Back to Basics. Our Old Testament lesson followed the people turning from God and creating a
golden calf to worship. Moses intervenes and spends 40 days with God begging for forgiveness.
God forgives, renewing their sacred covenant. The Lord, then, goes back to basics. What does the
Lord require? The Lord requires loving God with your heart and soul. Soul here meaning the “seat
of your personhood” or in other words loving the Lord with every fiber of your being. Heaven and
earth belong to the Lord, reestablishing God as Creator and the people are the created. Finally, God
reiterates God’s love by setting his heart in love upon these flawed and chosen people. Even when
they fall short, God loves them and they belong to God. Back to basics: love and belonging.
In our gospel lesson, Jesus is not feeling the love or belonging. The Pharisees want to entrap him
with a question about money and taxes. Topics we are having to deal with as we vote on four
different measures about taxes and billionaires. I sure wish Jesus were here to clarify what is being
asked of us. Sometimes I feel like some are trying to entrap us with these propositions. Yet I hope
and trust we will all vote. This gospel exchange occurs on Tuesday of Holy Week and the next day
the religious leaders plot to kill Jesus. READ Matthew 22:15-22.
“You may remember the episode of The Andy Griffith Show in which the Women's Historical
Society had discovered that a living descendant of a Revolutionary War hero was living right there
in Mayberry. The news generated excitement and curiosity throughout the town as people made
plans for recognizing the hero's relative. Barney Fife, of course, twisted his own family tree to the
point that he put himself in line for the honor. The rest of the townspeople felt special just because
someone among them was related to the hero.
Everyone was shocked when the news came. A careful analysis of the genealogical records
determined that the hero's descendant was Otis Campbell, the town drunk. Despite instructions to
find a "substitute Otis" for the presentation, the real Otis showed up for the ceremony. When the
ladies gave him the plaque which they had engraved especially for him, Otis gave the plaque to the
town. He said, ‘Just because you're the descendant of a hero doesn't make you one. So, I would like
to present this plaque to the town of Mayberry, to which I am just proud to belong’” (Sermons.com,
William B. Kincaid, III).
Otis summed up belonging, being a part of something bigger, having our identity in something
more, being accepted for who we are. Belonging is something we all want and often seek within
community. So, when Jesus answered the Pharisee’s question with, “give to Caesar what belongs
to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God” (NLT), we hear that with new ears.
The tax in question was a poll tax that every person needed to pay annually. It amounted to one
denarius, which was a day’s wage. To entrap Jesus they ask, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the
emperor?” “If Jesus said that they should not pay it, they would report him to the government. If he
said they should pay it, the people would be angry. He would be a traitor. They would be angry
because taxes were as sore a point with them as they are with us! Palestine was an occupied country
(both then and now)” (Sermons.com, Jerry L. Schmalemberger).
And yet their question was “a clever gambit. But not clever enough. Jesus asks them whose
inscription is on the coin. ‘Caesar,’ they answer. Then render to the emperor what is due him, he
says, and to God what belongs to God. Checkmate” (Working Preacher, Clayton Schmit).
We are to give God what belongs to God but also to give to the government what belongs to the
government. Our Constitution promises liberty and justice for all. But right now, justice seems
fleeting. I hope soon we will go back to basics by doing what is required and reinstate justice. St.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and church patriarch, wrote, “remove justice, and what are kingdoms
but large-scale gangs of criminals?” He also wrote about our text, that when we truly succeed in
“giving to God what is God's,” we are, in his words, “doing justice to God.” Doing justice to God
requires that we return to God, with dividends, that which God has entrusted to us. (Sermons.com
Leonard Sweet). Our time volunteering, our tithes to the church, our fellowship in community are
all doing justice to God. Serving our neighbors, worshiping God, caring for the planet are all doing
justice to God.
So, what belongs to God? Our first lesson tells us heaven and earth, meaning all of creation, belong
to God. That means the sun and the moon, the birds of the air and fish of sea, all the resources and
all the money generated from using the resources God created. In other words, our resources, yours
and mine, our paycheck, our homes, our social security, our bank accounts belong to God. We
don’t like to think that way, but that is the way God created everything, and we are simply stewards
of what God has created. Psalm 24 states, “the earth and everything in it belong to God.” Our
resources belong to God. As stewards of God’s creation and of our resources, God asks us to give
a portion back. To share a slice of our God given pie with our Creator. Thanksgiving is next month
a time of gratitude and pie. The beauty of pie is that you can cut it in many ways, slivers, slices or
wedges. As you prayerfully consider what that piece of pie will look like, I ask you to return your
pledge cards by next week, Dedication Sunday.
Our community also belongs to God. St. Andrew Presbyterian Church belongs to God. We are
here to share God’s love with each other and the wider community. To see the God in each other
and our neighbors. Through this community of faith, we provide showers to the homeless, we offer
them a place to sleep in our fellowship hall, we bear witness to Christ’s love through offering
Christmas stocking to children, we care for our neighbors in El Salvador with education and dignity.
We also simply share God’s love with each other in community and care, through worship and
music, fellowship and prayer. This community belongs to God.
Even more granular than that, beyond creation, beyond community, YOU belong to God. In
baptism you were claimed by God, and you became a child of God. At my retreat this week in
Tahoe we talked about sacred curiosity. The beauty of wonder. The presenter reminded us of the
power of simply noticing and being curious. I felt like a child when we walked around Zephyr Point
with the prayer, “Curiosity here” on our hearts. Seeing God’s creation with the eyes and curiosity of
a child.
So, when Jesus asked whose image is on the coin, Jesus could have also asked them, “Whose image
is on you?” Or, in whose image are you created? In Genesis we read that human beings are made in
the image of God. We belong to God. “There can be no doubt, then, what Jesus means here. Give
yourselves to God because it is to God that you belong. It is God who claims us, who made us in
his own image. We do not belong to anything or to anyone else. We don’t even belong to ourselves.
We belong to God in all our being, with all our talents, interests, time, and wealth. ‘We give thee
but thine own, whatever the gift may be. All that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee’”
(We Give Thee but Thine Own) (Working Preacher, Clayton Schmit).
What could be more basic than that? Love and belonging. Living in gratitude for belonging to each
other in community. Living in gratitude for belonging to God with our entire heart and soul.
Sharing who we are and what we have with our Creator because of the abundance we have
received. Being stewards of all that I am and all that I have, means we share our very selves with
God. “It means that we give to God that which belongs to God: that is, we give ourselves. We take
the sacred trust and invest it in lives of worship. Sometimes, that worship occurs privately, in
devotion. Sometimes, in church with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And the rest of the time, it
occurs in the sphere of daily work and service. All of this is worship. (All of this is stewardship.)
Ultimately, giving ourselves to God means that we give ourselves to the world” (Working
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