18th Sunday after Pentecost (Matthew 22:15-22)  10/16/2011

A little more than two years ago my mobile phone experienced a few major failures…so, off I went to the phone store and found the perfect replacement. However, technology is advancing so rapidly these days I have recently discovered that my “perfect” phone is no longer on the market. My two-year phone contract has recently expired and, needless to say, throughout this past summer I was keeping an eye on the various speculations of the newest iPhone release, which just occurred this past Friday. The building curiosity behind this iPhone release was made more intense because at the same time there was interest in the health of Apple’s co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs had been courageously fighting various health issues for several years before this past summer, but his condition caused him to once again step away from his daily duties at Apple and finally in the late summer to step down as the company’s CEO. These two stories, the iPhone release and Steve Jobs’ health, continued to be discussed as summer turned into fall. On October 4^th, Apple finally released news of their latest phone and just one day later the world learned that the man behind the company had died. As the world lost Steve Jobs to an illness that he could not overcome, we were reminded of the many great accomplishments he gave the world. During the past several days people have reflected on many aspects of his career and his contributions, but I was particularly affected by his commencement address to the graduates of Stanford University in 2005. Steve Jobs was a man with worldly success giving these graduates the wisdom of life’s lessons…and many of his lessons were forged from his experiences of challenging and difficult times in his life. A graduate who was there recently wrote: “Jobs was not a rousing orator. He looked nervous as he approached the podium. As he spoke, though, his voice gained the strength of someone who knows that what he’s saying is both true and very important. And something unusual happened: we all started paying attention.”[i] Steve Jobs had captured the attention of the crowd as he spoke the wisdom that he had learned from life’s challenges.

Our Gospel lesson this morning captures a challenging experience for Jesus as he is approached by the followers of the Pharisees. Jesus had been in Jerusalem for just a short time and the tensions between Jesus and those who opposed his teachings continued to build. A small group of the Jewish authorities had decided that they would challenge Jesus with a question, hoping to trip him up as he answered. They approached Jesus with a question, a question that was thought to be a clever trick because the question had two “wrong” answers. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (Matt 22: 17) The authorities waited for their answer. If Jesus responded that they should pay taxes and support the emperor, then Jesus would be liable for a betrayal against God because the authorities would say he placed the emperor before God. If, however, Jesus responded that they should not pay taxes and give all that they have to God alone, then Jesus would be liable for treasonous actions against the emperor and the Roman state. The authorities had carefully designed this question for Jesus in the hope of entrapping him into a response that could be held against him. But once again, Jesus was ready for them, and he was ready for them in more than one way.

First, Jesus was prepared for the challenge from the authorities because he was aware of the malice and deceit in the heart of the question itself. The question pre-supposed that Jesus would choose to answer their question with one of the two responses they had considered. The authorities were quite certain that Jesus would pick this world or God, to the exclusion of the other. The authorities had hardened their hearts and had become closed to consider any possibilities other than the responses they had devised. Jesus is able to see a different way.

Secondly, Jesus was prepared for the authorities’ clever question because he has an understanding of God that is far deeper than those who challenge him. Jesus understands that the children of God have been given treasures far greater than coins with the head and title of the emperor. God has blessed his children with the riches of love and compassion, the prosperity of community, and the wealth of sharing one’s gifts for ministry. Jesus understands that in the unfolding truth of God’s work in the world, the children of God are contributors of that work in many ways. The authorities clever “either/or” question failed to trip up Jesus because the answer is not “either/or;” the answer lies in the wisdom of giving.

The wisdom of giving comes from an understanding of abundance, not scarcity. The wisdom of giving comes from an understanding that God has blessed us with resources that are fully realized only after they are given away: gifts of time, talent and treasure. These gifts are ones that cannot be measured simply by who receives them, but by the intentions, trust and love of the one who gives the gift, in thanksgiving to God who is the source of all gifts.

This coming week people will gather for a memorial service for Steve Jobs; to remember his life and give thanks for all he gave to others. I continue to think about the lessons given to us from Steve Jobs; his life, his company, and the commencement address that continues to speak to so many people. His speech at Stanford was especially memorable because instead of speaking of success, or of speaking of success vs. failure, as if life presents us with an “either/or” decision, Jobs spoke of success shaped through the experience of failure. He spoke of how the apparent twists of life and the choices we would have preferred to not have experienced shaped and formed his very being. He recognized that the lessons of his experiences were made known to him only after reflecting on them years later. As he described the reflection process of “connecting the dots” of his life, Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something…This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”[ii]As we place our trust in Jesus and in the community of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we have an opportunity to connect the dots. Jesus has shown us that the authorities’ clever “either/or” question is the wrong question to consider. We are called to live both in this world and to be God’s children in this world. The wisdom of giving encourages us to share the abundance of all that we have been given so that we may connect the dots in our lives and spread the hope of Christ throughout the world. AMEN.