Faithful Democrats
It will not be regular practice to post sermons on FaithfulDemocrats.com, but last Sunday I preached at my spouse Jennifer’s church on this saying of Jesus, which came up in the lectionary at just the right moment in time: “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” This led me to a helpful reflection on religion and politics, particularly in light of the upcoming election. The result is below.
In this blog entry, therefore, I want to both offer the sermon, and then provide some reflection on the sermon’s problems. First, the sermon:
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“Rendering Unto Caesar, Rendering Unto God”• St. Luke the Physician Episcopal Church-Gresham, Oregon • 19 October 2008, the Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Pentecost • Luke 20:20-26
Please pray with me. Dear God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Imagine my surprise when Jennifer told me that my penance for not having been in church the last two Sundays was that I would have to preach today. Yikes. But because yesterday was the feast day of Saint Luke the Physician, the namesake of this church, Jennifer at least humored me and changed the gospel for today to a reading from the gospel of Luke. But I want to assure those of you who are tied to the lectionary that the gospel lesson we heard just now was the parallel story to the gospel of Matthew we would have heard this Sunday anyway.
On Facebook, the social networking web site that both Jennifer and I spend too much time on, there are spaces provided for entering your political views and your religious views. Because these two spaces are adjacent on your personal profile, people often combine the two in some clever way. For instance, my friend Janine’s political views are listed as liberal, and her religious views are listed as liberal. Another friend, Dominique, has an interesting combination: her political views are represented by the quote “Be peaceful if possible, but justice by any means,” followed by religious views that state, “Jesus is my drill sergeant.” My friend Jim-a person of few words-has it this way: “Political views-a few,” “religious views-yes.” But of all the combinations of political and religious views I’ve seen on Facebook, one stands out for me as the most creative. My friend Clay came to Christianity in high school and, ever since, has managed to maintain the fervor of a new convert. His Facebook political views say, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” religious views: “and give back to God what is God’s.”
It is sixteen days until we as a nation elect our next president, so a discussion of how we Christians behave in the political arena seems apt. Scripture doesn’t give us a treatise on political science, or even a central statement on how Christians should encounter government. To be sure, there are, throughout the Bible, various statements that might give us some clues. But these statements tend to be very different from one another. For instance, take this statement from Paul in chapter thirteen of the letter to the church in Rome: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God” (13:1). Pretty straightforward, and written by one of the most faithful apostles. But compare that with a story from no less a pillar of the faith than Daniel. Even though King Darius had signed a decree that no one should bow to anyone except the king himself for thirty days-and remember, according to Paul all authority comes from God-despite all of that, we read this: “Although Daniel knew that the decree had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem, to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously” (6:10). Stubborn Daniel just can’t seem to follow orders, and we know which particular lion’s den that landed him in. And then of course, there’s something like the book of Revelation, where it is prophesied that God will tear down all the kingdoms and nations of the earth in the final days. From just these three accounts, we have three different ways in which Christians might approach government: Obedience, disobedience, even complete destruction.
Add to that the witness of so many early Christian martyrs, who died because they would not subject themselves to Rome’s gods, they would not deny their faith and proclaim their ultimate allegiance to the rulers of the day. For that reason they were considered by the empire to be very, very dangerous indeed. It is unknown, definitively, whether or not Saint Luke was a martyr of the faith. Some traditions say that his life ended in martyrdom, others say that he lived to the ripe old age of 84. What we do know for sure is that Saint Luke, who is known as the writer of both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, was well acquainted with Paul who almost certainly was martyred. Luke must have at least known closely others who were martyred for their belief in Jesus as the Christ. Not surprisingly, Luke’s gospel is the most political of the four-many of the parables in it are about money and economics, suggesting the necessity of disrupting business as usual.
Compared to all the extremes I’ve just mentioned-Luke’s economics and politics, Daniel’s disobeying of King Darius’ decree, the worldwide carnage of Revelation and the obedience Paul suggests-Jesus’ statement in today’s gospel-“give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”-seems, as one news channel might say, “fair and balanced.” Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor, give to God what belongs to God. Okay, so you’ve got this coin here that has the emperor’s face on it. Very impressive. Caesar made the coin, Caesar can have it back. (Incidentally, we do have it straight from the fish’s mouth that Jesus paid his taxes.) All of these buildings, this wonderful system of waterways the Roman empire has created, this new thing called indoor plumbing we’re experimenting with, this is all really remarkable. Caesar can have all of that. But “give to God the things that are God’s.” Well, what is God’s?
Lately, Jennifer has been throwing the B-word around a lot. I’m pretty uncomfortable with it, because it’s not a word that was used in my house a lot growing up, and I’m not sure I want Liam and Graham repeating it at school. Every time I hear it, the B-word sounds harsh to my ears, out of place, even rude. You know which B-word I’m talking about, right? Dare I say it in church? Blessed. That B-word. “I just feel so blessed that we were able to move back to Portland,” Jennifer says. “Our house has been a real blessing for us,” she states boldly. “God has really blessed us with everything we have,” she declares, even in front of other people. Just the other day, I heard her say that word, blessed, and my sense of justice kicked in. So I asked her about it, “How can you keep saying we’re blessed by God in what we have and where we are in life? Do you think all those other people who don’t have what we do are somehow rejected by God, somehow un-blessed?” She answered simply, “I just think we have to recognize that everything we have is a gift from God. It doesn’t mean that other people don’t have gifts from God, just different gifts. But we can’t possibly not be thankful for what we do have.” It’s a hard thing, sometimes, to be married to an Episcopal priest, because she just tends to be right so much of the time, and it’s annoying. Everything we have is a gift, is a blessing from God, because everything is God’s and is from God. What’s that line from the Bible again? Oh yeah, that’s right: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” That doesn’t leave much that doesn’t belong to God.
So when Jesus says “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” he literally leaves his accusers speechless. Absolutely floored. Because he hasn’t said anything wrong-they couldn’t get him to say that taxes shouldn’t be paid or that Caesar shouldn’t be obeyed. But of course what he said was much, much more than that, and they knew it. “Give to God the things that are God’s.” Everything is God’s, even, or especially, our lives. This was a hard message for the religious authorities of Jesus’ day to hear, and it’s a challenging thing for us to hear, particularly in this season of stewardship. If everything is God’s and we are to give God the things that are God’s… the logical next steps are pretty easy to follow. From an economic or political standpoint, this is dangerous talk.
But it should be, because when we Christians cease to be dangerous to the empire, we are in trouble. Yes, we will vote in our election, we will take part in our democratic process, some of us even with great hope and excitement. Most of us will be law-abiding, for the most part, and none of us has yet to start a revolution (although I hear the Bevilacquas are considering it). We are citizens of this nation, without doubt. But for those of us who claim that we are born anew in Jesus Christ, one thing neither Barack Obama nor John McCain will ever have from us is our ultimate allegiance, our belief, our faith. Politicians are important, but only God is God. And although we root for our candidate and give our financial donations to the Caesars of our day, we know that our lives are due to God because they belong to God. And by God, if ever we should face the day when our political allegiance comes in conflict with our faith, we had better know who we are and whose we are.
Now, that doesn’t mean we all have to be Saint Francis, giving away all of our possessions and taking on a vow of poverty for the rest of our lives. Everything belongs to God, yes, but happily God is not hovering over us threateningly, like a bank about to foreclose on us if we default on what is owed. But, if our lives belong to God it does mean that no matter how excited we get about this political season, no matter how important we all think it is to exercise our right to vote, no matter where we are, whether in church, at home, or in the voting booth, we remember that we are God’s children, every one of us. And that comes first, before we make our political decisions or cast our ballots, or even before we open our eyes and take that first breath every morning.
So please, pray about this election. Mail in your vote by November 4th. Take part in this great experiment we call democracy. Open a dialogue with a friend who might not agree with you and tell them why you are voting how you are. Then, see if you can tell them what that has to do with your faith. Go, in these next weeks as the campaigns draw to a close; go, on November 4th amid the excitement of election day; go, into this season of the church’s stewardship; go into all of these places and “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And blessed is the one who knows which is which. Amen.
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And now, the post-sermon reflection: since this sermon mentioned Facebook at the beginning, I actually posted it as a “note” in my Facebook account. One of the responses that struck me, from my best friend Ethan, was that he wished I had said more about how Christians should vote, given the upcoming election. In other words, he wanted the sermon to come off as pro-Obama, even if I didn’t say so explicitly. He knows that I am an active Democrat, deeply concerned about this election and nearly desperate to see Barack Obama become our next president.
Reading back over the sermon, I realize I sound more religiously moderate/conservative than I actually am. The trick for me was how to preach about religion and politics without alienating Jennifer’s congregation, who are probably split evenly along political lines but nevertheless manage to come together in powerful Christian community. It being my first time preaching for them, I didn’t want to alienate the people I have only just started to know in these past ten months since Jennifer has been at St. Luke’s.
But, Ethan maintained that it was something of a cop-out, and I can’t deny that he is right about that. Ultimately, I do believe that “giving to God the things that are God’s” means “doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.” And for me, in 2008, that means I support Barack Obama’s vision for the United States. Obviously I would never say that directly in a sermon-we have all heard of the problems churches have gotten themselves in for similar partisan statements-but I could have been more intentional about naming the values we take into the voting booth. It was an opportunity missed.
I’ll end this reflection with a hope, a dream, a prayer: that the United States can become more like St. Luke’s itself, coming together across political lines to form a community of mutual support, care, and love. There’s an eschatological vision with political ambitions.
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