The Meaning of Money -- FPC sermon excerpt

The first national coin was minted in 1776, fully authorized by the Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin provided the basic design for this pewter dollar, inscribed with the word fugio — Latin for “I fly.” This word was paired with an image of a sundial, to depict how “time flies.”

Franklin must have anticipated how money would fly away someday — in the stock market!

According to mental_floss magazine (September-October 2007), the coin also bears the odd phrase, “Mind your business.”

What’s that all about? Is it sage advice to small business owners, such as Joe the Plumber? Or are they the words of a cranky mint worker, telling outsiders to buzz off?

It’s hard to say. What’s clear is that this sassy slogan hasn’t hurt the coin’s value. A Continental Dollar could be sold today for at least $1,500.

I wish I had my daughter’s college funds in Continental Dollars.

If you look at a typical American coin today, and you’ll see the words E Pluribus Unum, Latin for “From many, one.” This sounds like a noble sentiment, describing the unity of our 50 diverse states. But the truth is that our founding fathers plagiarized these words from the title page of a British book, published every year by “Gentleman’s Magazine.” It was an anthology of articles, and the slogan meant “From many magazines, one book.”

That’s kind of like finding a new national slogan in the pages of GQ.

So … what’s in your wallet? What does your money say to you?

Does your money say I fly? Mind your business? E Pluribus Unum? In God We Trust? Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s?

There’s a lot of meaning to be found in money.

The Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus in a trap when they send their disciples to him, along with the followers of King Herod. The disciples of the Pharisees try to bait the trap with some words of flattery, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality” (Matthew 22:16).

These disciples of the Pharisees are like a bunch of guys using lame pick-up lines to attract the attention of attractive girls.

- Baby, you must be a broom, cause you just swept me off my feet.
- I hope you know CPR, cuz you take my breath away!
- Was your dad king for a day? He must have been, to make a princess like you.

Well, that kind of flattery doesn’t work with Jesus, either. He is aware of their malice, and is definitely on guard when they say, “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (v. 17).

The trap has been sprung, and Jesus is going to have to move quickly to escape.

“Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?” he asks (v. 18). Jesus knows that they are asking about a particular tax, one that can be paid only in Roman coin. Problem is, the coin contains an image and an inscription — “Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest” — one that is considered blasphemous by devout Jews. If Jesus says “yes, it is lawful to pay,” he alienates the Jewish nation; if he says “no,” he risks arrest by the Romans. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

But Jesus spots a way out. He asks the disciples of the Pharisees for the coin used for the tax, and they give him one — notice that the Pharisees are in possession of the blasphemous coin, not Jesus! “Whose head is this, and whose title?” he asks them. “The emperor’s,” they answer, wondering what he is getting at.

Then, in one quick move, he slips completely out of their trap. “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (vv. 19-21). By saying that what is already the emperor’s should be given to him, Jesus avoids a direct yes or no response — one that would get him in serious trouble with either the Jews or the Romans. But in answering the way he does, he gives an indirect yes. He implies that paying this tax is not against the Jewish law. But he then goes beyond the question asked by the Pharisees and says that what is God’s must be given to God. Loyalty to God is on a different and much higher level of importance than simple earthly loyalty to the emperor.

And the disciples of the Pharisees? They realize that Jesus has escaped. Amazed, they leave him and go away (v. 22).

Rejoice in the Cubs Always -- FPC sermon excerpt

This week contains a significant 100th anniversary.

On October 14, 1908, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers. The score was 2-0 in the fifth and final game of the series. This was their second World Championship win in a row.

It was also their last.

For 100 years, the Cubs have been in a World Series drought. Our country has changed radically over the past century, but the failure of the Cubbies to win a championship has been a depressing constant in American life. When they last won, Henry Ford was producing his first Model T. Orville Wright was demonstrating his flying machine to the U.S. Army. The First World War was still years away. Being “online” meant hanging your clothes out to dry.

The Cubs have suffered the longest dry spell between championships in modern sports history. No one else in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, or the National Basketball Association comes close. In fact, the other three major sports leagues were not even in existence when the Cubs last won the World Series.

This year, it looked like they might go all the way. Throughout the regular season, they looked like the best team in the National League. But then, in the divisional series, they played three of their worst games all year. The Los Angeles Dodgers played their three best, and knocked the Cubbies out of the pennant race.

So the dry spell continues. And yet, despite this long drought, Chicago fans remain faithful. They rejoice in the Cubs always.

It is this same kind of persistent faithfulness that Paul is calling the Christians of Philippi to show when he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near” (Philippians 4:4). Notice that Paul says nothing about winning and losing, nothing about being champions of the faith. Instead, his focus is on rejoicing in the closeness of Jesus Christ, and on practicing the quality of gentleness — which in the Greek New Testament is a Christ-like characteristic that includes generosity toward others.

Like long-suffering Cubs fans, the Philippians are not supposed to obsess over wins and losses. Instead, they are to find joy in being a fan of Jesus, while behaving in a Christ-like way.

Rejoice in the Lord. Always.

The Parable of the Blackest Stuff on Earth -- FPC sermon excerpt

Black is getting blacker.

When I say black, I’m not talking about race. I’m talking about the color black. I recently read about researchers who have created a material that absorbs almost 100 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made. It’s about 30 times as dark as the government’s standard for the blackest shade of black.

According to The Washington Post (February 20, 2008), this material is a Roach Motel for photons — light checks in, but it never checks out. It is made of hollow fibers that suck up all the surrounding illumination. Looking at it, you get a “dizzying sense of nothingness.”

“It’s very deep, like a forest on the darkest night,” says one of the researchers in New York who created the material. “Nothing comes back to you. It’s very, very, very dark.”

Speaking of things that are incredibly dark, Matthew 21:33-46 is the parable of the wicked tenants. Jesus tells the story of a landowner who leases his vineyard to tenants and goes to another country. The tenants seize his slaves and kill them, seize more slaves and kill them, then seize the landowner’s son and kill him. These tenants are the Blackest Stuff on Earth, sucking up all the light that comes to them.

For years, Christians have interpreted this parable in a particular way. We have thought of the landowner as God, and the vineyard as the nation of Israel. The tenants represent the Jewish leaders, and the slaves are the prophets sent by God. The Jewish leaders beat, kill and stone the prophets, and then God sends his son — interpreted as Jesus. The Jewish leaders kill him, too, making God furious and determined to destroy them.

At the end of the parable, God will “put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time” (Matthew 21:41). These other tenants are usually identified as Christians, thought by some to replace the Jews in God’s plan of salvation. “Therefore I tell you,” says Jesus to the chief priests and the Pharisees, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” (v. 43).

Now it is not difficult to understand the parable in this way, especially in light of the conflict that was occurring between Jesus and the Jewish leaders of his day. But we make a mistake when we assume that Jesus was speaking about all Jews when he described the violent and greedy tenants in the vineyard. This parable has, unfortunately and tragically, been used for centuries to persecute members of the Jewish faith, people who have never personally killed God’s prophets or attacked God’s son. When we jump to the conclusion that God is rejecting all Jews for all time, we forget that the apostle Paul promised that “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26).

It is wrong for us to punish the many for the sins of the few. We make a terrible mistake when we assume that a whole group of people is the Blackest Stuff on Earth.

So what is the message for us today? I’m convinced that Jesus wants us to go deeper than the traditional interpretation I just shared with you. Instead of assuming that the wicked tenants are always Jewish leaders, let’s imagine that the tenants are each and every one of us. Then we have to ask ourselves, “Are we behaving in ways that suck up all of the light that comes to us? In what ways can we reflect the light that comes to us from God, and avoid being the Blackest Stuff on Earth?”