Matthew 22.15-22
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

All literature, sacred or not, is created within the context of culture and history. Some types of writing — like wisdom literature — endure, while other types fade with time. The setting for this morning’s text is, of course first-century Judea, a region under Roman occupation for a little less than a century, and it would be another 30 years or so until the Jews rose in revolt and about 35 years until the Romans would defeat the Jews and demolish the Second Temple. The people Jesus is speaking to are living under the boot of the Roman Empire. Think of occupied France during World War II and you’ll get the picture: people living under military occupation, religious oppression, economic oppression, and a growing hatred of the occupier. 

Both Jesus and his inquisitive friends, the Pharisees, were anti-Roman, but the Pharisees had a leg up as members of the religious establishment. So, when they send their students, their disciples, over to Jesus to pose a question, they are trying to get Jesus into a double-bind, either by admitting that it was legitimate to pay the occupiers or whether a tax revolt was more appropriate. 

Of course, Jesus doesn’t play into their hands, he does some rhetorical jujitsu, asking them to pull out a denarius. It’s the type of Roman coin that would have been in circulation when Jesus told the Pharisee, “Show me the coin used for the tax.” And when Jesus says, “Whose head is this and whose title,” I always just assumed, it’s a picture of Caesar and it says that he is the emperor…but there is more to the story. 

After doing a Google search for an image of an early first-century denarius, I found the two sides of the coin you see on your screen. On one side you see a profile of the emperor Tiberius (who was the emperor at the time Jesus told this story) and o;/the reverse side there is a seated image of Livia, the mother of Tiberius. So those are the people pictured, but Jesus also asks “whose title?” Well, I expected it to say that Tiberius was the emperor. But that’s not exactly what it says. Around the edge of the “heads” side of the coin, starting under Tiberius’s chin and reading counter-clockwise, it says, “TI” for Tiberius, “CAESAR” (which you can translate yourself!) “DIVI AUG F,” which in abbreviated form means “son the God Augustus,” and also inscribed is Tiberius’s own title “AUGUSTUS” which is a politico-religious term that means “venerable, worthy of worship.” And on the “tails” side of the coin you can read Tiberius’s other title, “PONTIFEX MAXIMUS” or highest priest. So, the titles aren’t just political, but go to the heart of Roman imperial cultic religion. 

A good, pious Roman would think that paying taxes to Caesar WAS giving to God, or in Tiberius’s case, the son of a god. But, of course, every Jew in the ancient world, including Jesus himself, knew that Augustus was not divine. That’s what the Pharisees are getting at…but Jesus turns their question on its head, challenging the hearer to question and distinguish what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar. 

They are vying for the hearts and minds of the people: Caesar on one hand and God on the other…the Roman Empire on one side, the kingdom of God on the other. And when you live in a tiny country under occupation by Roman legionaries, it may be easier to see the force of empire than to see the immediate reality of God. 

When new members joined our congregation earlier in the summer, they offered the same words of covenant that all who join this congregation say. And perhaps we don’t think of those phrases as being countercultural, but they are. When we say, “I give myself unreservedly to God’s service,” we are pledging our lives and our allegiance not to Caesar, but to God. 

For me, that means that our primary loyalty is to the kingdom of God, rather than the empire of Caesar – or whatever petty empire has taken Rome’s place at the center of our lives. In our covenant, we are making a statement not simply about whom we will serve, but about the way we orient and prioritize our lives. So, what does that mean to you? What does it mean to YOU to give yourself without reservation to God’s service? 

We all know people who serve other gods, in fact, each of us serves them on occasion, and more than occasionally if we aren’t vigilant. We serve these other gods when our primary attention and focus is on something else. Some serve the god of personal comfort, while others serve the god of the stock market, others serve the god of white supremacy, and still others the god of power and influence. Like the old Bob Dylan song says, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody…well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but your gonna have to serve somebody.” And as Jesus says in the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, “No one can serve two masters…You cannot serve both God and Mammon [sometimes personified as the demon of wealth].” And the point Jesus is making with the denarius is that you cannot serve both God and Caesar.

What does Jesus mean to imply when he says, “Give to God what is God’s?” Jesus undoubtedly knew Psalm 24 by heart, and I intentionally included it as our Call to Worship this morning. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” So that little denarius, even with the picture of the emperor stamped into it, belongs to God. 

Some of what belongs to God is entrusted to you for your good use. I see what some of you do with the gifts and graces and dollars God has put in your hands. I see the work you do with Habitat, with La Foret and the wider UCC. This week, I see Plymouth folks and other ecumenical partners using our North Wing to collect clothing and supplies for immigrant children who arrived in this country as unaccompanied minors, and I’ve seen you outside (and inside!) our senator’s office calling for an end to gun violence. And I see what you do to keep this church not just plugging along, but vital. I see our Council working hard to make tough decisions and guide us toward a future that will be different after the pandemic is through. I see our deacons and my staff colleagues finding creative ways to reach out to you during this tumultuous time. And it requires you taking part of what God has entrusted to you and investing it in the mission and ministry of your church. And if you ever get confused about who we are meant to serve, just pull a quarter our of your pocket to read the reminder under George Washington’s chin: In God We Trust.

May it be so. Amen.

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Matthew 22.23-32
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

If you have two sons, like I do, this parable sounds strikingly familiar. In years past, I could imagine Cameron playing video games on his X-Box on a Saturday morning and me asking if he would please mow the lawn and Cam begging off with some excuse about homework. And then asking Chris, who would say, “Sure, dad,” but then he’d get involved in something else and forget about the task at hand. (Mind you, I’m just plugging their names in here…they’d always have jumped right up and mowed the lawn. ? ) I might have been disappointed in Cam’s first response, but not that he came through in the end. And Chris just flaked out on me. Which son would I have thanked heartily for “doing the will of their father?”

But the parable is even more pointed than that. By bringing tax collectors and prostitutes into the narrative — outsiders and lowlifes rejected by the good Temple-going people of Jerusalem — Jesus brings the generalized parable into his own present day. It isn’t they who are supposed to “get it,” to understand what John was and Jesus is talking about…but they do. There is a motif in the New Testament about the people who should understand, don’t and the people who would ordinarily not be “in the know” are the ones who get it. I mean we all know that there is no such thing as a “Good” Samaritan, or astrologers from Persia who understand that a newborn babe is king of the Jews.
Well, where does that leave us? You and I may look a lot more like the scribes and the Pharisees than we’d like, don’t we? We’re the ones who are supposed to understand the message of Jesus, but don’t you suspect that there are times when we are the ones who don’t have a clue? I know that most of us at Plymouth don’t fit the current stereotype of American Christianity: closed-minded, unthinking, anti-science, bigoted, and knowing that if we are “saved,” then you other people certainly aren’t. And yet… And yet…there are times when we can come off as the ones who are meant to understand Jesus…but can’t or won’t. 

For most of us, it isn’t a matter of intellectual firepower that holds us back, rather it concerns commitment and showing up. This is where trust comes into play: “John the Baptizer came to you on the path of righteousness, but you didn’t trust him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes did.” Trusting Jesus is primarily an activity of the human heart, rather than just the mind. Tying our active minds together with the feelings of our hearts, connecting the two, is a key task for many of us in the UCC, where we encourage you to “bring your brain to church on Sunday.” Well, I certainly hope you bring your heart, too. 

This parable is about trusting and then doing. It’s about being truly present in the service of God’s realm on earth. It’s about showing up when you get the invitation. (And if you’re listening to this right now, consider yourself invited!)

Years ago, when I was a young adult, my former in-laws were being invited to dozens of weddings as people my age were getting married, and they frankly found it a bit tiresome…RSVPing, blocking off a weekend, buying a gift, going to the service and reception. And one time, they simply responded that they were not able to come. A few months later, the groom, Paul Blandford, ran into my former father-in-law, who is a really good guy, and said how disappointed he was that he and his wife couldn’t make it to the wedding. And then it hit my former father-in-law like a ton of bricks: When you are invited to a wedding or hear of someone’s funeral or memorial service, you go and show up. The code word in their family for times you need to show up became “It’s a Paul Blandford.” Have you ever declined an invitation to show up…to wedding, to an event, as a volunteer, as a leader? It may be easier at times to say, “No, thanks,” but it doesn’t move us ahead as a body of people, whether it’s a family, a congregation, a community, or a nation.

How do you show up…when you cannot physically show up? Covid-19 has been disruptive in so many ways, and we get to choose whether to connect or to hide…and there is a time for each. But let’s focus on connection. I’m doing a memorial service this afternoon, and only the immediate family are attending because of the pandemic. That’s a way to be present at a tender moment is each other’s lives, albeit in a different way. And there are other ways on a personal level to show up: pick up the telephone and call someone, pull out the notecards you got for Christmas and put pen to paper and send a note, really listen deeply to a friend or loved one. I see people at Plymouth showing up in all kinds of ways in the midst of the pandemic. Members shopping for those who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, Our Habitat ministry team invited me to a virtual Habitat breakfast over Zoom in a few weeks. You, our congregation sent a special gift of $10,000 to La Foret to help provide pandemic relief, in addition to the $20,000 you all contributed individually  for other forms of pandemic relief. Our Immigration ministry team has been at work collecting cleaning and household supplies for immigrant families. Our Stewardship Board got a beautiful brochure written, designed, produced, and mailed in record time. Thanks for saying “yes” and showing up.

Sometimes this pandemic causes us (especially us introverts) to withdraw in pain or grief or anxiety, and we don’t want to connect through one more damned Zoom meeting. And I cannot imagine how incredibly busy and stressed so many of our parents are trying to manage kids doing remote learning, working from home themselves, and trying to have a life. (And I do see a parent, who teaches chemistry at CSU now online, serves as this congregation’s moderator showing up to play violin this morning.)

So, this is a gentle reminder that oftentimes, we feel better when we show up, when we connect, when we make the effort, we feel better for having done so. And when we show up, we need to be fully present, not just physically present. We must bring our souls as well as our bodies. Showing up as faith in action is even more important, because we’ll probably end up feeling more connected to God as well. 

Woody Allen supposedly said that 90 percent of life is showing up. And I think there is truth in that, no matter who actually said it. Consider this: if you THINK about going to the gym, but don’t show up, you won’t get in better shape. If you only THINK about your faith, but never offer a prayer, pick up a Bible, do an act of compassion for someone you don’t know, your faith might stay flabby, too. When we show up, we don’t just do it for ourselves, we show up for each other, and during a pandemic, it’s even harder, less convenient, more costly, but we can’t go it alone.

I invite you to be like the son who eventually unplugs from the X-box and mows the lawn. Follow the lead of the tax collectors and prostitutes who trust the way of God’s kingdom, here and now and still unfolding. And as our worship continues and in the week ahead, may you open your heart and your mind to the God who created you, invites you, blesses you, and redeems you.

Amen.

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Matthew 18.21-35
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

I start today’s sermon with a confession: There are times when I find forgiveness incredibly difficult. I’m talking about times when someone close to me has hurt me in some significant way and has not acknowledged their hurtful behavior. In the Lord’s Prayer we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” which is great language that references economic justice…and the phrase “debts” comes directly from Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. For me, though, the version of that prayer by John Philip Newell that we chant is hits even closer to home: “Forgive us the falseness of what we have done, as we forgive those who are untrue to us.”

Are there times in your life when someone has been untrue to you? Perhaps a parent who kept a long-hidden secret that you didn’t hear about until you were an adult? Maybe a spouse or partner who had an affair with someone else? A family member who has cut off relationship with you?

Oftentimes, we think of forgiveness in a transactional framework: someone commits an offense (great or small) and hurts another; then apologizes to the aggrieved person and asks for forgiveness; and finally, the person who has been hurt grants forgiveness to the person who offended. It’s a back-and-forth transaction that concludes in resolution and hopefully the restoration of relationship. But what if the person who has given offense never acknowledges their part? What if they cannot or will not take responsibility for hurting another? Is forgiveness possible?

When I was reading today’s text, I stumbled on the phrase in the NRSV “member of the church,” because there was no church when the gospel was written. The Greek word used is adelphos or brother, but the implication is that this is a brother or sister in Christ, as in the way Jesus asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 

My trepidation here is that this text has been used to keep people — especially women — in abusive relationships. Think of it this way: How often should I forgive my husband’s dalliances with another woman? Seventy times seven. How many times do I need to forgive the physical abuse he metes out? Seventy times seven. That is a misuse of scripture.

But here’s the problem with reading a given piece of scripture in isolation: you miss the context and the meaning. Immediately before this famous passage, we read, “If a member of the church [a brother] sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such as one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” In other words, let them be untouchable.

My reading of that passage is that nobody gets off scot free. No one gets to treat anyone cruelly with impunity. No one can abuse another without being held accountable for their actions. But what about the person who has been sinned against? What about the victim? This text means that nobody has to be a doormat and let another walk all over them. Sometimes it is necessary to sever a relationship with a friend, spouse, or even a child, which can bring anguish all its own. I’ve been there. 

And on an individual level, when one has been harmed or sinned against, there is a possibility to remove yourself from the situation and move toward forgiveness. You may need to divorce an abusive spouse and never see them again, and they may never acknowledge their part in the demise of the relationship. That could leave you with a tremendous burden of anger that continues to control your life. You may have had an alcoholic parent who didn’t meet your needs as a child and never got into recovery and asked to make amends, and even if they are long dead, you may be carrying the burden of anger that may never have the proper resolution you’d like.

You have a choice at that point: Do you continue to walk through life with a millstone around your neck, or do you choose to let it go? I’m not talking about staying in an abusive relationship or being a doormat or sucking it up. I’m talking about doing the deep work of saying, “I forgive you,” so that you can move on with your life. It’s really difficult for me, even when I think to myself, “Yep, I’ve forgiven you,” sometimes it becomes clear to me that I haven’t completely let go. (Many of you who have been through a divorce could possibly relate to what I’m saying.) Even though I want to be liberated from this hurt, I sometime have trouble turning it over to God, and saying, “This one is yours to forgive…help me release my anger and move on.” Too often, we self-reliant folks think we can do it on our own. But you don’t have to…you can ask God for help. And even if you cannot forgive today, you can ask God to help you along in the process of letting go.

When I began working on this sermon, I thought of one of the greatest signs of hope I’ve seen. It’s a piece of history that I wish the young people today who are on the front lines of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in our nation could have witnessed first-hand. I remember hearing Archbishop Desmond Tutu when he spoke at UC Santa Barbara in the 1980s, when apartheid was still the law of the land in South Africa, when Black men were being murdered by the South African Defense Forces or by their minions, when the most basic civil rights were being denied to all non-white segments of society. And when I was in grad school in London in 1984, one of the most popular songs in was “Free Nelson Mandela,” by the Specials. At that time, I did not think that Nelson Mandela (who later became the first President of the new South Africa) would ever be released from prison on Robbin Island. I certainly didn’t think that apartheid would be dismantled in my lifetime. But those things did happen…and more. Instead of steering toward retributive justice in South Africa, the nation chose the course of restorative justice. There was no blanket amnesty for all of the human rights abuses that happened under the apartheid regime, but if abuser chose to come forward and offer the full disclosure of their crime, to be accountable, and to come before an independent panel, there could be amnesty. 

“The past, far from disappearing of lying down and being quiet,” writes Archbishop Tutu, “has an embarrassing and persistent way of returning and haunting us unless it has in fact been dealt with adequately. Unless we look the beast in the eye we find it has an uncanny habit of returning to hold us hostage.” [Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness, (New York: Image, 2000) p. 28.] Think about the failure of Reconstruction after our own Civil War…we still reap what was sown in those years.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Tutu headed, was not pursuing retributive justice, nor were they granting a blanket amnesty, nor were they cloaking South Africa in a sense of national amnesia about the past, they were heading in a third way that cultivated “a culture of accountability.” There were four ordained Christian clergy on the Commission, and Tutu claims that “The President must have believed that our work would be profoundly spiritual. After all, forgiveness, reconciliation, and reparation are not the normal currency in political discourse.” [Tutu, p. 80]

I wonder what this chapter of history can say to us in 2020 in the midst of a pandemic, in a resurgence in awareness of white privilege and the oppression of Black Americans, in the maelstrom of political acrimony and divisiveness. Close your eyes and think with me, dream with me, of what the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation might do in our time. Could we deal honestly with our history: with Confederate monuments, racial and gender inequality, our own brand of imperialism? Could we have dialogue and forgiveness across the battle lines now being drawn between Antifa and radical right-wing militia groups?  

“Christ is proof positive that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, that light is stronger than darkness, that laughter and joy, and compassion and gentleness and truth, all of these are so much stronger than their ghastly counterparts.” [Tutu, p. 86] The archbishop speaks the truth we know in the depth of our souls.

Perhaps it is our task as progressive Christians in partnership with God, to be a force in our nation, at this decisive moment in our history, to change the path of the bully, survival of the fittest, might makes right, corruption and sin, and radical individualism and turn toward reconciliation, forgiveness, and love. Our survival depends on it. And like those who struggled against apartheid in South Africa, we are marching in the light of God.

Amen.

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.