If We Ask, God Will Lead Us
Commentary
E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India, and a friend of Gandhi, wrote that we pastors must pray for our congregants on a daily basis, individually, if we are to minister effectively. I tried to do this in a very literal way early in my ministry, but this takes a good deal of time. And I didn’t want to sluff off by praying for my people en masse. And if you serve more than one church, or a congregation even of 75, this could take hours! But I did have the assistance of our church’s photo directory. As I paged through, looking at each family picture, I began to focus. As I focused in this way, I began to know who had gone missing from our church services. I called each household I was unfamiliar with, and in that way came to know what they needed in the way of prayer – or, that they were no longer part of our congregation.
In this way, I got to know most of the members within the first year. And the members came to believe that I was their pastor. I also had a few times when I felt God led me to skip a few pictures and call someone “out of order.” I remember one call distinctly.
This man had not been in church at all for the first six months I’d been there. When he answered the phone, I introduced myself and told him that I wanted to get to know him. When I stopped talking, there was a long silence. Then he said, “I find it interesting that you called me today.”
“Why is that?” I asked. “Well, today is the anniversary of my brother’s death. That’s when I stopped going to church.” He talked for half an hour about that incident and how important his brother had been to him, and how despair and unfinished grief had left him angry and separated from God. He ended by saying, “So I just find it funny that you called today, of all days.”
I had been leaning heavily on God throughout this story, asking for help in what I might say when he finished. I decided that I ought to tell him that I had felt a definite nudge from God to skip over several members today and to call him. He was crying very softly when I finished. I asked him what I could do for him. “You already did it. I guess God does care, after all.”
He did not come back to church, but I made a note in my calendar to call him on that date each year, and I did so.
This is the theme that carries through today’s scriptures: When we lean on God, we are able to make use of the good things God has for us. In the Old Testament lesson, Moses begs for God’s leading; in the New Testament lesson, Paul describes the outcome of his ministry with the Thessalonians as a result of he and his companions’ ministry, filled as it was with the power of the Holy Spirit; and in the gospel, Jesus responds to the Pharisees and Herodians’ attempt to trap him in the question of whether or not the Jews ought to pay taxes to Caesar.
It isn’t always easy to know how to follow Jesus, or what God wants of us personally. But if we ask, God will lead us and we can joyfully follow.
Exodus 33:12-23
Many years ago, an ecumenical group of pastors would meet regularly to discuss the scriptures. Once, the leader for that meeting asked us, “Which biblical character do you most identify with?” The youngest pastor in the group sadly said, “Moses.” Because? “Because he had the most trouble with his people! God had chosen him as the leader, but they were constantly moaning and complaining and blaming Moses for all their troubles. And he had to keep running back to God to make sure he was doing the right thing!” I am reminded of that as I read today’s scripture.
Who among us have not felt impatient with God? Who among us has never said to God, “You know, I could use a little help here.” Or even, as Tim Rice (lyricist of Jesus Christ, Superstar) has Jesus say to God in the Garden of Gethsemane, “You’re awfully good at how and when, but not so big on why!” If I could only get God to explain his purposes, I’d be more likely to keep at the task I’ve been assigned. Such a conversation would greatly increase my motivation. (As a WWII baby and 60’s protestor, I fear blind obedience and loyalty to any human, and that carries over to my struggle with God.) But God usually sees little need for me to be informed beyond, “Don’t make that long drive today.” (As though I’m smart enough to know that missing the meeting 75 miles away over ice-and-snow-covered roads will be forgiven by the chairwoman.)
It’s a little late in the story for Moses to say, “If I have found favor in your sight.” (Or are we allconstantly uncertain of where we stand with God?) He has organized the people while they were in Egypt; taught them that God has promised them a rich and lovely land at journey’s end; and promised that God’s presence would go with them.1 But Moses is clearly aware that the people can turn against him, as the only handy representative of YHWH, if things do not go well. In true Middle Eastern style, he adds some flattery to his request (see v.16).
God agrees to go with the people and to let the people see signs that he is present with them. One caveat applies. We may not see God’s face and live. Makes one wonder why, doesn’t it? Some scholars think that this reflects the terrifying appearance of the animal-headed gods of the Egyptians, which include cobras and jackals. More modern visionaries say that the face of God is obscured by brilliant light. But more important than what God looks like, is that God is good and merciful, yet enough like us that s/he can be roused to fury when we insist on going about things our own way rather than God’s. It is the qualities that God displays, not God’s appearance, on which we are to concentrate.
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
The first letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest extant piece of Christian literature. It dates from 50 C.E.,2 or about twenty years after the resurrection and twenty years before the Gospel of Mark. We can see this in the greeting – the blessing he pronounces is “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.” No mention of the Holy Spirit in that blessing, even though he refers constantly to the power of the Holy Spirit being shown in the way they live. The concept of the Triune God came much later in the life of the Christians. That it is missing here points to the extremely early date of the letter.
Paul’s language shows us that he had – in his one-year sojourn in the city -- built familial relationships with the newly converted Christians. He sadly misses their companionship, referring to them as his ‘brothers and sisters in Christ’fourteen times in this letter, and calling himself their ‘mother (2:7)’ and ‘father (2:11).’
Thessalonica is located on the Aegean Sea, was the capital of the Roman province of Macedon, and adjacent to the province of Achaia. The city flourished due to its location on the major trade route to the east and continued to thrive as one of the most important cities in the Byzantine Empire.3 Today, the region is part of Greece, just north of Turkey.
Hellenistic letters usually opened with a greeting, followed by thanks, and this letter does likewise. That, along with Paul’s comment in 5:27, indicates that this is a personal letter, not one of his general church letters, meant to be passed around many churches or communities. His longing to be back in Thessalonica is evident. Even so, the letter was kept and eventually included in the canonical works, for the edification of a wide range of peoples and times.
The message for the rest of us is that the gospel is not just a matter of words; it is also a matter of how we live our lives. Our actions witness to others the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives and how groups of people treat one another. If we tell others how to live, they will be put off. If we demonstrate how the power of God can change a person, give us strength to persevere, groom us to be faithful servants of God and others, then people will be attracted to the love that Jesus urged us to employ. More – we will have the power to speak up in tough circumstances, but also to speak gently rather than shouting and gesticulating and pounding the table (or pulpit, though I have been known to do that).
Paul, of course, showed over and over the power of his public speaking to move people; not just because he was a powerful speaker himself, but because he allowed the Spirit to take him over so that his words had the power to transform (see Acts 14:1-3). More than that, the Holy Spirit gave to Paul (and others) the power to heal, even those born crippled (see Acts 14:8-11) and to perform “signs and wonders” – i.e., to be able to do the same things that Jesus had done in his life on earth. God worked through them so powerfully that the Lycaonians declared that Paul and Barnabas were gods come to earth. Paul and his fellow Apostles had to firmly tell them that they were not the gods the people worshipped, but were tools being used by the God of Israel.
Many years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a tour in the Far East, where we were able to talk to missionaries and local Christians in Sumatra. One of our stops was at a seminary in the mountains, where young men and women were trained and sent out into the jungle to preach to people living in tiny villages. One of the young men got up and started telling us about the healings he had seen and performed himself.
The head of the seminary was quite embarrassed, knowing that middle-class American church people don’t usually believe in miracles. He tried to hush the young man. I couldn’t help but speak up. “It’s certainly true that where we live, people are very suspicious of stories of healings. But please let him finish his story. Who knows whether God is using him as a missionary to us? We may have new things to learn.” So, he went ahead and told us the rest of the story, which was about a very sick woman who was brought to his church for prayers so that she might be healed. He had raised his hands and prayed for the healing that was needed. The women turned to leave, and one of them – not the one designated as needing prayer, but one of the two who had brought her, declared that a pain she had been living with for some time was gone! The next week, the scene was repeated, but it was the other woman who had helped her friend get there who was healed. Finally, the three women came again – over a distance of some miles, on foot – and at last the woman who was so sick was also healed. “Why did God do this?” he asked. “I think it is because they would not have come back to ask for prayers for themselves if their friend had been healed first.”
When we pastors are allowed to participate in miraculous healings, it is a special blessing. It never ceases to be amazing -- overpowering even -- to see what God can do.
In the case of the Thessalonians, they had seen Paul and his fellow-travelers living in such a way that they wanted to be like them. And so healings and other signs happened, and people miles away heard about the marvels that were happening, not just in the lives of the Thessalonians, but in their ability to reach out to the people around them and perform miracles and wonders for them also.
We must remember – miracles and wonders, healing and multiplying fish and so on -- are not given to us so that we might be famous or popular. These occurrences are signs – like a sign hung over a store, so that people can find it and know what they will find inside – performed by the Holy Spirit through human beings so that others will be attracted to the word of God, in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.
Matthew 22:15-22
Have you ever lived in a country that was captive and controlled by some other country? Where you had to pay taxes to that foreign power and see that none of the money was being used to make life better for your countrymen? And then, your own people in office in your own nation, collect more taxes, since the foreign power was getting all of the first round of taxes? Can you imagine how that would feel? Even worse than paying taxes is to us here in the United States, right?
The people in Jesus’ day were living just like that. And the temple authorities and Herod the Jewish King were benefitting from that through secret agreements with the Romans. In addition to all that, there was an ancient tax that God told Moses to collect. In Jesus’ day, that tax was a half-shekel for every man over the age of 20. Its purpose was to support the temple. The half-shekel was about what an agricultural laborer would be paid for two days work.
The Pharisees and the Herodians wanted to trap Jesus. [You can always tell when a person wishes you no good – they come with flattery and smooth talk and hearty handshakes. Watch out and check to be sure you still have all your fingers as they walk away.] So, they came to him with a smooth line and probably obsequious smiles, saying, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” No question about the temple tax – that had been ordained by God and imposed by Moses. As good Jews, it could not be questioned.
But the taxes the Roman Emperor imposed – now that was a separate question.
But Jesus calls them on their posturing (the meaning of the word hypocrite is actor). He knows that they are acting for the crowd and says so! But then he says, “Show me the coin used for the tax paid to Rome.” That coin was a denarius. It was worth a day’s wage for an agricultural worker.
The average day of work would be from dawn to noon and then again from afternoon (when the sun was not so hot) to sunset, or about ten hours. So the worth of the coin was ten hours of labor. The Roman tax was collected once a year, but this base tax was only the beginning. All Roman subjects had to pay taxes on each of their slaves, on the land they owned, on their homes and carts and animals. But the coin with which they paid was the denarius, which bore the likeness of Caesar on it.
This tax was also despised by the Jews because Rome declared that Caesar was a god, and so they felt that they were being forced to pay Israel’s money to Rome’s god. This was a serious sin!
So the Pharisees thought they had Jesus between a rock and a hard place. If he said yes to paying the tax to Rome, the people in the street would be enraged. But if he said no, he could be arrested and flogged. Either way, they figured they had him!
But Jesus was subtle. “Show me the coin you use to pay the Roman tax.” When he has it in his hand, he holds it up and asks, “Whose picture and likeness is on this coin?” Of course, they say “Caesar’s.” And Jesus says, “Then pay to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
Why does that answer cause the Pharisees and Herodians to slink away? How does it end the argument? Well, simply put, “If you’re going to use Rome’s money, you owe the man whose face is on the coin the tax he charges.” After all, what choice did they have? If they were going to sell on the open market, they had to use the denarius. There was no getting around it. Unless you want to live “off the grid” as some say today. Do you want to do business? Sell your wheat or milk, fish or meat? Have a booth where you sell the textiles you weave, and dye and cut and sew? Then you have to use the denarius. Shekels and half-shekels are God’s money, used in the temple precincts (thus the need for money-changers in the temple porticos) to buy animals for sacrificial slaughter.
It’s popular to resent paying taxes. But I knew a retired couple who moved from Wisconsin to Arkansas to escape the higher property taxes in the north. I pointed out that if they made that move, they had to know they wouldn’t get the services they were used to in the ‘frozen tundra.’ They just pooh-pooed this idea. But when the rains froze on the roads and paths in January, there were no salt trucks or snowplows to get it off. They had to wait until it melted, which was usually no problem – just a matter of three or four days. But not that year! The roads in their village were ice-covered for three weeks. And since they hadn’t anticipated this, their kitchen cupboards were pretty empty by the time the ice was gone.
We don’t often stop to think about what our taxes buy for us. We tend to complain. But we hope that when we flush the toilet the sewer pipes will be in good shape to convey the sewage to the treatment plant. Roads cost money to resurface or rebuild. Freeways aren’t really free – they cost money to build, money to maintain, money to tear down and rebuild. Those who protect us from being attacked, either on our streets or by foreign troops, need to be paid and if they are injured in the course of their service, we ought to pay for that, too. The people who pick up our garbage and trash need to be paid, the trucks maintained, the landfills and incinerators kept working. Most of the services we rely on are invisible, and that’s the way we prefer it. But pay money for it?? Then we notice. The problem with paying taxes is that we have long since reaped the benefit when it comes time to pay, and that removal of time makes us feel as though we are being cheated. Many of our church members feel the same way about giving to the church.
1 This was a reversal of God’s words in Ex. 33:1-4: The Lord said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the [people living there]. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Italics mine) 4 When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments.
2 C.E., meaning Common Era, rather than A.D., so that we can speak across cultural lines.
3 According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia.
In this way, I got to know most of the members within the first year. And the members came to believe that I was their pastor. I also had a few times when I felt God led me to skip a few pictures and call someone “out of order.” I remember one call distinctly.
This man had not been in church at all for the first six months I’d been there. When he answered the phone, I introduced myself and told him that I wanted to get to know him. When I stopped talking, there was a long silence. Then he said, “I find it interesting that you called me today.”
“Why is that?” I asked. “Well, today is the anniversary of my brother’s death. That’s when I stopped going to church.” He talked for half an hour about that incident and how important his brother had been to him, and how despair and unfinished grief had left him angry and separated from God. He ended by saying, “So I just find it funny that you called today, of all days.”
I had been leaning heavily on God throughout this story, asking for help in what I might say when he finished. I decided that I ought to tell him that I had felt a definite nudge from God to skip over several members today and to call him. He was crying very softly when I finished. I asked him what I could do for him. “You already did it. I guess God does care, after all.”
He did not come back to church, but I made a note in my calendar to call him on that date each year, and I did so.
This is the theme that carries through today’s scriptures: When we lean on God, we are able to make use of the good things God has for us. In the Old Testament lesson, Moses begs for God’s leading; in the New Testament lesson, Paul describes the outcome of his ministry with the Thessalonians as a result of he and his companions’ ministry, filled as it was with the power of the Holy Spirit; and in the gospel, Jesus responds to the Pharisees and Herodians’ attempt to trap him in the question of whether or not the Jews ought to pay taxes to Caesar.
It isn’t always easy to know how to follow Jesus, or what God wants of us personally. But if we ask, God will lead us and we can joyfully follow.
Exodus 33:12-23
Many years ago, an ecumenical group of pastors would meet regularly to discuss the scriptures. Once, the leader for that meeting asked us, “Which biblical character do you most identify with?” The youngest pastor in the group sadly said, “Moses.” Because? “Because he had the most trouble with his people! God had chosen him as the leader, but they were constantly moaning and complaining and blaming Moses for all their troubles. And he had to keep running back to God to make sure he was doing the right thing!” I am reminded of that as I read today’s scripture.
Who among us have not felt impatient with God? Who among us has never said to God, “You know, I could use a little help here.” Or even, as Tim Rice (lyricist of Jesus Christ, Superstar) has Jesus say to God in the Garden of Gethsemane, “You’re awfully good at how and when, but not so big on why!” If I could only get God to explain his purposes, I’d be more likely to keep at the task I’ve been assigned. Such a conversation would greatly increase my motivation. (As a WWII baby and 60’s protestor, I fear blind obedience and loyalty to any human, and that carries over to my struggle with God.) But God usually sees little need for me to be informed beyond, “Don’t make that long drive today.” (As though I’m smart enough to know that missing the meeting 75 miles away over ice-and-snow-covered roads will be forgiven by the chairwoman.)
It’s a little late in the story for Moses to say, “If I have found favor in your sight.” (Or are we allconstantly uncertain of where we stand with God?) He has organized the people while they were in Egypt; taught them that God has promised them a rich and lovely land at journey’s end; and promised that God’s presence would go with them.1 But Moses is clearly aware that the people can turn against him, as the only handy representative of YHWH, if things do not go well. In true Middle Eastern style, he adds some flattery to his request (see v.16).
God agrees to go with the people and to let the people see signs that he is present with them. One caveat applies. We may not see God’s face and live. Makes one wonder why, doesn’t it? Some scholars think that this reflects the terrifying appearance of the animal-headed gods of the Egyptians, which include cobras and jackals. More modern visionaries say that the face of God is obscured by brilliant light. But more important than what God looks like, is that God is good and merciful, yet enough like us that s/he can be roused to fury when we insist on going about things our own way rather than God’s. It is the qualities that God displays, not God’s appearance, on which we are to concentrate.
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
The first letter to the Thessalonians is the oldest extant piece of Christian literature. It dates from 50 C.E.,2 or about twenty years after the resurrection and twenty years before the Gospel of Mark. We can see this in the greeting – the blessing he pronounces is “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.” No mention of the Holy Spirit in that blessing, even though he refers constantly to the power of the Holy Spirit being shown in the way they live. The concept of the Triune God came much later in the life of the Christians. That it is missing here points to the extremely early date of the letter.
Paul’s language shows us that he had – in his one-year sojourn in the city -- built familial relationships with the newly converted Christians. He sadly misses their companionship, referring to them as his ‘brothers and sisters in Christ’fourteen times in this letter, and calling himself their ‘mother (2:7)’ and ‘father (2:11).’
Thessalonica is located on the Aegean Sea, was the capital of the Roman province of Macedon, and adjacent to the province of Achaia. The city flourished due to its location on the major trade route to the east and continued to thrive as one of the most important cities in the Byzantine Empire.3 Today, the region is part of Greece, just north of Turkey.
Hellenistic letters usually opened with a greeting, followed by thanks, and this letter does likewise. That, along with Paul’s comment in 5:27, indicates that this is a personal letter, not one of his general church letters, meant to be passed around many churches or communities. His longing to be back in Thessalonica is evident. Even so, the letter was kept and eventually included in the canonical works, for the edification of a wide range of peoples and times.
The message for the rest of us is that the gospel is not just a matter of words; it is also a matter of how we live our lives. Our actions witness to others the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives and how groups of people treat one another. If we tell others how to live, they will be put off. If we demonstrate how the power of God can change a person, give us strength to persevere, groom us to be faithful servants of God and others, then people will be attracted to the love that Jesus urged us to employ. More – we will have the power to speak up in tough circumstances, but also to speak gently rather than shouting and gesticulating and pounding the table (or pulpit, though I have been known to do that).
Paul, of course, showed over and over the power of his public speaking to move people; not just because he was a powerful speaker himself, but because he allowed the Spirit to take him over so that his words had the power to transform (see Acts 14:1-3). More than that, the Holy Spirit gave to Paul (and others) the power to heal, even those born crippled (see Acts 14:8-11) and to perform “signs and wonders” – i.e., to be able to do the same things that Jesus had done in his life on earth. God worked through them so powerfully that the Lycaonians declared that Paul and Barnabas were gods come to earth. Paul and his fellow Apostles had to firmly tell them that they were not the gods the people worshipped, but were tools being used by the God of Israel.
Many years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a tour in the Far East, where we were able to talk to missionaries and local Christians in Sumatra. One of our stops was at a seminary in the mountains, where young men and women were trained and sent out into the jungle to preach to people living in tiny villages. One of the young men got up and started telling us about the healings he had seen and performed himself.
The head of the seminary was quite embarrassed, knowing that middle-class American church people don’t usually believe in miracles. He tried to hush the young man. I couldn’t help but speak up. “It’s certainly true that where we live, people are very suspicious of stories of healings. But please let him finish his story. Who knows whether God is using him as a missionary to us? We may have new things to learn.” So, he went ahead and told us the rest of the story, which was about a very sick woman who was brought to his church for prayers so that she might be healed. He had raised his hands and prayed for the healing that was needed. The women turned to leave, and one of them – not the one designated as needing prayer, but one of the two who had brought her, declared that a pain she had been living with for some time was gone! The next week, the scene was repeated, but it was the other woman who had helped her friend get there who was healed. Finally, the three women came again – over a distance of some miles, on foot – and at last the woman who was so sick was also healed. “Why did God do this?” he asked. “I think it is because they would not have come back to ask for prayers for themselves if their friend had been healed first.”
When we pastors are allowed to participate in miraculous healings, it is a special blessing. It never ceases to be amazing -- overpowering even -- to see what God can do.
In the case of the Thessalonians, they had seen Paul and his fellow-travelers living in such a way that they wanted to be like them. And so healings and other signs happened, and people miles away heard about the marvels that were happening, not just in the lives of the Thessalonians, but in their ability to reach out to the people around them and perform miracles and wonders for them also.
We must remember – miracles and wonders, healing and multiplying fish and so on -- are not given to us so that we might be famous or popular. These occurrences are signs – like a sign hung over a store, so that people can find it and know what they will find inside – performed by the Holy Spirit through human beings so that others will be attracted to the word of God, in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.
Matthew 22:15-22
Have you ever lived in a country that was captive and controlled by some other country? Where you had to pay taxes to that foreign power and see that none of the money was being used to make life better for your countrymen? And then, your own people in office in your own nation, collect more taxes, since the foreign power was getting all of the first round of taxes? Can you imagine how that would feel? Even worse than paying taxes is to us here in the United States, right?
The people in Jesus’ day were living just like that. And the temple authorities and Herod the Jewish King were benefitting from that through secret agreements with the Romans. In addition to all that, there was an ancient tax that God told Moses to collect. In Jesus’ day, that tax was a half-shekel for every man over the age of 20. Its purpose was to support the temple. The half-shekel was about what an agricultural laborer would be paid for two days work.
The Pharisees and the Herodians wanted to trap Jesus. [You can always tell when a person wishes you no good – they come with flattery and smooth talk and hearty handshakes. Watch out and check to be sure you still have all your fingers as they walk away.] So, they came to him with a smooth line and probably obsequious smiles, saying, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” No question about the temple tax – that had been ordained by God and imposed by Moses. As good Jews, it could not be questioned.
But the taxes the Roman Emperor imposed – now that was a separate question.
But Jesus calls them on their posturing (the meaning of the word hypocrite is actor). He knows that they are acting for the crowd and says so! But then he says, “Show me the coin used for the tax paid to Rome.” That coin was a denarius. It was worth a day’s wage for an agricultural worker.
The average day of work would be from dawn to noon and then again from afternoon (when the sun was not so hot) to sunset, or about ten hours. So the worth of the coin was ten hours of labor. The Roman tax was collected once a year, but this base tax was only the beginning. All Roman subjects had to pay taxes on each of their slaves, on the land they owned, on their homes and carts and animals. But the coin with which they paid was the denarius, which bore the likeness of Caesar on it.
This tax was also despised by the Jews because Rome declared that Caesar was a god, and so they felt that they were being forced to pay Israel’s money to Rome’s god. This was a serious sin!
So the Pharisees thought they had Jesus between a rock and a hard place. If he said yes to paying the tax to Rome, the people in the street would be enraged. But if he said no, he could be arrested and flogged. Either way, they figured they had him!
But Jesus was subtle. “Show me the coin you use to pay the Roman tax.” When he has it in his hand, he holds it up and asks, “Whose picture and likeness is on this coin?” Of course, they say “Caesar’s.” And Jesus says, “Then pay to God what is God’s and to Caesar what is Caesar’s.”
Why does that answer cause the Pharisees and Herodians to slink away? How does it end the argument? Well, simply put, “If you’re going to use Rome’s money, you owe the man whose face is on the coin the tax he charges.” After all, what choice did they have? If they were going to sell on the open market, they had to use the denarius. There was no getting around it. Unless you want to live “off the grid” as some say today. Do you want to do business? Sell your wheat or milk, fish or meat? Have a booth where you sell the textiles you weave, and dye and cut and sew? Then you have to use the denarius. Shekels and half-shekels are God’s money, used in the temple precincts (thus the need for money-changers in the temple porticos) to buy animals for sacrificial slaughter.
It’s popular to resent paying taxes. But I knew a retired couple who moved from Wisconsin to Arkansas to escape the higher property taxes in the north. I pointed out that if they made that move, they had to know they wouldn’t get the services they were used to in the ‘frozen tundra.’ They just pooh-pooed this idea. But when the rains froze on the roads and paths in January, there were no salt trucks or snowplows to get it off. They had to wait until it melted, which was usually no problem – just a matter of three or four days. But not that year! The roads in their village were ice-covered for three weeks. And since they hadn’t anticipated this, their kitchen cupboards were pretty empty by the time the ice was gone.
We don’t often stop to think about what our taxes buy for us. We tend to complain. But we hope that when we flush the toilet the sewer pipes will be in good shape to convey the sewage to the treatment plant. Roads cost money to resurface or rebuild. Freeways aren’t really free – they cost money to build, money to maintain, money to tear down and rebuild. Those who protect us from being attacked, either on our streets or by foreign troops, need to be paid and if they are injured in the course of their service, we ought to pay for that, too. The people who pick up our garbage and trash need to be paid, the trucks maintained, the landfills and incinerators kept working. Most of the services we rely on are invisible, and that’s the way we prefer it. But pay money for it?? Then we notice. The problem with paying taxes is that we have long since reaped the benefit when it comes time to pay, and that removal of time makes us feel as though we are being cheated. Many of our church members feel the same way about giving to the church.
1 This was a reversal of God’s words in Ex. 33:1-4: The Lord said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the [people living there]. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Italics mine) 4 When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments.
2 C.E., meaning Common Era, rather than A.D., so that we can speak across cultural lines.
3 According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia.
