“Two Sides”
Dear church,
Two sides! “There are always two sides to every story,” we say. That’s the brief version of one of life’s most quoted wisdoms. But the truth is, usually there are more than two sides, there may be three or four or five sides, - shades of truth from various perspectives that can be hard to hold together. More to the point, it can be misleading to boil down every decision to just two choices. God or Cesar? Should we pay taxes or not, show allegiance to Rome and or to God? Those are the questions Jesus is confronted with in this story from Matthew 22. You can each add your own versions of binary choices. “Should I go to college or find a job?” a young person might ask. Should I believe this side or that side in an argument that I am pulled into? Even our political choices are far too often restricted to an either/or, and most of us get a little bit tired of that, don’t we? If this story from the gospels has something to teach us beyond the particular question of that time, it is this: be careful with either/or choices. They are often a trap. People are trying to trap Jesus here. They want him to commit to one side and then nail him for it. But it’s not always other people who trap us. More often, in my experience, we trap ourselves in our own thinking. We play this game in our heads and get stuck.
What if the gospel for today wants to save us from our own tendency to narrow life and its options down too much? The people who opposed Jesus were famous for a black and white view if things. Either you follow the law or you go to hell. Either you are good person or a bad person, a righteous person or a sinner. To tell you the truth, it hurts me just to speak these sentences out loud. The gospel, and by extension, our Lutheran faith and belief system is more nuanced than that. We know that we all have good and bad parts in us, healthy and unhealthy tendencies, gifts and challenges. We know that not only one way leads to God because God is everywhere. How can there only be one way? We know that the portrayal of people as simply good or bad leads to mere caricatures of who they truly are. We know that brokenness and wholeness are never as far apart as we make them out to be. As people of faith, we stand on the solid ground of a complex, shifting world because we are connected to a force that holds the entire chaos together. God is our gravity center. And while we are spun through the universe on this tiny planet in a solar system that is only one of countless such systems, we are grounded in God. An atheist might not believe that. We do.
So, let’s go back to the old saying, “There are always two sides to every story.” It’s a helpful nugget of wisdom, no doubt. It can be super useful in a standstill between partners or married people and is essential in couple’s counseling. There is his side of the story and her side of the story, or her side and her side… and it’s often an incredible revelation to have two partners just listen to the other’s point of view. So, it is important to learn about the two sides. But, - and this is what I take from today’s gospel, two sides are never the whole story. The hidden agenda of the Pharisees doesn’t show up in their question and yet it’s the unspoken dominant side of the story, and Jesus’ intuition leads him to understand that. So, it’s important to remember that there a many shades of truth at play in any given situation. And our faith encourages us, no, urges us to not narrow down life too much, lest it becomes a dead-end. The Pharisees who kept challenging Jesus were at a dead end in their interpretation of the law. That’s why they became so rigid. When people get cornered or reach a dead end, they often become rigid. On the other hand, when Jesus was cornered, he consistently re-opened the conversation.
Who are the rigid people today? Where are they in your life? Or let me put it another way: where are the rigid parts in your own soul? Of course you don’t have to answer that right now. But ponder it like Scripture says Mary pondered what happened at the Nativity in her heart…
After some thinking, our Lord found a way to answer the question of the Pharisees respectfully, without falling into their trap. Give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar and give to God what belongs to God. And he illustrates the point by literally pointing at the two sides of the old Roman coin. Thank God, as Christians we don’t have to choose between church or state, God or the world, this or that. We are empowered and blessed to live in a complex world with various loyalties. But we live in this world informed by the power and goodness of God who trusts that even in this current crazy culture, we can make good choices, not one that fits all, not what’s easiest and most convenient, not what’s trendy or popular, but whatever is truly best for you and your loved ones.
And then, one part of the question from today’s gospel remains: How can I give to God what belongs to God? Jesus didn’t spell out the answer to that. But it is for you to pray about. How can you give what belongs to God?” Amen.
