Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well this is July 4 weekend, and the nation’s birthday. We were 233 years young yesterday. Birthdays are always a time for reflection. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? What is our destiny and purpose?
Like any nation, the United States has a set of scared myths – when I use the world “myths” I mean stories that explain our origins. Probably no myth is more sacred to us than the pilgrims who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony. We tell their story every Thanksgiving to remind us who we are and why we are here. The Pilgrims came to North American to find religious freedom. They wanted to establish a kind of Kingdom of God on earth. Freedom, especially religious freedom, was something many Europeans craved. In the late 1500’s Germany was torn apart by something called the 30 years war. England had years of religious war, France also. The United States was established constitutionally as a country where religion was a personal matter. There will never be a state church or official state religion in the United States of America. The new Americans did not want what had happened in Europe to happen in North America – the extremists, the fanaticism, the zealous excesses that so often come when rulers mistakenly believe they speak for God and have no one to answer to but God.
Some years ago, we did a family vacation and visited the Pilgrim Plantation in Plymouth. Boy! Did I ever get my eyes opened. They have a living history exhibit there, right by the ocean. All the interpreters are actors who are assigned the role and identity of a specific Plymouth colonist. It’s really an amazing place because they speak in early 17th century English, so they sound as if they are characters in a Shakespearean play. I got “chatty” with one resident and was surprised at the language he used. He was a shoemaker by trade and he cursed and swore like a sailor. He told me that he was no Puritan. He was Church of England when he went at all. My stereotype of the pious, reverent, dressed in black Pilgrim went right out the window. From our earliest beginnings, even unbelievers could practice their unbelief here.
Today’s lesson from St. Mark reminds us of Jesus classic words “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. Jesus was talking to the big religious power brokers, the Chief Priests, the scribes and the Pharisees who were trying to entrap him in answering a lose/lose question. The question was “Is it lawful to pay a temple tax with Roman coinage?” The Roman coins had an image of the head of Caesar whom the Romans considered to be a God. This claim that Caesar was a God was utterly offensive and blasphemous to the Jews. Jesus answers their trick question kind of “trickily” himself. He in effect said, “The government provides road, law enforcement, order, civil courts, justice and protection from bandits, marauders and foreign armies. All that comes at a cost which every citizen who benefits from governments blessing should share in support. Ergo: pay taxes to Caesar”.
Then Jesus said, “but give to God the things that are God’s”.
The question for us as Christian people is this, “What is God’s?”
The answer to this question is found on page 1162 in our new hymnal.
“I believe that God has created me together with all that exists. God has given me and still preserves my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses, reason and all mental faculties. In addition, God daily and abundantly provides shoes and clothing, food and drink, house and farm, spouse and children, fields, livestock and all property – along with all the necessities and nourishments for this body and life – God protects me against all danger and shields and preserves me from all evil. And all this is done out of pure, fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness of mine at all. For all this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him.
What can we give to the God who has and is everything. Luther says it best “thank and praise, serve and obey him”.
Part of our service and obedience is to participate meaningfully in the government. This means voting regularly. It means knowing what the issues are before our legislature – both state and national and letting our elected officials know how we feel. It means asking ourselves the question “What would Jesus have me vote for?”
We, Christian people, all the church regardless of denomination are to use our influence to affect how government works. Because Jesus and Israel before Jesus had an abiding interest in justice for the poor, the sojourner, the widowed and the orphaned, we too are to speak for them in the houses of power. We all know that monied special interest groups have no trouble in paying lobbyists to make sure their interests are represented. It is our calling from God, our way of “thanking, praising, serving and obeying” to advocate for justice for those who have no voice or a much muted one in Washington or Annapolis.
Israel never forgot that they had been slaves in Egypt with no right’s, no justice, no opportunity. God had saved them with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand. In gratitude for her liberty, Israel was to ensure that there was “freedom and justice for all”.
In 1845, John O’Sullivan an American newspaper editor wrote about the proposal to annex Texas. He said it was American’s “Manifest Destiny” to overspread the continent. Perhaps, we need a more modest return to our manifest calling to become a servant people and a servant nation to spread the idea and reality of government “for, by and of” the people to every nation on the globe. May God grant us the will and the heart to use our power, not to our own advantage, but to spread the freedom, justice and security we know to all the people of the earth. This is God’s will in the 21st century. Let us gladly obey it.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Pastor John