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Grace, peace, and mercy be to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today’s sermon text is the gospel heard earlier, Matthew chapter 22. Please be seated. What an honor and a privilege it is to get to preach here at St. Paul’s. Thank you for inviting me. I remember when I was just a young child. I came here to Austin to visit my grandparents and they, of course, brought me to church here at St. Paul’s.
Now, even as a little child, I knew that God was present in every church on Sunday morning, no matter how big or small it was. But as I sat marveling at the large stones, the enormous arches, the beautiful altar, and the towering stained glass windows, I remember thinking to myself, this must be the church where God really lives all the time. Thankfully, I now know that God doesn’t just locate himself where we build big, beautiful, magnificent churches, but that he is found in the still small voice, hidden beneath bread and wine, hovering over the waters of our baptism, bound to every letter of his holy, precious word. Where his word is taught and his truth and purity and the sacraments are rightly administered, there the Lord is present with his church, whether it’s in our home, in a hospital room, in a little church or a big one; Emmanuel, God is with us.
Jesus has come to us so that there is no distance we must travel to get to God. I tell you that so I can tell you this. Those weren’t just the innocent thoughts of a silly little boy. It was the first in a lifetime of Satan’s attempts to lead me into a way of thinking that is both contrary to God’s word and contrary to God’s gifts. And he does that to each one of us every day.
The Lord says, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” But the devil says, “yes, but he’s more there in a big church than in a little church struggling to keep its doors open.” We may even say things like, “I just narrowly escaped a fatal accident. God must have been watching over me.” Well, what if you had been in a fatal accident? Does that really mean God wasn’t watching over you?
Things are going the way I want them to in my life, so God must be blessing me. Well, things are awful in my life, so God must not care about me. Or even worse, maybe he’s mad at me. Maybe if I prayed more, went to church more, gave more of my time and talents to the church, then God would love me more and bless me with the things I want.
We often do that, don’t we? The devil deceives us into laying limits and boundaries on God as to where and when he is in our lives and where and when he loves us or is punishing us. And that spark of faith in our hearts says, “no, no, that’s not the way God works.” God is a loving God who gave us his one and only son that we might have eternal life. And yet I wish he would give me a sign or tell me if I’m doing something wrong, because I just don’t feel his presence anymore or feel like he’s really blessing me.
Dear Christians, if any of that sounds familiar to you, don’t think that it’s just us. This was going on long before our lifetimes. Listen carefully to this question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus, is it lawful? Is it right? Will God be in my life if I pay taxes to Caesar? Or will he be more in my life if I don’t pay taxes to Caesar?
It’s so simple, isn’t it? It’s embarrassing, especially as Lutherans. Self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is what is at the heart of such thoughts. Right? Say it ain’t so. Well, it is so. Now, perhaps in our day we don’t associate paying taxes with being godly or righteous, but there are lots of other ways we do fall into the same self-righteous thinking of the Pharisees in today’s text.
Is God with you more when you’re in church on Sunday morning or when you’re watching a football game on Sunday afternoon? Are you more lawful and righteous in God’s sight by going to work on Monday morning or serving on a board at church on Thursday night? Are you righteous before God because you are healthy, but when you find out you have cancer, you’re not right with God?
You see how steeped in self-righteousness even good Lutherans can become? That’s because the devil has been working on us our whole lives to blind us to God’s free gifts in our lives and to lead us to focus on everything and anything except God’s clear promises in his word and sacraments to determine how precious we are to God, how much we matter to him, how much he loves us and forgives us and is with us to the very end of the age, no matter if we’re in a big church or a little church, sick or healthy, rich or poor.
Notice Jesus in our text doesn’t answer their question. Rather, he addresses their self-righteousness. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, 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?” 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.” When they heard it, they marveled, and they left him and went away.
Maybe you’re wondering why the Pharisees marveled at what Jesus said. I know I was when I first read this text. But you see, the Pharisees were living under the false belief that their money was theirs. That their bodies belonged to them. Their time and talents were theirs to use either for good or for evil. So in their thinking, God should be pretty impressed if they use their time in service to him or their money to serve his church instead of for selfish, evil purposes.
They believed that God would count them righteous if they gave enough to him or, in this case, didn’t give it away to Caesar. But Jesus tells them to render to Caesar money—the things that are Caesar’s—and to God, the things that are God’s. That had to burn in multiple ways. The only two options Jesus gave them were to render the things that are Caesar’s or the things that are God’s. He didn’t mention any things that actually belong to them.
Secondly, this word “render” actually means to give back. So Jesus is saying, if it has Caesar’s likeness or image or inscription on it, it belongs to him. So give it back to him. Likewise, if it has God’s image or inscription, then give it back to him. There is no room for self-righteousness when everything we are and everything we have is a gift from God. You see what the devil has stolen from us?
We were created in the image of our loving God. All that we are, all that we have is a totally free gift from him. Our bodies do not belong to us to do with what we want. They are gifts from God to be used in ways that glorify him. Our time, our talents, our treasures are not really ours. We didn’t earn them, merit them, or deserve them. They are God’s to be used for the purpose for which he has given them to us.
That’s what the Pharisees marveled at God. And what led a former Pharisee to write, some 30 years later, Romans chapter 13: “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.” Five verses later, he writes, “For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing.”
Saint Paul understood that everything was from God. Even Caesar was put there by God to serve his purposes and accomplish his will. Now think what that means for our lives. We’re tempted to think that we are more righteous when we go to church on Sunday morning than when we go to work at our jobs on Monday morning. But dear Christians, who gave you that job? Who gave you the health and the skills and the talents to do that job to provide food and clothing and a home for your family?
It was God who gave you all of that. And the people who grew the food and made the clothes and built your house. It’s all God’s gifts upon gifts upon gifts because he loves you. You aren’t any less pleasing to God when you’re at work doing what God gave you to do with the gifts and talents he gave you to do it with to provide for your family than when you’re at church or at a board meeting.
We often want to view our lives as a pie chart. Eight hours a day we’re at work. Eight hours a day we sleep. We wish. Four hours a day we commute to and from work because we live in Austin. This many hours we spend time with our spouse. And this many hours we spend time with our children. And we eat, and we exercise, and we work on a hobby. And then there’s this tiny little piece of the pie—that one or two hours where we go to church and Sunday school. Maybe it’s three or four hours because we serve on a board or we do family devotions, or we’re in the choir.
And we look at our pie chart and we think to ourselves that all this time around here means nothing to God, that it has nothing to do with Him. And only these few hours at church are when we are doing God-pleasing things and are righteous in God’s sight. Dear Christians, that is the devil’s lie. All of us, and all of our time and all of our talents, are all gifts from God.
If God gives you a spouse, he wants you to spend time with them and care for them. That is the God-pleasing thing to do. If God gives you the gift of children, when you spend time with your children, you’re doing what God gave you to do as a parent. And that is no less pleasing to God than when you’re at church serving on a board, again using the gifts God gave you to serve others. And yes, guys, even when you’re resting the body that God gave you while you watch a football game, it doesn’t make you any less righteous or pleasing to God.
Now, don’t everybody quit your board position so you can stay home and watch Thursday night football. Pastor Knuckles will excommunicate me, and I just joined here last week. But at the same time, don’t live under the devil’s lie. Everything we are is a gift from God, and there is no room for self-righteousness in our lives. We serve out of thankfulness for God’s gifts, not to earn his love. We already have that abundantly and always.
You know where your righteousness comes from. You know who has made you right with God. It’s not because we did or didn’t pay tax to Caesar or because we go to a big church instead of a little church. Our righteousness isn’t because we are healthy instead of sick or rich instead of poor. Our righteousness comes from Jesus alone.
Romans chapter 3: “But now a righteousness from God has been made known. Apart from works of the law, this righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” Jesus is the greatest gift God has ever given to us. He is our righteousness and the end of all self-righteousness. He is the one who fulfilled the law for us and answered for all our sins. And he has freed us to give to God the things that are God’s.
And when we stand before God and we confess our sins, we disown all the childish things we thought made us righteous. And we hold before God his greatest gift: “Lord, on account of Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us our sins.” We give to God what is God’s, his greatest gift to us.
And we are free—free to love the spouse God gave us with the same love and forgiveness with which God loves and forgives us. Not to be righteous. Free to care for and train the children God gave us with the care and promises with which God cared for and taught us. Free to do everything we do as done to God, because it is to God. We are simply giving back to God what we have from him, and none of it has to do with making ourselves righteous, but purely out of thanksgiving for everything we have from him.
You know what sin is? It’s saying no thank you to God’s gifts. God gave Adam and Eve every tree in the garden, except one. One tree was not a gift from him to them. And they said no thank you to all he had given them and took from the one thing he didn’t freely give. That’s what we do when we fall to Satan’s temptations and think that parts of our lives aren’t gifts from God or don’t matter to him, or when we hold our own works before God instead of Christ who alone is our righteousness.
It’s no wonder the Pharisees marveled at his teaching. Amen.
Now may the peace which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
