Christopher Thomas
Sermon for Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Year A – 10/18/20
Grandparents are an amazing, unequaled gift of God’s divine presence to, in, and of the world. They really are. I had the great good fortune to know, have relationship with, and be deeply impacted by the two best grandmothers that I believe God ever produced. I like to say that if there’s something you like about me, you can probably trace it back to one of them. If there’s something you don’t like about me, you can probably trace it back to one of them.
For the purposes of today’s message, I’m going to focus on one Johny Frank Thomas. Now, you might think that was a man, but that in fact was my father’s mother (named after her two grandfathers). I haven’t spent much time sermonizing about Johny Frank in my short time as priest, because, as two of you hearing this know, she was the most important person in my life, for a long part of my life, and had a deep and lasting impact on why I am who I am, and so talking about her is a tender place.
However, this is stewardship ingathering Sunday, and breath is important today, and her spirit is drawn to mind, for me, in this conversation.
Now Johny Frank was a devout follower of Jesus Christ, somewhat in words, although not nearly a biblical scholar; but more in deeds, the way she chose to live out justice, and mercy, and grace. She made her way from a rural setting of the Church of Christ to the Disciples of Christ, the fiddling Campbellites, as she lovingly identified herself, since they did not take the bible nearly as literally as their Church of Christ kin, having all sorts of glorious musical instruments in the church.
She shared with me many things: her love of God, and good music of all sorts and kinds, and humanity, as well as her disdain for bad theology, particularly in the form of bad hymnody. One of their typical service “closers” was the standard “Take My Life and Let It Be.”
“Take my life and let it be,
consecrated Lord, to Thee;
Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of Thy love.”
Johny Frank thought it was, in her words, a “tacky old hymn,” because of the tune, but more importantly, because of the lyrics of the third stanza, which in her hymnal, went something like this:
“Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages for Thee;
Take my silver and my gold,
not a mite would I withhold.”
Well, that’s not what she sang. Every single time that hymn came up, she piped up long and loud with:
“…Take my silver and my gold,
JUST a mite would I withhold.”
At the time, I thought that was funny! I had absolutely no idea what sort of theological attestation and, more importantly, protestation she was making, right there, in those holy present moments, at the First Christian Church of Lufkin, Texas.
That woman knew how to show up and be present. Anyone who knew her knew when she was in the room. She was a force to be reckoned with.
That Holy Spirit breath of presence, that presence that says “I am with you, unto the very end.”
Moses is in this holy barter with God over what? Presence!
Breathe on me, breath of God. Fill me with life anew. Show me your face. Be present with your people! Presence is what we need!
I love this passage. In their covenantal dance, in this great negotiation that God and Moses do, there on the side of the mountain, Moses shows some real hutzpah. He transfixes on knowing the presence of God. “Show me your face!” “Show me your presence!”
It’s a fascinating study of perseverance, and generosity, one that bears witness! God is utterly and radically merciful and gracious, generous in giving with Moses, and yet withholds something of God’s self. God resides as a model, in that tension between the keeping or holding of self, and the giving of self. As Johny Frank theologically expressed, I’m going to need to withhold just a mite. It is a tension, a tension that even God recognizes in this encounter with Moses.
Are we to give it all? Is that a realistic, holy, “present” expectation?
“This text suggests that neither posture by itself will bring us to our full humanity. We are called to imitate the God who both holds AND gives away.”
Presence. Real presence.
“Tell us then, Jesus, what do you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
“Well, show me what you’ve got.”
“Who’s head’s on this, and whose title?”
“The Emperor.”
“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.”
Wait! What?
The coins, the ones that bore the image of Caesar, are in fact, icons, the very things that are signs and symbols of what the world of the Roman Empire worships. Give those icons to who they belong. God has no use for those things. There is no presence in them, nothing holy.
Give to God what is God’s!
Now, there is something God can use to build God’s “peaceable kin-dom.” What is that currency? What is that icon? Where is the imago dei, the image, the very breath of God residing?
YOU!
YOU are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and YOU are marked as Christ’s own, for ever (and ever and ever!)
YOU belong to God.
Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what is God’s.
Well, what am I, you and me, we to do with that, in light of the fact that today is our annual ingathering of commitments, the culmination of the “Breathe” stewardship campaign, our commitment of financial presence, for the upcoming calendar year 2021?
First and foremost, you belong to God, and God wants what is God’s, you. The breath of your presence is every bit as life-giving for God as God’s presence is for Moses, and God’s presence is for you.
The only reason that St. Thomas exists is because of the combination of God, and you, both ever present, in this space, and time, and place, all who have gone before, and all who will come after.
I hope you have made your presence in this place known, particularly today, as you are able, with your commitment to breathe continued financial presence into this place so that it can look forward to be the witness of God’s presence at work, that work that was begun in you, and goes forth into the world around us, today and beyond.
The struggle between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s is nothing new. God knows this. Moses sees this. Jesus addresses this. Johny Frank knew this. And we do as well.
Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what is God’s.
Amen!
