Image & Likeness: A Sermon for 16 October 2011

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.

In today’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 22:15-22, NRSV), the Pharisees are once again up to no good. They’re still trying to trap Jesus in what he says. 

They have been playing this game for a while now. In fact, I Googled the question, “How many times did the Pharisees try to trap Jesus?” but apparently no one has thought to count them. At least Google didn’t come up with an answer!

On this particular occasion, they send their disciples, perhaps in the hope that the disciples will do better, perhaps just because they are tired of public embarrassment.

“The Herodians,” by the way, are followers of King Herod, who want more than to trap Jesus. They want to kill him. This Jesus of Nazareth is a serious threat to the seats of power, both the seat of religious power, as represented by the Pharisees, and the seat of political power, as represented by the Herodians.

So… the game in today’s story is entrapment, and this time the Pharisees try a question about—heaven help us—taxes. 
                                     

Making the Sign of the Cross

I wonder how many good Christians across this country and around the globe are taking the bait this very morning!

You see, I think what the Pharisees were really up to was trying to get Jesus “off message.” That is, the Good News Jesus proclaimed, the central message he preached over and over again, was so threatening and so troubling to the religious mainstream, that the Pharisees sought over and over again to get him to talk about something else—to go “off message.”

In today’s lesson, that something else is taxes, and it is excellent bait. Who doesn’t have an opinion about taxes? Then and now, everybody… has an opinion… about taxes!

The Roman tax referenced by this passage was particularly controversial. Some of the Hebrew people believed that, as a matter of practicality if nothing else, it simply should be paid. Others believed that to pay taxes to the Roman oppressor was an act of collaboration with the enemy.

And so the Pharisees, thinking they had posed a simple “yes or no” question, just  knew that whichever way Jesus answered the question, he was going to be in trouble with somebody.

Interestingly enough, many people today seem to think that Jesus actually answered the question. I’m guessing, in churches across the country and around the globe this morning, preachers are using this passage to endorse their particular political view about taxes.

Certainly, a few minutes of searching the Internet will produce serious commentary going both directions. Some say, yes, this passage supports the paying of taxes. Others say, no, this passage really says that taxes are of the world and of political systems, and that those who belong to God are obligated only to tithe or give their money to charity. One source I found even argued that this story was Jesus’ coded encouragement to the Israelites to refuse to cooperate with Rome.

But notice that the representatives of the Pharisees and the Herodians understood that Jesus had once again skillfully sidestepped their question. Rather than pounce on his answer, as they had hoped to be able to do, they turn and walked away in amazement. They had been outwitted. Jesus stayed “on message.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get Jesus to answer for us today the vexing question of taxes? Who should pay them, how much, etc. I certainly know how I wish Jesus would answer that question!

But when we humans co-opt passages of Holy Scripture in order to line them up behind, and in support of, our various cultural, social and political orientations and opinions, we are not only getting “off message,” we are taking the name of our Lord God in vain.

And this truly is one of the most troubling aspects of our politics today: That various and sundry politicians lay claim to having God behind their candidacy, their platform, their agenda.

So… Jesus deflects the trick question by pointing out the obvious—that coins minted by a government have symbols of governmental power imprinted on them—very often the image and likeness of a person of power within that government. Then he enigmatically suggests that whatever belongs to Caesar should be given back to Caesar.., leaving them and us to wonder what, in fact, belongs to Caesar: Every coin that bears his likeness? Only some? Perhaps none?

And isn’t it interesting that Jesus himself did not have a coin. He had to ask for one. But, of course, Jesus spent his short life teaching against materialism. He never owned the kind of property the tax was levied against.

It’s almost as if the whole subject is just plain distracting and tiresome to Jesus. He dispenses with the question then drives home once again his own message: Give to God the things that are God’s.

Who can hear this story—either ancient Hebrew or contemporary Christian—without hearing the words of Genesis echo in our heart and mind? We know that we are made in the image and likeness of God.
                    

Hands of God and Adam

                                      
And from Genesis through the New Testament, that message resounds: We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are God’s people and the sheep of his pasture. He abides in us so that we can abide in Him.

Unlike the identical stampings of symbols of power on coins, each of us is a unique person, yet each of us is made in the image and likeness of God.

Jesus stays “on message”: You belong to God, he reminds us. Give back to God what belongs to God.

Moreover, the image and likeness of God is not stamped on our surface. It is not skin color, or shape of the nose, or gender. Rather, the image and likeness of God is planted within us. We call it Holy Spirit, and it is that homing device that dwells within each of us and keeps us turned toward God.

Many people want to turn Holy Scripture into a rulebook that covers all sorts of things. Not just taxes, but who can marry whom and what kind of government a country should have and what kind of economic system a society should have and on and on, ad nauseum.

Jesus gave us just two, and they follow directly from the understanding that we belong to God. For when we love God, and our neighbors as ourselves, we are giving back to God.. that which came from God.. and belongs to God..

AMEN

 

God's Politics: A Sermon for Pentecost*

The cover of our service leaflet this morning tells us beautifully what we celebrate today. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” it says, and the image is a dove on an orange, flame-like background.

If you were to go home and do a Google image search for the word “Pentecost,” you would find that human creativity has had a field day with this event.

My search produced more than 700,000 hits! I did not look at all of them, and I’m sure there were duplicates. But I can tell you that just the first page of results contained 21 images, each of which was unique but all of which were recognizable by most any Christian as images of the event we call Pentecost.

What would be the common elements of those images that make them so readily recognizable? Tongues of fire, of course, and almost always a dove. 

From the blog Walking in Light with Christ

But we just read the story from Acts, and doves are not mentioned. Only tongues of fire. So… why do most of our Pentecost images include doves?

The doves are, of course, a reference to the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer in the Jordan River. On that occasion, the Gospel stories tell us, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

It is not surprising, therefore, that many, many Christians down through the centuries have been baptized on Pentecost. And that brings us to another name for this particular Sunday. It is a name that comes from our tradition as part of the Anglican Communion, which began as the Church of England. The name is “Whitsunday,” which comes from Old English and means, nor surprisingly, “white Sunday.”

Why “white Sunday”? Because many people were baptized on this particular Sunday. And the color people wore to be baptized? White, of course.

The Christian church has always understood and affirmed a powerful and direct connection between the baptism of our Lord by water and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and the baptism of the disciples by the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire on Pentecost.

Now, I want to go back to those Pentecost images I found with my Google search for a few minutes. In addition to the dove and the tongues of fire, what would they have in common? Who do you suppose they depict receiving the Holy Spirit?

If you are thinking the 12 apostles, you are correct. Almost every image contains exactly 12 male figures… plus one woman. And who would that woman be? Mary, the mother of our Lord, of course. 

                                      

So, how does that fit with our story? Actually, not very well! Luke the historian, who wrote the book of Acts, begins his book with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Then in chapter 1 verse 12 he tells us that Jesus’ disciples return to Jerusalem and all were together in one place to await the coming of the Holy Spirit—just as Jesus had instructed them.

In Acts chapter 1 verses 13 and 14, Luke names some of the people who were there: The 11 apostles are named in verse 13. And then verse 14 says, “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”
                                       

From The Sacrament of Pentecost

At the end of chapter 1, Mathias is chosen to replace Judas. The story makes it clear that he and another man were nominated from a larger group then chosen by lot. In other words, many scholars think about 100 disciples of Jesus were probably present at the first Pentecost, and a number of them were women!

Our artists over the centuries have tended to simplify the picture a great deal. Again, many depict just 12 men and Mary receiving the Holy Spirit. A few of the images I found depict 12 men, Mary, and two or three other women. Only a couple of images actually show the larger crowd that was there, a larger crowd that includes a number of women, and children!

From The Bridge Online

So, why is that important? It is important because Pentecost has another meaning that tends to get lost in all the imagery of doves and fire and apostles and Mary.

The other meaning is that with Pentecost, God let it be known that the Gospel message and the Holy Spirit of God are for everyone. Not just a handful of Jews, but everyone. Not just men and one or two women, but everyone. Not just people who looked and thought alike, but everyone.

To fully appreciate how this happened, we need to go back to a story that is told in Genesis (11:1-9)—the story of the Tower of Babel. You will recall that the people of the earth at that time all spoke the same language: “one language and the same words,” says Genesis.

To us, that actually sounds rather good. Wouldn’t it be easier for us all to get along, to communicate better, if we all had one language and the same words!

What happened, of course, is that things went so smoothly that people got rather cocky and over confident. They decided they didn’t need God. And so, in Genesis 11, they say to one another, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

Now the Lord God comes to check out what they’re up to, and does not like what he sees. The Lord sees that the people are arrogant, and that they think they can build their way to heaven, without turning to the Lord their God.

And so the Lord puts a stop to the nonsense. The Lord goes down and confuses the people’s language, makes them speak all different languages so that they no longer understand each other, and the Lord scatters the people over the face of the earth.

This is often referred to as “the curse of Babel”—that humankind around the world developed different cultures and different languages. And it certainly made it harder for people to communicate and to understand each other and to get along.

But Pentecost changed all that. Pentecost reversed the curse of Babel, and today’s reading from Acts describes how it happened. The Holy Spirit comes, first, with the sound of a violent wind, and then tongues of fire. And, Luke says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

But that’s only half of the miracle! The other half is that the listeners “from every nation under heaven…each one heard them speaking in the native languages of each.” And what a diverse array they were: Parthians, Medes, Elamites… etc., etc.

At Pentecost, God demonstrated that it was okay for people to speak different languages, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit, people could in fact understand each other and worship together anyway.

In fact, there’s a special kind of unity, a unity of the Spirit, that comes precisely from diverse humans of different languages all worshiping the same God together. The coming of the Holy Spirit transformed human diversity from a curse that divides… into a miracle that unites.

AMEN.

*This sermon was preached at St. Luke's Episcopal Chapel in Grambling, La. as a dialogue with children. The adult congregation listened in and enjoyed it too.