Meditation 

Message        Lectionary 29          A Worship      18 October, 2026

Good morning, and welcome to our Service!

Today’s readings call us to grapple with our place as Jesus’ followers in our much broader political context.  It’s a topic that cannot be dodged, as much as we may wish to.  With just over two weeks until midterm elections, maybe you’re wondering: Can I just be done with this, already?  Dear friends, I’m so sorry, but you cannot be done with it.  Today’s texts come to us with confrontation and discomfort only the lectionary can give.

The readings all circle around the theme of how faithful people live honorably in civil society, while demonstrating their obedience to God alone.  But ya know, Pastors who want to faithfully preach on the texts, might well be accused of being political, because scripture is political.  But let’s make a distinction- political is NOT partisan! 

If politics are the governance and public affairs of a country, well, scripture has a lot to say about that.  But being partisan, taking the side of one party, scripture does not say.  So I avoid that like the plague.  Not because I’m without opinions and convictions, but because today’s texts aren’t about taking sides.  Instead, they address a question Christians in every nation must answer: How do I understand God’s action in my daily life, and what does that mean for how I live as a citizen?

Isaiah, for instance, reminds the people that God can and will use any tool at hand to bring about God’s chosen future.  God will even use Cyrus, a foreign king and unbeliever, to release the people from oppression so they can return home.  God’s grace reigns through Cyrus’s reign.  God’s law has driven the people to both fear and trust God, to shape the laws of the land, and to form moral rules that value what God values.

Meanwhile, the gospel puts the responsibility for action on us.  God can use anything to achieve salvation: but how are we to respond in the civil sphere?  Jesus’ answer asks us to keep things in their rightful place.  Believers must consider the law of the land.

We can’t say that Jesus argues for complete disengagement from the affairs of the world.  Instead, Jesus cautions that we should never equate any earthly kingdom with God’s kingdom.  Isaiah tells us that God can use anything to do God’s will; Jesus reminds us that the power of a person or nation isn’t necessarily a threat to (or a result of) God’s will.

Maybe Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica can ground us as we take on the heavy topics of civic engagement, lawfulness, obedience, God’s will in the world, and our place in it all.  Paul notes to the new Christians, “In every place your faith in God has become known” (1 Thess. 1:8).  What makes them noteworthy is not their political prestige, bowing to surrounding culture, or appropriation of power.  It’s that they have faithfully served “a living and true God” (v. 9).  That service comes before any other allegiance.  Perhaps when we do that earnestly and humbly, our place in society can follow.

And so let’s look at our Gospel.  No one would have expected the Pharisees and Herods’ folks to come together on the issue of taxation.1  The former opposed the Roman Empire, and the latter actively worked with it, but they both disdained Jesus, and that brought the two ideologically and politically opposed groups together.

So they offered false praise to Jesus before posing a question—”Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?”—aimed at trapping him.  The question was meant to offer Jesus no alternative but to either defy Caesar, or offend those who were resisting Rome, which likely included most of his supporters.

Hence, it was hypocrisy on the part of the two groups to suggest that Jesus explicitly commit to collaborating with or defying the empire. The choice for him and his followers was more complicated than simply condoning the empire, or engaging in outright sedition.

So the question in Matthew 22 about paying taxes became not just a political question.  It was also a moral and theological question.  What is legal is not necessarily moral.  What is lawful from Rome’s perspective might not be acceptable to God.  Hence, even as one pays taxes due to Caesar, one should also pay what is due to God.  Key point!

But what is the relationship between the political and theological aspects of “paying”? Paying to both Caesar and God was not so much about checking off both boxes, or keeping both of them equally happy, but about carefully considering the complexity of the issue at hand.  While people pay taxes to Rome out of obligation, they “pay” to God because of their calling and their commitment to promote an alternative kingdom.  And so it is with us!

In those days, an imperial tax can be paid without the payment being a vote of support for Rome. Paying taxes acknowledges Rome’s political power but not its moral authority to rule.  That moral authority belongs to God.  Which is why Jesus quickly adds that one must pay to God the things that are due to God.

But the “coinage” of God’s kingdom is radically different than that of Caesar.  God does not trade in Caesar’s currency.  The whole nature and trajectory of God’s kingdom that Jesus has inaugurated, and is inviting people to participate in, is fundamentally at odds with Caesar’s.  Which is why, while people must pay to both Caesar and God, they must pay them not only for different reasons, but also in entirely different currencies.  Paying to God and participating in the divine kingdom entails repenting of the ways that they have been complicit in the Roman Empire and its agenda.  Paradoxically, then, those people people should pay taxes the empire has imposed upon them, while actively resisting it and working to promote the alternative kingdom.

Within Matthew’s Gospel, the Beatitudes suggest that whatever brings wholeness, transformation, and healing to communities is a form of resistance to the imperial worldview, and thus perhaps the form of coinage required of disciples, especially in divisive times.

If we consider the issue of paying taxes in our times - some questions for us are: How do we as Christians negotiate political spaces tactfully without legitimating them?  How do we remain hopeful and committed to God’s kingdom and its worldview in the face of persistent evil?   What are the mechanisms—the coinage—we need to put in place in order to transform the current reality and bring about a different reality that would be more acceptable to God?

It comes down to how we continue to find ways to serve God.  One of those ways is by attending Services.  Sunday service, if we include getting ready, driving or walking, chatting etc., might be 3 hours.   3 hours out of the week of 7 - 24 hour days.  But let’s set aside sleeping 8 hours a day.  So 7 days of 16 waking hours is over 100 waking hours a week.  That means that church service consumes around 3% of the week.

But “Service” has a second meaning- being of service to God and others throughout the week.  I know that many of us work to be of service to God and others.  There are many ways to do so, from volunteering at agencies that serve the less fortunate, to caring for family members, to being a positive force in the wider community, and on.

I’m not suggesting that I have a recommendation for anyone, other than for each of us to consider how much we serve, by our efforts in our wider families, in our community, and in our church community.  That last one, our church community, includes how much we volunteer, how loving we are to those we know and those we don’t, and even how we gauge how much of our treasure to share with the church community.

Can you believe it?  There are religious communities that have suggestions for what percentage of income to share!  NO, we do NOT have such guidelines.  Other religious communities have real rules for what percentage to share!  NO, we do NOT have such guidelines.  In fact, I make it a point to NOT know how much ANY of you contribute.  You are each children of God, and we will do our best to meet your needs.

All I ask is that we each consider how to give to tax and other requirements what is due to them, and then to also consider how we all benefit from God’s presence in us, around us, and in our church community, and then give accordingly- in the many ways that we can, based on our God-given gifts.

So may it be for all of us.  God loves you and so do I.  AMEN.