Sunday, October 22, 2017

The Occupation of Our Hearts

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ
Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
October 22, 2017

Year A, Proper 24: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 45: 1-7
Psalm 96:1-13
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

The Occupation of Our Hearts
            A couple of weeks ago there was a story in The New York Times about the decline and fall of stamp collecting.
            It seems that kids today just aren’t interested in collecting these little bits of paper and gum, these small works of art, so the average age of stamp collectors is steadily rising, and the market for all but the rarest of stamps is drying up.
            In the age of email and the Internet and all the rest of it, stamps and stamp collecting have become quaint relics of the increasingly distant past.
            This article caught my attention because as a kid I was a very avid stamp collector, spending many happy and solitary hours arranging and poring over my collection.
            I was the kid who went to the post office the first day a new stamp was issued, the nerd who pestered the clerk for a rarely used stamp in an odd denomination.
            Some of my happiest childhood experiences were when my parents would take me to Gimbel’s in Herald Square, which had a remarkable Stamp Department (Macy’s did, too, but it was nowhere near as good!).
            I would look longingly at the many cabinets filled with interesting stamps from all around the world – and, usually, my parents would let me buy a set or two so I could fill a gap in my collection.
            Good times.
            For whatever reason, I was especially interested in stamps from the many British colonies, large tracts of land in Africa and the islands dotting the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
            For the most part, in the British Empire the stamps were very similar. Often they would depict some local landmark or some example of flora and fauna, but a good bit of the stamp’s real estate was taken up with an image of the Queen, either her picture or her silhouette.
            For some of you, these are the stamps you grew up using, right?
            I didn’t think about this as a kid, but each time that somebody in one of the colonies licked one of these stamps and stuck it on an envelope, they got a little reminder that they were not in control over their own land, a reminder that they were occupied by a faraway foreign power, a power that cared more about its own wealth and prestige than the well-being of colonial peoples, a power that was represented by the monarch’s face right there on the stamp.
            And, the same was true of the coins, too.
            As we heard in today’s Gospel lesson, there’s nothing new about this strategy.
            For example, the Romans put the image of the Emperor on the coins that were used throughout their vast empire, in lands stretching from Britain itself all the way to Judea, to the land of Jesus and his fellow Jews of the first century.
            The Gospels were written by people living in the Roman Empire.
The Gospels were written by people who wanted to survive living in the Roman Empire, and wanted their new faith to survive, too. So, they tend to downplay Roman brutality (think of Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for the death of Jesus). The Gospels instead tend to turn the priests and the Pharisees into the villains of the Jesus story, unfortunately and tragically setting the stage for two thousand years of Christian hatred and violence against Jews.
            But, the truth is that the people of Israel, the people that Jesus lived among, chafed under Roman rule – they didn’t like it one bit.
            They resented the Roman occupation of the land given to them by God.
            They despised paying taxes, giving their meager resources to the faraway emperor and his government, who ruled brutally and selfishly, completely lacking in empathy for the suffering of ordinary people in their vast Empire.
            This is why the tax collectors were so bitterly despised in the time of Jesus – they were Jews working for the occupiers.
            And, the Jews hated using coins bearing the image of the Emperor, these little idols that reminded them over and over that they were an occupied people.
            From time to time the Jews rebelled against Roman rule and each time the Romans crushed these rebellions and executed those who had dared to rise up, a warning to others who might get ideas about challenging Rome.
            In first century Jerusalem, crucifixions were not uncommon at all.
            So, that’s the unspoken but very real and harsh backdrop of today’s gospel lesson.
            As usual, there’s tension between Jesus and other religious authorities. This time we’re told it’s the disciples of the Pharisees and also a group called the “Herodians,” who presumably supported Herod, Rome’s puppet king.
            They ask Jesus,
            “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”
            The author of the Gospel tells us that they asked Jesus this question to trap him, and maybe so, though I always wonder if maybe they just honestly wanted to hear his opinion on this sensitive issue.
            Anyway, if they were trying to trap him they fail because Jesus holds in his hand one of the Roman coins, one of these little idols, and replies with a very Jesus-like answer:
            “Give (therefore) to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
            We’re told that his questioners were amazed by this answer and get away from him as fast as they can.
            Jesus of Nazareth was a first century Jew, so I’m sure that, like his Jewish brothers and sisters, he was unhappy with the Roman occupation.
I’m sure that he was horrified by his countrymen crying out in agony from crosses, that he was angered by the indignity of Roman troops and officials in the land of Israel.
            The Roman occupation was brutal, but, the truth is, that Jesus the Son of God is much more concerned with the occupation of our hearts.
            So, yes, send the coins to the emperor, the brutal man in the capital city who fancies himself a god and cares nothing for our suffering, send him his coins for as long as the Romans occupy our land.
            But, here’s the thing: despite the very real suffering and indignity, despite the bloody cruelty and violence, despite his image being all over the place, don’t let the emperor occupy your heart.
            Instead, give your heart – give all that really matters - to God and God alone.
            Because, someday the emperor will be gone, and someday even his whole empire will vanish, but, after all that and much more, God will continue to reign.
            What Jesus knew was that God is hard at work building a kingdom, a kingdom founded not on violence and greed, but a kingdom based on love and generosity.
            And, you and I are invited to help build that kingdom.
            We build God’s kingdom each time we open our doors and feed people who can never repay us, maybe even people we don’t like or even trust.
            We build God’s kingdom each time we pray for others, people we know and those we don’t, people we love and those we may despise, and, yes, even the person who may think he is the emperor of today.
            We build God’s kingdom each time we break down the barriers that divide us, black and white, haves and have-nots, Democrats and Republicans, lifelong Christians and those who don’t believe a word of it, …
            And, yes, Incarnation and St. Paul’s.
            We help to build God’s kingdom each time we love and take the side of the oppressed and the outcasts, the colonized people of today, the people of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, so many of whom are still without water and electricity, the people of color harassed day after day by those in charge, the worker whose labor isn’t respected or properly compensated, and, yes, the tiny minority of our fellow Americans who volunteer and are sometimes sent to faraway lands most of us have never heard of, to fight and die in wars most of us don’t understand.
            Yes, Jesus was well aware of the brutal Roman occupation of his homeland, but he recognized that the emperor’s power was only temporary.
            So, go ahead, pay the tax.
            But, Jesus was much more concerned with not letting the emperor occupy our hearts.
Jesus teaches us that, no matter who may seem to have the power in this moment, loving God and doing God’s work must be the occupation of our hearts.
Amen.