Render unto God that which is God's

Sermon 16OCT11

"Render unto God that which is God's"

Matthew 22:15-22
I Thessalonians 1:1-10

In one of Jack Benny's skits he was being held up by a robber. The robber with a pistol in his hand demands, "Give me your LIFE or your MONEY!". There was a long pause, and the robber getting quite nervous demands again "I said I want your LIFE or your MONEY!". Jack Benny looks at him and says "I'M THINKING, I'M THINKING!". That story illustrates two of the major decisions we make in our lives: What to do with our life, and what to do with our money. 

What we do with our life often depends on how much money we have to decide what do to with, and I must make this parenthetical expression today. Occupy Wall Street; that movement is going across the nation and the world. We live in a nation and in a world where the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. If you don't think the Bible has a lot to say about the poor and how we are to treat them, then I think you have not read the Bible; particularly the Prophets. This has to be a major concern. This is the seed of revolution! Some people don't even have a decision as to what to do with their money, because they don't have money to do anything with. They don't have food to put on their table for themselves or their children and the roof over their head is being taken away from them. This has to be a major concern. That's not what the sermon is about, but I had to say it. This has to be a major prayerful concern of all of God's people, it HAS to be.

As I said before, two of the major decisions in our lives are what to do with our life and what to do with our money. St. Paul, in our epistle today, spoke to the Thessalonians in a beutiful fashion about how they conducted their Christian lives. They are Holy examples in Macedonia and Achaia and others had heard of how they lived their lives in the Spirit of Christ with joy. Their lives were a Holy example, they were exemplary, it was a beautiful thing to see the way they conducted their lives in Christ. Then we get to the Gospel where, again, the religious authorities are trying to trip Jesus up. "Are we to pay tribute to Caesar?" The New Revised Standard translation says "emperor", which I guess is a little more generic. Our Lord says to them, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". That sounds simple doesn't it? The image on the coin was that of the emperor, the image on US is God. When you are Baptized and Confirmed you are MARKED, you are sealed as Christ's own FOREVER! That's the image that we bear; the image of Christ, the image of God. Therefore, we owe EVERTHING; our body, our mind, our soul to GOD. And that's not always easy to accomplish, but there it is.

There was a court jester who had gotten in trouble with his Caliph in Baghdad, but during his time of service he had entertained his Caliph beautifully and given him many laughs and so on. Somehow though he had become cross wise with the Caliph, so the Caliph said to him "I am going to demand your life, but since you have served me well in the past and brought me so much laughter I'm going to let you decide how you are going to die". So the jester responds to him "Dear Caliph, if it is possible I would like to die of old age". We don't always have a choice in how we are to die, do we? We do have a choice in how we are to live though. Remember those two major decisions we have; what we are going to do with our life, and entailed in that is what we are going to do with our possessions.

There was a family that had it worked out quite nicely; that the man was, as it should be, the head of the household. Therefore he was to make all the major decisions and his wife made the minor decisions. So the man worried about the "big stuff" like American Foriegn Policy, and the wife decided where they were going to live and how they were going to spend their money. I don't know about your household, but in ours that's how it works; my wife makes those "minor" decisions while the "major" decisions are left up to me. Perhaps that's the way it should be, she's certainly better at the financial decisions. Sometimes I slip up and make unwise monetary decisions, but that's another story. Anyway, those decisions about our life and money follow suite together. 

Luciano Pavarotti, the great operatic tenor, had a major decision to make about his life. He was good at two things, singing and soccer. What's interesting is his mother wanted him to be a soccer coach, and his father wanted him to sing. You would think it would be the other way around. He went to a teacher's college and graduated, was taught by one of the finest tenors of his day. The time came though that he had to make a decision about what he was going to do with his life. He went to his dad and told him "dad, I don't know what to do". His dad told him "son, you cannot sit between two chairs. If you try you're going to fall to the floor. You are going to have to decide which chair you are going to sit in." That's reminiscent of the words our Lord put to us: "I put before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose LIFE." Pavarotti chose to sing, and the blessing and the wonder that he was to the world of music is, perhaps, unsurpassed. Obviously he sat in the right chair.

Sören Kirkegard, the father of the existentialist movement also had a decision to make. He really would have preferred to be a father of another kind. He was engaged to a fine young lady, Regina Oleson. Early on though he broke off the engagement, because he realized his life had to be committed to writing, to philosophy, and to theology. He was going contrary to the philosophy and theology of his day in his expression of existentialism. He was saying the individual is of supreme importance; that every individual is at the center of God's decision making. That we all have to make our decision. So, Kirkegard made his decision and did not marry. He worked feverishly writing all his life and died at the young age of 42. In making the decision he realized that he would be going contrary to the thoughts of his day, and that if he had a family they would be exposed to the gossip and hatred of his critics. So his decision was for the benefit of the family that he "might" have had. He went on to talk about the importance of decision making; you decide for one thing, and therefore you do not decide for something else. 

There's an "either/or" involved in our decision making, and we never know what exactly is the "right" decision. There's something called "cognitive dissonance"; it's when we make a decision and then don't know if we made the right choice. One that comes to mind is something I haven't had to do in a long time, and hope to never do again. Buying a NEW CAR. You go to the showroom, pick out this shiny new car, drive it home, and you're thrilled. Then you stay up all night wondering if you made the right decision, if you can make the payments, could I have gotten along with that old jalopy of mine. You experience cognitive dissonance. Kirkegard talked about that kind of thing; what you decide is what you will be, what you don't decide is what you won't be. He used a beautiful expression for that called "Leap of Faith". You've heard that expression. I remember hearing that back in seminary and it left a great impression on me. 

An example of that comes from Antichous Epiphanies, who was a successor to Alexander the Great and wanted to occupy Egypt. The only problem was to do that he had to fight the Roman Legions. Before the battle took place, he and the Roman General had a conference to talk about what was about to happen. Antichous wanted to think about it, so they conversed for quite a while. Finally the Roman General drew a circle in the sand around Antichous and told him, "before you leave that circle I want you to make your decision". Make your Leap of Faith, that's a difficult thing to do.

Thomas Barkley was a marvelous Presbyterian missionary in Taiwan. Early on in his life he made his decision to follow Christ. At the age of 16 he was at the university of Glasgow. While he was there he wrote a statement out and titled it "My Decision". His decision was to give everything he had; his body, his possessions, his mind. Everything that he had he said "I commit to God". On every birthday from then until the age of 85, when he died, he would sign that commitment. This was found among his papers after his death and it had grown quite yellow with age. So, he had said to God: "I give you everything that I have", at the end of the statement he said "Your will be done, not mine."