On Rendering

Luke 20:19-26

The commercials and the ads have been blasting for weeks already, all with the same message: it’s the “holiday season” and it’s time to spend money. It’s a well-known fact that a retail business can make or break its entire year based on its November and December sales. So the official start of the holiday shopping season creeps earlier and earlier up the calendar (Christmas carols in the mall just after Halloween!), and the number of special shopping days proliferates (Black Thursday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday), until Christmas seems to sink under the weight. You are expecting the usual “keep Christ in Christmas” appeal, I know, and that is a valid point. But I think Jesus casts this whole question in a new light in the words of Luke’s gospel.

You know the story. The religious authorities are trying desperately to discredit Jesus. On this occasion they challenge him on the issue of Roman taxes. Is it lawful for a devout Jew to pay them or not? Jesus can see the trap and astutely sidesteps it. “…Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:25). Now it is awfully easy for us to hear that teaching and leave it comfortably where it lies, there in first century Palestine. But Jesus’ words will not remain still. They poke and prod at us. Only now it is not an emperor who seeks to control us, it is the commercial and economic pressures that insist that we “render unto” them our attention, our financial wherewithal, our sense of purpose at this time of year. What does Jesus say? Give them what is theirs, but reserve for God that which is God’s.

What might that mean for us? It reminds us to begin and end with God’s good news in Jesus Christ and let the other aspects of the season have what is left over, not the other way around. It reminds us that who we are, right down to our very core, is not consumers, but human beings who stand in relationship to their Creator and to one another. It reminds us that all of us have something to offer God, whether it be our time, our talents, our money, our hearts and minds, whatever, and that giving these things to God is far more important than giving the perfect gift to Aunt Beatrice (with apologies to Aunt Beatrice). And yes, it reminds us to keep Christ in Christmas.

Here’s a challenge. Each and every time you encounter an ad or a commercial or a newspaper insert hawking holiday specials, pause for a moment to give God thanks for the gift of Jesus Christ, and to ask what you might do that day of God. If you accept the challenge you’ll be doing a lot of thanking and praying. But really now, isn’t that the point?

Prayer: Thank you God for your gift of Jesus Christ. Help us to see and do your will today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.