When I was in seventh grade there was a large concrete patio area outside the Junior High cafeteria. It was open on one side and on the three other sides there was a brick wall, a breezeway, and a wide section of stairs going up to the cafeteria. I remember being in the area with some friends one day after lunch when the sound of a coin hitting pavement caught our attention. Then another one and another one. Soon we realized there was money being tossed out and we scrambled to pick it up. It was mostly pennies, and a few nickels. It was a crazy sort of thing and we were a little crazed as we raced to pick up what we could before someone else did. After a few moments of this, however, I looked up to the stairs to see some older students who were tossing the coins, laughing at us. It was cheap amusement to them to see us scramble for pennies. Suddenly the few cents were not worth it to me.
This seventh grade experience is one that I have witnessed many times since–not with pennies, but with cultural coins (think “war on Christmas” or “prayer in schools” or so many others that become fuel for rage) that are tossed out and people scramble and scurry in some sort of effort to defend something or claim some cultural ground.
In Matthew 22, there’s a story about how the Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus with a culture wars issue. They showed him a coin and asked him about paying taxes. They figured if he said they should pay taxes then he’d be siding with Rome and if he said they shouldn’t pay taxes then he’d be an insurrectionist. It was the either/or duality that far too many arguments today seem to become. Of course, for those who know the story, Jesus was far above the petty dualities. He asked about the image, which happened to be of Caesar, and he told them that they ought to give to Caesar what was his and likewise “render unto God, that which bears God’s image.” He was alluding to the Genesis creation text in which humankind was “created in the image of God.”
From my reading of the Gospels, it appears that the primary or initial real estate Jesus is interested in is the human heart. That’s not to say that the Kingdom of Heaven has nothing to do with social justice, just that the culture wars get our attention off of where the real battle is taking place—in the human heart.
In the early 300’s, when Constantine was Emperor of Rome, he decriminalized Christian worship and declared Rome as a Christian nation and the notion of Christendom was born—that a nation could be “Christian.” Ever since then the turf has been political and cultural—like a large concrete patio where pennies and nickels are tossed for people to scramble after, feeling like they’ve gained something of significance when they pocket one or two cultural coins. When we scramble after such cultural coins, however, we are sometimes straining at a gnat and distracted from the camel we swallow.
As we enter the final weeks of an extraordinarily long election cycle, there are lots of distracting pennies being tossed out for people of faith to scramble for, may we be astute in discernment. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about such matters when he advised Timothy to “warn the faithful against pious nitpicking, which chips away at the faith. It just wears everyone out. Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won’t be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple. Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they’re not backed by a godly life, they accumulate as poison in the soul.” (2 Timothy 2: 14-17a, The Message).
Let us offer up to God thanks for the opportunity to cast the vote of our conscience, as well as live in a way that broadcasts the message of God’s mercy and love.
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Stephen Carl