Proverbs 8:11-22/Philippians 3:17-21/St Matthew 22:15-22
Baptism of Lauren Elizabeth Goertzen
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It’s early in the week, just a day after Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem. The crowds hail Him as their King. All Jerusalem is abuzz. “Messiah has come!”
After hearing the parable of the king who gave a wedding feast for his son - the parable you heard just three weeks ago - the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Jesus in His words. Its time, they decide, to solve this Jesus problem once and for all. Desperate men do desperate things. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So the Pharisees conspire with the Herodians to lay a trap for Jesus.
Now the Herodians were a Jewish political party that was loyal to King Herod, Caesar’s man in Judea. A key part of their platform was submission to Roman rule. The Pharisees believed in total separation from the Roman state and return to the strict observance of the Mosaic Law. Ordinarily these two factions were opposed to each other, but politics makes for strange bedfellows.
So they try to put Jesus in a no-win situation. After layering on the flattery, they ask, Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? If Jesus says, “No, don’t pay the taxes,” the Herodians will report these words of rebellion and Jesus will be arrested. But if He says that people should pay the taxes, this, the Pharisees suppose, will turn the people against Him; they’ll loose confidence that Jesus is the Anointed One, because - they imagined - the Messiah will free the Jews from their Roman overlords.
Their trap has been set and sprung. But Jesus cannot be trapped. The wisdom of His answer and the insight of His reply allows Him to escape their trap, for He will not be captured, but will lay down His life of His own accord. Even more, His answer reveals to us the important teaching of the two realms or kingdoms: the worldly realm of power and the heavenly realm of grace. Two kingdoms, one King.
“Show me the money,” Jesus says. “Whose picture is this? What name is written here?” And just like money today has the name of the government and a picture of a ruler, the Roman coin had Caesar’s picture and name on it; as your bulletin this morning shows. After they acknowledge this, Jesus tells them, “Since the coin has Caesar’s picture and name on it, then it belongs to him. Give it to him. But then the kicker: “But you must give to God what belongs to Him.”
Now the Fourth Commandment teaches, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.” And elsewhere St Paul writes, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (Rm 13:1, 5-7).
So it is that as we approach a national election, Christians will vote, not merely to be good citizens or to protect their own self-interests, but for the good of their neighbor, whom the Law commands them to love and serve according to the Word and will of the Lord. Our goal as Christians is not to take over the government or impose a theocracy. We must, however, stand up for basic human rights: for natural marriage, for free speech and exercise of religion, and including the most fundamental right - the right to life for every human person, whether pre-born, born, or aged.
Remember, dear Christians, the Church is not a political action committee. We gather as the people loved by God under no earthly banner - there are no national flags in the sanctuary - but we are gathered under the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to you and you to the world.
When you despair about the state of the world, or the condition of your government, or the morality of your candidate choices, or, when you are tempted to put your trust in princes and boast about earthly power and glory, remember the word of St Paul you heard today: Our citizenship is in heaven.
For now you walk in two realms, as citizens in this earthly realm, under the government of the United States which has been put in place by God. And this would be just as true if you lived in Russia or Iran or Syria. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (Rm 13:1). So, we must pay our taxes, obey the laws, vote, perhaps serve in the military, pray for those whom God has placed over you, and in all, give the government its due.
All this is rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But then the far weightier obligation: Render to God the things that are God’s. Who can say that he has done this? For what belongs to God? As the engraving on the coin shows its governing authority, so has God stamped His image on the things belonging to Him. The first man, our father Adam, was made in the image of God. We lost that image in the Fall into sin, by which mankind was plunged into the domain of darkness, the kingdom and rule of the devil.
But Christ Jesus ransomed and redeemed you. Not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, that you may be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
That image, then, is renewed and stamped on you in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. When the pastor traces the sign of the holy cross on the person, as with Lauren today, he says, “Receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead and upon you heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.” The Scripture describes those whose names are written in the Book of Life as having the name of God inscribed on their foreheads. Holy Baptism, then, is your divine passport, your heavenly citizenship, by which you are welcomed into the eternal kingdom of Christ Jesus; a kingdom not of this world.
So, as the name of the government is written on our money, and thus we must render to that government its due, even so that Name of God is written on us, and we must offer to God what is His, what belongs to Him - everything we are, everything we have, our body and soul, our heart, our life, our powers, our joys, and our honor.
Have you done this? No. Our minds are set on earthly things. And our god is our belly. We are far more interested in pursuing the things that belong to Caesar; the coins, the money. That is why our Old Testament reading is given us today, to remind us that there are things far more significant than money and stuff; than mammon. For Wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot be compared with her.
So where is the Gospel, the Good News, in the words of Jesus today? Well, the Good News is where it always is: in Jesus Himself; Wisdom Incarnate! The Son of God took on our human nature so that He, as a Man, could render to God the things that are God’s. Christ Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. Or as St Irenaeus put it: the visible of the Father. He rendered Himself, gave up Himself to God for us. He paid the tax, the enormous debt that you owe: death itself. The debt all men must pay. He opened up His veins and poured forth His life-blood as the sacred price for your redemption.
And the result of His obedience is the great promise - these words from today’s Epistle that we also read at the graveside of a Christian, in the culmination and completion of their baptism, “We now commit this person’s body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be life His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself” (PCC p134). That is the funeral sermon in brief: man returns to dust, as God declared to our first father Adam after he rebelled; but by the resurrection of Jesus, God will raise us up from the same dust to a new and glorified body.
And that is why we can pay our taxes and vote and pray and not despair over the problems in our world or our government - because its not that citizenship that ultimately matters. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we await a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to you today, your Brother and your King, meeting you here in this outpost of heaven, this embassy of the eternal kingdom in this world, to render to you the good deposit of His Body and Blood, back from the grave and to bestow unto you life everlasting. This is your wealth and dearest treasure. This is your Jesus. Therefore, forsake ungodly mammon, lift up your hearts, set your minds on things above, and give thanks to the Lord with your whole heart in the company of the upright, in the congregation. For He provides food - eternal food - for those who fear Him.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Baptism of Lauren Elizabeth Goertzen
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It’s early in the week, just a day after Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem. The crowds hail Him as their King. All Jerusalem is abuzz. “Messiah has come!”
After hearing the parable of the king who gave a wedding feast for his son - the parable you heard just three weeks ago - the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Jesus in His words. Its time, they decide, to solve this Jesus problem once and for all. Desperate men do desperate things. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So the Pharisees conspire with the Herodians to lay a trap for Jesus.
Now the Herodians were a Jewish political party that was loyal to King Herod, Caesar’s man in Judea. A key part of their platform was submission to Roman rule. The Pharisees believed in total separation from the Roman state and return to the strict observance of the Mosaic Law. Ordinarily these two factions were opposed to each other, but politics makes for strange bedfellows.
So they try to put Jesus in a no-win situation. After layering on the flattery, they ask, Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? If Jesus says, “No, don’t pay the taxes,” the Herodians will report these words of rebellion and Jesus will be arrested. But if He says that people should pay the taxes, this, the Pharisees suppose, will turn the people against Him; they’ll loose confidence that Jesus is the Anointed One, because - they imagined - the Messiah will free the Jews from their Roman overlords.
Their trap has been set and sprung. But Jesus cannot be trapped. The wisdom of His answer and the insight of His reply allows Him to escape their trap, for He will not be captured, but will lay down His life of His own accord. Even more, His answer reveals to us the important teaching of the two realms or kingdoms: the worldly realm of power and the heavenly realm of grace. Two kingdoms, one King.
“Show me the money,” Jesus says. “Whose picture is this? What name is written here?” And just like money today has the name of the government and a picture of a ruler, the Roman coin had Caesar’s picture and name on it; as your bulletin this morning shows. After they acknowledge this, Jesus tells them, “Since the coin has Caesar’s picture and name on it, then it belongs to him. Give it to him. But then the kicker: “But you must give to God what belongs to Him.”
Now the Fourth Commandment teaches, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.” And elsewhere St Paul writes, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (Rm 13:1, 5-7).
So it is that as we approach a national election, Christians will vote, not merely to be good citizens or to protect their own self-interests, but for the good of their neighbor, whom the Law commands them to love and serve according to the Word and will of the Lord. Our goal as Christians is not to take over the government or impose a theocracy. We must, however, stand up for basic human rights: for natural marriage, for free speech and exercise of religion, and including the most fundamental right - the right to life for every human person, whether pre-born, born, or aged.
Remember, dear Christians, the Church is not a political action committee. We gather as the people loved by God under no earthly banner - there are no national flags in the sanctuary - but we are gathered under the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to you and you to the world.
When you despair about the state of the world, or the condition of your government, or the morality of your candidate choices, or, when you are tempted to put your trust in princes and boast about earthly power and glory, remember the word of St Paul you heard today: Our citizenship is in heaven.
For now you walk in two realms, as citizens in this earthly realm, under the government of the United States which has been put in place by God. And this would be just as true if you lived in Russia or Iran or Syria. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (Rm 13:1). So, we must pay our taxes, obey the laws, vote, perhaps serve in the military, pray for those whom God has placed over you, and in all, give the government its due.
All this is rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But then the far weightier obligation: Render to God the things that are God’s. Who can say that he has done this? For what belongs to God? As the engraving on the coin shows its governing authority, so has God stamped His image on the things belonging to Him. The first man, our father Adam, was made in the image of God. We lost that image in the Fall into sin, by which mankind was plunged into the domain of darkness, the kingdom and rule of the devil.
But Christ Jesus ransomed and redeemed you. Not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, that you may be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
That image, then, is renewed and stamped on you in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. When the pastor traces the sign of the holy cross on the person, as with Lauren today, he says, “Receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead and upon you heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.” The Scripture describes those whose names are written in the Book of Life as having the name of God inscribed on their foreheads. Holy Baptism, then, is your divine passport, your heavenly citizenship, by which you are welcomed into the eternal kingdom of Christ Jesus; a kingdom not of this world.
So, as the name of the government is written on our money, and thus we must render to that government its due, even so that Name of God is written on us, and we must offer to God what is His, what belongs to Him - everything we are, everything we have, our body and soul, our heart, our life, our powers, our joys, and our honor.
Have you done this? No. Our minds are set on earthly things. And our god is our belly. We are far more interested in pursuing the things that belong to Caesar; the coins, the money. That is why our Old Testament reading is given us today, to remind us that there are things far more significant than money and stuff; than mammon. For Wisdom is better than jewels and all that you may desire cannot be compared with her.
So where is the Gospel, the Good News, in the words of Jesus today? Well, the Good News is where it always is: in Jesus Himself; Wisdom Incarnate! The Son of God took on our human nature so that He, as a Man, could render to God the things that are God’s. Christ Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. Or as St Irenaeus put it: the visible of the Father. He rendered Himself, gave up Himself to God for us. He paid the tax, the enormous debt that you owe: death itself. The debt all men must pay. He opened up His veins and poured forth His life-blood as the sacred price for your redemption.
And the result of His obedience is the great promise - these words from today’s Epistle that we also read at the graveside of a Christian, in the culmination and completion of their baptism, “We now commit this person’s body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be life His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself” (PCC p134). That is the funeral sermon in brief: man returns to dust, as God declared to our first father Adam after he rebelled; but by the resurrection of Jesus, God will raise us up from the same dust to a new and glorified body.
And that is why we can pay our taxes and vote and pray and not despair over the problems in our world or our government - because its not that citizenship that ultimately matters. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we await a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to you today, your Brother and your King, meeting you here in this outpost of heaven, this embassy of the eternal kingdom in this world, to render to you the good deposit of His Body and Blood, back from the grave and to bestow unto you life everlasting. This is your wealth and dearest treasure. This is your Jesus. Therefore, forsake ungodly mammon, lift up your hearts, set your minds on things above, and give thanks to the Lord with your whole heart in the company of the upright, in the congregation. For He provides food - eternal food - for those who fear Him.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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