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St. John's Episcopal Church
61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201
The Eighteenth Sunday after
Pentecost: Proper 24A
October 16, 2011
A Sermon by the Rev. Joe Parrish
“Giving God a Chance”
The Holy Gospel according to
Matthew 22:15-22
The Pharisees went and plotted to
entrap Jesus in what he said. So they
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sent their disciples to him, along with the
Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know
that you are sincere, and teach the way of
God in accordance with truth, and show
deference to no one; for you do not
regard people with partiality. Tell us,
then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay
taxes to the emperor, or not?" But Jesus,
aware of their malice, said, "Why are
you putting me to the test, you
hypocrites? Show me the coin used for
the tax." And they brought him a
denarius. Then he said to them, "Whose
head is this, and whose title?" They
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answered, "The emperor's." Then he
said to them, "Give therefore to the
emperor the things that are the emperor's,
and to God the things that are God's."
When they heard this, they were amazed;
and they left him and went away.
May we give to you, Lord, our hearts,
our hands, our money, our talent, and our
time, for then you will bless each of us
and our church. Amen.
While Christians differ about what we
should “render to Caesar”, there has been
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unanimity among Christians that certain
activities belong to God. Sabbath
observance was long practiced in the
U.S. and Canada, and so-called “blue
laws”, promoted Sabbath observance,
rest, and a cessation of commercial
activities on Sundays. The use of the
adjective “blue” probably refers to the
17th century activities of Oliver
Cromwell’s supporters in England who
were referred to as “blue stockings”,
rather than to the notion that such laws
were originally printed on blue paper.
Only recently, in the last few decades,
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have such laws been relaxed, with the
resumption of commerce and the sale of
alcohol on Sundays. There are still some
corporations, such as the “Hobby Lobby”
stores, which practice Sunday closing as
a corporate standard.
Some conservative ministers have
seen themselves as the arbiters of correct
behavior. J. Nichols Adams, an
American Baptist pastor and author of
LectionAid, had a Scottish friend who
told the story of being on holiday and
sitting out on the porch of his Bed and
Breakfast (hotel) cleaning his hiking
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boots on a Sunday, when his hostess
came out and said “The Minister says
would you please stop working on the
Sabbath.” “Where is he?” my
incredulous friend asked. “Oh, he’s over
on the other side of the lake there, but he
has a telescope,” the woman answered.
[Fear not, I am not going out to buy a
telescope!]
No doubt you have heard Benjamin
Franklin’s famous dictum, “In this world
nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
In today’s gospel passage we see that
Jesus would disagree with the old
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gentleman from Boston. Jesus says, far
more certain than either death or taxes is
the Torah’s teaching that the God who
created this world and us has a far
greater claim upon each one of us than
either death or taxes.
In July, 1846, Massachusetts resident
and famous poet Henry David Thoreau
was arrested and sentenced to jail for
refusing to pay his poll tax. Strongly
anti-slavery, Thoreau believed that a
moral citizen should refuse to support a
pro-slavery government. Also, like all
abolitionists of the time, he opposed the
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War with Mexico, which abolitionists
regarded as a means to extend the range
of slavery in the United States, Mexico
prohibiting slavery and Texas allowing
it. Sentenced to remain in jail until he
paid his tax, Thoreau was upset when an
anonymous citizen paid his poll taxes the
very next day, which led to the
dissenter’s release. Three years later
Throeau wrote his essay in which he
reflected upon his reasons for
withholding his tax and challenging
readers to place their conscience and
God above any loyalty to a state they
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deemed unjust. “The Essay on Civil
Disobedience,” largely ignored during
the author’s own lifetime, was to achieve
worldwide influence through Mohandas
Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our Diocese has begun reading a new
book, “Becoming an Anti-racist Church”
written by Joseph Barndt, a Lutheran
pastor, who led one of our earliest Antiracism Trainings in our Diocese. His
book, published this year, points out the
effects of White Privilege, which we
who have white skin just take for
granted, but which continuously puts
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down anyone with non-white skin. Dr.
Brandt notes that the United States was
founded on principles that did not
include the issue of slavery as being a
gross injustice in the land at the time of
the writing of the US Constitution. And
our nation has suffered much harm in the
subsequent centuries and decades as a
result. Coming to terms of what it will
mean to have an anti-racist church and
an anti-racist society is both our
challenge and our incessant desire.
During the anti-war protests of the
Sixties some conservatives began to
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display bumper stickers and lapel buttons
that proclaimed “America, Love it, or
Leave it!” The backlash against
protestors was based on the belief that
America was such a great nation that any
criticism of it was unpatriotic, especially
during a war. In their hearts Caesar and
God were intermingled, or identical.
After 9-11, artist Aaron Fine noted
that the American flags, which were
often prominently displayed on people’s
bumper stickers, over time became very
faded so the colors finally were only
shades of white. This observation started
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him on a ten year project that would
emphasize the similarities of all 93
nations of the United Nations and
downplay their differences—noting that
we are all cut from the same cloth of
humanity regardless of our national
origins. His display of the 93 pale white
large flags of all world nations was
moved from Vassar College to James
Chapel in Union Theological Seminary
earlier this year and may be seen hanging
from the rafters of that lofty worship
space beside Colombia University.
Peace would surely be more likely to
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prevail if we all understood our common
humanity better.
http://www.whiteflags.net
Pastor Robert Kopp quotes an
anonymous author in his May sixteenth,
16, nine hundred and ninety nine, 1999,
article entitled, "When Patience Runs
Out." The writer says, "We have taller
buildings, but shorter tempers; wider
freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We
spend more, but have less. We buy
more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger
houses and smaller families; more
conveniences but less time. We have
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more degrees but less sense; more
knowledge, but less judgment; more
experts, but more problems; more
medicine, but less wellness. We have
multiplied our possessions, but reduced
our values. We talk too much, love too
seldom, and hate too often. We've
learned how to make a living, but not a
life. We've added years to our life, not
life to our years. We've been all the way
to the moon and back, but have trouble
crossing the street to meet the new
neighbor. We've conquered outer space,
but not inner space. We've cleaned up
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the air, but polluted the soul. We've split
the atom, but not our prejudice. We
have higher incomes but lower morals.
We've become long on quantity, but
short on quality. These are the times of
tall men and short character; steep profits
and shallow relationships. These are
times of world peace, but domestic
warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more
kinds of food, but less nutrition. These
are the days of two incomes, but more
divorce; of fancier houses, but broken
homes." What we need is a better
example.
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Jesus Christ is that example. Jesus set
priorities straight. He put the horse
before the cart. Jesus gave us a guideline
of how to order our lives. We are not to
ignore government, but neither are we to
ignore God who gave us all that we have.
As we give God God's due, we put our
lives into the harmony of creation and of
the eternal.
“Ascribe to the Lord the honor due
his Name; bring offerings and come into
his courts.” Decide today whom we will
serve.
Amen.
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