Perhaps like some of you, in the fall, my weekends are filled with soccer. I’m not talking about professional futbal on television, I’m talking about the 9-and 11-year youth soccer variety.
Yesterday was no exception. When my younger son took a free kick from the corner (not a corner kick, mind you), the ball sailed through the air and landed right in front of the goal. But there wasn’t a man there. What were the Flaming Hot Cheetos to do? (The Flaming Hot Cheetos is the official name of his team). They needn’t worry, though, not when the other team accidentally proceeded to kick it into their goal and score a point for us. Bravo, Flaming Hot Cheetos.
Although we felt a little bad for the other team, it was an obvious point in our favor.
It was not the same for Team Gatorade, however. When Team Gatorade, my other son’s team, had a lovely kick across the field, directly the striker, the striker did exactly what a striker is supposed to do: he dribbled it forward and kicked it into the goal. The parents stood up, whooping and hollering, but the kids stood still, not whooping and hollering. They’d heard the referee’s whistle, along with a declaration about a little thing called “offsides.” Clearly, the striker was not offsides, or so every parent on our side believed, as well as the coach, who later got a yellow card for arguing said offsides versus “No way on God’s green earth” offsides.
This goal was a lose-lose situation: if we argued offsides, we got a yellow card (which we did). If we didn’t argue offsides, we would have walked away wondering if our lack-of-offsides declarations would have paid off in the end.
As it goes, we didn’t get the point. Offsides became victor of that situation.
Although it is perhaps not the most perfect of analogies, yesterday’s offsides dispute finds a similar home in this week’s text.
In Matthew 22, disciples of the Pharisees, along with a handful of Herodians, plot to trap Jesus, once and for all. So, they present him with a declaration, followed by a question: “Teacher,” they say, “we know that you are sincere, AND teach the way of God in accordance with truth, AND show deference to no one; for YOU do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”
They butter him up. They say all the right things. They call him “teacher,” which is truth, and they also speak truths about him: that is sincere, that he’s on the same page as God, and that he treats everyone equally, without partiality.
But then they throw a curveball (or perhaps, in today’s analogy, a possible offsides) at him: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” Check yes or no.
Jesus is aware of all of their motives. He is God, after all, so he knows their hearts. He knows what they’re really trying to do.
To them he replies, “WHY are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me a coin used for the tax.” When they do, I imagine he flips it in his hand a few times: heads, tails – tails, heads. Then, after he’s let them stew for a fine minute or two, he finally says, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answer, “The emperor’s.” So “give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
The answer, my friends, is simple. The answer is right here.
“Jesus pushes people to think for themselves,” one theologian writes. He wants them to “determine what is best for them when they engage with the world.” This whole thing – even if it was a set-up, even if their words were far from sincere – wasn’t trickery to Jesus. Although they intended it to be a trick question, their hypocritical words a bait to catch him in the act, once and for all, Jesus wasn’t tripped up by their question.
It wasn’t a matter of offsides verses definitely not offsides: instead, the answer was clear, right there in front of them, if they were only willing to open their eyes and see.
This, certainly, is enough for the rest of us to put in our pockets and go home – but theologian Yung Suk Kim believes something else happens when we look at this passage and put our minds to conscientious, critical engagement with the world.
Kim believes we walk away with an even bigger invitation to love people, including our enemies. Did Jesus not do this in his interactions with the Pharisees and the Herodians? Sure, he called them hypocrites, because they were, but also he didn’t throw them under the bus.
Instead, he did exactly what their buttery praise told them he did: he did not show partiality.
This short passage, which is only seven verses long, leaves a lot to wonder – including what happened in those in-between moments. Perhaps our biggest clue comes at the end; after Jesus gives a final answer, Matthew writes, “When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.” There’s a lot that verse doesn’t say, but there’s also a whole lot it does say. They walked away amazed: amazed at his audacity to not give a straight answer or amazed by his plain and simple straight answer? Amazed at his ability to really be the person they’d declared him to be only minutes before? Amazed by his respect toward them?
We don’t necessarily know how the origins of their amazement, but as Kim offers, the rest of us can lean into further invitations to strive after Jesus’ kingdom and righteousness – and into out-of-the-box, loving answers like these – just as we can choose to live in hope, now and in the future.
And what better a place and time to love people, strive after the ways of Jesus, and live in hope than right now.
Perhaps like you, my world has been flooded with news of the Israel-Hamas War, begging me take a side. I am not an expert, so I am not here to offer any sort of expert opinion, but I am here to feel the weight of grief and death, to cry for an end, for peace in a place and a situation and a history filled with so much division.
As activist and author Shane Claiborne recently said, the reality is that “Every single Palestinian is made in the image of God. Every single one. Every single Israeli is made in the image of God. Every single one.”
Perhaps our invitation is to grieve the situation in Israel and the situation in Gaza – recognizing, like our passage, the two sides of the coin present in this situation. We can pray for an end to this division and call for ceasefire now – that there would be an “immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Israel to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and further loss of innocent lives.” We can call on Jesus, the Prince of Peace. And we can cry out, Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. Because sometimes, that is the only thing we can say.
So to close, I wonder if we might offer our collective words up to God. Repeat after me, as we say a prayer over the Israel-Gaza War:
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Amen.
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This sermon was preached nearly a year ago, on October 22, 2023 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California. Obviously, a lot has happened since this sermon first aired. I call for an immediate ceasefire to this unnecessary war. If you liked this piece, you might like last week’s excerpt on loving our neighbor as well!
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