Whose Image?

A sermon for the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, October 22, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?

The Gospel this morning is a question about conflict. In the story of the Gospel, this occurs shortly after Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and cleansed the temple by driving out the money changers and all the dealers in religious goods. These chapters of Matthew explain the heightening conflict that resulted, a few days later, in Jesus being betrayed, arrested, and put to death.

As Matthew tells the story, the people who initiated this confrontation were Pharisees who sent some of their disciples along with some Herodians to bring their question to Jesus. This is an interesting combination of groups. The Pharisees were the devout. Those who were concerned for the purity of the faith of Israel: faithfulness to the God of scripture, to the observance of the teaching of the Torah, and the customs of the Jewish people. While there is a lot that’s known about the Pharisees, the Herodians are a less well-defined group. It’s pretty clear, however, that they are partisans of the Herods, a family that was in political power in Judea and Galilee during this entire period. The thing that characterized Herod the Great and his descendants was that they found ways to accommodate to the Roman Empire, ingratiating themselves to the emperors and their representatives, and doing political favors for them, even when that involved compromising Jewish traditions and faith. So lots of the Pharisees and others saw the Herodians and their supporters as sell-outs and collaborators.

But on this occasion, leaders of the Pharisees reached out to the Herodians for the purpose of entrapping Jesus. Like John the Baptist, Jesus made both the Pharisees and the Herodians uncomfortable. The form of their trap gives a pretty clear indication of why. The disciples of the leaders of the Pharisees come along with a group of Herodians, and those Pharisees start out with a soapy and flattering introduction: “Rabbi, we know you are sincere, and show deference to no one … teach the way of God in accordance with the truth …”  As if they honored him and valued his opinion, which was obviously untrue—they were saying these things to manipulate him, to try to corner him with their pious pronouncements. We see a good bit of that nowadays from people who claim to be the best kind of Christians, and claim to be persecuted whenever they don’t get their way, don’t we?

Jesus asks them about it, and they admit: It is the emperor on the coin. These Pharisees, for all their religious purity were participating entirely and comfortably in the economic and political world of the Roman emperor and yet they are bringing this question about whether paying those taxes is in accordance with the religious law to Jesus. They are only pretending it is a question when really it is a snare.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Butter. Would not. Melt. In their mouths. So Jesus looks at these super-religious guys who don’t want any disruption to their worship and he looks at the political realist guys who definitely don’t want any offense given to the Romans, and he says, “You hypocrites! Why are you putting me to the test?” Jesus, like John the Baptist, was serious about what people did in the real world—not just about interior attitudes or going along to get along. So these groups were posing a conundrum—either go along with the collaborators and pay the tax to get along, or hold to the sovereignty of God and deny the validity of the tax and endanger the life of any of Jesus’ followers who refused to pay the tax. Jesus knew that none of the people talking with him were speaking in good faith, so he says, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” So one of them, probably one of the Pharisees, pulls a denarius out of his purse. A silver coin, worth a day’s pay, kind of like if one of us pulled a fifty or hundred dollar bill out of our wallet. These guys weren’t poor if they were carrying around money like that, rather than spending it for daily bread and hiding the change where it would be safe. Jesus looks at it.  It is a Roman coin with the image of the emperor.

What I think Jesus is doing in his response to them is pointing out that they are the ones in the trap. They were the ones living their lives for Caesar and in thrall to Caesar. Their trap was doing the work of Caesar, the work of death as would become clear a few days later. Then Jesus answers with an answer which perhaps would be typical of a rabbi, a wise teacher of Torah: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the source of Life, that which is God’s.” They were astounded and went away. Lots of people interpret this as the Pharisees and the Herodians being impressed at how facile Jesus’ response was and going away because he had fooled them. I read this differently. They are astounded because of how Jesus called them out—“you have Caesar’s thing there in your pocket and that’s how you’re going along; render to God what is God’s due.” Jesus said this another way in the Sermon on the Mount, in the sixth chapter of Matthew:

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, and what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Matthew 6:24-25

Serving Caesar and serving Mammon were the same. For Jesus, the question wasn’t the taxes or parsing out what was required and what was allowed for people who were trying to survive and get by. It was about the entrapment his adversaries were bringing, entrapment in death by serving Mammon and the occupying armies of the Romans rather than serving the God of life. I think Jesus’ adversaries understood this—he wasn’t backing down and that amazed them. They went back and continued to plot and Jesus continued to teach the Kingdom of God. The conflict continued until Jesus was crucified … and the God of Life raised him from the dead.

Nowadays, there is a lot of service of death, a lot of religious people working with the modern Herodians to use power and wealth to secure quiet and privilege for the rich and powerful at the expense of those who are poor and oppressed. God calls our country to repent of this way of death. Jesus invites us to the Way of Life. It’s not simple, it’s not the way of the politics of this world. The Way of Life requires courage in the real world, denying alliances with the selfish and living in compassion—the way that Jesus lived, including his resurrection.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, you declare your glory and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the earth; Deliver us, we ask you, in our several callings, from the service of mammon, that we may do the work which you give us to do, in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness, with singleness of heart as your servants, and to the benefit of our fellow people; for the sake of him who came among us as one that serves, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

1928 Book of Common Prayer, p. 44 alt.

The Parable of the Desperate Manager

A sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost, September 18, 2022

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

Today’s gospel reading is well known among preachers as one of the hardest of Jesus’ parables to interpret and preach on. Part of that is because people often think that Jesus’ parables are allegories where one of the characters is God. Another piece is that we often expect Jesus’ stories to be moralistic and tell people how to behave. Today’s parable proves that those things aren’t always true. Jesus’ stories are about the real world of human experience. There is nothing particularly moral about anybody in this story and the rich man is definitely NOT God. Let’s step back a bit and just listen to the story as a story. It’s easy enough to retell this in a contemporary idiom:

There was a CEO of a very large company, a national or international concern that makes a lot of money in many ways.  It came to his attention that one of his regional or divisional managers was not doing so well. The manager had been there a long time and had a very good salary, but unlike the rest of the company, this manager’s area of responsibility was on the decline—accounts were being cancelled and going to competitors, market share was declining, revenue was down while at the same time expenses were up.  Something was wrong. It probably wasn’t criminal—an embezzler would cover his tracks better. The CEO sends a message notifying the manager that there would be a Special Review of that division’s performance. The manager in question didn’t just fall off the turnip truck—he knew what that meant. In this company, a Special Review meant the end for the manager. And usually those reviews were used to document how to justify eliminating most of the severance and bonus eligibility for the manager on the way out.  He still had kids in college, lots of expenses, and it was way too early to retire.  And the job market at his level for people his age was none too good, especially because his most notable achievements were years ago.

So our manager considers his situation. And he comes up with a plan. He finds the most important of the accounts that his division oversees and he goes to see the person in charge of each one. I can’t say the specifics of what he worked out with them. It may well have involved criminal actions—it certainly violated the terms of his employment arrangements with his company. In a few days, he had made personal and professional arrangements that were so advantageous to the clients that they made consulting arrangements with him that guaranteed enough income for his kids to get through college and for him to reach retirement with at least as good a situation as he would have had if he had served his time with the company without being fired.

When it came time for the Special Review, the CEO could see what had happened, at least in outline. In all likelihood, the company would decide not to get investigators involved in the details of its operations and finances, and its attorneys would simply work to contain the damage and keep the manager from expanding his advantage. They wouldn’t necessarily be pleasant, but they weren’t going to be able to recover much either.

The CEO shakes his head, and says to the manager, “Wow! If you had been this creative and aggressive for the company for the past five years, I would have put you in charge of a lot more!”

That’s how I read the end of the parable when it says, “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” Jesus tells a realistic story about his time, which is exactly parallel to this modern story. Nobody in the story is a moral exemplar—each person was out for his own advantage.

Jesus is talking to his disciples. He says, look—out there, even the unrighteous find ways to adapt, they find ways to get done what is important, when to take a risk to achieve a goal. The manager who had been indolent and wasteful and complacent was not shrewd or commended by either the CEO or by Jesus. And so it is with the children of light. Sometimes, they too, think that all they have to do is let someone else love their brothers and sisters, after all, we will be forgiven, so what responsibility do we have to be resourceful and perform our best for the Kingdom of God?

There’s a word in today’s Gospel that occurs a couple of times and is translated as “wealth,” or “money.” It’s actually a Hebrew word that is nonetheless used in the Greek gospels: Mammon. Mammon is a word that doesn’t appear in the Old Testament but it’s found in several other Hebrew texts. It means property, or assets. It has a neutral connotation in itself. Of course, when you look at the dealings of this manager, you are looking at “unjust Mammon.” The priorities of the CEO and the manager were indeed Mammon. They were shrewd and efficient in how they dealt with it, and obtained it—the point at which the CEO decided to call in the manager to discipline him was when that manager was not shrewd and efficient with the Mammon entrusted to him. The manager’s later faithfulness to Mammon was what got the CEO’s admiration.

We live in a time and a society where Mammon gets all the attention and admiration. And those who really get the admiration are those who are clever and single-minded in its pursuit. The prophet Amos saw a similar situation about 2800 years ago. God called on Amos to say this:

“Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain and the Sabbath so that we may sell wheat?’ … The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”

Amos 8:4-5a, 7

We are called to be people of God, not Mammon.

It’s tempting to try to play both sides—get a little of that comfort, a little of that exploitation—just a little, you know. Jesus says no. Being God’s people is a full-time job. It takes as much focus to be compassionate, generous, and fierce for the good of God’s little ones as it does to get rich. Rejoicing in God’s love and discerning how we can live out that love doesn’t leave room to be preoccupied with plotting how to get the next edge of profit the moment you get on the street. We live in a time when it is becoming obvious how much our country is damaged by corruption and greed. As Christians we must be as shrewd as that crafty manager in living in generosity and integrity. We are the slaves of God, not of wealth:

No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.”

There is a collect from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, that brings this all together. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who declarest thy glory and showest forth thy handiwork in the heavens and in the earth; Deliver us, we beseech thee, in our several callings, from the service of mammon, that we may do the work which thou givest us to do, in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness, with singleness of heart as thy servants, and to the benefit of our fellow men; for the sake of him who came among us as one that serveth, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer (1928) p. 44 (“For Every Man in his Work”)

Why are You Putting me to the Test?

A sermon for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 18, 2020

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?

The Gospel this morning is a question about conflict. In the story of the Gospel, this occurs shortly after Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and cleansed the temple by driving out the money changers and all the dealers in religious goods. These chapters of Matthew explain the heightening conflict that resulted, a few days later, in Jesus being betrayed, arrested, and put to death.

As Matthew tells the story, the people who initiated this confrontation were Pharisees who sent some of their disciples along with some Herodians to bring their question to Jesus. This is an interesting combination of groups. The Pharisees were the devout. Those who were concerned for the purity of the faith of Israel: faithfulness to the God of scripture, to the observance of the teaching of the Torah, and the customs of the Jewish people. While there is a lot that’s known about the Pharisees, the Herodians are a less well-defined group. It’s pretty clear, however, that they are partisans of the Herods, a family that was in political power in Judea and Galilee during this entire period. The thing that characterized Herod the Great and his descendants was that they found ways to accommodate to the Roman Empire, ingratiating themselves to the emperors and their representatives, and doing political favors for them, even when that involved compromising Jewish traditions and faith. So lots of the Pharisees and others saw the Herodians and their supporters as sell-outs and collaborators.

But on this occasion, leaders of the Pharisees reached out to the Herodians for the purpose of entrapping Jesus. Like John the Baptist, Jesus made both the Pharisees and the Herodians uncomfortable. The form of their trap gives a pretty clear indication of why. The disciples of the leaders of the Pharisees come along with a group of Herodians, and those Pharisees start out with a soapy and flattering introduction: “Rabbi, we know you are sincere, and show deference to no one … teach the way of God in accordance with the truth …”  As if they honored him and valued his opinion, which was obviously untrue—they were saying these things to manipulate him, to try to corner him with their pious pronouncements. We see a good bit of that nowadays from people who claim to be the best kind of Christians, and claim to be persecuted whenever they don’t get their way, don’t we?

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Butter. Would not. Melt. in their mouth. So Jesus looks at these super-religious guys who don’t want any disruption to their worship and he looks at the political realist guys who definitely don’t want any offense given to the Romans, and he says, “You hypocrites! Why are you putting me to the test?” Jesus, like John the Baptist, was serious about what people did in the real world—not just about interior attitudes or going along to get along. So these groups were posing a conundrum—either go along with the collaborators and pay the tax to get along, or hold to the sovereignty of God and deny the validity of the tax and endanger the life of any of Jesus’ followers who refused to pay the tax. Jesus knew that none of the people talking with him were speaking in good faith, so he says, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” So one of them, probably one of the Pharisees, pulls a denarius out of his purse. A silver coin, worth a day’s pay, kind of like if one of us pulled a fifty or hundred dollar bill out of our wallet. These guys weren’t poor if they were carrying around money like that, rather than spending it for daily bread and hiding the change where it would be safe. Jesus looks at it.  It is a Roman coin with the image of the emperor.

Denarius with image of Tiberius Caesar

Jesus asks them about it, and they admit: It is the emperor on the coin. The Pharisees, for all their religious purity were participating entirely and comfortably in the economic and political world of the Roman emperor and yet they are bringing this question about whether paying those taxes is in accordance with the religious law to Jesus. They are only pretending it is a question when really it is a snare.

What I think Jesus is doing in his response to them is pointing out that they are the ones in the trap. They were the ones living their lives for Caesar and in thrall to Caesar. Their trap was doing the work of Caesar, the work of death as would become clear a few days later. Then Jesus answers with an answer which perhaps would be typical of a rabbi, a wise teacher of Torah: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the source of Life, that which is God’s.” They were astounded and went away. Lots of people interpret this as the Pharisees and the Herodians being impressed at how facile Jesus’ response was and going away because he had fooled them. I read this differently. They are astounded because of how Jesus called them out—“you have Caesar’s thing there in your pocket and that’s how you’re going along; render to God what is God’s due.” Jesus said this another way in the Sermon on the Mount, in the sixth chapter of Matthew:

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, and what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Matthew 6:24-25

Serving Caesar and serving Mammon were the same. For Jesus, the question wasn’t the taxes or parsing out what was required and what was allowed for people who were trying to survive and get by. It was about the entrapment his adversaries were bringing, entrapment in death by serving Mammon and the occupying armies of the Romans rather than serving the God of life. I think Jesus’ adversaries understood this—he wasn’t backing down and that amazed them. They went back and continued to plot and Jesus continued to teach the Kingdom of God. The conflict continued until Jesus was crucified … and the God of Life raised him from the dead.

Nowadays, there is a lot of service of death, a lot of religious people working with the modern Herodians to use power and wealth to secure quiet and privilege for the rich and powerful at the expense of those who are poor and oppressed. God calls our country to repent of this way of death. Jesus invites us to the Way of Life. It’s not simple, it’s not the way of the politics of this world. The Way of Life requires courage in the real world, denying alliances with the selfish and living in compassion—the way that Jesus lived, including his resurrection.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, you declare your glory and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the earth; Deliver us, we ask you, in our several callings, from the service of mammon, that we may do the work which you give us to do, in truth, in beauty, and in righteousness, with singleness of heart as your servants, and to the benefit of our fellow people; for the sake of him who came among us as one that serves, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1928 Book of Common Prayer, p. 44 alt.