A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, October 19, 2008
Matthew 20:15-22
Joe Wurzelbacher couldn’t have anticipated the uproar that would follow from his question at a political campaign rally this past week. The man now known as “Joe the Plumber” asked Barack Obama what the impact of proposed tax policies would be on Joe’s hopes of buying a small plumbing company.
Up to that point it was no big deal. Then John McCain quoted “Joe the Plumber” at Wednesday night’s debate. Back and forth, Joe was mentioned a dozen times and quickly becoming a symbol of the very real dilemma of how we imagine the American dream and how we pay for it.
• How do we balance our personal well-being and security with the rightful demands of our nation as a whole?
• What is the role of churches and other non-profits?
• How much goes to the costs of government, and what role do we expect the government to have in encouraging the successful without abandoning the truly needy?
But more simply – which taxes, and how much, are “right”? The question of the ages! I wonder whether Joe the Plumber had read today’s Gospel: a trick question from the audience, and an answer that satisfied some but not others.
Matthew tells us the Pharisees and Herodians approached Jesus and the Pharisees laid a trap. Remember the Pharisees were like lawyers, responsible for strict obedience to the temple Laws. The Herodians, as their name suggests, staunchly supported the secular Roman governor of the region, and by extension, the whole Roman Empire.
Is it legal, and is it right, for a devout Jew to pay the heavy census tax demanded by the Roman government?
The questioners reasoned they had cleverly setup a yes-no, black-white, right-wrong dichotomy. Either way Jesus answered he’d be in trouble with the partisans on the other side.
In his familiar response Jesus asked someone to produce the Roman coin the empire had issued as common currency. And one of the Pharisees produced a Roman denarius with the image of Caesar, and the line “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus.”
Oops! Carrying a graven image in one’s purse violated the commandments in Exodus. A devout Pharisee would never carry a Roman coin. Jesus pushed ahead:
Whose image is it? Caesar’s! Then give to Caesar whatever belongs to him.
Jesus could have stopped there, but dug deeper: AND give to God what is God’s.
That’s the nub, of course. Jesus wasn’t dividing the world into two realms – one belonging to Caesar and the other to God. It’s not as though Jesus was dealing cards – taking everything and shuffling it up and then giving one to God, one to Caesar, one to God, one to Caesar.
God and Caesar aren’t really the problem. As long as we’re part of a society there are rights and obligations that we have to acknowledge. Caesar has a just claim. Jesus affirmed that truth.
But he was acknowledging that Caesar has a claim on some, on a small part. And, God has a claim on it all. Further, Caesar sends a bill, demands payment, and exacts harsh penalties if we refuse to give Caesar his due… now as then.
What of God? Ah… we’re so busy keeping accounts with Caesar that we naively imagine we can ignore and avoid God’s just claim on us, and who we are and what we have. So we rationalize that as Caesar demands more, God will settle for less. Could be.
But I recently read a troubling report in the current issues of Christian Century. Three authors compiled statistics from various polls and surveys about American Christians and their charitable giving.
I won’t confound you with details, but briefly mention five general trends:
1) 20% of self-identified Christians in our country give no money to anybody – not to churches, and not to secular charities in any form.
2) The vast majority of self-identified American Christians give away less than 3% of their annual income to all their recipients combined.
3) The higher your income, the smaller percentage you give. Or, stated inversely, the lower your income the greater the percentage you give for others.
4) Christians are much less generous than people in other religious traditions, and
5) Christians are barely more generous than people with no religious identity at all.
I said the report is troubling; I didn’t say surprising. These have been the trends for many years. These facts mean trouble for religious and charitable organizations such as ours, especially in these tougher economic times. Even more, such news means trouble for those who don’t know how good it feels to give generously to something they believe in, something that makes this world a better place for everyone.
The secret to life is balance… between God and Caesar, between us as individuals and our communities, between income and outflow.
I saw this lesson graphically displayed on one of my visits to the Holy Land. Far to the south of the golden city Jerusalem lies the Dead Sea. We approached it from the highlands, then through the Judean wilderness, and down to the waters that range from sky blue to emerald green. At 1,200 feet below sea level it’s the lowest place on earth and draws water from every direction. Every day nearly seven million tons of water pours into it from the Jordan River and many small streams.
But the Dead Sea is indeed dead. No fish or plant can live in this water. Ironically, this huge sea into which so much fresh water flows is actually poison. Why? Because the Dead Sea has no outlet. Water flows in but doesn’t flow out. It lies in pools and evaporates in the hot Judean sun, leaving behind the most salt-saturated water on earth, about five times as salty as any ocean.
Here is a universal law of life, a fact of God’s creation: in order for there to be life, there must be a balance of inflow and outflow. The proof is all around us: in our ecosystem, in politics, in communities and family life, and within each soul.
There must be a balance of inflow and outflow.
When we attend Church and gain strength from the Good News, a community of good people, education for our children, counsel and visitation in our times of need, yet don’t give generously in return we’re likely to feel disconnected. When we eat more calories than our bodies can burn we know the result. So, too, in a family where some are always giving and some always taking. This lack of balance is like an illness that finally squeezes out the last signs of life.
One denarius bearing Caesar’s image is pocket change.
One of us bearing God’s image is of infinite worth.
We earn our coins. We pay our taxes. We relate to the world and all its Caesars. How easily we could let this side of life overwhelm us. This is the seductive voice of security, the siren call of so many voices that enchant us.
But Caesar’s likeness is not graven on our souls. There we find the image of God. If we want balance, if we want life, we must never forget.
Today is Consecration Sunday. We’ll dedicate our gifts to God through the life of this congregation. Your Church (our Church) needs your support. Every church and every non-profit will struggle more this year because of the economy.
But we’re not any church – we are your church, your family. We want to maintain our own level of mission giving to needs beyond our own doors. We want to care for our building and teach our children and support our staff with dignity.
I pray we’ll first look deep into our hearts and remember whose image is there. Perhaps you’ve given to the Church for many years. You began with a gift of, say, five dollars a week. You may have already figured you’d stick with the same gift again for 2009. Remember to balance the books and consider a more generous gift.
Perhaps you’ve thought before of increasing your gift but have always found other needs that have stood in the way — household expenses, a new car, a vacation. Remember the rule of balance and consider a radical notion — of forgoing something else in order to give more to God’s work.
More importantly let’s return to the lesson of the Dead Sea. Forget budgets, and mission and program and building and staff. Forget whatever good our Church does in the world.
Ask a single question: what happens to your life when you find the balance between income and outflow? What is the blessing to your soul when you gratefully receive everything from God and then give generously in response?
When we receive abundantly from God’s bounty and give nothing or too little in return, we lose our balance. Like the Dead Sea, something inside us dies.
Caesar will demand his due, and we’ll pay it under penalty of law.
God’s call to us is much more subtle. No threats, no punishment – but a heart-felt warning that if we let life get out of balance we’ll sacrifice the joy of doing great things for God, and making a greater witness of Christ’s saving grace. Certainly, we are blessed by God to be a blessing.