Y’all……..I have never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer or the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I do like to think of myself as pretty well educated and  possessed of at least a modicum of intelligence.  But I cannot understand, for the life of me, the way some folks act, or the way they think, or the things they say.  It’s been a heckuva week with wildfires, and floods, and earthquakes, and yet another school shooting, and I have heard more than one person who should know better say, in all sincerity and smugness, that “God has a plan” and “it was God’s will” and “This is what God wants.” 

This is what God wants?????  Who in bloody thunder would dare say that God wants natural disasters, the death of innocent people, or any of the other terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things that happen in this world?  This is patently not the case, and I’ve written several sermons about this very thing, but I digress…And who, I ask, WHO has the direct pipeline to God’s desires? 

No, wait.  Well….umm….Hold on a sec. 

I actually do have the answer to that last question I posed:  Who has the direct pipeline to God’s desires?  The answer is actually pretty simple.  We, all of us, do, and we can find that answer over and over and over again in just about every book of the Bible.  Throughout the centuries encompassed in the entire history of humans interacting with God, we find that God simply wants our love and faithfulness and wants our actions to reflect that.  Period, the end, that’s all.

In the Gospel reading appointed for today, the Pharisees, those evil-minded lawmakers (who are similar to so very many people in today’s world) tried to trick Jesus into saying some things that would get him into trouble.  They said, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.  And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status.  Tell us, then, what is your opinion:  Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”

And Jesus, being sharp as a tack, caught on pretty quickly and replied, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?  Show me the coin that pays the census tax.”  Then they handed him the Roman coin.  He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?”  They replied, “Caesar’s.”  At that he said to them, “Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  BOOM!  Not what they were expecting or wanting.  Can’t you just imagine the Pharisees saying, like  the cartoon character, Snidely Whiplash, “Curses, foiled again!” 

And so, again, that brings us to the question, “What does God want?” or, more pointedly, just what is it that we have that we’re supposed to give to God?  You already know.  Jesus told us.  He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).  God wants your heart, your love.  And how do we show that love to God? Again, Jesus taught us, “”If you love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15. And what, besides loving God, were the other commandments Jesus gave us?  There’s really just one:  Jesus said,
I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

After over 2,000 years, countless sermons, essays, and writings, and an infinite number of words, what is there left to say?  The whole of Jesus’s ministry, the foundation of the Christian faith, the very basis of our being, our salvation, comes from that little central premise, love. 

Love God.  Love people.  Love. 
Love God.  Show God’s Love by Loving People.
Love God.  Show God’s Ways by Changing Your Ways By Loving People.
Love God.  Show God’s Ways by Changing Your Ways By Loving People Who are Different Than You.  Whose values, beliefs, bodies, and ways of Being are Different from Yours.

We, as followers of Jesus, must recognize that our society today is filled with numerous groups and communities facing systemic oppression, and we must act. We must be willing to admit and address the complex realities within our world that create such problems, and avoid the spiritual laziness that tempts us to rely on generic excuses and solutions.  There’s a meme that pops up every now and then that says something like, “At times being a good Christian meant being a bad Roman.”  Things to ponder, no?  Loving as Jesus loved us is hard.   Loving Jesus more than anything and anyone is harder.

People do a disservice to the gospel message by removing the cultural context from Jesus’s ministry and watering down his message to one of religious platitudes. We like to generalize the words of Jesus and transform his life into a one-size-fits-all model that can apply to all of humanity.  He intentionally, purposefully, and passionately addressed very specific causes. He radically addressed the diverse and complicated conflicts of the time and shattered the status quo.  Are we, as his followers, not called to do the same?  By addressing racism, immigration, gender equality, gender expression, and a litany of other issues, we are following in the steps of Jesus. 

We have to put our faith into action.  Support charitable causes.  Vote, keeping Jesus’s love uppermost in your mind, not by holding on to your prejudices.  Support your local church if you have one. (Tending God’s flock and providing a worship space is expensive, especially for small, independent churches!)  Support food banks.  Volunteer.  Do what needs to be done for the least, the lost, the forgotten.  Love.

So, ask  yourself, “What, exactly, am I giving to God?”