October 19, 2008:  PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE
Exodus 33:12-23; Mathew 22:15-22; Psalm 99
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church

            Are we really supposed to believe God let Moses see his backside?  It feels sacrilegious, yet we’re told that God is anatomical enough to shield Moses with a hand, and if we pursue anatomical to its logical conclusion, when we hear God’s “goodness” passes before Moses that means that there’s a tail end.  For a God who refuses to be portrayed in an image (see the Ten Commandments and the story of the Golden Calf), this story pushes my limits.  Yet, no less a scholar than Terry Fretheim insists we can’t “spiritualize” this story, that something was visible and can’t be argued away.   It did happen—or something did.  Moses has been negotiating with God for Real Presence, so it’s a story about intimacy which, when combined with a gospel lesson on ultimate allegiance, can only be good news:  we are not asked to do what we cannot.  “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” therefore God gifts us appropriately and invites us to do the best we can with what we’ve got where we’re at. 
          The reality, of course, is that we will not always like or enjoy what God calls us to do, gifted for it or not, but it should be enormous assurance that we are gifted to do what God asks of us.  We might have to look elsewhere for the energy/nurture/encouragement we need in order to carry on with those things we don’t enjoy but feel called to do, but at least God does not ask us to do what we cannot. 
            A week ago Saturday, when Springwater hosted the Hermitage retreat, a participant commented to me about what was on our reader board out front.  I had posted the sermon title for the next day, “Peacemaking:  Integrity, Authenticity.”  She didn’t realize it was a sermon title.  Thinking it was our mission statement, a slogan about who we hope we are, and she was impressed. In a way, I guess it is who we are, since integrity and authenticity serve as our guides in deciding to be peacemakers:  know who we are, act like it.  But her point is that this is more than just a list of nouns.
           I believe integrity is a spiritual discipline.  “Discipline,” not as in punishment or the consequences of inappropriate actions, such as a parent grounding a child for pushing over outhouses.  But discipline as in self-control (mental, moral, physical, or spiritual), a structure that keeps us headed in the right direction, keeps our purpose in front of us.  Sort of like God in the pillars of cloud and fire, moving in front of Israel to lead them out of Egypt or God’s goodness going ahead of Moses.  Integrity—knowing who we are and whose we are—is the discipline that keeps us headed in the right direction.  Jesus’ little object lesson with the coin not only implies integrity as a discipline, knowing to whom we belong, but it implies authenticity—acting like it by the offering of our gifts.  Knowing who we are, we know our gifts and can therefore offer them in gratitude.
            Which brings us back to, “We are not asked to do what we cannot.”  That’s when we figuratively pull out the coin of our lives and look at it.  We remember whose we are by discovering whose image is on it, that life coin of ours.  Sometimes it is appropriate to “pay the taxes” with this coin of our life—go to work because it pays the bills, pick up the dog poo in the yard because it’s your pet too, study math because it gets you into vocational training, can the plums for the 40th straight year because it’s how you feed the family.  We are not called to do what we cannot.  The people we really admire—the MVPs of the Church, the saints we try to imitate—these are the ones who have somehow figured out how to make even those mundane, “tax paying” activities of “giving to the emperor” into “giving to God.”  Mother Teresa who made emptying bedpans look holy or Jimmy Carter who ran for public office as an act of faith or the woman who always has time for you or the supernaturally patient Sunday School teacher.  These are people who have somehow figured out how to take Jesus’ advice, to give to God what is God’s.  They have figured out what their gifts are and how to use them for God’s sake.  They have figured out that the image on their life coin is God’s.
              It takes the discipline of integrity to act with such authenticity that ordinary, every-day activities are acts of worship.  Last week we heard Mary Kirby’s witness to her ministry of hospitality with our guests who lived in our parking lot last year.  We talked about the different kinds of “witness.”  The witness that’s passive observation and the witness that tells what one has observed or experienced.  But the kind of witness Mary told us about is active.  It’s the powerful type of witness that shows what we believe by how we act.  Today, I’ve asked Carol Sturman to give her witness.

You and Peter have let me in on the conscious decision you’ve made to allow you to become a fulltime volunteer:  what volunteer activities are you involved in?  [school board, church, food pantry]

This decision has some implications for you personally [career path aborted, repudiation of women’s lib “have it all”], for Peter [working the type of job he does], and for your family.  Can you talk about some of them?

It seems like a strange combination, school board and food pantry volunteer work.  Can you let us in on why that combination works for you?  [school board “important,” food pantry gives you joy]

            Actions speak louder than words when it comes to witnessing what we believe.  The question is, “Whose head is on your personal coin, the coin of your life?”  I’m not saying everyone ought to try to be Carol Sturman.  There simply wouldn’t be enough hours in the day to be both Carol and who you are.  But if you know you were created in the image and likeness of God, you’ll be aware that God is more interested in your integrity, in who God created you to be, than in your being like someone else, wonderful though she may be.  God loves us where we are at.  God loves us too much to leave us there, but for now the call is to do the best we can with what we’ve got, where we are at.  
            At this time of year we become more overt in inviting you to consider what God is calling you to do—in terms of offering your time, talent and treasure.  What motivates your decisions, drives your actions?  Even when we aren’t consciously aware of what we believe, what we believe is always our motivator.  Whenever we act, we show what we believe.  When Jesus hands the coin back to his questioners, he asks, “Whose head (whose image) is on this?”  Today he hands back to us the coins of our lives.  As he does so, his invitation is for us to remember whose image we bear.  That is our integrity, our option for authenticity—to witness to what we really believe, to show it by how we act.  God’s own image, in the here-and-now.  You.