PROPER 24, YEAR A

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Sts. Matthew & Mark Church, Barrington, RI

Isaiah 45:1-7

Psalm 96:1-13

Matthew 22:15-22

“Give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”—Possibly one of our Lord’s best-known and most-quoted sayings.

Delivering this verdict, Jesus sidesteps the trap set for him in the question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor or not?” If he says no, he can be charged with sedition and rebellion against the Roman authorities. If he says yes, he will incur the resentment and wrath of many of his fellow Jews, for whom the Roman taxes are a burdensome token of national subjugation and oppression.

His answer deftly steers clear of both pitfalls. Observing that the coin for the tax is stamped with Caesar’s image, he concludes: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” No-one can possibly find fault with that answer.

Commenting on this saying, several early Church Fathers pointed out that just as the coins for the tax were stamped with Caesar’s image, so we human beings are stamped with God’s image. According to the creation story at the beginning of the Book of Genesis: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

In the fourth century, Saint Hilary of Poitiers wrote: “We are to render to God the things that are God’s: that is, body and soul and will. The coin of Caesar is gold, on which his image is stamped. But humanity is God’s coin, on which is the image of God. Therefore, give your money to Caesar; but keep for God a blameless conscience.”

So, today’s Gospel invites us to consider the twofold question: What might it mean for us to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s? And what might it mean for us to render to God the things that are God’s?

Three weeks ago, my wife became a United States citizen. For a number of reasons, including wanting to vote in the upcoming election, she finally decided to take the plunge (having lived in this country as a permanent resident for 32 years after arriving from England where she was born and grew up). So over a period of months, she filled out the applications, supplied the supporting documents, went for her interview, took her citizenship test, and finally was among a group of 35 people being naturalized outside the Federal Courthouse on the harbor front in Boston. A key part of that ceremony was the Oath of Allegiance, which spells out the duties of citizenship in some very specific ways, including supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic, and being willing to serve in the armed forces or in a noncombatant capacity when required to do so by law.

The New Testament affirms the duty of Christians to obey the laws and contribute constructively to the common life of whatever earthly kingdom or nation we find ourselves residing in. Saint Paul writes in the thirteenth chapter of the Letter to the Romans: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Today’s Old Testament reading illustrates this principle by showing that the Persian King Cyrus, who neither knew nor acknowledged Israel’s God, was nonetheless God’s chosen instrument to accomplish his saving purposes in history.)

A bit further on, Saint Paul continues: “Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.” So civic obedience is a Christian obligation. The one exception is when any earthly authority asks us to do something that seriously violates God’s laws. In that event, we are to obey God rather than human beings. For example, the early Church martyrs went to the lions rather than comply with the command to renounce Christ and worship the Emperor. So, there are limits to Caesar’s legitimate claims. 

Apart from that exception, we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s by practicing the civic virtues of good citizenship: voting, paying our taxes, obeying the law, performing jury duty, participating in the political process, and offering public service when called upon to do so. 

What might it mean, then, to render to God the things that are God’s? Psalm 96, which we just recited, gives us a good clue to where we begin: “Ascribe unto the Lord the honor due his name; bring offerings and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness …” That's what we're about here this morning, isn't it? The ultimate answer is that we render God his due by offering ourselves to his service: in worship, prayer, devotion, faithful obedience, and active love of God and neighbor.

So, here’s a question for us all to ponder during the coming weeks: Is there anything we can each do, more than we’re already doing, to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s? How might God be calling us to be both better citizens and better Christians? Let’s give that question serious thought and prayer in the days ahead.

The challenges of doing so in this present time of pandemic and political upheaval are indeed difficult, and I don't want to minimize the difficulties. But we gain reassurance and encouragement from the affirmation implicit in today’s Gospel that we bear God’s image just as ancient Roman coins bore Caesar’s image. The coin used to pay the tax derived its purchasing power from the combination of its material, gold, a precious metal, and the stamped image which made it legal tender as currency in the Roman Empire.

Well, having been created in God’s image and likeness, we’re infinitely more precious in God’s sight than any gold; and having been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, we carry infinitely greater spiritual purchasing power than any coin. And so, relying on God’s power rather than on our own, we shall truly find the wherewithal to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

PROPER 23, YEAR A

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Sts. Matthew & Mark Church, Barrington, RI

Isaiah 25:1-9

Psalm 23

Matthew 22:1-14

During this time of pandemic and social distancing, one of the things I’ve missed most is the opportunity to gather in large groups on celebratory occasions involving food and drink. The last big dinner I attended was my mother’s ninetieth birthday party in Philadelphia on March 7, just as we were all about to go into lockdown. I suspect many of us have experienced similar feelings of social deprivation.

For many Christians, moreover, it’s been difficult to do without the Eucharist. I applaud all of you for making the effort to be here for Morning Prayer today; and I admire the way you’re clearly doing your best in spite of trying circumstances to make a fitting offering of worship to God. It’ll be a great blessing when we’re able once again to gather safely in our churches and partake of the spiritual food and drink of the Lord’s Body and Blood.

Somewhat poignantly, then, today’s readings invoke the image running throughout the Sacred Scriptures of God’s Kingdom as a great feast. The prophet Isaiah proclaims: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” In the beloved words of Psalm 23, the psalmist addresses the Good Shepherd: “You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.” And in today’s Gospel, the Lord tells the parable beginning, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

Whatever else we know or don’t know about the life of the world to come, these passages and many others like them suggest that eating and drinking together will be a key component of what goes on there. This insight suggests in turn that our celebratory meals here on earth, both sacred and secular, serve in their own ways as pointers, anticipations, and foretastes of the joy that awaits us in eternity. Heaven is like a great party—more enjoyable and fulfilling than any celebration we can experience or even imagine in this life. (And even if you’re an introvert like I am, don’t worry—there’s a happy and rewarding place in the party for us too!)

Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven not just to any feast, but specifically to a wedding banquet that a king gave for his son. Commentators down through the centuries have suggested that the wedding symbolizes the joining of the divine and human natures in the Person of Christ, or the nuptial union of Christ and his Church, or the marriage of heaven and earth in the Kingdom of God—or perhaps, indeed, all of these at once.

So, the good news is that God is giving a party and we’re all invited! The not-so-good news is that not everyone comes to the party or ends up staying once they’ve arrived. As the parable unfolds, some of those originally invited refuse to attend when the time comes. They self-select out. And then, after the king sends his servants into the streets to gather in all whom they find to fill the wedding hall with guests, not everyone gets to stay. When the king enters, he notices one of the guests without the proper wedding-robe; and when the man is unable to answer why he’s not properly attired, the king orders him bound and cast into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This twist in the story has always struck me as being a bit unfair. After all, these guests have just been gathered from the streets into the wedding hall with no prior warning. How can anyone blame them for not being properly dressed for a wedding? To answer this question, we need to delve a little deeper into the parable’s symbolism.

One venerable tradition of interpretation suggests that the wedding hall represents the Church on earth. The servants—that is, the apostles and evangelists—have been sent out to gather in all whom they find, both good and bad. The Church is thus a mixed body comprising both saints and sinners. The key point is that neither the servants nor the other guests get to decide who’s worthy to enter or indeed to remain once they’ve come in. The king’s entry is an image of the last judgment, when the king and no-one else will be able to see who’s properly clothed and who’s not. In the meantime, we’re all gathered, good and bad alike, into the wedding hall waiting for the king to enter and for the feast to begin.

What, then, are we to make of the wedding garment? Down through the centuries, commentators have advanced various interpretations of what it might symbolize. Saint Augustine suggested that it represents the virtue of love or charity, without which any other gift or virtue we may have is worth nothing; Saint Hilary, that it represents the Holy Spirit; Saint Jerome, that it represents the life of obedience to God’s commandments, by which we are clothed in righteousness.

All that leaves us with the question: Assuming that we accept God’s invitation to the banquet, how do we ensure that we’ve clothed ourselves in the proper wedding garment so that we’ll be allowed to stay when the king enters? After multiple cycles of reflecting on this Gospel every three years when it comes up in the Sunday lectionary, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only satisfactory answer is that it’s nothing we can achieve on our own. Whatever the wedding garment represents, it can only be something that God makes freely available to each of us simply for the asking. Indeed, some commentators suggest that in ancient wedding feasts, everyone was offered the appropriate item of clothing on the way in. In that case, the man without the wedding garment was either too proud or too stubborn to accept the free gift of God’s grace, adopting instead the posture that if you want me here, fine, but you’ll have to take me on my own terms. And we see where that attitude got him.

In a few minutes, we’ll have the opportunity to meditate on the lyrics of Hymn 487, a wonderful poem entitled “The Call” by the seventeenth  century Anglican priest George Herbert. The middle stanza speaks directly to the question of who’s worthy to attend the wedding banquet: 

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength

Such a Light as shows a Feast,

Such a Feast as mends in length,

Such a Strength as makes his guest.

These lines feature the triple images of light, feast, and strength. The light of God’s Word invites us to God’s feast. The feast in turn mends us, healing us of our wounds and infirmities, at length—indeed for eternity. And it is God’s strength, not our own, that finally makes us into guests worthy to partake of his heavenly banquet.