In the Name of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

"The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it" (Ps. 24:1).

This verse from Psalm 24 is a statement of ownership.  This claim of divine ownership is a consistent theme throughout the Bible.  The earth is the Lord's.  God creates and owns all of it.  Whatever we have, including life itself, is on loan.  This Christian life of ours is one long process of learning that we'd don't "have" anything of any value that is ours alone, and that anytime we use the word "mine" we are on shaky ground.  Life, time, possessions, family, friends, nature, nations . . . pension funds! - are all held in trust by us, they are all on loan to us from God.  It's true . . . God graciously gives . . . but God does not let go of what God owns.  As we are told from time to time in our Scriptures, "our God is a jealous God."  Learning to acknowledge God's claim upon us is the beginning of wisdom.

In today's Gospel, Jesus is under attack.  You know, you'd think that the chief priests and the Pharisees would learn, wouldn't you . . . time after time they try to entrap Jesus . . . try trip him up with trick questions.  But they never succeed.  And they don't seem to ever learn . . . and each time they're bested by Jesus they get angrier.  At the beginning of today's story, they're at it again . . . and now they're upping the ante . . . this time they bring in reinforcements.  Did you notice that they bring along some of Herod's people with them?  This is an important detail.  "Herod's people" would be courtiers and clients of Herod, Rome's puppet king.  They represent not only the Jewish ruling authority in Judea outside the city of Jerusalem, but they also represent the threat of Roman intervention in Jesus' public ministry.  Herod and his followers were notorious among the Jews for accommodating the Roman occupying power.  So when the Herodians show up with the chief priests and Pharisees to listen to Jesus, the authority of Caesar enters the scene.

The attackers begin with:  "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and you teach in all sincerity the way of life that God requires, and so would you please answer a difficult question for us?"  The entrapment begins with flattery, which is typical in the ancient Middle East, and then comes what has been carefully crafted to be a killer of a question:  "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?"

Remember, the background to all of this is the Roman occupation of Judea and the Jewish hatred of this occupation.  Underlying this question is an issue much greater than Jewish resentment of the requirement that they pay taxes to Rome.  In each major town of Judea, the Romans had places statues to Caesar that not only proclaimed that Caesar was in power, controlling everything, but that Caesar ought to be revered, and worshiped as supreme.  The Jews were terribly angered by this idolatry.  So this question of taxation is a killer question.

If Jesus answers, "Sure, pay the tax," then Jesus is in big trouble with the Jews.  He would then be seen as supporting the pagan, Gentile, Roman occupation forces.  He would in a sense be saying that Caesar has God-given authority.  But if Jesus answers, "We're Jews!  Of course, we shouldn't pay the tax.  That money has Caesar's image on it.  If we use it to pay the tax we're not only supporting our oppressors, we're idolaters!"  I doubt that that answer would play very well with Herod's people, who the Pharisees have brought along to witness this confrontation.

The Pharisees want a yes or no answer, which Jesus, of course, will not give them.  Instead he asks another question of his own.  (Notice that he doesn't carry any of the coins at question himself.)  "Who's image is on the coin?"  "Caesar's."  "Then give it to him.  But be careful . . . don't give anything to Caesar that belongs to God."

Remember Psalm 24 and any number of other verses in the Bible:  "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it."

The chief priests and the Pharisees know this perfectly well.  And so we hear that when they heard Jesus' answer "they were amazed.  And they left him and went away."  I bet they were speechless.

The Pharisees asked Jesus a political question in the hope of getting him into some very hot water.  But Jesus took that political question and made it a liturgical, worship question.  We might do well to apply today's story to ourselves.  Caesar's image is stamped on the coin in today's story.  In whose image are you stamped?  Who is the object of your highest devotion?  Who owns you?  Remember the very first chapter of the very first book in the Bible?  "God created human beings in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."  That's the answer to the first of the questions I just asked you:  we are stamped with the image of God.  But what about those other two questions . . . who or what owns you?  You know I want you to answer "God" . . . but is that REALLY the truth?  Do you really believe . . . do you really BEHAVE as if God owns you?  And who or what is the object of your highest devotion?  Is it REALLY God?  Or is it some idol that you've manufactured.

Don't worry if you're feeling a little guilty right now and falling into a confessional mood.  You're not alone.

John Calvin famously said that the human mind is a permanent factory of idols.  We manufacture all sorts of idols to feel that we have some control over our fates, some influence over our futures.  We so want to find some means, other than God, to find security and protection and comfort.  For some it's the government, for others it's pills or alcohol; for some it's money, for others it's art;  for some it's power, for others it's self-image; the list is endless . . . we are very resourceful in our idolatry.  And so, as William Willimon, who was a primary source for this sermon,[1] points out . . . we never get much beyond the first commandment in our faith:  You shall worship this God, who has stamped you in his image and has delivered you from slavery.  We return here week after week to examine who owns us . . . who delivers us . . . who commands us.

This is an age old problem.  It's not new to us.  Remember that while Moses was up on Mt. Sinai, receiving the gift of God's law, the Ten Commandments, his brother Aaron was busy making a golden calf for the people to worship.  "This is our god!"  We cried as we bowed down before the idol.  And we've been makin' idols every since.

In today's story, Jesus, son of the House of Israel, takes a question about taxes and transforms it into a debate about worship.

It's all God's stuff . . . even us . . . and so just about everything we do turns out to be all about worship.

The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.  Let us bow down and worship.

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