In God’s Image

The Reverend J. Howard Cepelak

Trinity Church

Waltham, Massachusetts
Pentecost XVIII – 16 October 2011

Exodus 33:12-23, Psalm 99:1-5, I Thessalonians 1:1-10, Matthew 22:15-22

From the Book of Exodus:
As God gave Moses the Law, Moses asked that he might see God’s glory. The Lord responded, you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live….while my glory passes by I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by…you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

From St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians:
The apostle wrote regarding the church’s faithfulness under duress saying, you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

From the Gospel According to St. Matthew:
When the Pharisees confronted Jesus regarding the payment of taxes, Jesus questioned them about the image on the Roman coin. The image on the coin was that of Caesar. He then said, Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation,
Amen.

For better or for worse, God has either blessed me or burdened me with an analytical mind. When I say blessed or burdened, I know that I should have said blessed and burdened. I have learned that every blessing in this life also burdens the one so blessed and every burden that one has to bear, if he bears it faithfully, becomes a blessing. So be it. God set it up this way and He knows what He’s doing even if you or I do not understand. We walk by faith, not just by our own unreliable and seriously flawed understanding.

One of the things that I seek to understand is why our churches in New England and in so many parts of Europe as well, are failing while in other parts of the United States – and of the world – Christian churches are growing, indeed many are even flourishing.

So, I wonder why, right here in our own city of Waltham, the churches – both Protestant and Roman Catholic alike – just barely make it. And the situation is pretty much the same throughout New England and in Europe as well.

Having thought about, talked about it, read about, prayed about and studied this situation, I could speak for a couple of hours providing a complete and, I think, comprehensive and accurate analysis. We don’t have time for that. So I will be as concise as I can be in the few minutes that we do have.

But first we have to look at the lectionary lessons assigned for this morning. They give us part of the answer.

In Exodus, God had called Moses up to the mountaintop to give to him the Law that we know as the Ten Commandments. While on the mountain, Moses wanted to see God face to face. God said No because no human being could see the face of God and live. God’s face, being so ultimately powerful, would kill a mere mortal.

But God wanted Moses to know Him so He said that He would place Moses in a cleft in the rock, cover him up as He passed by thus allowing Moses to see His back but not His face. Hence, the prophet could see God and survive the experience.

Fast forward in human history some 1,500 years to the little town of Bethlehem on the first Christmas, two thousand years ago. Jesus Christ was born. As we all know, this little baby is not just any little baby – He’s the incarnation of God Himself – God made man.

God’s people throughout the ages have wanted – as did Moses – to see God’s face. And here, in the birth of this baby, who would grow up to be the man who crucified, would destroy sin and death and then, resurrected, would offer that victory to all who would believe – here, all mankind could see the human face of God. Only God Himself – God made man -could do this. Only God has the power. And only in the divine incarnation can mankind see God’s face and not only live but also live forever.

Everything had changed with the Incarnation. The problem was – and is – and will be until He comes again at the end of time to release the divine wrath on all the evil that contaminates this world – the problem was and is that, having seen the human face of God, many people do not like what they see. Simple as that. He’s not what they want.

Having been created in the image of God, many people seem to want, on a twisted kind of way, to return the favor – to create their own gods in their own images. God said, I am who I am. And we know that He is who He is. But many want Him to be what they want Him to be.

We all love the great hymn, Just As I Am. We rejoice that God accepts us just as we are. But too many people do not accept Him just as He is. And today, especially in this area in which the so-called progressive religious thinkers predominate – they even want Him to be a her or some kind of bi-gendered or trans-gendered entity. Of course, this entity is of their own creation – an idol of their own making – but such a thing suits their purposes.

These religious progressives – like political progressives – are actually regressive. They are returning to pre-Christian belief systems. They’re regressing to the kinds of divinities that populated Roman pagan belief – gods and goddesses of varying degrees of power who, if you made them happy would give you what you wanted. Making them happy always involved some kind of blood sacrifice. Hence, the Roman gladiatorial games fought to the death all in honor of the Roman gods.

Faithfulness to the One True God or to Caesar was the test in the ancient Roman Empire. Every Christian was affected. Thus, St. Paul commended the church of the Thessalonians for their faithfulness. They lived under the pressure to worship Caesar. But they kept the true faith and refused to participate in the pagan religion. St. Paul wrote this letter fearful that some might depart from the faith. So he honored those who had kept the faith even under duress.

Well, the more things change the more they remain the same. We face now what they faced then.

A word about progress. We know that the only real progress ever experienced in this world comes in and through the one and only Saviour of the whole world. But He does not live to unconditionally give us what we want when we want it. He calls us into discipleship to Him. And He disdains any offering of blood sacrifice. He shed His blood – once and for all – to end all bloodshed in His name. He and He alone is the one full and all sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. No other sacrifice is necessary, desired or accepted.

All of this gets linked – as it always has been – to temporal government, to worldly power. Always has. Always will – until His return. From the beginning of time, God’s power and worldly power conflict one with the other. Hence, two thousand years ago in ancient Palestine, the issue of the day for most of the people was the issue of who held the power and how one should respond to that power.

The Pharisees asked Jesus an important but tricky question – a power question. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Taxes then – as now – were a hot topic.

Jesus responded with His own question for them. He asked them to produce a Roman coin and they did. He then asked, Whose likeness and inscription is on the coin? They answered, Caesar’s. All Roman coins had Caesar’s image on them. And also the inscription, Caesar the divine. (Many inscriptions adorned Roman coins. One read, Caesar Augustus, Son of God, Father of the Country.) Furthermore, it’s important to remember that Roman coins because they had the graven image of Caesar as a god on them were not acceptable for Temple offering. Worshippers in the Temple had to exchange the Roman coins for Temple coins. Hence, the money changers in the Temple whom Jesus threw out.

So the Pharisees knew that under the divine law regarding graven images and idolatry – part of the same Law given to Moses on the mountain – the Roman coins were unlawful. But under Roman government, their usage was required to pay taxes. You can see the trap into which Jesus might have been ensnared.

In the contemporary church we have a similar issue. Many people will claim and believe in a disconnect between money and God – between temporal wealth and eternally valid offerings. This has resulted in the very weak and flimsy understanding that too many mainline Christian have regarding the proper stewardship of their temporal wealth.

There’s a direct connection. Our money, like everything that we own, including our own lives, belongs to God and should be used for His purposes. And furthermore, on American money we have no inscription regarding a divine president. Remember, we unlike Rome, were established as a Christian nation. Rather we have the inscription, In God we trust. You see, our founders knew that temporal money ultimately belongs to God. Yet the progressive regressive want to remove this inscription from our coins and currency.

Just a note – there seems to be a direct correlation between church commitment and tax rates. Where the church is strongest, the taxes are lowest. And where the church is weakest, the taxes are higher. Just an observation.

So here we are – living in the most secular and thus pagan part of the country facing the same problems, as did those Christian in Thessalonica – faithfulness under pagan duress. Too many of our congregations have come under regressive control. Too few have held to the true faith in the face of the regressives.

And hence our churches are failing. All too often there are not enough of the faithful to sustain vibrant and alive congregations. Some congregations manage as secular organizations – but success in secularism has nothing whatsoever to do with faithfulness to God incarnate in Jesus Christ.

The false gods have their appeal. You get what you want from them- or at least, you believe you do. But finally, you don’t get what you really want – if you want the perfection of all that’s good and right and true – if you want true love that is eternally true and genuine love. Only God in Christ offers and gives that.

And yes, His wrath will finally purify this world – when He comes again. Until that time, our job is to remain faithful – to stand up to the regressives even as they claim to be progressives, even as they do so much damage to our churches in some cases destroying them – and hold ourselves and those who govern us to accountability under God’s Law. Created in His image, we need to live our lives worthy of that image. And by His grace, we both can and will. That’s our job.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, empower your people to ever increasing faithfulness. Come again and lay claim to your world. Deliver us from progressive regression and establish your Truth in the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of all mankind. And keep us faithful until your return.
We ask this in the name of
and for the sake of your Son,
the only Saviour of the whole world,
Jesus Christ the king,
Amen.

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