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Sermon: In Good Faith
Text: Matthew 22:15-22
Chapel Service, Jan. 17, 2008
I have never before discussed the War of 1812 in a sermon.
And I will likely never do it again.
But I will do it today.
and I must admit that I’m pretty excited about it
The War of 1812 sparked the ire of much of the New England clergy,
they claimed it was not in the interest of the people,
but was rather President Madison’s war.
bent solely on imperialism and the expansion of territory,
To those who told them to fall in line and follow their commander in
chief,
They claimed that their ultimate allegiance was not to the state,
but to God,
and that we made a grave and fundamental error in not including God in our
founding document.
In 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French political scientist and
diplomat,
traveled across the United States for nine months
researching his epic work, Democracy in America
And came up against a fundamental paradox
On the one hand, he observed that the United States promoted itself around
the world
as a country separating “church and state,”
where religious freedom and tolerance were among its defining tenants,
but on the other hand, he witnessed that:
“There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a
greater influence
over the souls of men than in America”
1840.
As president Lincoln ran for a second term of office,
and the civil war dragged on,
calls went out to reclaim a Christian America in the North.
because the war was being lost to a Southern people who directly invoked God
at every turn.
it was said that the North must seek to out-Christian the South.
In response, Lincoln added the ubiquitous “In God We Trust”
to our national coinage to appease his electorate.
There was, of course, bitter dissent.
The fights over God’s place in the political realm are not new in our
country.
Nor is the continued paradox
that we live in one of the countries in which God matter most,
and cling fast to at least the sense,
that we have separated Church and State.
Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s
and to God the things that are God’s.
Render unto Caesar, as the King James says, the things that are
Caesar’s.
Now this passage is not easy to apply directly
to our current situation,
in which we have not a Caesar, but an elected president and legislature,
and in which our nation’s currency does indeed have “God’s title” stamped
upon it.
Perhaps we ought not render any of this Godly money unto Caesar,
and all of it unto God.
In which case,
I’ll happily leave a bowl outside my office and see that your money gets
where it needs to go.
Despite initial dissonance with our contemporary situation,
In many ways this is a dream passage for a preacher like me.
We have story Jesus the rebel (one of my favorite Jesuses)
simultaneously rebuking the dominant religious order of the day, the
Pharisees,
who were bent on holiness, piety and separation more than on service, action
and engagement.
And rebuking the dominant local politicians, the Herodians,
who were clearly linked to the ruling family of the great tyrant,
and who may or may not have had specifically religious leanings.
So much could be said about the willingness of certain religious groups,
Who, speaking from a place of comfort and stability
seek to drown out meaningful theological conversation and challenge
(in this case, the immense challenge of Jesus)
by uniting with questionable politics of self-interest
Willing to sell their proverbial souls to the politicians,
to remain comfortably unchallenged as the significantreligious
group of the time
So much could be said about the self-interested Herodians,
(who show up only a few times in the scriptures
and are understandably never portrayed in a positive light)
who are willing to cater to religious populations,
to forge an unholy political alliance,
meant to uphold the status quo.
There are more than a few parallels to our contemporary situation
which are not lost on me.
And deserve our consideration.
So much could also be said of this rebel-Jesus
unwilling to yield to the political or religious dominance of the
time
and instead stood up cleverly and tactfully,
and side-stepped their seemingly unwinnable trap.
by taking the two seemingly impossible possibilities,
either authorizing the payment of taxes to the occupying forces,
or refusing to pay taxes to the law givers of the day,
and turning them back on the questioners.
So much could be explored in Jesus’ enigmatic answer,
“give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things
that are God’s”
A passage rich with possible meanings,
but not always particularly applicable in particular places.
A passage clearly not just about money,
but about our devotion to civil authority.
Clearly, as we are made, diverse as we are,
in the image of God,
and we could rightly claim that all things ought to be rendered, in some
sense, unto God.
But we don’t exactly have to plumb the depths of our theology,
to come up against a God who works
both through individual lives,
and through civil authority.
It’s not hard for me to imagine a God,
who appreciates schools and libraries and roads,
and hospitals and services.
And It doesn’t take much for me to understand that humanity is indeed
sinful
That we need laws and rules and government to keep things civil.
But due to that same root sinfulness,
which is corporate as well as individual,
we must leave power and control diffuse
full of checks and balances.
With no single group, religious or otherwise,
given unique access to power.
Frankly, it makes sense to me
to render quite a bit to the government.
to the secular.
I think if we stop to think about it.
we can develop a theological vision
that thoughtfully expands on this well-known saying of Jesus,
and develops a sense of a civil God.
Perhaps even a democratic God.
Where we cede to a secular government,
because of our theology.
Not in spite of it.
Maybe some of us here, have done such a thing.
But it is at this point, that we must always ask,
How far can it go?
Jesus allowed the paying of taxes to an occupying country,
what happens when we are the occupiers?
What sort of obedience does this warrant?
I’m not suggesting that we withhold taxes, by any means,
but we must seriously ask ourselves this question,
especially as we are about to enter into our 5th year of war in
Iraq
And I have no easy answers.
When does it end?
What if there were a draft?
How much can we faithfully render to this government?
Where is God?
Closer to home,
I must ask what happens when we approach a system so broken,
that thousands are left to die in the wake of a hurricane,
with the highest rate of death correlating best
not to age, sex, or even class,
but to race.
Figures which slapped us in the face in New Orleans in 2005,
but the same issues of segregation and quality of life,
exist today in all of our major cities.
How much can we render to this government?
And where is God?
We must be challenged by such questions and thoughts.
More than anything,
I come away from passages like ours from Matthew today, saddened.
because there were none willing,
in good faith,
to ask Jesus the very same questions
that the Pharisees and Herodians were asking in anger.
What if we had a real answer to this question
about how and when and under what circumstances do we pay tribute to civil
authority?
And when should we not?
What if we had an answer straight from Jesus’ mouth
not meant to cleverly side-step a trap,
but to really deal head on to how much we ought to devote to civil
authority?
and where is the breaking point?
When, for example,
does disobedience become the only ‘Christian’ thing to do?
What if we had a real good-faith answer,
to real, good-faith questions?
But we don’t.
And so it’s up to us
To ask of ourselves,
of our communities, the hard questions.
In good faith.
When do we disobey?
When do we follow?
When do we take to the streets?
Questions I don’t see very often in Christian discourse, liberal or
conservative, these days.
Questions about when to engage,
when to protest, when to hold vigil, and when to judge.
Rooted in our vision of the loving God,
of the whole of creation.
And so we are left to pray, and converse,
and argue, and theologize.
Constantly asking of ourselves the hard questions,
in good faith.
And we must be ready for the answers.
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