“Teacher, is it lawful to pay taxes
or not?”
If you were here last week you will
recall that this was the question asked of Jesus by the Pharisees and
Herodians. As I said then, this was a way of doing theology – ask
a question and see where it took you. Whenever we talk about God we
are doing theology. So asking questions about everyday things and
trying to discover where and how God is working in those everyday
things makes sense, and it makes us theologians.
The problem with that question, though,
was that the Pharisees and Herodians had already figured out how they
were going to deal with Jesus depending on how he answered. That is
not doing theology. That is trying to fit God into a gotcha box to
be used against other people. That is using God as a weapon. And it
is something we need to pay attention to and avoid doing ourselves.
Today we seem to have another “theology
on the ground” question.
“Teacher, which commandment is the
greatest?”
But this really isn't a theological
question as much as, in the words of Admiral Ackbar, “it's a trap!”
Because here again we have an expert in the law trying to force
Jesus' hand to pick one or the other and leaving him open to attack.
There are something like 613 laws that Jewish rabbis concluded were
in the entire Torah, and the expert is asking Jesus to pick the one
that he thinks is the most important.
To turn the tables, this would be like
me asking you, “Of the 600 or so rules, which is the most important
rule in football?” Within this congregation I am the expert on
high school football rules. I am the lawyer. And probably no matter
which rule you pick, I will be able to counter with something else –
and a better explanation of why it's more important.
It's a trap.
But as usual, Jesus is up to the task.
The first mistake is to assume that
there is only one. Jesus will counter with two and combine them in a
way to draw a new focus. The first and greatest is this, 'You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and
with all your mind.'
This is a direct quote of Deuteronomy
6:5. Deuteronomy is essentially a record of Mosaic law. Where the
law shows up in bits and pieces in the other books of the Pentateuch,
such as interspersed with stories of the Exodus, ritual and
liturgical rubrics, and a recounting of desert wanderings and
censuses, Deuteronomy is like that wall of legal books in a lawyer's
office. So when Jesus recites that passage, he is really saying,
“Let's look at what the law says.”
And if you think about it, this goes
back to last week's question: Is it lawful to pay taxes or not?
Whose image is on the coin? Whose image is stamped on you?
We bear the image of God. We are the
image of God in the world. The coin belongs to the emperor; we
belong to God – our selves, our souls, and our bodies. Is it no
wonder that the first commandment is to love God with all our heart,
soul, and mind?
But then Jesus goes further. He
follows this up with, “And the second is like it: you shall love
your neighbor as yourself.” This, as we all know, is the Golden
Rule. It appears in many religions and is the maxim for altruism,
whether religious or not. It showed up in ancient Egypt, India,
Greece, Persia, and Rome. It's part of Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Hinduism, and more. Jesus wasn't the first to say it.
What he does, though, is to take this
well-known law of reciprocity found in the world and merge it with
the Law of God. And on these two laws – Love God with everything
you have, and love your neighbor as yourself – hang ALL
the law and the prophets.
Love God. Love your neighbor. These
two commandments cannot be separated. These two commandments are the
basis and the support of everything else. And you cannot claim to
follow one while ignoring the other.
Plenty of people claim they love and
follow God. Yet those same people push to restrict access to health
care, both physical and mental. They allow for the increasing rise
in prices of prescription drugs. They work to reduce feeding
programs and infant care. And they continue to treat women's bodies
as property to be controlled.
Claims of, “I love God,” are
followed by actions that continue to place profit over health,
allowing corporations to roll over individuals, shunning/blaming the
homeless while refusing to pay decent wages. Or are followed by
actions driven by hate and jealously, working to marginalize and
minimize those of different color, gender, age, or sexuality.
What does God require? To do justice,
love kindness, and walk humbly.
As I look around our society today as a
whole, there are plenty of people who claim to love God while at the
same time treat others poorly at best or hateful at worst. We as a
society are missing the mark. We as a society are sinning greatly.
I may not be able to do anything about
the larger picture, but I can ensure that in here we will love each
other as we ourselves want to be loved. And maybe that will cause us
to love those outside our walls. Maybe that will cause us to rethink
how we treat those who differ from us – racially, politically,
religiously, sexually.
The word common to these two
commandments that Jesus quotes is, “Love.” To love God is to
love our neighbor. To love our neighbor is to love God.
And if we get this wrong, the whole law
that these two commandments support will come crashing down around us
and we won't stand a chance.
We know which are the greatest
commandments. The question is whether or not we are obeying them.
Amen.
4 comments:
You do know the difference between Sadducees and Pharisees, don't you? Pharisees believed in a life after death. The other group did not; that was why they were so Sad-you-see.
Ugh . . . I don't know how many times I've heard that, and it still hurts. :)
~wild applause~
Thank you, spooky. Someone filing out after church said, "Great sermon, but stay away from politics."
Um . . . Have you READ the gospel?
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