Amazing Grace

Matthew 22:15-22  

The Pharisees Question Jesus by James Tisson

        Did you hear that final sentence in our gospel this morning? “When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.” What was it about what Jesus said that amazed these disciples of the Pharisees who had been sent to Jesus to try to trap him? Was it that he saw through their thinly veiled guise, through their conniving and treachery? Was it the way that Jesus turned their words and intent around, in fact ensnaring them in a trap of their own making? Or was it simply the authority with which Jesus spoke?

        As we seek to answer these questions and those others that we might add, it is important to place this reading in its appropriate context.        This story occurs during what we know of as Holy Week. The shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David” have all but faded away as Jesus enters the divine space of these few days between his triumphant entry into Jerusalem and his tragic crucifixion.

        The temple leaders are trying in earnest to trap Jesus and fulfill their mission to destroy him. They have one goal in mind – to be rid of this man who is causing so much trouble with his cross-cultural message. But they have also been taking great care in planning his downfall, because they fear the crowds.

        The 1^st century Jews and everyone living in the Roman territories are required to pay an Imperial tax, the one being referred to here. Of all the taxes that they must pay, and there were many, this tax is without a doubt the most despised because this is the tax with which the people of Israel pay their oppressors to do the very work of oppressing them.  

        Jesus avoids the trap that has been laid for him by his questioners, by asking a question of his own, “whose head is this, and whose title?” Someone pulls a coin from his tunic. They answer, “the emperor’s. Perhaps it is at that moment they realize their folly. And they are amazed. Because Jesus knew. He knew they would reveal their divided loyalties by carrying this Roman coinage into this holy place, the temple. They knew that this money was idolatrous, bearing on it not only the face of the emperor but also an inscription that declares him divine or the son of a god.

        Jesus’ response must have cut them to the quick. “Give, therefore, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. Jesus doesn’t accuse them. Rather, he calls them to a higher fidelity than they had ever imagined; he calls them to live in a relationship to God that bears evidence of their faith and understanding, that everything belongs to the one true God, the Holy One of Israel.

        We, too are called to a higher fidelity than we can ever truly understand. Our gospel text raises questions for those who surrounded Jesus in the temple that day. It raises questions for us today. While Jesus raises these questions, he doesn’t give us pat answers.

        Instead, Jesus issues an invitation to another kind of life, where we acknowledge that although we do have responsibility to render certain elements of our lives to the world order within which we live, we also identify our deepest self as belonging to God. Jesus has made the amazing promise that no matter what we do or say, regardless of where we go, no matter what may befall us, we belong to God. We are and will always be, first and foremost, God’s own beloved children. Therefore, the simple truth found within this text has profound implications for how we live in the world, for the choices we make, and for how we value and conduct the various parts and parcels of our lives.

        One day, when I was about five or six years old, I got mad. I don’t really remember what was wrong, but on that day I decided to run away.

        I carefully and selectively packed my bag. Into my little suitcase I placed my favorite pajamas and a frilly dress my mother had just bought for me. I packed a sweater and my favorite stuffed animal, Andy the Panda Bear. Then I set out on my own.

        One of my neighbors must have seen me and ratted me out because I didn’t get very far before one of my parents caught up with me. I returned home for “The Inquisition.”

        “What were you doing?” I was asked. “Running away from home,” came my reply. “Oh, I see,” my parent responded. We may or may not have discussed the reason for my flight away from our home and family. I don’t really remember. But what happened next is forever etched in my memory.  “So, what do you have there?” they asked, pointing to my suitcase. I opened up and revealed the few treasures I had taken with me.

        Well, my parents told me. They would be really sad to see me go, they had really gotten used to having me around. But if I must go, I must. However, the suitcase would have to stay. In fact, they said, everything would have to remain here, because as my parents so eloquently told me, “you arrived in your birthday suit, and if you leave, you will have to leave in your birthday suit.” I guess it was our own, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” kind of moment.

        I got their point. I elected to stay.

        You might say that my parents strong-armed me that day. Perhaps they did. They certainly shocked me. And sometimes that is what we need in order for us to see the truth. Perhaps, sly fox that he can sometimes be, that is what Jesus did that day as well.

        Remember the final sentence of our text, “When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.” Perhaps that conversation with Jesus was a sort of watershed moment for those men. We don’t really know. We don’t know for sure where they went afterward, or what they did.

        But I wonder, might hearing those words and considering the import of them for our lives today be a watershed moment for us?

        We reflect on those words of Jesus: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Exactly what is God’s?

        We’re going to take just a few moments now, and I am going to ask the ushers to give each of you a dollar bill. This dollar bill is a gift. It is a gift from me to you. It may seem like a crazy thing to do, for the pastor to give each of you a dollar bill, and out of her own pocket, no less! But you know what? That dollar bill really was a gift to me in the first place.

        The ability to earn it is a gift. In fact that dollar bill, multiplied by however many people worship here today pales in significance as only the tiniest portion of all that God has given me. Like the belongings that I placed into my suitcase that day when I was five, none of these dollars is truly mine except by the grace of God. As a precious gift to me, I am called to care for them, to use them wisely and appropriately. My use of them should bear out the fact that I belong to Christ.

        And so, my brothers and sisters in Christ, once you get your dollar bill, I invite you to take just a moment and look at it. Examine it closely, and then talk for just a moment or two with your neighbor. Tell your neighbor what you see in the dollar bill. What symbols are drawn on it? What words written upon it? What do they mean to you? What does this dollar bill represent for you?

        Next, I invite you to imagine what this dollar bill might buy. What kind of work might it do for you, either alone or combined with other money you have in your possession?

        I invite you then to do with this dollar bill what you see fit. There were no strings attached when you received it. If you need it, keep it. You can choose to give it away to a worthy cause. You can decide to put a portion of it or combine it with other dollar bills and place them in the collection plate. You can take a pen and mark it with a cross, then tape it to your bathroom mirror or carry it in your wallet to remind you that you are a child of God and everything you possess, from every moment of your day, to the very body you were given, your loved ones, to your last dollar, and finally your very salvation is a gift from God, given for you through God’s everlasting love and mercy. It is, quite simply, amazing!

        What would it mean then to see everything as coming from God and belonging to God? It means that you fulfill certain civic responsibilities because God made you a citizen with a homeland. It might mean that you see your role in creation through new eyes, and determine to become a better steward of the environment. It might be that the concept of the tithe takes on new meaning for you.

        How hard is it to see everything as belonging to God?

Christ on the Cross by Carl Heinrich Bloch

        Not long after this confrontation, Jesus will live out the kind of sacrificial giving that none of us will ever be able to truly appreciate on this side of the cross. In Christ, God risks everything. God knows the risk of the grace bestowed on us, and God gives it freely, anyway. That is the core of God’s grace. God is the one who takes the risk. God is the one that gives it all, in order that we might all have eternal life that begins in Christ Jesus.

        May the grace of God call us to the kind of amazement that stays with us when we leave this place today, and colors all the rest of our days. 

       

         

Questions, Questions, all we have are Questions

 Matthew 21:23-32

          I’ve performed a few weddings in recent months, and I have to tell you that I get a little squeamish over them. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind performing the ceremony. I enjoy getting to know the couple, hearing their hopes and dreams for a life together, listening to the story of what brought them to this point. I am happy to be the one to speak a word of God on the blissful day, and remind the couple of the perfect example of love that Christ gives us.

          It’s not the sermon that really gets me, nor dealing with nervous and sometimes frantic brides or bridegrooms, or teary-eyed parents; neither is it calming frayed nerves, or reassuring the couple that even if the flower girl and ring bearer should both stumble and fall, the day will still be magical and in the end, they will still be married.

Rather, what really gives me the shivers comes when I hear myself saying, “By the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife” – or words to that effect. I get squeamish because – really? By the authority vested in me? Whose bright idea was that? If I answer “the state” I have to question their authority to grant me authority! They don’t even know who I am! If I answer the church, then I wonder how and why the church has granted me this power. Is performing a wedding a civil action or a religious one? Is the simple act of blessing a marriage authoritative enough to make it stick?  “Authority” feels like too great a word for me.

          The word “authority” conveys different things to different people but generally connotes power, right or ability. And today’s gospel text begins with this question posed to Jesus about authority. While the chief priests and scribes question where Jesus’ power comes from, Jesus know their question is misplaced. Jesus has authority because of who he is, not where he’s from.

          For Christians, the words authority and Jesus go together. We confess that we believe Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, and as such has all the power and authority of God. We believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of Man. We trust that God, in Jesus, has redeemed the world and we have faith that God’s judgment for the world rests on the cross of Christ. God, the creator and giver of all things, the one to whom everything in heaven and earth and under the earth belongs, gives Jesus authority. Authority about which Jesus is never squeamish. Jesus is the authority of God incarnate, and has come to take away the sins of the world in God’s merciful act of salvation. To us, Jesus’ authority is obvious. Or is it?

          Do we sometimes question if what the scriptures tell us is true is, in fact, true? They can sometimes be confusing. Do we view the scriptures as the authoritative Word of God or do they simply convey with authority, the character and desire of God? We hope that our trust, our faith, and our believing in Christ is not in vain. We hope that Jesus’ words of forgiveness and redemption are authoritative and absolute. But sometimes, just sometimes, don’t we doubt? What if we’ve got it all wrong?

          It is doubt that reigns whenever we try to take our ultimate redemption into our own hands. It is doubt working when we think through our own understanding and works we might earn our salvation, that if we think the right things and do enough good that we’ll be okay with God.

          There are times when we all wonder if the world might have a point, that it is ridiculous to believe in a virgin birth, and preposterous to think that God would be born as a human baby conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. We fumble around when we try to explain how God could allow his own Son to die a despicable death on the cross.

          Yes, doubt is a part of our experience, and there are times when we confess with our lips belief in Jesus Christ and his power to save while we still harbor doubt in our hearts that this grace is a reality.

          The chief priests and the scribes of the temple don’t find the authority of Jesus to be obvious. Although Jesus invites them to believe in him, they don’t get it. They don’t understand who Jesus really is, and they don’t understand where he has come from or believe that what he promises is true.

          They try to trip him up by asking Jesus questions, because they don’t trust his word, his authority, or the power he seems to have. Have you ever noticed though, that although Jesus actually gets asked a lot of questions throughout the gospel narratives, Jesus doesn’t give many answers? As is often the case, in the text for today, Jesus answers the religious leaders’ question with a question of his own – and then follows with a parable.

          It helps if we put this story in context.  In the preceding verses of this chapter of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ has just made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem while crowds went ahead of him shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” The text tells us, “when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil asking, ‘Who is this?’”

Not long after, Jesus goes to the temple and drives out all who are selling and buying, and turning this holy place of prayer into what he refers to as a “den of robbers.” The blind and the lame come to him there and are cured and children continue to cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” And the chief priests and the elders of the temple became angry. The leaders of the Jewish community and the Roman officials all became afraid. And who could blame them? Jesus came in and made quite a stir.

The next day, Jesus curses a fig tree and then Jesus speaks to his disciples of the power of faith in his name. The conversation conveyed in the gospel passage today occurs in the time between Jesus’ triumphal entry and his death on the cross.

Jesus has gone to the temple to teach. Here he is approached by these angry temple leaders, who are determined to get rid of him. As I said, Jesus doesn’t just anger them, he frightens them. The rising, significant tension between Jesus and the Jerusalem leadership is coming to a head.

What the leaders don’t understand is that Jesus’ authority is based in who he is, rather than who or what he can prove himself to be. Robert Farrar Capon writes, “This is not something he can justify to their satisfaction. He is asking them to believe in him; they, at best, are trying to decide whether they can find room for him in their minds. And because Jesus knows there is no way of ending such a standoff, he simply contents himself with parrying their thrusts. In the face of their questions, he continually frustrates them by being what he always was, a fox, a rebel, a bad boy who refuses to answer except with questions of his own.” And by so doing, he puts them in a bind.”

There is no good way out of the fix the leadership find themselves in if they answer the question Jesus poses about John the Baptist and they know it, so they say, “We do not know.” And Jesus being Jesus, then tells a parable. Once again, while Jesus doesn’t directly answer any of their questions through the telling of this parable, he does give glimpses of what the kingdom of God is like and how God, and king and ruler of the kingdom, operates.

We have this story of the two sons and as usual, it is not as clear cut as it might at first seem. After describing how the two sons respond to their father when we sends them out into the vineyard, Jesus poses the question about which one did the will of the father. The response he then gives to the leaders’ answer is perplexing at first glance. But as he frequently does through these parables, Jesus gives us much to reflect on regarding God’s salvific love and life in the kingdom of God.

The fact of the matter is that both sons have done something right and both have done something wrong. Both in a sense, have shamed the father, in a culture that is heavily bound by honor and shame. The first son seemed amiable and respectful enough in his first response to his father’s request, but then shamed the father by not keeping his word and not doing what his father asked. The second son said “no” to his father and with that response shamed his father out of the gate. Later, however, he had a change of heart, and did the work asked of him.

Both sons have made the father angry. Both sons need a change of heart. Yet the father still loves them both. The father still reaches out to both. Is either beyond the reach and scope of the father’s love? How does the father judge either son? 

             We hear this text as a parable about judgment. But we see in it that the bad decisions of neither son was able to keep him from his father’s love. As a parable about the Kingdom of God, Jesus promises us here that none of our wrong or right decisions determine our ultimate outcome. God’s grace causes God’s judgment to be borne out on the cross, in Jesus, who takes on all our sin and shame, and promises life to all who believe. Jesus tells the temple leaders “even the tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Here again we see the reversals that God in Jesus brings: the first shall be last and the last, first.

          Through our baptism, we are each welcomed in God’s grace. By Christ’s authority we are transformed from sinner to saint, from poor to rich and from beggar to honored guest at the feast of God’s delight.

          We are given the grace to believe, as endless life begins in this kingdom of God, life which cannot be taken away. We are given gifts to work on behalf of the kingdom, but it is never these actions, no matter how noble, that earn us God’s love and mercy. God has already made that determination on behalf of the world. Our doubts don’t condemn us, and our works don’t save us. All who believe have the power to become the children of God, and God, the gracious merciful father has already forgiven us and assured us a place at the table. That, my friends, is very good news indeed.