I want to take Jesus at his word today, in telling the Pharisees who try to trip him up to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
Many in the past have gotten caught up in the original question, should we pay taxes to Caesar, but I think we are missing the most important point Jesus is making, which is not about Caesar, the state at all, but about God.
For Jesus, everything comes of God. Jesus grew up with the scriptures of Genesis telling him that God created everything and pronounced it was good, then God created male and female in God’s image, and pronounced that they were very good. Anyone can put their image on things, but only God can make living and breathing creatures in God’s own image.
You can take a one or five dollar bill from your wallet and see it has the image of a Lincoln or Washington—symbols of our government, but if you look at Holy Trinity’s new directory you see another kind of image—one that the church has created, with images of all whom God has made in God’s image.
So money is expendable, spendable, but we humans are not. We give money away, but we give ourselves to God. We acknowledge the source of all that we have in God. Give to God what is God’s, and that includes everything—our life, our family, our talents and gifts, and yes our gifts of money too, because they represent the work that we have done with the mind and heart God created in us.
Just like the scribes who tried to trip up Jesus with their question, we get mired in questions of what belongs to whom. Some of us have a hard time acknowledging that God has been involved at all in their creation or the things they do on a daily basis—that God created in them certain talents and gifts and that it is through God’s grace that they have been life and all that they have and are.
As we begin the in the next few weeks to write down some of what God has done for us, we will be made more aware of the abundance we have from God. People who take time to ponder the things they are grateful for begin to have more peace in their lives, to be less worried about possessions and be able to share more of what they have.
Research shows that less than 50% of ability to be thankful, to focus on our glass being half full not half empty is given to us at birth genetically and the rest of our ability to be grateful can be worked on by our attitudes and habits. It is possible to cultivate a mind that focuses on the good around us: those who we love, shelter, food, the sun coming up in the morning, the laughter of a child. And research also shows that these feelings of gratitude can be very relative.
There was a family who all lived in two rooms: mother, father, children, grandchildren. They complained about the noise and chaos to their master. The master commanded them to bring their farm animals into the house with them as well. After a week, the head of the household went to the master loudly lamenting the stink, mess, dirtiness and noise of the household with the animals in it. The master told them to let the animals out, and suddenly the household seemed much more quiet and peaceful and clean.
It is in our human nature to sometimes only learn what we have when are in danger of losing it: this applies to people in our lives, our health, our jobs, and all sorts of abundance. But Jesus is saying to us that God is looking for an attitude that pays attention to all the gifts surrounding us all the time, not just when we are about to lose them.
The image of God is all around us, beckoning us to regard it as God among us, to treasure these things and people that give us life as gifts from the God of grace. If you want, you can cultivate the mind of gratitude, find peace in your situation, not by denying that something may be wrong, but by focusing more energy on what is right.
So I encourage you to consider the gifts from God in your life. To make a concerted effort to improve your relationship with God by acknowledging God’s sovereignty and grace. To make your Christianity one of pointing to contentment with your situation, to be peaceful with yourself and with God, and to cultivate the mind that looks for grace abounding around you.
God asks for nothing in return for the grace bestowed upon us, but a grateful heart. Return to God what is God’s, Jesus says today—give grace back to God not because it is required but it what a grateful heart does.
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