by CCW | 19 November 2017 16:38
The leaves lie scattered on the wind, the trees barren, and the fields desolate and empty. Grey November has descended upon us, dark and drear, it seems. And yet, in that time of year “when yellow leaves or none or few do hang/upon those boughs which shake against the cold”, we are recalled to something more than ourselves, our culture, and even our churches, which may seem to be but “bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.” We are recalled in the November greyness of nature’s death to our life in the spirit, at once in the great and defining spiritual festivals of All Saints’ and All Souls’ and in their secular after-effects in things like the Remembrance Day weekend, but equally and most importantly in the Scripture readings which grace this time of year and which speak profoundly and reflectively to our spiritual identity.
“How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” Peter asks Jesus as we heard last Sunday and, then, in response, Jesus says “until seventy times seven” before proceeding with a parable which illustrates the immeasurable and incalculable nature of God’s merciful forgiveness and the willful folly of our humanity which negates his infinite forgiveness by refusing to forgive others. And, now, as if in a kind of complement, this Sunday we are reminded of “our citizenship in heaven” in contrast to our worldly and economic concerns. In each case, the whole matter turns on our sense of spiritual identity. Who are we in the sight of God?
Our buildings, too, stand as eloquent testaments to our spiritual identity. The year 2017 marks the 135th anniversary of the building of Christ Church within the longer history of the Parish going back to the 18th century. The year 2017 also marks the 140th anniversary of the building of Hensley Memorial Chapel at King’s-Edgehill School, now in its 229th year. These are strong markers of our heavenly citizenship and ones which stand as stern and stark reminders to what is so easily forgotten and overlooked if not altogether denied and scorned.
Perhaps no Gospel story speaks more directly to our contemporary confusions and uncertainties about identity than this one about the tribute-money. The key question is the one which Jesus raises in the context of animosity about identity. The Pharisees seek to “entangle him in his talk”, to trap him in his speech with a question about paying taxes to Caesar. The context is about Israel under Roman domination but it extends to each and every form of domination. To what extent are we defined not only by the powers that be but by the ideologies of our world and day which compromise, confine, and constrain us to the agendas of profit and tyranny however much we are their willing or unwilling slaves? At issue is really nothing less than what it means to be human. There is already the increasing recognition that “we are slaves to the algorithm,” the invisible ghosts in the machines that dominate the social media world. As Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the world-wide web, warns[1], “the system is failing. The way ad revenue works with clickbait is not fulfilling the goal of helping humanity promote truth and democracy”. Others have called it “the weaponisation of social media,” again highlighting the idea of domination.
Jesus, we are told, “perceived their wickedness” and challenges his would-be detractors by saying “why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute-money.” They bring him a penny about which he asks the great and defining question, “Whose is this image and superscription?” He draws out of them the obvious answer. It is the image of Caesar stamped upon the coin to which he responds in a wonderful (and pre-Jesuitical) fashion with the classic “render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”. A brilliant riposte, we might think, but that misses the deeper point.
Of course, we have a mix of loyalties, duties and obligations towards ourselves and one another. But what Jesus is reminding us is that we have another and more primary commitment to God and to the community of his love without which, and this is the key point, none of our other obligations and commitments make any real sense. By recalling us to ourselves as made in the image of God, Jesus is countering all the various ways in which we betray ourselves, diminish, and destroy ourselves by identifying not with the creator but with creation and more perversely with our own works and activities. We make an idol of ourselves at the expense of our true identity as made in the image of God, an image which in Christ is made visible to us. We do not know what we shall be but we shall be what he is. Jesus reveals to us more fully what it means to be made in the image of God.
At the very least, it will not do to substitute the rich and powerful language of the Scripture for the poor and impoverishing images of the economic world in whatever form it takes – money in its various guises. This Gospel challenges the idea that we are largely defined by the economic systems of our world and day; a challenge to both communism and capitalism in equal measure, whatever one might mean by those terms. The Gospel offers a challenge to each and every system which reduces us to commodities and consumers. In every case we lose ourselves.
To “render unto God the things that are God’s” is actually the only corrective to the forms of our self-betrayal and confusion. Does that mean a revolt against economic life? Of course not. Such things cannot be denied their role and place but the deeper and profounder spiritual point is that such things are radically incomplete and when we allow any economic programme to define us we become, in effect, its slaves. Modern slavery, it is worth noting, is invariably slavery through commerce. We turn ourselves as well as others into commodities, into things, and so deny the real truth and dignity of our humanity.
Christ’s question is not simply about the coin. It is about us. In whose image are we? What defines us? Our economic status and tax bracket or our identity in Christ? Our Christian identity calls us to a different form of community and fellowship. It calls us to a far greater form of citizenship than the political and the economic. We are reminded of our heavenly citizenship, to who we are in the sight of God. That Jesus should teach us this in the context not only of animosity and persecution but of the easy ways in which we succumb to the economic world is pure genius. He is using the tribute-money to recall us to the real worth and dignity of our humanity as made in the image of God.
There can be no greater teaching, it seems to me, than that which recalls us to God. That is the marvel. Even the Pharisees who sought to “entangle him in their talk”, “marvelled, and left him, and went their way.” They were changed, it seems, by what they saw and heard. Will we? How long before the grim and dreary economic politics of our world and day awakens to awe and wonder in the God upon whom all our being and thinking depends? How long, indeed, before we realize that “our citizenship is in heaven”? Without that we are but leaves scattered on the wind, barren and dead.
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 23, 2017
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