God of the Living; Luke 20:27-44

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Render Unto God; Luke 20:20-26

I don’t know that anyone enjoys paying taxes.  I just paid my 3^rd quarter, and it was not a small chunk of change!  And yet, I think we can agree that at least a portion of our taxes goes to things that benefit us.  In today’s passage, we see that Jesus’s enemies are trying to set another word trap for Him to fall into.  They ask Him if it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not.  Jesus shows in His answer that although taxes are legal, our duty to God as God’s image bearers is the most important thing.

The religious leaders have just heard a parable spoken against them.  They know that they can’t do anything to Jesus, so they are hoping that they can get Jesus to say something so that Pilate will have cause to put Jesus to death.  If Jesus said paying tax was wrong, they could report it to the Roman authorities. After all, there was a rebellion against Rome over the poll tax in 6 AD led by a man named Judas.  His rebellion was short-lived as he was killed by the Romans.  Gamaliel mentions this rebellion in Acts 5:37. Despite the fact that the parable Jesus told indicated that the rule of Rome wasn’t going to come to an end soon as everyone had hoped, the expected answer to the question is that Jesus is going to say taxation is wrong, but even if he goes along with taxation, the hope is that He will lose a good chunk of His support, for the tax wasn’t popular among the common people.  We have seen how tax collectors were among the most disliked of people. 

Jesus could have answered with a list of Scriptures from the Law and the prophets about the responsibility to pay tribute as part of covenantal obligations.  He could have traced how God’s people were conquered as a result of their disobedience.  But Jesus does not give a long historical and theological discourse.  Instead, He asks for a denarius.  They provide one.  Jesus doesn’t have one, but someone else does.  When Peter had answered a different time that Jesus paid taxes, this one the temple tax, Jesus had to send Peter to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth, to cover the amount of both Jesus and Peter.  A denarius was the exact amount of the debated poll tax or head tax—the tribute each person, 14 years or older, had to pay annually to Rome.  It was equivalent to a day’s wages, certainly not excessive.  The fact that they had a coin showed that they were participating in the economic system that they were claiming was unjust.  Furthermore, the coin had Caesar’s picture on it with an inscription “son of the deified Augustus.”  On the back was a picture of his mother Livia with an inscription “high priest.”  It could have been argued that possession of the coin violated the second commandment against idolatry, having a graven image, esp. since Caesar was worshipped.  No one was arguing about whether it was right to possess and use money.  Remember that we have already heard that these religious leaders were “lovers of money.” 

Jesus doesn’t stop with “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”   He goes on to add, “And to God, the things that are God’s.”  By asking about the image on the coin, Jesus is reminding His audience that they are God’s image bearers.  They were created in the image and likeness of God.  Wherever we go and whatever we do, we bear God’s image.  We belong to God.  We represent God.  We carry God with us.  As image bearers of God, we are called to give our lives to and for God. 

Jesus also reminds us that God’s reign is bigger than Caesar’s.  Everything belongs to God.  Caesar falls under the reign of God.  Though paying tribute is legitimate, obedience to Rome or any authority must be measured first against obedience to God.  The apostle Paul reminds us of this in Romans 13:1-7. READ  We do have to submit to the governing authorities, because God put them in place.  Their role is to punish evil, execute justice, and protect the people, and support the common good.  But this doesn’t mean that they always stick to their role.  Caesar may get our money, but God gets our hearts, our minds, our bodies, and our wills, along with our stuff, remembering that the first fruits belong to God.

Governments are not perfect.  There will be no perfect government until Christ returns to reign on earth.  Earthly governments are made up of flawed human beings, most of whom aren’t even disciples of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t ordain and direct them.  Still they will do evil things.  Both Jesus and Peter told us to expect the governments to persecute followers of Jesus even to the point of martyrdom.  They warned us to not be afraid, to be prepared to stand strong, and to trust that the Holy Spirit will be our guide and voice.  We prepare ourselves by staying close to Jesus through prayer, learning the Scriptures, and learning how to hear and obey the Holy Spirit.  Faithful Christians make good citizens because they are submissive, work hard and ethically, and care about their fellow human beings, and yet the gospel is a threat to those who thirst for power because the way of the gospel is the way of humility and not power.  There is always a higher power who comes first, and it’s not those in control or who want control, but it is God Almighty.  This is why Christianity is hated around the world despite all the good done by Christians.

There are times when civil disobedience is necessary.  Toward the end of our peacemaking Bible study series, the group watched a 2-part documentary on non-violent resistance.  People united together in civil disobedience were able to tear down and stand against evil regimes, like apartheid in South Africa, resistance against the Nazis in Denmark, the overthrow of military dictatorship in Chile, the overthrow of the communist regime in Poland, the end of segregation here in the US.  We see an examples of nonviolent civil disobedience in the book of Daniel both when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow down to the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar, and when Daniel opens his window and prays toward Jerusalem against the edict to pray only to the emperor.  Remember that God comes first, so when governments grossly violate God’s demands for justice, it’s time to resist.  If rulers demand obedience to a law that directly violates God’s commands, it’s time to resist. 

God must always come first in our lives.  We belong to God and we bear God’s image.  Regardless of what regime is in power wherever we live, our true citizenship is in heaven as Paul reminds us in Philippians 3:20.  And we are commissioned to be Christ’s ambassadors, representing the kingdom of heaven on earth.  As ambassadors that means that our job is not to try to escape from or disengage from civic duties, but to engage from a biblical point of view, with the gospel as our message.  We are to act like God acts, for indeed God acts through us.  We are to value what God values.  We are to be Jesus’s voice, hands, feet, eyes, ears, and heart in the world.  We carry God with us wherever we go.  As we are reminded of the original way that God created us, we also remember the original mandate, to care for the earth, to make it fruitful and productive, to live into God’s goodness.  And we ought to value our fellow human beings as well, because whether they believe in Jesus or not, they too are made in the image and likeness of God and deserve dignity.  Treating people the way we want to be treated is hard enough, but what if we treated people as if they were Jesus?  In Bible study today, we are finishing up our discussion of the Matthew 25 passage where Jesus compares Himself to the “least of His followers,” and that doing or neglecting to do basic, although often inconvenient things in service to others is the way we treat Him.  Jesus’s command to “render unto God the things that are God’s” reminds us to look for the image of God in others.  Sometimes it’s hard to see. This is turn ought to cause us to examine ourselves.  Is the image of God easy to see in us, or is it hard to see? 

The Gift of the Vineyard; Isaiah 5:1-7, Luke 20:9-19

We saw in the parable of the minas and some of Jesus’s other teachings that stewardship of money is just a small part of what it means to be a good steward.  If we are not good stewards with our finances, it is unlikely that God will entrust us with more or more important things.  If we can be faithful with earthly things, God promises to put us in charge of heavenly things.  The most important responsibility of stewardship God gives us is that of the gospel and of people’s souls.  Jesus called all of us to be disciple makers.  Some of us He called to be pastors, teachers, prophets, and evangelists.  It is a privilege to have this responsibility, and it is a gift to be part of God’s Vineyard.

            God uses different metaphors for God’s people in Scripture.  We see the Kingdom, which is the full reign of God.  We have the metaphor of Shepherd and sheep.  And we have what we see in our readings today, a vineyard.  Our Isaiah passage tells us that this Vineyard is God’s people, specifically, the house of Israel.  In this case, it was the vineyard’s fault that it only produced worthless grapes.  The Beloved did everything He could to make the vineyard fruitful.  He made sure the ground was good and that the stock was the best.  He protected it in multiple ways through a wall, a hedge, and a tower.  He expected it to bear fruit, built a wine press in it to prove it.  But it didn’t produce, so the Lord of the Vineyard removed all the protections from it.  He stopped pruning and tending it and left the ground and even told the clouds not to rain on it. 

It is an incredible gift to be called a child of God.  We don’t deserve to be grafted into the Vine, who is Jesus.  We don’t earn God’s care and blessings and protection.  With all that God gives us, however, we should bear fruit, but if we don’t, it is our fault, and God will remove those blessings from us.  We are responsible for how we respond to God’s good gifts.  God clearly says what Israel and Judah have done to warrant the removal of God’s blessings.  They didn’t give justice, but instead bloodshed, instead of righteousness, a cry of distress.  They killed the innocent and caused strife where none should have been.  They weren’t caring for the souls of others.  They were not living out their God-given mission.  In real life, they were conquered by enemies and taken into exile.  The temple was destroyed, and the land was literally laid to waste with few exceptions.  A remnant was left to tend the land so that tribute could be sent to the conquering nations and other exiles were brought in so that the local population didn’t become too strong. 

            Jesus’s audience would have known exactly what the Vineyard stood for in His parable. Commentator Craig Evans says that this parable stands over all of Biblical history, including the gospel.  Jesus’s audience indicates their understanding when at the end of the parable, they exclaim, “May it never be!”  However, in this case, it was not the fault of the people that control of the Vineyard would be given to others.  This is a thriving Vineyard, producing great fruit.   The tenant farmers were benefiting from the healthy vineyard.  They got to share its fruit.  They were rewarded for their good care. Just as it is a privilege to be part of God’s Vineyard, it is a gift to be able to steward God’s Vineyard.  But the tenants didn’t own the Vineyard; they only leased it.  The Owner was due a portion of the fruit.  They don’t want to give the Owner, His share of the harvest.  We are reminded that while God blesses us for good stewardship, we do not own the results.  The harvest is God’s not ours.  We can rejoice when we see someone come to know Jesus, but we don’t save anyone.  We can rejoice when our church grows, but we can’t take credit for growing the church. 

            When we try to claim what is rightfully God’s then we will fall under God’s judgment. In Isaiah, the Vineyard was destroyed because of disobedience.  In the parable, the Vineyard is seized from the wicked tenants who are destroyed, and the Vineyard is given to others.  In this case, the hearers interpreted it as the control of Rome over the Jews.  Jesus is telling them that the Roman empire isn’t going away any time soon, and that the Messiah isn’t going to save them in this way.  When we try to claim God’s harvest for our own, God will also remove it from us and give it to someone else.  Last week in Bible study, we saw that God doesn’t just judge individuals, but God holds peoples as a group to account.  God judges nations.  Just as God did in the Old Testament, God does today.  Not everybody in Isaiah’s day was producing bad fruit, but all the people were judged.  Faithful people were made slaves.  Faithful people were killed, but their reward is not in this life.  We have seen that sometimes we suffer for other people’s lack of faithfulness and that our faithfulness or lack thereof makes a difference in the lives of others as well.  Sometimes God preserves people due to the faithfulness of a remnant, but eventually it becomes time to give account.

Religious leaders are held the most accountable for the judgement of the people of God.  In Ezekiel 33, God says, “If a threat is coming and the watchman warns the people, those who don’t heed the warning, their blood is on their own head, but if the watchman sees the danger and doesn’t warn the people, the watchman is responsible when the people perish.  James 3:1 states outright that teachers shall “incur stricter judgement”.  Despite the shrinking number of churches and believers in the US and Europe, the church is exploding in other parts of the world.  Iran is one of the fastest if not the number 1 place where the Church is growing right now.  Despite increasing clamp downs on Christians in China, China is expected to have more Christians than any other country in just a couple of years.  God has given the Vineyard to other tenants.  It doesn’t mean that we have to give up, but it means that we need to show our faithfulness with what we have.  We are called to be disciple makers. 

Despite God’s declaration of justice, we also see in this parable that God is extremely patient.  Jesus tells us the owner of the vineyard was gone on a journey for a long time.  It generally takes vineyards 3 years to produce a decent harvest.  3 years is a number of completion in the Bible.  We know that the tenant farmers had a least one good, decent harvest, so this may be the 3^rd year that the owner sends the servants to claim the harvest.  When harvest time does come, the owner sends slaves to the vineyard.  They are beaten and sent back empty.  In Matthew’s and Mark’s versions, more than two slaves are sent, and some are killed.  These slaves represent the prophets, just like John the Baptist, whom Jesus mentioned earlier.  Again, His audience would recognize this.  Finally, the Owner sends His Son, the Heir.  Instead of respecting Him and listening to Him, the tenants kill Him.  Jesus’s clever audience has it figured out that there are those who would kill the Messiah.  They are appalled.  The Owner gives the tenant farmers so many opportunities to do the right thing, but they refuse.  Just as God as Vinedresser in our Isaiah passage gave Israel and Judah everything they needed to be fruitful, God does the same for us.  God gives opportunities for repentance.  God warns us time and time again.  And God gave us His own Son. 

Jesus acknowledges that this parable is a hard saying.  He continues by quoting Psalm 118:22, “The stone which the builders rejected became the chief corner.”  This is one of the most quoted Old Testament Scriptures in the New Testament.  Jesus is talking about Himself as the rejected One, but there is hope in this verse.  He has become the chief cornerstone.  He is the foundation on which His Church, His people, are built.  He is going to die, but He is going to triumph.  But He is a stumbling block.  You either have to trip over Him and fall on Him and be broken by Him or be crushed by Him.  To be broken by Jesus is to come to place of repentance, humility, and submission. While it is hard to be broken by Jesus, it is where we find hope. It is in being broken by Jesus that we can be healed.  We realize that we cannot thrive while being disconnected from the Vine, but when we realize that we need the Vine, we can be grafted in and bear fruit.  To be crushed by Jesus, on the other hand, is to fall under condemnation.  No one can get around Jesus. 

It's interesting to note that in this parable, Jesus answers the question that the religious leaders asked of Him.  As we saw last week, He refused to play into the word trap, but it is clear to everyone in this parable that Jesus is claiming to be the Son of God, that He is the Messiah, and that His authority as well as that of John’s is God-given.  The religious leaders know that they are the tenant farmers described in the parable, and they are not too happy with Jesus telling them they will be removed and destroyed.  Even though Jesus just said that they kill the Son, they tried to kill Him on the spot, but “they feared the people.”  This shows that they really weren’t serving God at all.  Once again, they show disdain for the Master by rejecting His Son.  This was their opportunity to repent and be good tenant farmers, but soon they would see their power taken away.    

            The Kingdom is given to us.  We are blessed to be included as God’s people.  We are given everything by God that we need in order to thrive.  The harvest, however, belongs to God.  It is not only a privilege to be part of the Vineyard but to be a tenant of the Vineyard.  Being a steward of souls is an honor, but it is a position that comes with great responsibility and accountability to God.  Not everyone is given the responsibility of stewarding souls as a church leader, but we are all called to be disciple makers.  The Great Commission is for everyone.  If we think the risk of judgement is too hard that we don’t want the responsibility of being a disciple maker, God will remove other responsibilities from us and give them to others.  May we bear good fruit that we can give to our Master and Maker.

It's a Trap!; Luke 20:1-8

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