Matthew 22: 15-22
I would like to begin today by doing the following exercise. Are you comfortable --- as comfortable as you can be in hard wooden pews? If so, I want you to now close your eyes --- dangerous I know for me to ask you to do that but it is important for the exercise. Are they closed?
Now listen to my voice. "Pick a favorite place. It could be a garden, a waterfall, a room, or anything else. A place where you feel good and safe. Now, go to that favorite place. Walk around slowly and notice the colors and textures around you. What do you see? ... What do you feel? ... What do you hear? ... What do you smell? Take your time while you walk around. Spend some time exploring each of your senses. And notice how good and relaxed you feel."
Remember these sensations; they are the sensations of your very special place. A place where you can relax. Say to yourself: 'I am relaxed, my body feels warm and heavy, I am safe here.' Enjoy the feeling of deep relaxation.
When you are ready, gently open your eyes and come back to the present moment….
That of course --- as many of you know --- is an example of what is called "guided imagery." Guided imagery is a program that we can do together with an instructor or therapist or by listening to a CD. Guided imagery uses directed thoughts and suggestions that guide our imagination toward a relaxed, focused state. Guided imagery is based on the concept that our body and mind are connected. For examples, we know that pictures have an amazing ability to quickly change what we are thinking. This is because we all think in pictures. Therefore, based on that connection guided imagery tries to use all of our senses so that our bodies seem to respond as though what we are imagining is real.
Guided imagery has many uses. We can use it to promote relaxation, which can lower blood pressure and reduce other problems related to stress. We can also use it to help reach goals --- such as losing weight or quitting smoking --- manage pain, and promote healing. Using guided imagery can even help us to prepare for an athletic event or for public speaking.
I am wondering if Jesus was not the first practitioner of guided imagery to help answer questions and direct his disciples. In today's Gospel when the Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap him with their question, Jesus might well have chuckled to himself as he gently asked them to show him a coin. "Whose head is this? Whose title? Whose face, whose image do you see there?" "Why, it's the emperor's." "Of course it is." "Therefore give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's."
First of, Jesus didn't lose face over what was supposed to be a tricky question. Those who were asking thought they had him. You see, at the time of Jesus there was an annual census tax. But this question truly was not a question about taxes; they were questioning Jesus' support of the Roman government. If Jesus answered no, he could be labeled a political insurgent, even a terrorist. To answer yes, Jesus would be renouncing his Jewish heritage and be jeopardizing his mission by paying homage to Caesar, whose divinity was inscribed on each coin.
It was difficult for any loyal Jew to pay this tax. The Jews were living in a land occupied by foreign rulers. The tax had to be paid with the Roman coin. And to carry this coin, was to hold a graven image of a false god in direct opposition to the First Commandment, "You shall have no other gods." For a Jew this challenged their identity; their faith and heritage, their religion. What were they to do?
I could imagine this scene with Jesus gently and slowly asking everyone to close their eyes and go through a process of guided imagery. "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are his, and give to God the things that are God's." Can you picture that place?
Jesus is helping the disciples but helping them and us imagine a place…a place way back in the beginning were God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and so God created humankind in his image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them." Gen 1:26-27
We are made in the image of God. Jesus knew that. Jesus understood it at a very intimate level since Jesus was in the beginning with God. "And all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." John 1:2-3 Now why would Jesus have us go through this process of guided imagery?
The imagery Jesus guides us through --- of a coin made in the image of Caesar' over against our being created in the image of God --- is helpful for all of us. By doing so, Jesus is reminding us that we bear the image of God on our very being. When we look at each other, we see God. We are made in the image of God. That assists us by helping us to distinguish to whom our allegiance and loyalty belong.
Perhaps at this point we should discuss the question; How do we give to God what is God's? In days like these, our first instinct may be to clutch our fingers ever more tightly around the cash and coins we do have.
Martin Luther explained the First Commandment --- you shall have no other gods --- in this way. "We are to fear, love and trust God above all things." Martin Luther does not say we should run from, hoard and be suspicious of God in all things. In fact the very opposite is true. If God is our creator, creator of heaven and earth, there is nothing that exists that does not already belong to God.
Furthermore, in Martin Luther's explanation of the First Article of the Apostles' Creed, Luther writes, 'I believe that God has created me together with all that exists. God preserves my body and soul. In addition, God daily and abundantly provides shoes and clothing, food and drink, house and farm, spouse and children, fields, livestock, and all property – along with all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life. All this is done out of pure, fatherly, and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness of mine at all! For all of this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him."
When Jesus says, "Give to the emperor what is his and give to God what is God's, it can be translated as "Give back." "Give back" to God all that God has already given you. How do we know what to give back to God? That which has God's image on it. Everything. Us! Our time, our talents, our possessions. They all bear God's fingerprints and God's face.
What does that mean practically speaking? Well last week some churches lit a candle or in other ways observed what is called "Mental Illness Awareness Sunday" As many of you know, mental illness strikes many people around the world without regard to age, sex, race or economic status. People suffer immeasurably in silence and humiliation, in treatment and recovery, in all communities, every day. I would guess that each of us might know one person who has struggled with mental illness, or we ourselves wrestle with this emotional pain.
But my point in bringing it up is that when one lives with mental illness of any sort, it is easy to forget that we reflect God. People's self image of who they are in their own eyes and other's eyes gets distorted. We forget that all God's children are made in God's likeness, each with a gift to give.
I want to finish by sharing this final guided image. There was once a woman who carried two large buckets, each hanging on the ends of a pole. She carried these across her shoulder to carry water for the day. One of the buckets was broken, with a split in its side, the other was intact, and always carried a full bucket of water. Each day she would arrive home from the stream with one and a half buckets of water, because one leaked and the other did not.
The leaky bucket however, was embarrassed of its ability and perceived failure to bring home a full amount of water. And it confessed this to the woman. She replied, "Didn't you notice the flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other bucket's side? I've known about your broken side and planted seeds so you could water them for me on the way home. Because of you, I've been able to decorate my table with beauty each day."
We all are broken. Yet because we are made in our creator's image, we have gifts to give. So when we remember that we and all we see is made in God's image, stamped with God's insignia, we can fear, love and trust God with everything: our lives, family, health, wealth and future. Everything we are and all that we have belongs to God.
As we look around Good Shepherd, with our eyes open, we see God all over the place! A congregation of broken bucket people, a building that enables us to meet and grow, worship where we are led back to the one who claims us and puts His stamp on us. It all belongs to God. Jesus once said, "There where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
That day, Jesus was perhaps using guided imagery as a reminder to the one's asking the questions that when we remember that we created in the image of God, and as we fear, love and trust God above anything else, it allows us to give it all back. We need only be careful and grateful stewards of this image. Amen.
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