Matthew 22:15-22
"Who Made Who?"
(Play "Who Made Who" by AC/DC following the Scripture Reading)
"Video games [they] play me...
Nothin' gonna save your one last dime
'cause it own [s] you
Through and through...
The data bank know [s] my number...
Kick you round the world
There ain't a thing that it can't do
Do to you...
Who made who, who made you
Who made who
who turned the screw"
In 1986, the Rock Band AC/DC wrote the song: "Who Made Who" for the soundtrack of the movie "Maximum Overdrive," which is about computers and humans switching places.
That which was created lost its way and tried to take control of that which created it.
As you can imagine, chaos and destruction ensued.
It was sort of a silly movie, but it does bring up an important concept or question: "Who Made Who?"..."Who or What is in Control?"
In 1986, I wanted to be a rock star.
I moved to California immediately following my graduation from high school, and enrolled in Santa Barbara City College.
One day, I was dropping off an advertisement into the big blue mailbox on the corner: "Heavy Metal singer looking to form a band" for the local news rag when a car passed by with its windows down and the music cranking.
The song coming from this car stereo was "Who Made Who" by AC/DC.
This incident always stuck with me as sort of an epiphany...
...like the beginning of a journey I am still traveling.
Through this advertisement I met a young man who wanted to form a Christian Heavy Metal Band.
We became great friends and God used him to help me along my journey toward giving my life to Jesus.
"Who made who? Who turned the screw?"
I think most of us live our lives trying to walk the tightrope of allegiance.
To whom do we belong?
To Whom or to What are we living our lives for?
What does it mean to love and believe in Jesus, while at the same time trying to juggle the pressures of society, peers, desires, wants?
All that glitters is not gold, but oh how it does look good!!!
Youth and beauty are fleeting.
Life is short, but precious.
Time goes by fast and it's easy to waste it.
Life can be empty or it can be full.
During our short stay on earth we can achieve great and good things, or we can contribute to the mess, the madness, the selfishness, the greed.
In 1 Peter we are told, "Since you call on a Father who judges each [person's] work impartially, live your lives as strangers in reverent fear.
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life...
...but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God...
...love one another deeply from the heart.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
For, 'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.'"
It seems like yesterday that I was in my Senior year of high school hanging out in a park with my old buddies.
We were partying.
We were talking about the future and what we were going to do with our lives.
My friend Jim spoke up: "I'm going to keep doing what I am doing right now for the rest of my life."
But I thought to myself, "Not me. I want my life to count.
I feel called to become a Methodist Minister.
I don't know how I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna have to clean up my act somehow.
But that's what I'm going to do with my life."
But...
...at the same time I was thinking this, another voice was saying: "I want to be a rock star."
Again, what does it mean to love and believe in Jesus, while juggling the pressures of society, peers, desires, wants?
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning the Pharisees and their bitter enemies--the supporters of Herod, get together in order to try and "trap Jesus."
"Is it right for the chosen people of God, citizens of Israel, who have no king but God to pay taxes to an occupying pagan power whose emperor demands to be worshiped as a god?"
"Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?"
The particular issues might be different for us, but the problem of thorny questions of allegiance is similar.
All of us face times when our deeply held values and what we know to be right are pulling at us from one end, while selfish desires, worldly values, peer pressure, the desire to 'fit in,' or the desires of our flesh are pulling us from the other end.
What questions of loyalty are pulling at you this morning?
Who or what is trying to get your allegiance?
The Pharisees and the supporters of Herod were trying to trap Jesus.
They thought they had come up with a no-win situation for Jesus.
If Jesus had said it was lawful to pay the tax, He might keep the Romans happy, but the Jewish religious establishment would be up in arms--they would claim He was justifying idolatry.
If He said, "Don't pay the tax" He would be exposing Himself as someone who was inciting rebellion against the government.
In response to their question Jesus says, "Show me a coin. Show me the coin used for paying the tax."
The coin used for paying the tax wasn't a Jewish coin; it was a Roman coin.
With Roman rule came Roman money.
So somebody gives Jesus a coin.
And there it was: the symbol of so much tension; a symbol of pain and shame for a conquered people, yet also a symbol of a mighty civilization.
It was a symbol of failure and a symbol of success.
It was a symbol of resentment and a symbol of allegiance.
There were so many conflicting feelings, so many issues centered around that little coin.
And Jesus asks, "Whose portrait is on this coin? And whose name?"
The answer comes: "The emperor's.
Call him a god, call him a demon--this coin belongs to him.
For better or worse we are under Rome."
Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."
Now Jesus' answer might sound like a concession to the realities of this world.
But think again.
Jesus widens the question so that it has nothing to do with politics--nothing at all to do with the threat of being arrested.
"Everyone has to decide," Jesus is saying.
"What is it that bears God's image?"
Caesar can stamp his picture all over the place, but he can't come near the true Ruler Who gives us life.
If the coin belongs to Caesar, if the likeness on it is his, to whom should it be given?
But, but: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."
What belongs to God?
What is stamped with God's likeness in this world?
We all, if we think about it, know the answer to that question, just as surely as the Pharisees and the supporters of Herod knew as well.
Way back in the first Chapter of Genesis, which we read earlier, it tells us: "God created humankind in God's image, in the image of God he created them, male and female God created them."
God's likeness is stamped on us.
And that stamp declares that we belong wholly and entirely to God.
And next to that, who cares who owns the coin?
If we actually give to God what belongs to God the coin is a non-issue!!!
What matters is what we do with our lives!!!
Who are we going to give our lives to?
We can give them to Caesar or the devil.
We can throw them away.
Many of us do.
We can throw them away in order to become proverbial "rock stars" whatever that means to you or to me.
We can throw them away in allegiance to self and desire.
And time will go by fast.
"All [people] are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever."
I recently read that one of the members of the rock group AC/DC is now suffering from demetia.
He might not even remember much about all the glory and fame he experienced in his youth...
...which wasn't long ago.
There is nothing more sad than a wasted life.
There is nothing more beautiful than a life given completely over to God.
Paul says in Galatians: "You are all God's children through faith in Christ Jesus...[and] heirs according to the promise"
When we give to God that which is God's, we are giving our lives to the God described by the prophet Isaiah for a people just as much at a loss to grasp the full magnitude of God's care as we:
"Can a woman forget her nursing child?...
Even these may forget, but I won't forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands."
Of those who belong to Christ, Jesus says in John Chapter 10: they "listen to my voice.
I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life.
They will never die, and no one can snatch them from my hand."
Caesar's name and picture may be stamped on a coin, but for those who belong to Christ--our name and picture is stamped on the very palms of the hands of God!!!
Kind of like the old movie, "Maximum Overdrive" that which was created has lost its place and is trying to take control of that which created it.
And we see the chaos, the brokenness, the darkness which comes from that.
But Jesus has come into our world to save us from ourselves.
Through faith and pledging our loyalty, our allegiance to Christ--our rightful place in the order of the universe is restored.
This doesn't necessarily make life easy.
What it does do is it brings us a newness, a fullness, and a wholeness which takes the place of the emptiness and death which comes from pledging our allegiance to Caesar instead.
Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."
Who cares about coins when you can be reconciled to God?
Who cares about coins when your life can have real meaning, and you can know and experience unconditional love for God and other people.
Who cares about coins when you can be re-connected to the One Who loves you, to the One Who created you?
Life is short.
The flowers fade.
Power, strength, selfish desire run their course.
But a life given fully back to God is never wasted.
