Give to God What is God's

 Matthew 22: 15-22

October 22, 2023

 

This scripture has been misused a lot.

Sometimes its used as a stewardship sermon

to try and persuade people to give some money

to God, and what we mean is give money to the Church.

Which isn’t awful, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus was

talking about here and trying to incorporate stewardship is hard.

 

I think it has been used in the past mostly,

to justify the separating of the work of religion

and the work of politics and commerce.

 

People used this to say that Jesus was telling the church

not to get involved in any part of politics.

Give to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor – earthly things.

and give to God what belongs to God – spiritual things.

 

This theory says that Jesus was saying that these things are separate – 

the realm of Caesar is money, finances, your business, 

and work life, your voting, your stance on issues.

And the world of God is praying, worship, hymns, spiritual stuff.

 

The belief was God doesn’t get involved in those other places 

A Roman Dinarius Coin

and neither should you.

Church people should worry about spiritual and eternal stuff.

Politics are worldly, always evil, and temporary –

as people of faith, we shouldn’t bother with it.

 

This is actually the stance that the Lutheran Church had taken

for much of its time as a denomination in America.

Political Quietism it was called.

It reflected the feeling that Jesus was only involved

in the spiritual and what happened to the soul after death.

The rest of the stuff that happens in the world is of no consequence,

so religion shouldn’t comment on it.

 

I mean the Lutheran Church, north or south,

didn’t have much of anything to say about the issue of Slavery

until the Southern half of the Lutheran church left the

General Lutheran church in 1863.

By then, the Civil War had been going on for two years.

 

Some people also use this scripture to criticize

the Christian church now, saying that it’s “too political”

which I get in some ways, but it’s actually hard for me to wrap

my head around when I try to think about it.

 

Politics is simply just the way that people in groups make decisions

about how we live together on this planet.

God and Jesus and scripture have a lot to say about that.

Some of those decisions are more controversial and

there are disagreements about them,

but all group decisions are political.

I suspect that when the church is talking about

something that people don’t agree with,

it’s called “too political”.

 

Now I believe in separation of church and state

The state should not mandate any religion,

even ones I agree with and love.

And religions should not mandate that its followers to

follow any political ideal or that it vote for one person or another.

 

And I’ve seen how many Christians have demanded

that they get special treatment under the law,

and they want the law to protect their faith alone.

Or they want their Christian teachings in public schools,

or they want to impose their specific, peculiar spiritual

practices and interpretations on the general public.

And I am here to say that is NOT how we should be

involved in politics as people of faith.

  

But as followers of Jesus we are compelled to

find ourselves in the public sphere

reminding the state what it’s supposed

to be doing with its authority and responsibility.

It means reminding our governments that the political systems

and the economic systems are here to serve the people 

that God has created and loves. In other words, all people.

 

The reality was, it was a very political world that Jesus came into

The time that Jesus was in was deeply steeped in politics.

People couldn’t get away from it even if they wanted to.

And Jesus was a very political person,

He was not a politician, he did not advocate for any politician,

He didn’t want to rule in any kind of political leadership.

He didn’t want his way to be the law of the land.

But he was political.

 

He political in how he advocated for people.

How he talked to them, and  how he talked about them,

He was political in the way that he kept the company

of certain people in public.  He was political in the way

that he talked about God’s forgiveness when

God’s wrath and anger was a way of controlling people.

He was political in the way that brought light to

oppression and human suffering.

He was political in the way he empowered the poor and oppressed.

 

Jesus was killed by the authorities for being too political,

for not staying in, what some people thought, was his lane.

If he had just commented on strictly spiritual stuff,

no one would have cared enough to arrest him.

 

At the time of Jesus, the Israelites were under Roman rule.

They had gone from being under one rule to another for many years.

The Romans were good in some ways, they developed conveniences, 

roads, methods of commerce,  And Romans allowed 

people to worship how they wanted, even the Jewish people.

 

And the Romans invaded and took control and then

required a ‘Tribute’ be paid to it – a tax.

Romans required two things, that you pay the tribute

and that you keep the peace.  

No protesting, no gathering in the street, no organizing,

definitely no telling people not to pay their taxes.

The Romans government required submission.

 

You had to worship Caesar (which was against Jewish practice)

And you had to submit to their rule.

And the Roman government was cruel.

The death penalty was a favorite consequence of the Romans.

 

Being under Roman Rule was an insult to the Jewish people,

like most occupation by foreign rule is.

So the question of paying taxes to it was always a sore spot.

Should we or shouldn’t we?

 

It says that the Pharisees were trying to catch Jesus- to entrap him.

If he said that the Jewish people should not pay the tax to the Romans, 

then Jesus could be arrested by the Romans for sedition.

If Jesus said that they should pay taxes to Rome, then

he would have lost his appeal to his Jewish followers.

 

But Jesus doesn’t answer yes or no.

Rather, he catches the Pharisees in their own trap:

First thing he does is ask the pharisees for a coin used for the tax.

the he asked them for a Roman Coin.

 

As we find out in the story, it has a picture of Caesar on it.

And it had a claim that Caesar was the son of God. It was an idol,

a graven image. Jews, especially Jewish leaders

were not supposed to have these coins.

There was specially minted Jewish money

that was not very valuable outside of Jewish

circles that they could carry. But Jesus asks for a denarius.

And the Jewish leader reaches in his pocket and takes one out.

Jesus catches them.

The religious leaders were telling everyone else to

follow Jewish law, and they were breaking one of the rules.

Even those that fancied themselves the closest to God

could not escape becoming a part of the Roman world.

 

Maybe Jesus could have stopped right there,

and he would have had one up on the people

who were trying to catch him in a trap.

But Jesus goes on.

 

He looks at the coin. It had picture of Caesar on it,

so give it back to him. Give him his taxes.

but remember always give to God what belongs to God.

It was a complex and subtle answer for a complex issue.

 

Jesus was not afraid of difficult questions,

and he was not afraid of getting into the fray of difficulty.

It’s not black and white. Not absolute.

It was complicated, like politics is. Like life is. Like living together is.

Like trying to love and serve all people can be.

I think that the lesson we can learn today from Jesus story 

is not to separate ourselves from the world and shy away from it

but to be involved with all its complexities.

 

Pay your taxes, be a good citizen.

But always make sure that God gets what is God’s.

And what is God’s? Everything.

God created everything in nature and every person.

And our involvement in the political sphere

is to make sure that the systems of the world,

care for all those things equally.

  

So when Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for civil rights

that was political.

When Pope Francis washed the feet of prisoners

on Maundy Thursday, that was political.

When we go to Town Council to advocate for

workforce housing, that is political.

When we strive publicly to love

and accept all people, that is political.

This is how Christ becomes manifest. How God’s love becomes 

incarnational and really present in the world.

 

But the objectives in all of those examples is not to

gain power or notoriety or special rights for our own religions,

it’s not to impose our religious practice or unique ideology or

rules or morality on other people.

It’s always to advocate for the under-served, those that world

and politics don’t always show love and respect to.

 

So we’re not asked, as people of faith, keep out of

the political sphere and the sphere of commerce.

Jesus is actually telling us to go into it.

To give it back to God.

To reform it so that it serves God’s purposes for it.

 

Give to God what belongs to God.

God wants us to specifically watch over

those who are most vulnerable.

It doesn’t matter what government or political party is in charge

we need to keep everyone true to that ideal at all times.

  

We are created in the image of God.

And not just the spiritual side.

We are not just half a coin.

We are not just souls hanging around the earth

waiting for heaven one day.

And God just doesn’t hover around in the ether and

let the rest of the material world go to seed.

God is interested in the whole package

the spirit and the body.

 

God loves us all, and God every part of us.

The neat and tidy parts and the messy parts.

And God wants that love to transform every part of our lives.

Not just one hour on a Sunday morning.

Not just our prayer life and our spiritual life and our home life.

But every part of our life:

Including our budgets, our communities,

our commerce, and our politics,

 

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

Give to God what is God’s.

And that is everything.

Come to the Party!

 October 15, 2023

Matthew 22: 1-14

 

Banquet
Hyatt Moore

We love this parable! Yay.

And it makes us uncomfortable.

It’s great! There’s a banquet! Yay.

And there’s destroying cities.

 

It’s a party for everyone, good and bad,

everyone that usually isn’t invited to parties! Yay.

 

But then there’s that poor guy who didn’t

wear a wedding coat, thrown into the outer darkness.

Dark Jesus is back again with another parable.

But don’t despair.

Remember, he’s still talking to the religious leaders,

And remember, we don’t have to throw everything out

that we know and believe about grace.

We just have to remember that Jesus thinks this is really important.

 

Let me tell you, Luke’s version of this parable

is more palatable it’s very nice and there’s no

city-wide destruction and no outer darkness

or wailing and gnashing of teeth, you can read that one Luke 14.

 

But still, we’re not in Luke this year, we’re in Matthew

And Matthew’s Jesus has a flair for the dramatic,

he tries to grab us in with exciting descriptions and consequences.

And this is the parable we’ve been given today so we have to deal with it.

And maybe it’s not all bad news.

 

So Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven is like this:

It’s like a King who has wedding banquet.

The kingdom of God is like a party!   Yay!

 

For so long, the church and God

and everything involved with it has been

depicted as a drag, a bunch of sad, serious, wet blankets.

I remember one member in my last congregation telling us that when

she was young she was told that she needed to stop smiling when

she was going up for communion.

People have confused spirituality with stoicism. And joy with disrespect.

But that’s not God’s way, that’s our way.

And that, I think that is part of the understanding of this

story that Jesus is telling to the religious leaders.

 

They were doing their own thing, and not God’s thing.

They forgot all the lessons their fore-fathers and mothers had

taught about God’s love, forgiveness, inclusion, abundance,

and all the rest of it, and they decided to take the easy way out.

The way of the world. The way of scarcity and fear,

threats and judgement,

in order to control people and get what they want.

 

But God’s way, God’s kingdom is like a celebration,

With great food, and drink, and decoration.   Enough for everyone.

 

So the Kingdom of God is like a celebration.

And he invites the usual suspects, other important people:

politicians, business execs, doctors, lawyers, art gallery curators, 

celebrities, and of course, religious leaders.

But they’re not interested in the king’s party.

They want to keep doing their own thing.

 

They dismiss him, forget about the invitation, they even get hostile.

Everyone is too busy doing their own thing, the religious leaders

are running things the way they want to run things,

and they don’t want to come and do God’s thing.

 

But the party’s there and the food is ready,

so the King asks his people to invite everyone else

everyone else who might actually do things God’s way.

Everyone that no one would have thought to invite before.

And they do, they don’t care who they ask: “Good and bad” it says.

Luke’s gospel describes the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame.

 

We know who they would be today.

We know who our own normally uninvited are in our day.

In God’s way, the table – real and metaphorically, is opened up to everyone.

 

And that’s the another great thing about this parable,

At God’s party everyone is invited. Yay!

 

The earliest church knew this, and it was known

for having rich and poor together, Jew and Greek, slave and free,

male and female, no one else did that at the time

and that was the earliest Christian calling card,

they were all one in Christ.

 

Rachel Held Evans, the popular millennial

theologian who sadly died in 2019 wrote:

“The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—

that what makes the gospel offensive

isn’t who it keeps out, but who it lets in.”

 

And that was Christ’s intent for the church.

And that is what got him killed in the end.

He opened up God’s party and therefore God’s power.

Satan hates that kind of stuff.

 

And frankly, the world – commerce, and business, government, 

and many of our institutions, systems, and religions hate that too.

Because it means sharing.

Because if we know it’s there for the taking, it’s free.

But if I can convince you that its scarce, and that I’m

the only one who can give it to you, then I can charge you for it.

I can get money, favors, actions, attention, and honor.

  

Still, today, the thought of inviting everyone

to the table and to the party is a scandal to many.

 

So the Kingdom of God is like a party,

and the party is happening whether we want to participate or not,

and everyone who normally isn’t invited to parties is invited,

(and those who ARE normally invited can come too.)

So Yay! For radical banquets that can’t be stopped!

 

But  that brings us to the most concerning part of this parable,

the King and that guest and his wedding garment, or lack of it.

 

To us it might look like the king is just mad because someone

was not wearing the right clothes or didn’t have the right look.

I know some of those joyless preachers in the past

have used this bit of the parable as an excuse to tell people

they had to dress right in church. But that’s kind of a ridiculous take.

 

So at the time, weddings at that time were kind of surprises,

the date wasn’t set a long time in advance.

When the time was right, the wedding started,

and someone would go out into the neighborhood,

and let them all know that the wedding was about to start,

and everyone was supposed to stop what they were in the middle of,

they would take their wedding robe out of the closet and go.

And if they didn’t have one,

the host would provide a wedding robe at the door.

 

The wedding robe was a garment that was simple

and non-descript, and everyone’s robe was similar,

meaning that everyone looked the same:

the king looked the same as the ditch-digger,

the farm hand looked the same as the business owner.

 

To wear the robe was a sign of solidarity, unity,

honor for the host and for the rest of the guests.

As I said, if they were too poor to have one on hand,

they would have been given one at the door.

 

So the man who came in wasn’t just flighty

and forgot, or too poor to afford one,

he would have had to reject it.

To not wear it, was a snub, it was arrogance even.

 

With Matthew’s own flair for the dramatic,

he’s saying that everyone is invited to the party. Yay.

But it’s not just a free-for-all, anarchy. Yay still, I guess.

 

God’s party is open to all people, it’s true.

And when we come to God’s party,

we’re asked to behave differently than before.

We’re not asked to change our identity, or our gifts,

or our uniqueness, we’re not asked to conform in those ways.

 

But we are asked to wear

The garments that cover our status and,

our superiority, our self-righteousness

and our judgmental nature that we left the house with,

and we are asked to put on Christ’s garments of

abundance, love, forgiveness, joy, inclusion,

service, self-sacrifice, and care for everyone around us.

Everyone at the table. Yay again.

 

Putting on that robe, and following Christ’s way

is how we keep this party going for everyone.

 

So don’t dwell in the outer darkness,

don’t worry about the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Don’t worry about those things.

Just know that Jesus is really serious about God’s party.

Believe in God’s abundance.

 

Just put on Christ’s garments,

and come to the banquet that God

has prepared for everyone.

 

When Jesus Gets Dark

 Matthew 21:33-46  October 8, 2023

The Wicked Tenants
James Jankgnect

 

This is the point in Matthew where Jesus
starts getting a little dark.

His stories are a little threatening, not very gospel centered.

Jesus has entered into Jerusalem at this point

and he’s confronting all the religious leaders there

and he’s obviously not happy with the work they’re doing.

 

Martin Luther once said that sometimes you have to squeeze

a biblical passage until it leaks the gospel.

 

This is one of those weeks.

There’s the landowner, there’s the tenants, there’s lots of killing.

This parable ends, basically with Jesus saying that the kingdom

of God is going to be taken away from those who don’t bear fruit

and given to someone who does.

Not too much grace going on here.

So, even though this particular parable might

not be easy to take in, we still shouldn’t avoid

the point that Jesus is making here.

 

When Matthew gives us “Dark Jesus”

we don’t have to avoid it or ignore it,

OR trade in our Lutheran understanding

of God’s grace when we hear it.

 

We just need to remember that at these times,

Jesus is being very serious.

These things are important to Jesus.

And when Jesus gets really dark and forceful,

he’s usually talking to people of higher status,

people in control, people with power.

Not the sick, not the poor, not the prejudged.

 

So in this parable, Jesus was talking to the

Chief Priests and the Pharisees,

the leadership of the church and of those worshipping God.

And now when we read it, we need to look at ourselves.

We are the tenants in the vineyard.

We are the keepers of the church now.

It applies, bishops, pastors, church leaders

and members of the Christian Church.

 

The question that it asks all of us: How are we doing?

What are we doing to bear fruit for the kingdom?

What are we giving back to God?

Are we doing what we’re supposed to be doing?

 

Are we giving the landowner what he wants,

or are we turning God away empty-handed.

It’s a legitimate question to ask.

If we’re here as a church for a purpose

are we doing that purpose?

 

Unfortunately, the way that the church has

often evaluated itself on this point is by how much we have.

When evaluate how we are doing,

the scale we often use is how many people do we have

and how much money we have.

 

Kelly Fryer, a Lutheran Church developer said it best:

She says that, even if we don’t say it out loud,

churches evaluate themselves in terms of “butts and bucks”

 

If we have lots of people and lots of money,

we assume we’re doing something right.

if we don’t, we assume something is wrong.

But is that what God wants?

Is that what Jesus thinks is so important?

 

When we evaluate ourselves this way,

we end up comparing ourselves to other churches

Those churches over there who have a giant building

Or need security to direct traffic in the morning.

They’ve got a lot of people, they must be doing something right.

And then, of course we compare ourselves,

to the “glory days” of the church,

Whether it was the 50’s or the 2010’s or the 1800’s.

When we think of the glory days

it usually has to do with the amount of people in the church

and how the church’s bank account was doing.

And we look back and wonder, what were we doing right then?

And then we try to recreate the “old days”.

Which isn’t really being the church in our own days.

 

But a bigger, wealthier church is not necessarily a church that

Is doing God’s will and following God’s mission.

But some churches have traded in God’s plans in order to appeal to the most people. 

Some Christian pastors have given up on the gospel

and made themselves into self-help gurus in order to appeal 

to the most people and have made heaps of money for themselves.

Some churches have become so focused on

Worship in order to appeal to the most people’s

preferences instead of doing what comes from their hearts.

Some churches preach hate every Sunday morning:

hate of people of other races, Religions, LBTQ people, 

and some of them are very crowded and have lots of money coming in.

Lots of large churches have given into only what

“the people” want instead of what God wants.

 

Now, there are plenty of churches that do have a lot of people

that do follow God’s call and many people have joined

to live that out that plan with them with them.

It’s not that large churches are bad.

But it’s not necessarily true that churches that are 

large in number and have lots of room in their budgets are always doing God’s will.

But we still often see it that way.

 

Butts and bucks, It’s pretty much an influence from business

from the world. Money and customers mean success.

That’s the fruit we think we’re supposed to bear

for the owner of the vineyard.

People are just numbers and commodities.

Krister Stendahl, was a professor at Harvard Divinity

and then he went on to be the bishop of Sweden,

he wrote extensively about Christianity in the world.

He spoke at the seminary when I was there, and I still remember

this little story from his lecture. He said:

 

“When God comes into the office in the morning, he doesn’t ask for

Christian growth statistics, he doesn’t ask

how many people have we added to the ledger

God asks ‘What have my Christians done for the Kingdom?’”

 

God isn’t interested in the raw numbers of

Christians in the world or members in our churches

God’s interested is in the mending of the whole of creation.

 

God doesn’t care about numbers.

God needs to get things done.

And maybe God can do that better with less people.

We never know what God could be up to.

I do know that God can do wonderful things with small churches too.

 

I also remember him telling us Jesus said to us,

“you are the salt of the earth”

But no one wants the world to be a salt mine.

 

We don’t need to be like that church down the street.

We don’t need to imitate another church in order

We don’t need to trade in the mission that we’re called

To in order to get more people and get more money.

We need to do what God needs us to do here

With the community that God has creation.

 

I think that  God has some great plans for us here.

We may not know what all those plans are yet,

but we need to keep our ears open for the moving of the spirit.

I do know that we’re not here as Christians just to make big and

glorious churches that make us look and feel good.

 

We’re here to serve God’s dreams.

Mercy and justice, things that flow naturally

out of us when we care.

That’s the rent we pay.

 

As we’ve done research for Christ’s 50^th anniversary

And I’ve been doing the interviews for the videos

We’re seeing these mornings.

 

And almost everyone said something like:

“We’re small, but. . .” as if we’re apologizing for it.

Not to criticize everyone, I’ve done the same thing.

But let’s stop apologizing for who we are.

 

This church has done some amazing things with the

Community that the Spirit has assembled here at different times.

Sometimes with 20, sometimes 200, sometimes 30,

and sometimes just 8 people.

We have made a difference in our community,

we have produced fruit for the Kingdom of God

at all the sizes we’ve been.

 

God wants us to love each other, and to love other people.

This is the kind of fruit that God wants back.

I think, right now, the landowner would be pleased

with Christ Lutheran.

Could we do more, could we pay more rent?

I’m sure.

 

As tenants, we always need to keep asking the question,

what does God want us to do now?

Where is the Spirit leading us now?

Not what’s going to get us the most people,

not what’s going to curb my anxiety about paying the bills,

but what is God calling us to do in this world?

  

Now, we still have the problem of this vineyard,

those tenants and that land-owner.

I so need to give you some sort of Gospel at some point.

 

If there is a way to squeeze any more gospel out of it, it might be this:

 

Every time those tenants broke their lease

and abused the servants that the landowner sends –

the landowner sends more, and more,

and then he even sends them his son.

 

Obviously, that landowner is desperate

to be in relationship with those tenants.

Obviously that landowner keeps hoping

that the tenants will turn things around.

 

And so it is with God and us.

We might not always live up to our

end of the bargain as tenants and care-takers.

But God loves us, and God loves the churches

that God has created,

and God has not lost hope in us.

and God will not lose hope in us.

 

Seventy times seven - over and over again -

God forgives and God reaches out.

 

Again and again.

God comes back to us