Year A
Isaiah 45:1-7
Psalm 96:1-9 
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

These days… if you search Google for the word idol… you find people or things that are greatly admired… loved… or revered… things like the American Idol TV show… or movie idols… or pop idols… but generally speaking… an idol is an image or representation of a god… used as an object of worship… though Exodus 20:3-4 says… you shall not make for yourself an idol… whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above… or that is on the earth beneath… or that is in the water under the earth… you shall not bow down to them or worship them…

And when we think about idols… we think about primitive or superstitious religions… and 1Corinthians 8 for example… warns against believing that eating food offered to idols accomplishes anything… since we know that… no idol in the world really exists… and that there is no God but One… idols are human-made gods… which have no awareness… no consciousness… and the humans that make them… forget that the One True God made humans…

But an idol can be other than something like eyes painted on a rock that’s been carved into human form… an idol can be an idea or a concept… an idol can be an organization or a company or a nation… an idol can be an elected leader or a king… in other words… an idol can be anything which we see… but which we cannot see beyond… something on which our vision lands… but then gets stuck… and mistakes the thing… for what it represents… perhaps even mistakes it… for everything… and there are many false gods in this world today fighting for our adoration or worship… we have the false gods of entertainment… pleasure… fame… money… power… authority… selfishness… and instant gratification… to name a few… and the myopic vision which worships idols… keep us from experiencing the boundlessness for which we were created…

An icon… is an image too… and you may have heard that icons are not painted… but are written… and that may seem odd… because as any sensible person can see… icons use special egg tempera paints… applied with brushes… onto specially prepared wooden boards… so how can this be writing… and much of the answer lies in the differences between English and Russian…

Ask a Russian how one says… write… and they will answer bisat… then ask them how one says… paint… and they will answer bisat… that’s because Russian has one word with two meanings… and you have to know the context to know whether someone is writing a letter… or painting a picture… but if you tell your Russian Orthodox friend that writing an icon is inaccurate English… he or she may say… but an icon is the Gospel in paint… and the Gospel is written… so we Orthodox say we write an icon… ] of course… there are some who view this usage as old-fashioned… and think that iconographers ought to say that they paint icons…

But unlike an idol… an icon helps us see beyond the image which is written on it… it’s like a window to the divine… something which helps us see past the specific and embrace universal Mystery… and even more so… in Genesis 1:26-27… God said… let us make humankind in our image… according to our likeness… so God created humankind in God’s image… in the image of God… God created them… idolatry absorbs our gaze the way a black hole absorbs light… while an icon draws our gaze through and towards God… and if we choose to… we can also see the divine in the eyes of others as well…

Jesus said… show me the coin used for the tax… and they brought him a denarius… which by the way… had the likeness of a man who was considered to be divine… then Jesus said to them… whose head is this… and whose title… they answered… the Emperor’s… then he said to them… give therefore to the Emperor the things that are the Emperor’s… and to God… the things that are God’s… in the RSV translation of this passage… the text says… whose likeness… and in the King James’ translation… the text says… whose is this image… so while the Emperor’s image may be on a coin… it remains an idol…

Many of you know that there’s been a call… to put former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20.00 bill…  but of those men currently on the $1.00… $2.00… $5.00… $10.00… $20.00… $50.00… and $100.00 bills… five out of the seven owned slaves…  the men on these bills were honored for contributions they made… but how do we avoid honoring them as slave owners… how do we avoid associating the bank roll in our pocket… perhaps like the one on our bulletin cover… with that aspect of who they were… and who they owned… and is minimizing this fact one of the symptoms of the institutional racism that we’re being forced to face… how do we continue to better express the baptismal values we lift up… and so I wonder if America’s original sin… was forgetting that all people are created in God’s image…

The Rev. Frank Logue writes… the Pharisees did not want to give money to their pagan oppressors… and so were opposed to paying taxes to Rome… ] on the other hand… King Herod’s position of power came courtesy of the Romans… ] so even though the taxes were considered to be oppressive… the Herodians had a vested interest in keeping the Roman taxes paid… ] so they set a political trap for Jesus… if he said it’s lawful to pay the tax… Jesus is between a rock and a hard place… because he’s saying it’s OK to support Israel’s oppressors… and if he said it’s unlawful to pay the tax… he’s between a different rock and hard place… because he’s speaking treason… and his answer vexes them…

In Leviticus… God says… the land is mine… with me… you are but aliens and tenants… this passage echoes what’s written in Genesis about God wanting us to be stewards of the Garden… and not those who exert dominion over the earth… in other words… as we’ve heard over the last few weeks… the vineyard belongs to God… not to the local collaborators… not to Rome… not even to anyone today… and Psalm 24:1 affirms that… the earth is the Lord’s… and the fullness thereof… so for Jesus and many of his contemporaries… the whole earth… and everything in and on it… belongs to God… so the answer to his question… is that nothing belongs to Caesar… everything belongs to God…

Richard Rohr writes that Jesus is always forgiving individual sinners… which was a problem for the righteous from the beginning… in contrast… Rohr said… I do not once see him “forgiving” the sins of systems and empires… instead… he just makes them show themselves… as he did in Mark 5:8-9 with the man possessed by Legion… as Desmond Tutu did in South Africa… and as Martin Luther King, Jr. did in America… 

While many today do wear masks to protect themselves and others… there has also been a great unmasking of the social ills which beset us… and we must remember that partisan neutrality… does not equal moral neutrality… we must not be silent about the social injustices against which we are called to name and to heal…

Bp. Satterlee reminds us… that speaking through the prophet Jeremiah… God declared… but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile… and pray to the Lord on its behalf… for in its welfare you will find your welfare… so if God would have Israel pray for Babylon… where they were exiled… how much more would God have us pray for the United States… where we are privileged to live…

We are all God’s children… and God’s image is on us… God is within us… gently pushing us forward… and God is ahead of us… drawing us along… and our image of ourselves shapes and informs how we engage government and vote… which as good citizens we must do… to help it embody God’s values… so that we can… as the Thessalonians did… turn from idols… to serve a true and living God… who makes all things new…