“On Our Hearts”
October 22nd, 2023
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Last week we talked about clothing ourselves with the armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes that make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). We are to “put on” that armor when we wake up in the morning. We are to be wearing that armor in case the king’s people come to announce the coming of the kin-dom—right now. It is a protection, but it is also a sign of who we are. Like the multi-colored robe of Joseph, it proclaims who loves us. It is there for everyone to see.
Today we turn inward. Because as most of us know, you can be dressed to the nines and still feel insecure. You can attract all the attention in the world but not feel that you are worthy. What we look like on the outside is not necessarily how we feel on the inside. And God knows this. God sees this. Jesus may tell us to be ready for the wedding banquet; Paul may tell us to dress in the armor of God, but none of that can hide the deeper reality—the reality of our heart.
This is not a new notion. Do you remember the famous words of the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 31(:31-34)?
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
The “law,” that tangible thing—stone tablets with God’s commands written on them; that necessary thing—that draws the path to how we can be right with God; that important thing—that was housed in the ark of the covenant, that was taught to children from the time they could understand, that boundary and protection, that call for who we should be—that “law” was no longer to be an outside thing, distinguishable from ourselves. It was to become intertwined with our very being because God would write it on our hearts, stitch it into our very fabric, insert it into the clay of our molding, make it part of who we are—central to who we are.
And Jeremiah hears God saying (because of this): “They shall all know me—from the least … to the greatest.” We too will get to have conversation with God, from the cleft of the rock, in the protection of God’s hiding hand. What an extraordinary thing.
I sometimes think that we make God too mundane, too small, too cuddly. Because Jesus was one of us, touching us, and laughing with us, and dying like us, we may sometimes forget that God is the God of Creation. God is the everlasting one, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. God is unfathomable to us at times. God is scary, not Halloween pop-out-of-the-closet scary, but deep down awesome. In God’s presence we truly know how small we are. And yet, God continually tells us God loves us. God invites us into communion, into conversation, into partnership. But never should we forget who that God is—the “I Am Who I Am.”
Our stories from the Old Testament, especially the story we read today about Moses, remind us of this reality. The ancient peoples had experienced God’s pillar of cloud by day and God’s pillar of fire by night, leading them out of captivity and into the “freedom” of the wilderness. Our spiritual ancestors knew of God’s awesome power that could bring plagues, and even death.
Awesome was not cuddly. Awesome was something to stay a good distance away from. That’s why they sent Moses up the mountain to talk to God. “You do it,” they said. We’ll stay here where it is safe.
But Moses got a taste of what it was like to be in God’s presence. Moses was a spokesman for his people, daring to remind God of the things God had promised. Moses had been changed—his face shone with God’s brightness after he spoke with God. But that wasn’t enough. God is like a sweet nectar that once you get a taste, you want more. And so Moses asked to “see” God, to “know” God’s glory.
And God granted that wish, somewhat. God put Moses in a cleft of the rock, so he would be hidden, he would be protected from the power and might of God’s glory. And as God’s presence came close, God added additional protection, by covering Moses with God’s hand (so Moses couldn’t peak), and only after God had passed by, did God lift God’s hand, so that Moses could see God’s “back,” see the trail of God, God’s imprint on our world after God has passed by.
That experience made Moses the man among men. He was lifted up in his lifetime. He was remembered always after his death. He was one of the people who were supposed to appear to announce the coming of the Messiah, the One of God. Remember how on the mountaintop when Jesus was transformed, Peter and James and John didn’t just see Jesus—they saw two other figures: Moses and Elijah.
Jeremiah heard God say that we too could know God, we too could see God pass by, we too could get as close as creatures can get to the creator. Imagine God as the sun—we cannot get much closer than we are without getting burned, or bursting into flame. Imagine God as a strong rip tide—we cannot get too close without be pulled out to sea in the undertow. But God wants us to come right up to that line. God wants us to know.
And Jeremiah hears God say it can happen, for each of all, for all of us. For God has made it so.
So let’s just say that piece of information is the most important thing to grasp today—maybe every day. That God wants us to know God intimately. And that God has written God’s law of love on our hearts. God has tattooed God’s name on our being, so we never forget. We are God’s beloved children. We are chosen (as each one of us is chosen) to bring our special gifts to the world.
Within that context, the Pharisees’ tricky question about paying taxes seems petty. You can see that the writer of the gospel of Matthew really does not like Pharisees. He even says they are plotting against Jesus. They are setting what they think is a trap for him. They want him to say, “Don’t pay your taxes” and thus be able to get him in trouble with the Roman magistrates. They try to butter Jesus up, praising him. “We know you are sincere; we know you are a good teacher, explaining the word as truth; we know you don’t care about where someone falls in the order of society; you treat all people as equal.”
This is like the trick question: “Repeat after me, Silk, Silk, Silk.” “Now what does a cow drink?” (the answer is) Water. It’s a magician’s bluff. Pay attention over here, so you don’t pay attention to what is really happening. Then they spring their trap: “Tell us what you think. Is it LAWFUL to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Lawful?—to acknowledge a man as God (for that is what Caesar considered himself)? Lawful? When Jews everywhere repeat the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Lawful?
But whose laws are we talking about? God’s or Caesar’s? Jesus calls them out. “You hypocrites. Why are you testing me? Why do you try to trick me? And under his breath he may have muttered, I know that you pay the tax as well as do the bidding of our occupiers.
What he actually said was, “Show me the coin for the tax.” And when he was showed the coin, he asked, “Whose likeness, whose name is on this coin?” And the answer, of course, was, “Caesar’s.”
So, Jesus concluded, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. And then he added, since we were talking about lawfulness, and give to God what is God’s.
This is often a scripture read on Stewardship Sunday—when people are to contemplate how they can help the work and mission of the church. Yes, pay your taxes, but don’t forget to give to God. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about the full extent of what Jesus is saying here. Whose image is on the coin? Caesar’s. OK, and whose image is on you? Whose image were you created in? Whose name is emblazed on your soul, on your heart? Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
Jesus is saying that we can hold two different things up as important. Jesus is saying that we can both live in this world, and abide by its lawful rules, but we can never forget that we are forever God’s, and our ultimate love, our ultimate aim in actions, our ultimate allegiance is to the One in whose image we are made, the One who has written the law of love on our hearts, the One who wishes us to be as close as we can be, the One who is our God.
We can hold those two things together. Just as we can say on the one hand that we are revolted and in anguish at the terrorism of Hamas, and we believe there should be a two-state solution, that all the people of the region should be able to live in peace. We can stand in solidarity with Israel, as we can stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We are no longer children, as Paul says. We can move from milk to spiritual meat—we can talk about complex problems in complex ways. And the Middle East is only one of the complex problems we are faced with in this time and this place.
Our gospel, our message for today has to do with us personally. Are we living as our written upon hearts demand? Do we take opportunities to get to know God better? Have we eyes to see the trails of God having passed by in our world?
Have we felt the gentle cradling touch of God hiding us from the full fury of this ungentle world? Do we pay as much attention to what we owe to God as we do to how we invest for our future?
Yes, the message is for us personally. But it is more than that. Because you, and I, are not the only ones made in God’s image. Each and every person is. From the greatest to the least. From our neighbors near by to our neighbors far away. What is lawful? What do we owe God? Jesus began with the Shema—You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. And then he made an addendum, found elsewhere in the law. He put together with our Love of God something else. Something as important, something that is not really different from loving God, and that is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In this divided world, in this divided country, we would do well to remember to render to God what is God’s.
To be careful in our stewardship of this beautiful planet.
To be loving to all we meet, trying to see the image of God
imprinted on them (scarce though it may be).
To be impassioned by the Spirit so that we can speak up for
justice, even as we hold onto mercy.
To be grateful, each and every day, that we get to know our
God better, walking, and talking, and being hidden, and
getting to see.
To never forget our ID tag, our heavenly microchip, within us,
on our very hearts. Beloved child of God.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.