Render unto Caesar ...

 

15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?“ 18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Matthew 22:15-22

 

The Tribute Money

MASACCIO

1425

Fresco

Brancacci Chapel

Florence, Italy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tribute_Money_(Masaccio)

 

Schematics of the Brancacci Chapel paintings.



The most famous painting in the chapel is Tribute Money, on the upper right wall, with figures of Jesus and Peter shown in a three part narrative. The painting, largely attributed to Masaccio, represents the story of Peter and the tax collector from Matthew 17:24–27. The left side shows Peter getting a coin from the mouth of a fish and the right side shows Peter paying his taxes. The whole appears to be related to the establishment of the Catasto, the first income tax in Florence, in the time the painting was being executed.[8]

The miracle is not represented in a hagiographic key, but as a human occurrence that posits a divine decision: a historical event, then, with an explicit and indubitable moral meaning. On the narrational plane, the Tribute is developed in three stages: in the central part, Christ, from whom the tax collector asks a tribute for the Temple, orders Peter to go and fetch a coin from the mouth of the first fish he can catch; on the left, Peter, squatting on the shore, takes the coin from the fish; on the right, Peter tenders the coin to the tax collector. The three stages unite and the temporal sequences are expressed in spatial measures. The absence of a chronological scansion in the narrative, is to be sought in the fact that the painting's salient motif is not so much the miracle, as the actuation of the Divine Will, expressed by Jesus' the imperative gesture. His will becomes Peter's will who, by repeating his Lord's gesture, simultaneously indicates the fulfillment of Christ's will. The apostles' solidarity is shown by their serrated grouping around Jesus, as if to form a ring, a "coliseum of men".[9] However, the very task is given to Peter: he alone will have to deal with mundane institutions. The portico's pillar becomes a symbolic element of separation between the grouped apostles and the conclusive delivery of tribute to the tax collector on Peter's part.

In the central group, the transverse directions formed by Christ's gesture with his right arm – replicated by that of Peter and, in opposite, by the turned collector – cross with those formed by the gestures of the right group, emphasizing escape points placed in the deepest space.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancacci_Chapel

 

 

 

 

Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution.

It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.

~ Niels Bohr *

 

 

Honor is better than honors.

~ Abraham Lincoln

 

 

 

 

 

Another Field Trip and lunch with some of our Painted Toe Art Society members.

We viewed the Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Exhibition

right here at the Center for the Arts Evergreen!

Johanna Morell, Carolyn Martyn, Nancy Priest, Pat Foster

 

Click below if you would like to view the entire catalog.

https://evergreenarts.org/event/exhibition-rocky-mountain-national-watermedia-50th-anniversary/

 

Farther down on the same page, there is a video of Opening Night when the jurors discussed the 

paintings that received awards.

 

OR … here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K83TST-R3mg&t=3933s

 

 

Rotary Club of Evergreen

President-Elect Mindy Hanson, President Chuck Adams

 

Robin completed 500 workouts and her friends at the gym

in Tokyo helped her celebrate that evening.

 

 

 

 

May you walk in the center of your life in balance and abundance.

~ Dakota/Lakota saying

 

 

 

 

October 1, 2023  Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 24 Year A

 

Previous OPQs may be found at:

 

* I keep trying to find it!

1Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

2We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead — Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

 

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

 

 

Denarius-of-tiberias-3

Denarius issued during the reign of Tiberius, AD 14-37

http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2014/10/lectionary-blogging-pentecost-19-matthew-22-15-22.html

 

 

 

 

LECTIONARY

Exodus 33:12–23 

Psalm 99 

1 Thessalonians 1:1–10 

Matthew 22:15–22

 

Summary

Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees on paying taxes continues to befuddle and elude both modern activists and patriots. Jesus did indeed endorse dutiful paying of taxes, and therefore offering some level of submission and legitimacy to the ruling authorities. That this is what Jesus meant by “render unto Caesar” is confirmed by the fact that Christians in the Early Church were noted for voluntarily and honestly paying their taxes, an anomaly in a world that all but expected graft and corruption.

However, by “rendering unto God” Jesus subtly and inescapably prohibits the sort of jingoism that would subordinate the believer’s citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven to that of the City of Man. In “rendering unto God the things that are God’s” the Lord makes an implicit analogy between the coin made in Caesar’s image, and the human being made in God’s image. Therefore, the whole body belongs to God, and indeed this explains why Christians, though dutiful taxpayers, also went to the gallows just as dutifully when they refused to conform to the Empire’s unjust and impious laws.

As of this writing, the American church is in a state of political panic. On the one hand, many are certain that “Christian Nationalism” has overtaken American religious sensibilities and made them subordinate to the state. On the other hand, others are just as certain that the spiritual truths of the gospel have been traded for a tradition of cheap activism, no less captive to political interests.

The Lord focuses us on the true north in between these false paths. Recognizing ruling authorities and obeying them as far as is lawful while reserving ownership of the self for God alone is the real attitude Christians are to have for human authorities. Ultimately, no matter how fond we may feel for our nations and communities, we are after all created in God’s image, not man’s, and our real task is to offer ourselves to him, and not to men.

https://www.preachingtoday.com/lectionary/

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The confrontation over Caesar’s coin is not a solution to any church-versus-state controversy; Jesus’ response to the Pharisees confronts them – and us – with the demand to act out of our convictions and to take responsibility for our actions. Jesus appeals to us to look beyond the simplistic politics and black-and-white legalisms represented by the coin and realize that we are called to embrace the values centered in a faith that sees the hand of God in all things and every human being as part of a single family under the providence of God. Jesus’ answers are not the clear, unambiguous solutions we hope for to these and many other questions.  But his response is the heart of living our faith: the struggle to return to God what is God’s.  Through prayer and discernment, each one of us has to do for ourselves the hard work of deciding exactly what is God’s will in our complex world of politics, money and human relationships. 

 

https://connectionsmediaworks.com/sundaygospel.html#oct22

 

 

First Reading Exodus 33:12-23

12Moses said to the LORD, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 16For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

17The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” 19And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” 21And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

Psalm 99:1-9

1   The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! 
          He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! 
2   The LORD is great in Zion; 
          he is exalted over all the peoples. 
3   Let them praise your great and awesome name. 
          Holy is he! 
4  Mighty King, lover of justice, 
          you have established equity; 
     you have executed justice 
          and righteousness in Jacob. 
5   Extol the LORD our God; 
          worship at his footstool. 
          Holy is he!

6   Moses and Aaron were among his priests, 
          Samuel also was among those who called on his name. 
          They cried to the LORD, and he answered them. 
7   He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; 
          they kept his decrees, 
          and the statutes that he gave them.

8   O LORD our God, you answered them; 
          you were a forgiving God to them, 
          but an avenger of their wrongdoings. 
9   Extol the LORD our God, 
          and worship at his holy mountain; 
          for the LORD our God is holy.

Second Reading 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

1Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

2We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead — Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Gospel Matthew 22:15-22

15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?“ 18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. 20Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.