Sermon for October 22, 2023 | Pentecost 21
Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-9, (10-13); 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22
I wonder if this quotation from the Book of Genesis rings a bell: “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness …. So God created humans in God’s image, in the image of God they were created” (Genesis 1:26, 27). It is a significant text because, though it is found in the Hebrew Bible, it does not refer to Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Algerians, Norwegians, Canadians, Brazilians, Egyptians, or diverse political persuasions. Its reference is to all human beings regardless of religion, gender, nationality, race, or ethnicity.
And what’s more, to say that humans hold the image of God is to say that humans are representatives of God on earth. Well, imagine this: that you are a physical representative, a tangible presence of God in the world today: in your self-understanding, in your relationships with others, and in your relationship with the earth and its creatures, its flora and fauna. What this means is that each of us shares in the divine capacity to create something good as well as care for that which has been created good: you know – the planet, a child, a spouse, a friend, other creatures. That is, we have not been created to diminish, degrade, or destroy life on earth – though we know that human history is filled with people and groups who have failed to live into their divine capacity to create something good, to sustain life.
In today’s gospel reading, a group of critics try to trap Jesus and thus diminish his popularity, his honor, among his followers by asking a trick question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?” I mean you can see what they’re driving at. If he says Yes, he’ll be perceived as a collaborator with Rome’s occupation of the land thought to be given by God to the Israelites. If he says No, he’ll be perceived as an opponent of Rome and branded as an insurgent, at least in his public speaking. His response is disarming for he says, “Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s” (presumably the tax, signified by a coin), but – but – “give to God what is God’s.”
The thoughtful person will ask: What might that be? What is to be given to God? Or better yet, What is given by God to humankind, to you and me, and how shall we be wise stewards of what is given to us? What we have been given, of course, is our fundamental identity as representatives of God, enlivened by the image, the presence of God in our souls. And nothing and no one can deprive us of this identity, this image. I am mindful of Nelson Mandela, the great opponent of apartheid, of the forced segregation of Blacks in South Africa and the ruthless discrimination they experienced at the hands of well-off white Christians. For his opposition to an ungodly government, he was imprisoned for 27 years. At the end of his imprisonment, and when asked how he survived what was intended to be a life sentence without parole, he noted that he found great strength in the Christian claim, taught to him as a Methodist, that he was created in the image of God and that no prison, no discrimination, no oppressive political regime could ever rob him of what God had given him.
What are we asked to give to God? Why nothing, for God needs nothing at all from us – except, well, except our very lives as they are lived out wisely and faithfully with others in this world, in the time that is ours on this earth. God needs nothing from us to make God happy or pleased with us. What God does need is this: God’s representatives, God’s people in the world, creating something good as well as caring for that which has been created good. And that, dear friends, should be enough to focus our energies, to say nothing of our lives.
Amen.