Sermons
"Render Unto Ceasar"
Gracious God
May we answer your call and move closer to you
In your holy name we pray-Amen.
This morning -
-I have bad news, good news and bad news.
Bad news:
today's sermon is a stewardship sermon.
Good news:
-its not about giving your money away.
Bad news --its about giving your life away.
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars'
and unto God that which is God's.
An excellent answer to the "lose-lose" question
-"Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?"
If Jesus says yes-"pay up," he alienates his listeners. Taxes
are onerous,
expensive,
and close to idolatry.
Even holding a roman coin
-with Caesar's image and title-
-Son of the divine authority
-brings a practicing Jew perilously close to breaking the second commandment
of never having any other gods before the Lord God.
But if Jesus says---
"No-don't pay your taxes
-don't give Caesar a cent-
-resist the oppression of the foreign government."-
well then he has just presented
the political authorities grounds
to arrest him for inciting treason.
Jesus hears the question-the excellent question
-nods to himself and immediately asks
for a Roman coin
-an audio-visual aid of epic proportions.
Never touching the idolatrous coin
himself-he says,
"Whose face is on the coin-whose title?"
They answer, "The emperor's"
-excellent-then
"Give the emperor what is the emperor's
and give God-what is God's."
But what-what is God's," and
"What then should I give to God?"
The answer is the same today
as it was 2000 years of yesterdays ago.
We, being made in the image and likeness of God-have the image of God
imprinted upon us.
We are God's
just as the coin was Caesar's.
So the question for us 20 centuries later
-the question for you and me is-
"When was the last time
you gave to God-what is God's?
When was the last time you gave your life to God?
When-
If-
--have you ever given yourself to God?
***** ****** ******* ******* *******
For the past month
-I have experienced
a simmering saddness of sorts.
It's as if I'm a pot sitting on a stove
-just turn the heat up a bit
and I bubble into an active despondency.
Was it the anniversary of September 11?
That certainly set the tone.
Or perhaps it's the looming reality of a war
-a war we are primed to initiate.
Maybe it's
the Enron's and Worldcom's
and the attending chaos
these companies have created in our economy. Perhaps it's the never-ending,
always escalating
cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine.
Then there's the sniper-
randomly killing people
a few short miles from my families' homes;
or perhaps it's simply
a residual personal foreboding
inside my body
left over from six months
of cancer and radiation.
Take your pick.
It's all there and it all seems very real.
Turn up the stove-its not hard to get that pot to boil.
And the question remains-
"When was the last time I gave my life to God?
When was the last time
I invited God into all of
my conversations,
my fears,
my anxieties?
When was the last time
I was vulnerable enough to say,
"Are you there God-I need you."
Sure I pray to God for other people
all the time-
however, in the midst of this sadness
-I find myself
completely resisting the notion
of handing my own life over to God.
I suspect I'm not alone in this.
Quite frankly it sounds like one more chore.
One more thing I need to do-
- one more moment
when I'll lose all my illusions
of control
yet again.
And yet-I don't know
about y'all-
but doing this all by myself
-is in fact getting oldÖ
***********
Parker Palmer tells of a time
in his own life when
he gave himself to God-
or at least let go momentarily
of his belief that he alone was in charge of his life.
This story comes from his book, Let Your Life Speak.
In his early forties,
Parker decided to go on an Outward Bound week.
He was in a sad, tough spot
and he hoped that a week
of bonding and outdoor adventure
would shake up his life a bit.
He chose to go to Hurricane Island
off the coast of Maine.
From the name of the camp
he should have known
what was in store for him.
In the middle of the week,
he faced the challenge he feared most.
One of the instructors backed him
up to the edge of a cliff
110 feet above the ground
tied a very thin rope to his waist
-a rope that looked ill-kempt
and seemed to be starting to unravel
-and told him to start "rappelling" down the cliff.
'Do what?'
'Just go!'
the instructor explained,
in typical Outward Bound fashion.
So he went
-and immediately slammed into a ledge,
four feet down the cliff.
The instructor looking down said:
'I don't think you've quite got it.'
Being in no position to disagree.
He said, "So what am I supposed to do?"
The only way to do this,'
said the instructor,
'is to lean back as far as you can.
You have to get your body
at right angle to the cliff
so that your weight is on your feet.
It's sort of counterintuitive but that's how it works.
Parker knew that the instructor was wrong. Instead he knew the trick was
to hug the mountain
to stay as close to the rock face
as I could.
So he tried it again,
his way
-and slammed into the next ledge,
another four feet down.
'You still don't have it,'
'OK,' he said,
'tell me again what I am supposed to do.'
'Lean way back and take the next step.'
The next step was a very big one,
but Parker took it
-and wonder of wonders, it worked.
He leaned back into empty space,
eyes fixed on the heavens in prayer,
made tiny, tiny moves with his feet,
gaining confidence with every step.
He was about halfway down
when the second instructor
called up from below;
'Parker, I think you'd better stop
and see what's just below your feet.'
He lowered his eyes very slowly
--and saw that he was inches away
from a huge deep hole in the face of the rock.
To get down,
he would have
to get around that hole,
which meant he couldn't go straight
instead he'd have to swing out
to the right or the left.
Which he knew for sure
would lead to his death.
So he froze, paralyzed with fear.
The second instructor let him hang there,
Trembling for a very long time.
Finally she shouted up these helpful words:
'Parker is there anything wrong?'
He says, to this day,
heI doesn't know where
his words came from,
though he has twelve witnesses
that heard him say
in a high squeaky voice,
'I don't want to talk about it.'
'Then,' said the second instructor,
'it's time that you learned the Outward Bound motto.'
'Oh, keen,' he thought.
'I'm about to die, and she's going to give me a motto!'
But then she shouted ten words-
words he can still feel:
'If you can't get out of it, get into it!'
He writes," I had long believed
in the concept of
'the word becoming flesh,
but until that moment,
I had not experienced it.
My teacher spoke words so compelling
that they bypassed my mind,
went into my flesh,
and animated my legs and feet.
No helicopter would come to rescue me;
the instructor on the cliff
would not pull me up with the rope;
there was no parachute in my backpack
to float me to the ground.
There was no way out of my dilemma
except to get into it-so my feet started to move, and in a few minutes
I made it safely
down. (Page 83-85)
When-we lean back on faith
-Give God our lives-
it is then when we realize
that God longs for nothing more
and nothing less
than an intimate relationship with us
-a sacred partnership.
A two way interaction
that makes use
of our best skills and talents-
that God has given us-
doing that
which we are most gifted at doing.
That is the promise
of giving our lives to God.
We will still have moments
of extreme fear and paralysis-
but rather than deciding
that we can have a perfectly good-
if somewhat limited, solitary life
stuck on the side of a mountain -
giving our lives to God
will enable us to move
ever so slowly past our fears,
and our sadness
with our back to the ground
and our eyes to the sky
-hanging in God's arms
-knowing that if
"we can't get out of it
we have to get into it."
Leaning back in faith.
Going through the obstacles
of this world with help and with hope.
That is the promise of giving our lives to God.
Amen.