"What is God's?" Matthew 22:15-22

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Amen

 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.

In the Name of Jesus

Only 179 more days…are you excited?!  No, not until Christmas, I can’t count that I will most likely hyperventilate.  Until Easter?  No, but you are closer.  Not until the Vikings win the Super Bowl that could very well be decades yet…..  There are only 179 more days…….until Tax Day!  Yay!  

Don’t let my excitement fool you.  For me, tax day and every day leading up to it from the previous April 15^th, is a cause for major headaches.  Taxes are just so difficult to understand.  There are so many rules, regulations, numbers, formulas, exemptions, am I employed and I self-employed, the government says that I am both.  I just don’t get it!! 

If I didn’t know any better, I would think that the people of the IRS are all about tricks.  That they do all they can to catch us in their traps, maybe even without us knowing.  But it is hard to place the blame on them. They are just doing job, they are simply doing what they are asked to do. 

It was all about tricks, the Pharisee’s this time, we will leave the IRS alone for a while.  That was the name of their game.  If there was something, in this case someone, they didn’t like and they felt they needed to get rid of him, they would work tirelessly to capture them/it/whatever the case may be.  Anytime our Lord has interaction with the Pharisees, you can bet they are looking for one thing.  They want, more than anything else, to trap Jesus in his words.  They want him to say something against their church, here they want something against the government, which they could then use to arrest him. 

Here, specifically, what do you suppose they wanted to hear?  Listen again to our Gospel reading.  Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.  And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.  Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 

I bet they wanted to hear Jesus say something along the lines of “do not pay taxes!!”  Ahhh, no taxes.  Wouldn’t that be great?  They wanted Jesus to turn against the earthly authority and say “the only authority that needed to be obeyed was his authority, the authority from heaven”. 

But they have one problem, at least one anyway.  They don’t truly know who is in front of them and therefore miss entirely that Jesus knows, without them declaring, why they were coming to him.  He was well aware of their malice, [and] said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?  Show me the coin for the tax.”  And they brought him a denarius.  And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”    

If only they had realized the answer would be so simple.  “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”  They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”  It is so profound and so simple.  Give Caesar, in our situation give the government, what is theirs, and give God what is His.  A black and white answer. 

Go ahead, then, and mentally divide your possessions.  Think about what you have and what requires you to give to Caesar and what requires you give back to God.  Maybe it is not as easy as we think.  We know the tax rules.  We know, fairly well, when and where Uncle Sam puts his hand in our pocket and takes.                

But maybe what we must give attention to, then, is what is God’s?  What belongs to him?  The list we could make, that the sinful man in is truly wants to make, is pretty slim.  After all, the things we have, the money we make, the items we buy, are ours.  We work hard for that.  We should be the ones who decide how, when, and where that money is used.  We work hard to make sure that our spouse, our children, even our grandchildren are provided for.  We work hard to make sure we can get the things we want.  What does any of that have to do with God?  I will give him a portion of what is left after I am satisfied.      

The Gospel is everything is God’s!  Everything we have in this life comes from God.  He gives us all that we need.  Listen to the explanation to the first article of the Apostles Creed. 

I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

Yes, our Father gives us what we need to live for eternity.  He gives us the forgiveness of sins, he gives us the washing through the waters of Holy Baptism.   He gives us the body and blood of his son continually poured out for us.  He gives us that Gospel for eternity. 

But he gives us the gospel for Tuesday, the Gospel for our everyday live.  That is what is laid out for us in the explanation to the first article.  He cares for our spiritual and physical wellbeing.  He gives us what we need to live, he give us our daily bread.  All our earthly blessings come from him.  It is also those things described in the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer as daily bread which includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.     

It doesn’t seem like Luther left anything out there did he?  Which means only one thing, all things come from God.  He gives us our spouse and family, and let me tell you how huge a blessing my wife and kids are to me.  He gives us the skills we use to make a living for ourselves.  Which means he gives us the money that we use to buy the things we need and even the things we want.  He gives us good friends, good neighbors, our health.  And, as Luther states, part of what he provides for us physically is our government and our rulers.  Think about that.  As hard as it may be to accept at times, he give us government for our good.          

And so as called Children of God, we must then give back what has been given to us.  Not spitefully, like our sinful man would love us to do.  But we give back gratefully in joy for what God has done.  In joy, we get to pay taxes.  Did you hear that, not have to, but get to!  Our Lord is Lord of all.  He has established earthly rulers that we must obey.  But returning money to the government, we are returning to God what is his.    

But more importantly, because we are Children of God, called to return to our Father the praise he rightfully deserves.  Did you catch the end of the 1^st article?  All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.

When someone gives you a gift, especially an undeserved gift, what is your reaction?  Each day is an underserved gift in many ways.  First is simple life.  The fact that we have breath each day.  Second, is that each day we live in the gospel of the forgiveness of sin.  Luther urges us to remember our baptism, the washing away of our sin, each day by making the sign of the cross upon us.  That is the beginning of our undeserved gifts. 

I hate ending a sermon saying Jesus loves you, now you must do this.  So let’s look at it this way.  Jesus loves you.  He cares for you so much he died.  By the help of the Holy Spirit, the only means by which we can please our God, may our lives be lived in thankfulness to what he has so graciously done for us.  In our thoughts, words, and actions may we, by God’s grace, give thanks for all his benefits to us.     

Amen

+SDG+