by Rev. James E. Eaton,
Pastor
© 2005 All rights Reserved
©2005 James E. Eaton
All Rights Reserved
Modified October 17, 2005
Even though he was just one man, one man in common clothes, one man with empty pockets, the crowd seemed to part and then form around him as he moved through the crowded market. It was hot, and the smell of cooking oil mixed with too many bodies and the sweetness of temple incense to make a scent found nowhere else. Some stared, wondering; some frowned, remembering, thinking about how he had overturned their tables, scattered their merchandise, threatened their business, only days before. And Some simply went on about their business. Even in the midst of disaster, there are always a few who don't want to notice. Some others, though, had been waiting for just this moment, just this man, waiting for him to show up so they cold trap him with a choice they had devised only last night. They were dressed better than the man, with leather thongs around their heads and the jangle as they walked said there were coins in their pockets. One of them even droppeds something in a beggars bowl.
Today the man ignores the tables and tents of the moneylenders and finds a place safe from the height of the sun if not the heat of the day. As he sits, people cluster near him, mumbling requests, some selling, some hoping, some begging, so that a kind of buzz goes on ceaselessly near him. One of his friends brings him a drink of water while some people shade their eyes from the glare of the gold roof on the temple, Herod's temple, Herod's great brag of wealth. Pushing through the crowd, trying to be inconspicuous but standing out nevertheless, the ones who had been up late arguing and plotting get closer and closer. He's speaking quietly, some story about a man and his servants and when he pauses, one of them, a young one, a student still, leans forward and asks a bit too abruptly, "Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are." There it was, just as he'd practiced it: the smooth, almost fawning speech, the kind of speech his own teacher loved, the kind that would surely bring a smile to this man's face. But there is no smile, just a frank, real, stare, just a look that says in no uncertain terms: I know you, I know what you are up to. The young man pauses only a moment before he asks the question: "Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
Now the crowd quiets; now everyone listens. Everyone knows about the hated tax, the head tax, the tax that must be paid with a Roman denarius, a day's wage. Everyone also knows that while Romans will tolerate a lot when it comes to different religious practice, they are absolute sticklers for taxes; those who protest only protest once and as often as not end up crucified out near the landfill on the hill that looks like a skull. But everyone also knows the crowd hates the tax, and it's the crowd that loves this man, loves him with such passion they proclaimed him a king, their king, and threw their threadbare garments down in front of him. It's the crowd that protects him; even Herod's police will be reluctant to cause a riot here in the temple by arresting someone the crowd loves. But crowds are fickle; one misstep, one glimmer that he is not the man they thought, that he is the kind of man who would accept the hated Roman tax and they could turn on him as swiftly and as loudly as they cheered him. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?— the question hangs in the air as the conversations stop and the buzz quiets. What will he do? What will he say?
Only a moment passes, only a moment of silence before he smiles and says as if it were nothing, "Show me the coin for the tax." One of the older, richer Pharisees thinks nothing of pulling out a denarius until the crowd whispers and he realizes what he's done. Right there, right in the temple, he's caught carrying the very symbol of sin and blasphemy, a piece of metal with an image of the emperor on it. God said right out to Moses, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." (Exodus 20:4) and in Leviticus: "Do not make gods of cast metal" (Lev 119:4) But this coin, this denarius has the emperor on one side and on the other words proclaiming he is the son of God, divine himself: blasphemy! No way back now: the whole crowd can see that however holy they had thought the rich Pharisee, he's just another hypocrite, his pockets full of Roman sin, whatever prayers he says.
The coin catches the sun as it's passed forward and the man who had asked for it, the man who had been asked the question, stares at it in his palm as if the answer will leap from the coin itself. Then looking up, smiling he holds up the coin and says loudly, loud enough for all to hear, "Whose portrait is this? Whose inscription?" "Caesa", they all yell back, sure this must be some trick. Everyone knows about Caesar. Caesar isn't a man: he is a symbol, a symbol for all those things you can't do anything about. He is a symbol of all the demands the world makes, all the bills that must be paid, the to do's that must be done, the thing that's meant when you say to your child, ìI'd like to come but I can't because I have this thing, it's work. Whose portrait? Whose inscription? Everyone knows why you can't do what you want, what you should: Caesar. ìCaesar's!î, they yell. Just then, just when it's quiet for a second he says: "Then give Caesar what is Caesar's and God what is God's." And then they are silent for sure.
For what is God's, after all? "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it," a Psalm said. (Ps 24:1). But what did did that mean? The title might belong to God, but the things themselves seemeded to be in the hands of people. Sure, some was given back. There was the tithe and the grain offering and of course the temple tax and all the tolls. Sometimes it seemed like it was endless, this giving back. Most went to Caesar, some to feeding the mouths in your home and now God wanted some? If the earth belonged to God, why did God need so muchpart of what had little bit someone elsethe little bit you had? Safety and sanity, it seemed, dictated a careful budgeting of what belonged to Caesar and what belonged to God. And that budgeting had to go on with the distinct knowledge that while Caesar had soldiers, God had only a vague promise of blessing and even that not an exact exchange. No proportionality to it, no reliability. Even a tailor guaranteed his clothing but there were no guarantees with God. You could give and give and still come home to find your child sick or your wife gone. You could give and give and still find your life altered in a moment: wrong time, wrong place, a chariot that just happens to be passing and poof! Where had all the giving got you?
It was all so murky. ìThe earth is the Lord's, sure, but you don't deal in earths do you? Who does? Perhaps God but here on earth, the coin was a denarius, the measure was the day it took to earn it. Yes: perhaps that was the was real value after all, not the coin itself, not the metal or the figure but the time, the amount of your life it took to earn it, to put it in your pocket. Each commitment, each piece of your time you gave away was something you could pocket, something you put in your pocket. It was all fine and good to give some of what you had to the poor, to take something out of your pocket and put it in their bowl, but the point was to fill up your pockets wasn't it? Somehow they always emptied. The kids needed lunch money and then a visit to the dentist; there were groceries and things to buy and the camel really did need to be replaced with a newer model. There were taxes and so many other things. It would be nice to imagine it was all in God's hands but in the meantime, it helped to have a little something in your pocket and it was that time, using that time, that put it there. Your time wasn't really your own: you were too busy filling your pockets.
But who knew how much of that you had? No one could predict, no one could say if you had 70 years or just five minutes more. It made a difference didn't it: what would you do if you had no more time? What would you do if you had all the time in the world? That was what was so strange about this man still staring at the coin. He seemed to know a secret; he seemed to understand something about time. ìEternal lifeî he called it: living as if you had all the time in the world by giving all your time to something greater, something finer, to God. That big fisherman: the story was that one day he just left everything and gave all his time to helping this man. What would that be like, to give your time to someone? To believe, to live, as if there was plenty? To empty your pockets, to live lightly? To hope and having hoped live from hope and not from what you touched, what jangled in a pocket: that would be a different kind of life entirely.
ìGive God what is God's,î the man said. Still hard to know just what to do about that, isn't it? So many of us give what's ours when it's left over. I mean: we pay our bills, buy our groceries, pay our taxes, and if there is something left, we give it to the church. It's ours, ours to give, ours to use and give however we wish and it's a good feeling to give some to the church. But surely that isn't what Jesus meant. What he means is something more , something deeper. If I had to describe it in a word, it would be empty: he means for us to empty ourselves of the idea that we own anythingóapart from God, that we have anythingóapart from God, that we are anythingóapart from God. He means for us to take into our lives living from the hope that the earth is indeed the Lord's, God's beloved creation, and that we are indeed children of God. Children come to the table with empty pockets; they do not imagine paying for the groceries or getting the check at the restaurant. They assume, they hope, someone will take care of that, someone who loves them. God means for us to live in this same style. Then our offering becomes indeed a portion of a larger life lived serving God's children, praising God by living God's love.
Shortly, our congregation will go through a joint program of estimating our giving for next year and planning what we will spend. As we pray, as we think, as we discuss, we should remember it is not God's purpose to fill our church coffers but to use us to demonstrate a deep and abiding welcome, a sure and unlimited love, a fierce and irresistible justice. If we hope in our pockets, we will soon find they are inadequate and that we are inadequate to the task and the ministry. We will not have enough of ourselves, let alone our money. Our only hope of endurance comes instead from hoping in God, from living out this hope, from committing all that we are, all we have, all we can be together to living as the body of Christ, the contemporary representation of that man who taught in the temple and said simply, ìGive God what is God's.î
This man, this man who asked, ìwhat is God's?î, tThis man lived with empty pockets. What if you gave it all to him? What if you simply said, ìHere it is, it's all God's anyway, you take it, take it all: my time, my everything.î What if you emptied your pockets? Why, then you would belong to him. Imagine seeing him there, imagine the strange smile on his face: as if he had all the time in the world. The Pharisees are frowning; he's figured out their trap and sprung it. The crowd is drifting off: they only have so much time to give, after all. And now, just now, he looks at you and you realize you are having the time of your life, as you watch him smile, and beckon, and slip the denarius, the denarius he just happened never to give back, into his pocket. For you know, he is a man with empty pockets: and a soul so full the world cannot hold it.
Amen.