Render Unto God
Matthew 22:15-22; Psalm 146
April 10, 2011
For some reason that I cannot explain – and do not want to try – when I read Psalm 146 the theme song from Ghostbusters runs through my head:
If there’s something strange
In the neighborhood.
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters!
When I read the passage from Matthew that we just heard, I think of the sign that hangs above the cash register in a second-hand store I was in a while back: In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash.
And, of course, this week I have to play the Beatles’ Taxman song at least once or twice. After all, April 15 is right around the corner.
What can I say? Sometimes my brain works like a search engine whose algorithms are a bit wonky.
In any case, this disparate set of Biblical texts set off a strange set of connections for me over the past several days, reminding me that our exegesis – our interpretation – of scripture is always bound to time and place. It’s tax week. It’s the week before Holy Week. It’s the weekend when we’ve been brought face to face with the regional crisis, and for some of us, the family crisis of a government shutdown.
There’s a scripture study practice known as “dislocated exegesis” which holds simply that where you read changes how you read. There’s a truth there that’s both physical and more broadly social.
That is to say, imagine sitting on the front steps of the U.S. Capitol and reading Psalm 146: do not but your trust in princes, in mortals whose thoughts perish when they draw their last breath.
Imagine standing in the A-SPAN soup line and reading, “blessed are the poor,” or, perhaps, Jesus’ instruction to not “worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” How much different would those words sound if read in line at Macy’s?
Imagine reading the story of Jesus sitting down to dinner with the tax collector with someone who works at the IRS, or the passage from Matthew about rendering unto Caesar with someone who refuses to pay taxes because she does not want her money going to support America’s military machine.
Where we read, when we read, with whom we read makes a difference in how we read and what we understand.
Jesus understood this, and his give and take with the Pharisees underscores this awareness. The Pharisees and Herodians named in this passage mean collaborators with the Rome occupation of Israel. They have put their trust in the Empire and they are clearly deeply suspicious of this rabble rousing rabbi.
The question that Jesus asks them is, at its essence, simply this: in whom do you paces your ultimate trust. This is, fundamentally, the question of Lent, the question of our journey near to the heart of God:
in whom do you place your ultimate trust?
Think of all the people and institutions to whom we render our trust, to whom we give our trust. Better, think for a moment about the people and institutions who ask for your trust?
How do you give them trust? What actions indicate your trust?
Now, think for a moment about the ways that God asks for your trust?
On the slip of paper you have, I invite you to draw an image, an icon, a symbol – whatever your artistic bent – that points toward a way that you give your trust to God – an aspect of your life that reflects what you render unto God.
Our trust is what, ultimately, belongs to God. As you’ve just imagined and “rendered” in pencil, we render our trust in many ways.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
April 10, 2011
For some reason that I cannot explain – and do not want to try – when I read Psalm 146 the theme song from Ghostbusters runs through my head:
If there’s something strange
In the neighborhood.
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters!
When I read the passage from Matthew that we just heard, I think of the sign that hangs above the cash register in a second-hand store I was in a while back: In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash.
And, of course, this week I have to play the Beatles’ Taxman song at least once or twice. After all, April 15 is right around the corner.
What can I say? Sometimes my brain works like a search engine whose algorithms are a bit wonky.
In any case, this disparate set of Biblical texts set off a strange set of connections for me over the past several days, reminding me that our exegesis – our interpretation – of scripture is always bound to time and place. It’s tax week. It’s the week before Holy Week. It’s the weekend when we’ve been brought face to face with the regional crisis, and for some of us, the family crisis of a government shutdown.
There’s a scripture study practice known as “dislocated exegesis” which holds simply that where you read changes how you read. There’s a truth there that’s both physical and more broadly social.
That is to say, imagine sitting on the front steps of the U.S. Capitol and reading Psalm 146: do not but your trust in princes, in mortals whose thoughts perish when they draw their last breath.
Imagine standing in the A-SPAN soup line and reading, “blessed are the poor,” or, perhaps, Jesus’ instruction to not “worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” How much different would those words sound if read in line at Macy’s?
Imagine reading the story of Jesus sitting down to dinner with the tax collector with someone who works at the IRS, or the passage from Matthew about rendering unto Caesar with someone who refuses to pay taxes because she does not want her money going to support America’s military machine.
Where we read, when we read, with whom we read makes a difference in how we read and what we understand.
Jesus understood this, and his give and take with the Pharisees underscores this awareness. The Pharisees and Herodians named in this passage mean collaborators with the Rome occupation of Israel. They have put their trust in the Empire and they are clearly deeply suspicious of this rabble rousing rabbi.
The question that Jesus asks them is, at its essence, simply this: in whom do you paces your ultimate trust. This is, fundamentally, the question of Lent, the question of our journey near to the heart of God:
in whom do you place your ultimate trust?
Think of all the people and institutions to whom we render our trust, to whom we give our trust. Better, think for a moment about the people and institutions who ask for your trust?
How do you give them trust? What actions indicate your trust?
Now, think for a moment about the ways that God asks for your trust?
On the slip of paper you have, I invite you to draw an image, an icon, a symbol – whatever your artistic bent – that points toward a way that you give your trust to God – an aspect of your life that reflects what you render unto God.
Our trust is what, ultimately, belongs to God. As you’ve just imagined and “rendered” in pencil, we render our trust in many ways.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
posted by David Ensign at
7:14 AM
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