​In earlier verses of Matthew 22, Jesus was having a testing time in Jerusalem, just prior to his crucifixion.
The religious leaders had heard about Jesus and his popularity with the people, and they were worried that he might be trying to usurp their authority and that would put them out of a very lucrative business.
They plotted various ways to get him out of their hair, including killing him, but they were afraid that he was too popular with the people, who, if they killed him, may revolt against them.
 
Instead, they devised a plan to discredit him in front of the people, hoping that would be enough for him to leave Jerusalem and go back to his little town of Nazareth, with his tail between his legs - never to be heard of again.
 
The Pharisees and Herodians had asked Jesus whether it was right to pay taxes to the Romans and then they went on to ask him about whether people could be raised from the dead.
In that instance, they were talking about a specific Jewish belief that all people who died, just went to sleep until the time that the Messiah came, when they would be raised from that state of sleep and live forever in Heaven.
But the answer Jesus gave, talked about his own resurrection by saying that God (ie. Jesus) was the God of the living, not of the dead.
 
In the last part of today’s reading from Matthew 22, Jesus even turns the tables on the Pharisees, who were the ones who were supposed to know everything about the law and the scriptures, by asking them who they thought the Christ (the Messiah) was the son of? 
They answered “David”, because it was written that the Messiah would come from the house and line of David. 
He reminded them that even David had called the Christ “LORD”, so how could it be that the Messiah was his son?  That stumped them and so they stropped asking him questions - and decided to go to plan B, which, as we all know, was to get the Romans to kill him for them – leaving no blood on their hands!
 
During his discourse with the religious leaders and the people, Jesus cites Deuteronomy 6:5, part of one of the most important passages of the Old Testament, which demands that we love God with our whole being.
He also cites Leviticus 19:18, which requires that we also love our neighbour.
To Jesus, the whole of the Scriptures can be reduced to these two precepts.
 
Jesus reminds his listeners – and that includes us – that of all the 10 commandments, the greatest and first one is:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 
And the second-most important one is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
 
Can you actually recite all 10 commandments?     I’m not sure I can, if put on the spot!
 
In summary, they are:
1) you shall have no other gods before me
2) you shall not make idols
3) you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God
4) observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy
5) honour your father and your mother
6) you shall not murder
7) neither shall you commit adultery
8) neither shall you steal
9) neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour
10) neither shall you covet, or desire, your neighbour’s possessions
 
Well, I think most of us can do the first part that Jesus talked about, pretty well.
You know, the bit about loving God, but we usually slip a bit on the “with all your heart and with all your soul” part. However, I think most of us are trying to make a go of that bit, too.
But it’s in the second one that we fall down on most of the time.
You know, the “love your neighbour as yourself” part.
 
I don’t know about you, but I find it pretty easy to love my family, both blood and church relations, and I can make allowances for their little foibles and, gracefully, say that I forgive them when they annoy me.
After all, I probably annoy them a lot more!
 
But what about for those outside of our closest relationships.
What about the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, those with no clothes to wear, the sick, the criminals.
Do you remember reading about them in Matthew 25? 
Do we love them, or even think about them very often?
 
When was the last time we went out of our way to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
Let me give you a couple of small examples:
 
At our home church in Turramurra, as opposed to our adopted families here in Lane Cove, or at Forbes, the congregation have signed up with UnitingWorld to partner with the church in North India, assisting them in educating the locals about the dangers of slave traders.
What’s that you say - slave traders?
Didn’t William Wilberforce and his cronies abolish slavery over 100 years ago?
Well, they may have, but it’s now a bigger business than it ever was. 
It’s reported to have had over $30 BILLION US dollars in revenue last year. 
 
Their tactics these days are different to the ones used in African slavery in the 1800’s.
Now, young children are lured away from their families by the promise of a job in a faraway city or country and the prospect of sending money home to those impoverished ones left behind.
The victims are mostly from poor areas, where they are surviving on about $1 per day, usually earned by doing a long day of manual labour. 
When you consider that $2 per day is considered the poverty line, you can see that these people are desperate.
 
People from far north India, neighbouring Nepal and similar areas, are in high demand because of their fair skin. 
The unscrupulous slave traders, who just see them as another commodity to buy and sell, give their parents some money and promise to find them a job, often as a domestic help, somewhere down south. 
They usually end up in a brothel, often in another country, without their passports and are told that they have to work to repay the debt. 
 
The church in North India knows that it’s almost impossible to police the slavers, because they have a lot of money and the officials are poor and can easily be can be corrupted. 
Instead, the church plans to put their efforts into schooling the young and educating their families about the dangers of accepting job offers from the slave traders.
 
Turramurra is now assisting them in a number of ways, including prayer, the raising of funds and even sending teams of volunteers on short-term mission trips to work with the church in North India.
It may seem like a drop in the ocean to some, but to a young child, who’s saved from a life of misery, it’s everything.
 
We also need to educate western cultures, because they’re the ones who are often the customers. 
It comes down to simple Keynesian economics.
If the demand dries up (meaning we don’t utilise slaves here), so does the business and the need to supply young people is, therefore, also reduced.
 
I’d encourage you to think about what you, individually, or we, as a church community, can do to love our neighbours, fellow humans, more, thereby make God pleased with our understanding of his commandments to us.
 
Peace and blessings…………Pastor Rick

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”
These words of Jesus have become a sort of proverb, even to those who only know little, or no, scripture.
Yet, digging beneath the surface of this short encounter, will help us uncover some of the deeper currents in the exchange that Jesus had with the Pharisees and people of ancient Israel.
 
Firstly, the combination of people who approach Jesus is intriguing.
Matthew tells us that it includes the Pharisees, together with the Herodians.
The religious leaders didn’t want to give money to their pagan oppressors, so were against paying taxes to Rome.
On the other hand, King Herod’s position of power came courtesy of the Romans, so, even though the taxes were widely considered to be oppressive, the Herodians had a vested interest in ensuring that the Roman taxes were paid by the people.
Therefore, the Pharisees and the Herodians each reflected one of the horns of this dilemma.
 
They asked Jesus the question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
This reference is to Jewish Law, which is also called the Law of Moses, and had been around for thousands of years.
By Rome’s standards, it was lawful to pay the tax; but the question was whether, or not, it was proper for a religious Jew to do so.
 
It would seem that the people had presented Jesus with a dilemma - with no safe way out.
Jesus can’t speak against the tax, because that would anger the Herodians and lead to a charge of treason against Rome and he can’t speak in favour of the tax, without alienating most of the Jewish crowd that followed him.
 
You might remember that last week we looked at the Israelites making a Golden Calf as an image of God that they could see.
God was so angry with them that it took all the persuasive powers that Moses had to convince God not to annihilate his people, then and there.
God was not happy with icons, or images, being worshipped.
Some Jews saw the image of the Roman emperor, on the coin, as one of these images that people worshipped.
 
Jesus then asks the crowd for one of the coins used in paying the tax.
Here he was setting his own trap, because it proved that at least one among the questioners, is a hypocrite.
The coin used to pay the tax was a silver Denarius, with the image of Caesar on one side and on the reverse, the image of a woman named Pax (who personified peace).
The coins were obviously against the Jewish Law, which prohibited images of other gods, yet his accusers were carrying them around with them.
 
You’ll probably recall the incident when Jesus overturned the tables and chased the moneychangers from the outer courts of the Temple.
These moneychangers were running a very lucrative business in the outer court because people had to exchange their pagan currency for the Jewish Temple coins before going to buy their sacrifices inside the Temple.
Carrying the image of Caesar into the Temple was considered extremely sinful, so it’s interesting to note that when Jesus asks the crowd for a Denarius, one is quickly located and handed to him.
 
Jesus then asks the question that everyone in Israel could have answered - even without a coin in their hand.
He asks them, “Whose head is this and whose title?”
This translation sort of misses the point of the argument Jesus is positing.
The word they translate as “head” is actually “icon,” a Greek word better translated as “image.”
The word “title” is better translated as “likeness.”
So, we could frame the question as “Whose iconic image is this?”
 
When they answer Jesus’ question, saying that the image and likeness are “Caesar’s,” Jesus replies that they are to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Again, the translation covers something better revealed. It could also be translated as “give back” rather than just “give” or “render.”
Give back to Caesar, those things that are Caesar’s.
It’s his coin anyway, so who cares if you give Caesar back his coin for the tax?
 
Then Jesus gives the most amazing line of the short encounter when he adds that we are to “give to God the things that are God’s.”
This leaves everyone trying to calculate what exactly are these things of God’s, that we’re supposed to give back to him.
And in case you’re still wondering, the clue is in the words “icon” or “image” and “likeness.”
 
Jesus is quoting from Genesis 1:26-27, which reads, “And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness,’” and it goes on to say: “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
 
So, the principle is this: Just as the coin has Caesar’s icon on it, so it is Caesar’s, but we were made in the image and likeness of God, so we are God’s.
Jesus affirmed the tax whilst at the same time, making it all but irrelevant.
Jesus implies that, though we do owe something to the state, there are limits as to what we owe.
But Jesus places no limits regarding what we owe to God.
 
This text is often used when ministers are called on to talk about stewardship campaigns - in terms of what you should give, monetarily, to the church.
But this is more than just a passage about tithing.
If giving 10 percent of our income is all we do, then we fall more than 90 percent short of the mark.
 
Jesus says that everything we have, and everything we are, is a gift from God.
While this would certainly apply to the money you make, the formula isn’t trying to say that you should give 100 percent of your income to God, because God knows that you need the money for the necessities of life.
 
The teaching is, that once you have given God some of the money you earn, don’t feel that you’ve paid off your obligation.
God also wants to share in some of your time and energy as well, so the tithing formula relates to your calendar, as well as your wallet.
 
What God wants is nothing less than to come and live in your heart.
The point is that you’ve been made in the image and likeness of God.
God loves us and keeps our picture in the divine wallet and on the heavenly refrigerator.
Jesus didn’t care about the tax, because his real concern was that we live in the image and likeness of the God who lovingly created us.
 
And we begin to live into the image and likeness of God when we try to live our lives using the example that Jesus set when he was here among us - a human being and a spiritual body.
 
Giving back to God through the church is important, but merely giving money to the church, or anywhere else is only part of the picture.
We were created in the image and likeness of God and so, we must give our hearts, time, love, compassion, service and everything else, to God’s  glory, because everything we possess is a free gift from him that we call grace.
 
We meet Jesus anew every time we worship.
And in answer to the question,
“What are the things that are God’s which we need to give back to God?”, the simple answer is:    

​“We are.”
 
Blessings………………..Pastor Rick

​I’m pretty sure you’ll agree with me when I say that it’s often hard to rebuild trust after you’ve been hurt deeply.  Sometimes the hurt has happened to us, but often it’s been our own fault and someone else has been the recipient, resulting in the two of us now being deeply divided. 
 
Unfortunately, this kind of hurt and division happens too often in our churches and sometimes even between nations and groups within nations.
Think of churches that have split, often on minor theological grounds, distrust that exists between countries like Israel and Palestine, or the many years of feuding between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland.  
 
These divisions can run incredibly deep and last for years, if not generations.  
Despite efforts to bridge the gap, we may not be able to rebuild the trust necessary to heal hurts and mend division.
 
In today’s story from Exodus, we hear that after all the good things God has done for the people of Israel - bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, rescuing them and feeding them along the way – they still manage to so easily break their relationship with God – and in the worst possible way, by making an image of him and worshipping it.  
 
While Moses is up on Mt. Sinai (which literally means "the mountain of God"), receiving the ten commandments, the people began worrying about being left without a leader.
They were also fearful that they couldn’t actually see their God. 
Maybe the real problem was that Moses had been away for 40 days and 40 nights and they had very short memories about how bad their lives had been in Egypt, before God rescued them.
They pleaded with their High Priest, Aaron, the brother of Moses, to give them a god that they could see.
Aaron was conflicted as to what to do, but he took a strange course of action by suggesting that they gather all the gold jewellery the Egyptians had given them and melt it down to make a golden calf. 
Whether Aaron thought that the idol would be a reminder of their God, whom they called JHWH (we pronounce it Jahweh), or whether he just did it to keep the people placated until Moses returned, is not clear. 
 
But then, the people went even further and made sacrifices to this “new” god and had a festival with food and wine.   This new, more convenient, god only demanded sacrifices, not the right relationships that were the hallmark of their covenant with Jahweh.
 
This action would break the most important Jewish commandment against worshipping other gods and idols:
And after they made the idol and worshipped it, God found it difficult to forgive his people for worshipping this new golden image god.
We read that God commanded Moses to go down to "your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt." Previously, the Lord had repeatedly referred to Israel as "my people", whom "I brought out of the land of Egypt".
The Lord appears to reject his past relationship with his people and pushes the Israelites onto Moses; these are now Moses' people (i.e. not God’s) whom Moses brought out of Egypt.
That is similar to the claim made by the Israelites themselves in 32:1, where they talk about "Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt" (not God).
The split between God and Israel appears to be mutual at this stage.
 
The Lord's next statement to Moses is very dramatic and a bit terrifying: "Now let me alone, so that . . . I may consume them" (32:10).
He was planning to destroy the Israelites in the wilderness and end the whole relationship with his chosen people.
Moreover, he makes Moses a tempting offer: "I will make you a great nation" (32:10).
In effect, he offers Moses the chance to become the new Abraham, the sole originator of a whole new people who will be a substitute for the Israelites that he’s about to destroy.
 
The good news (for the Israelites) is that Moses isn’t about to let go of his relationship with God, nor his people.  
He pleads with God to forgive the Israelites and then pleads with the people to return to the one true God.
Moses denies himself the opportunity to become the new Abraham and, instead, prays and intercedes for Israel with three strong reasons why the Lord should not carry out the planned destruction of the Israelites, reminding him that “these are not my people.  They are "your people, Lord, whom "you brought out . . . of Egypt".
Lastly, in v.13 Moses reminds God of the promises of land and descendants that he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (who was later renamed “Israel”), a long time ago. 
 
Moses hadn’t been successful in changing God's mind in the past, but advocating for others, denying one's own interests and appealing to the mercy of God, has a particularly powerful effect on God and he takes it very seriously. We read that “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people".
 
Fortunately, God was then, and is now, in the business of grace and forgiveness, of rebuilding relationships.   However badly we’ve hurt God or others, God can, and does, heal those broken relationships if we start with an open acknowledgement of the wrongs we’ve done, then it opens us to being able to receive forgiveness from God and allows us to restore our relationship with him.  
Only then, can God start the task of rebuilding trust and restoring those broken relationships we have with others.   It may take a long time, and will certainly involve considerable effort from us, but we can trust in the God whose business is restoring broken relationships.
 
I wonder if you can identify the golden calves in our culture today – you know, the ones that draw our loyalty and love away from God, when we get impatient with waiting for his response to our prayers?
 
Have we made the God, whom we worship, into an idol, a small, fixed statue, that we try to control and manipulate as a substitute for the free, untamed, mysterious and surprising God of the universe, who won’t be tied down to small and humanly-constructed images, ideologies, institutions, and idols? 

How do we maintain this story's delicate balance between divine judgment, with consequences for disobedience, and God's leaning toward mercy, forgiveness, and faithfulness to the promises that he’s made to his people? 
 
It’s obvious to me that prayer and intercession have the potential to have real impact, especially when we’re advocating for others and calling on God's compassion.
 
How often have we become impatient, waiting for God to give us the direction in our lives?
Sometimes we feel that God is "late", thus causing us anguish, consternation, discomfort, and embarrassment. 
The truth is - God is always on time, but his timetable just isn’t the same as ours.
God says, “Wait. I always keep my word, but I'm in no hurry - you need time to prepare.”

Patience brings out the best in every soul and promises from God are always on time.
Don't worry about God's delay - worry about your own delay before coming to God!
 
As Paul said to the people in Philippi, we need to focus on whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing and commendable. Keep remembering these things and focus on what God has provided and give him praise and thanksgiving. This is the way to find inner peace.
 
Our God is so big that he’s always willing to forgive us – but are we ready to accept his forgiveness?
 
I pray that we will be savvy enough to recognise redemption when it comes and that we can then be thankful that he is mightier that we can ever realise.
 
Go into this coming week, looking for ways to repair broken relationships and to break down the images and idols that we’ve come to worship, asking God to forgive our foolish way and return us to his fold.
 
Our God is a forgiving one, but we need to do our part by changing our ways and seeking his blessing on our lives.
 
Pastor Rick

"Who's in charge?" can communicate so many different feelings.
​
It may be a reaction to chaos, such as a disaster, when we’re looking for the person who can make critical decisions.
It can be a plea for help, when the normal lines of communication are down.
It may be an irritation, said to a subordinate, reminding the one being spoken to, just who has the authority.
Or it may be simply an inquiry in which someone is trying to find some guidance and information.
Have you found yourself in a strange setting, or place, not sure who might be in a position to give good directions?
 
"Who's in charge?" is at the heart of this morning’s parable from Matthew’s Gospel.
The landlord demonstrated that he certainly considered himself in charge, by the careful preparations he made as he planted the vineyard, built the fence around it, dug a wine press and built a watch tower.
These were all expensive improvements you wouldn’t make to property that you did have control over.
By taking these steps, he was increasing the value of his investment.
No wise person would do this to someone else's land.
You wouldn’t improve the value of someone else's asset, so obviously, the landowner thought he was in charge.
Because he was going to leave the country for a period, he entered into an arrangement with the tenants for them to take care of the vineyard in his absence.
But when the harvest came around, the landowner, who thought that he was in charge, sent representatives to collect his share of the produce - after all, it was his land, improvements and vines.
 
But here the issue of who is in charge begins to arise, because those who’d worked in the vineyard, felt it was them.
So, they seized the slaves sent to collect the produce and beat one, murdered another, and even stoned another.
They allowed one to live, so that he could go back to the landowner with the message of who was really in charge.
But the landowner was furious and wouldn’t accept this takeover without putting up a fight, so he sent more slaves and they too were mistreated.
Finally, the absentee owner sent his son, thinking that surely they wouldn’t do the same to him.
But they did - and their thinking was that they would actually gain control of the vineyard by doing this.
Everything the tenants did to try to take charge, didn’t change the simple fact of who was rightfully in charge.
The ownership of the land didn’t change and the legal right the landlord had to a portion of the crop didn’t change.
What was broken was the relationship between those who were tenants and the landlord.
 
The first part of this parable speaks of trust.
We know God hasn’t gone to a far country, like the landowner, but he doesn’t micro-manage all our days, either.
He blesses us with opportunities and then places his trust in us to be good stewards.
Just as the owner of the vineyard had taken all the steps necessary for success, so God has blessed us.
The question is what kind of stewards will we be?
The risk with our lives is that we’ll become possessive.

We think of the church, for example, as our church and fail to see that it is, in fact, the very body of Christ.
We can be guilty of seeking to speak to the various challenges of the world, not as Christ would lead us, but in ways that are convenient, or self-serving, for ourselves.
Thus, our measure is no longer the Gospel, but rather, popular opinion.
When we need to reach out to the needs of others, we often place ourselves first.
We begin to see stewardship as a burden, instead of a joyful response to all that God has done for us.
 
There’s always a need to be worthy of trust, if our relationships are to be strong.
In all our lives, our "owner", God, has expectations of us and of our behaviour.
After all, our world isn’t just a play-yard that he lets us live in.

The commandments in our scriptures (Exodus 20:1-4,7-9,12-20) are a reminder that God has expectations for his people, chosen not for privilege but for service, for witness.

We tend to view the world as a Garden of Eden, not as a vineyard, where vines have to be tended and fruit only comes from effort, but in which, more importantly, a harvest is expected.
When we try to be in charge, it speaks of privilege, a misuse of freedom, or our arrogance.
We fall into the trap of thinking we have a right to the many blessings that are a part of the world we live in.
The opportunities we have often come from the hard work of others, so we should be good stewards of them.
The freedom we live with, was bought and preserved by many who gave their lives that we might be free.
The challenge is, will we use them in ways that benefit not only ourselves and our loved ones, but in ways that will benefit others, particularly those who live at the margins of our society, those with no voice?

The question is, will we be as foolish as the tenants in the parable and forget that all we are and all we have is God's?
After all, there really is no such thing as a self-made person.
God made us and gave us everything that we have.
One danger is that when we present Christ as being beneficial in getting what culture wants, we transform Christ.

If God’s in charge, we must seek his standards and ways, not the world’s standards.
God, just like the landlord, doesn't give up easily.

Most of us would agree that after the first attempt to collect the portion of the harvest that was due and the brutal action the tenets took, most people would have struck back with either violence, or some kind of legal action. Instead, the landlord sent another group of slaves to collect what he thought was due. When this group met the same resistance, he sent his son thinking that, surely, they wouldn’t do the same to him.
 
The analogy between the landowner sending his son and God sending Jesus, is very clear.
Israel had rejected the prophets on more than one occasion, but now they were resisting the very Son of God.
Of course, the cross reminds us that that God's Son met the same fate as the son of the landlord.
The Good News of our faith is not even death stops God.
 
Note that there is a warning in this parable.
When we refuse to recognize the one who is ultimately in charge, we’re going to be held accountable. In the parable, the landlord puts the tenants to death and leases his vineyard out to others.
We’re accountable for what we do with our faith.
We must accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, which means that we’re tacitly answering the question of who is in charge of our lives and ultimately our world.
Even though we speak of the patience of God, there is that point when we are accountable.
Have you ever holidayed at the beach with your family and taken an early morning walk before others were awake?
These walks afford us time for lengthy meditations and thoughts of gratitude for the glory and grace of God.
Far too often we forget how powerful our creator God actually is.
Yet he owns the mighty ocean and forests and fields, and never a cloud moves in the sky without his knowledge.
Sometimes we carelessly relegate God to the backgrounds of our lives, wanting him there, in case of an emergency, but quite sure we can handle things very efficiently in our own way.
 
How often do we forget who has a right to be in charge?
If we dare to listen, today’s story is about us, or at the very least, Jesus is talking to the religious community of his day, the keepers of the status quo, those who had shaped it to fit their expectations and their control.
How easily we fall into that same trap, worshiping a domesticated god instead of the one true God who sets the rules, draws the boundaries, and gives the orders. In other words, we’re called to worship the one who truly is in charge of our world and our lives.
Our call is to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour and to let him be in charge of our lives.

The words of Jesus, that we hear today, are a challenge to our culture of "ownership, autonomy, and self-reliance."
The basis of this parable in Matthew is that we often forget who, in fact, owns all of life and all of creation.
It points to the risk that, when we start to think we own what we are a part of, instead of being stewards of what God has given us to use temporarily, while we pass through this life.
 
God is always in charge – a comment we should always keep foremost in our minds.                      

Pastor Rick