political, or religious realm -- we belong to God. Our primary loyalties do not switch when we move out of the church and into the voting booth, or the market place, or the classroom, or the golf course. We belong to God.

Of course, when we read the story this way, it really doesn’t solve our questions of church and state, of taxation, military service, and the like. What it does is to set all our allegiances in the correct order. First and foremost, whatever other allegiances might seek to claim us, we belong to God.

So, back to where this story starts -- with money. The question Jesus responded to was not the superficial question about taxation, but the deeper question about allegiances, and about the basis we use for estimating our own worth. He laid down no hard and fast rules, but urged each and every one of us to look at our allegiances, and to remember that we belong to God. All that we are and all that we have belong to God.

That is where we need to start when we think about our giving. Now, it may surprise you, but I’m not going to tell you that all your giving ought to be done through the church. We all have multiple requests made of us for giving, and many of those causes are worthy. But church is where it ought to start, because we belong to God.

In the church, we should talk less about “giving” and more about “stewardship.” Giving is the final outcome of a process that begins with prayerful consideration of our stewardship of what has been entrusted to us -- all that we are and all that we have. You see, stewardship isn’t just about the percentage that you may give to the church, it’s also about the far larger percentage that you keep and what you do with it. You belong to God, and that allegiance forms and informs all our other allegiances.

In another place in his letters, Paul writes a good summary of what I have been trying to say: “For all things are yours,” Paul writes, “whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future -- all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” (1 Corinthians 3:22-23)

One of the faith statements in our Book of Confessions is the Heidelberg Catechism. The first question is that catechism is: “What is your only comfort, in life and in death?” The answer is: “That I belong -- body and soul, in life and in death -- not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”

When you think and pray over the next few days about your commitments of time, talent, and treasure for 2009, and your three-year commitments to the Fulfill the Vision Together Capital Campaign, I want you to keep this truth foremost in your mind. You bear God’s image. You belong to God, and because you belong to God, all your other allegiances need to be seen in the light of that primary allegiance.
What you give to the church, finally, is between you and God. But that realization shouldn’t make you sigh with relief. It ought to bring you to your knees, in humble praise and thanksgiving, and in dedication and commitment to the One to whom you belong.