WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?
Exodus 33:12-23; Matthew 22:15-22
October 16, 2005

It was a trick question. We know that, don’t we? Jesus was in the temple, the place where no images of any other God were allowed, and there came this crowd of opponents, those who supported Herod because to do so kept the peace and those who held some position authority within the Jewish community. Tell us, they demanded, should we pay the poll tax, or not?

Perhaps it would help us to know the context of the question. Do you remember, in the Christmas story, that there was a census to count the Jewish people—that was why Luke tells us that Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem, so that they could be recorded. The census was used to determine who was there, and therefore, who had to pay taxes to Rome. It was deeply, deeply resented in Judea.

The poll tax came into effect when Judea became a Roman province. Jews opposed it from the beginning, leading uprisings, being defeated, sometimes being crucified as revolutionaries. Zealots need only fan the anger about the poll tax to recruit members from among the lower classes. And perhaps you would have joined them, just as our own forebears in this country would have, for the poll tax, like the stamp tax of the 1770s, was levied so that the people of an occupied nation might themselves pay the costs of the occupation. It was hated bitterly, defiantly, implacably by those who resented the Roman rule.

The poll tax could only be paid in Roman currency. Tax collectors, known as collaborators with the occupying forces, forced Jews to exchange their Jewish currency for Roman currency to pay the tax; just as the temple authorities forced them to exchange Roman currency for Jewish currency to buy animals for holy sacrifice. Coming or going, the poor lost out to the moneychangers, who always took a cut. Moreover, the Roman currency featured a bust of the emperor, and an inscription: Tiberius, august son of the Divine Augustus, High Priest. Tiberius, son of the Divine; Tiberius, Son of God.

So, Jesus—should we pay the poll tax or not? Answer quick, lose no matter what. Say no and you’ll be arrested and killed as a revolutionary. Say yes and you’ll blaspheme the faith and acknowledge that Tiberius is son of God, sending your followers, many of them poor outcasts and Zealots, away in disgust.

One of the things I appreciate about the stories about Jesus is that they show us so often that he wouldn’t let himself be forced into false choices. Answer my question, yes or no, they’d ask, they’d demand, and he’d answer, why do you ask, you say so, give what is Caesar’s to Caesar and what is God’s to God. He’d throw the heart of the question back to the accuser: who do you say that I am; what do you think is the greatest law; what of life belongs to empire and what of life belongs to God?

Something we often miss is how politically radical Jesus’ followers were in his time. Long before Christianity became the religion of Empire, it was the faith of people who proclaimed that Jesus was Lord; meaning, that Caesar was not the Lord of their allegiance and heart. Jesus, not Caesar, was “son of God.� God, not Empire, was the center of life and allegiance. These rebels, these insurgents were fighting the forces of occupation with their minds, with their words, with their loyalties, proclaiming that God was at work right there in Judea, within the Roman Empire, was at work right there, and right then, overthrowing the power of oppression and empire.

Today, we will take new members into University Park United Methodist Church. In the process, we will remember the claims we make as Christians, answering again the questions: Do you renounce to spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in God’s grace, and promise to serve Christ as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, races, abilities, genders and orientations?

My God, what questions are these! Do we put our whole trust in God? Do we accept that we have been empowered to resist evil in whatever form it takes? Will we join our lives with other people to create a community of resistance, a community of proclamation: Caesar is not the Lord of life; God is, Christ is?

Sixty three years ago, our nation undertook an evil act. Reacting to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, our nation decided that citizens of Japanese descent who lived on the West Coast were a threat to the nation. These neighbors, farmers, citizens, fellow students and sometimes parents of soldiers were rounded up, told they could take only what they could carry in a suitcase, and shipped off to “relocation� camps. Their farm, homes, possessions? Gone, sold for pennies, taken over by others.

It was a national disgrace, a terrible reminder that any country can act in evil ways, especially in times of reaction. And yet, it was not a time without acts of grace and courage. In Denver, I knew a pastor who had moved himself and his family members into the homes of Japanese citizens to protect the people from attack and then to protect their homes from destruction after they were carted away. In Modesto, California, a woman of faith protested to the state legislature, without success. She had neighbors and friends who were Japanese; she knew they were not a threat to the nation. She wrote to the president; she wrote to members of congress, all without success. And yet, she did not give up. This woman of courage and faith took her own money and bought all the homes and farms of her neighbors and friends. She held their land in trust. When the war ended and the camps were closed, her neighbors returned to Modesto to learn that she had protected them from the profound losses of farms and homes that was the experience of most of the other imprisoned Japanese citizens. One person, one unknown “little woman� could not prevent the nation from doing what was wrong; but she could resist that evil with all of her resources, and, in doing so, she could protect her neighbors from some of the effects of oppression.

Would you have the strength to do that? Would I? Oh, I hope I would, but I also know myself well enough to know that it might be more likely that I’d think it was a crying shame what was happening, that I’d talk to people and wish it was different and that I’d be sick about it, that I might even wonder if I could buy the homes and farms and hold them in trust; but then I’d probably get distracted and go on to the next “ain’t it awful�, feeling increasingly helpless.

Alone, we can be overwhelmed by the forces of injustice and oppression, by evil and fear, hatred and bigotry. But, our faith tells us, we are not alone. We are held in the love and care of God, we are strengthened by the one who is beyond all comprehension, by a God whose being we cannot hold in our minds, but whose presence strengthens us in the face of forces that would seem greater than we are. God is with us; we are not alone. But more: we are with each other. We are a church; we are a community of faith.

David Watson, in his book Discipleship, puts it this way:
Christ’s calling is to a radical alternative society which will, by its existence and values, profoundly challenge the existing society of today. . . .Fellowship, for those first Christians meant unconditional availability to and unlimited liability for other brothers and sisters—emotionally, financially and spiritually. If the church is to become God’s people in the way that Christ demonstrated with his own disciples, it means much more than singing the same hymns, praying the same prayers, taking the same sacraments, and joining in the same services. It will involve the full commitment of our lives, and of all that we have, to one another. Yet it is only when we lose our lives that we will find them, so bringing the life of Jesus to others. In fact, this practical expression of love will speak more powerfully of the living God than anything else. . . .

When we join a church, we join each other and the whole cloud of witnesses, present, past and future, who testify that we have never been left alone to face evil or despair. Today, is a special day for us, a day when Sally and Jerry, Ed and Deb and Aaron will move their membership to this congregation. Today is a special day for us, a day when we gave Anthony his own Bible and invited him to grow up in the midst of our long, un-ending story of God-with-us, of presence and empowerment as God’s on-going gift. In the midst of a world that will try to convince him and all children that they are unimportant, that they exist to be consumers, that they have to fear their neighbors and look out for number one, we are here to sing a different song, perhaps the one I heard as I typed these lines:
We’re here to love, oh, we all know how oh, it’s our finest hour, all the stars up in heaven keep shining down. All together to the holy land, each one needing somebody’s hand. And it’s time that we all understand, that we all understand, we’re here to love. –Limeliters

Oh, it’s a great day in the neighborhood, a day when we know, beyond all knowing, whose we are, and how that knowing will shape our world and our lives. Amen.

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Rita Nakashima Brock, “the Courage to Choose/The Commitment to Being Chosen,� in And Blessed Is She: Sermons by Women, ed. David Albert Farmer and Edwina Hunter (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1994), p. 109

David Watson, Discipleship (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983, pp. 42-43.

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