Matthew 22: 15-22 October 16, 2005 The Rev. Diane Livingston, Deacon Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi The first line of today’s scripture tells the reader of the tone of the exchange that follows. “Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.” The Pharisees approached Jesus solely with the intent of setting him up so that however he answered he would be trapped and they would be a little closer to their goal of getting rid of him. If their intent were truly to understand Jesus and if their hearts and minds were truly open, they may have indeed been transformed that day and begun to live a life that reflected the image of God. Instead their fate was simply to turn and go away. They were so focused about thinking of the rule of not worshiping graven images that they missed the offer Jesus made which could have changed their lives. What a loss for them! In all honesty, some of us have been there before ourselves. Maybe we have tried to catch someone, not with the intent to understand them and honor the journey they are on but to prove their way is not the way we think it should be. Maybe our motives were to dishonor the person and crush their spirit or cause them to be at risk of losing their job or to ridicule them in front of others. We humans do things like that - to family members, to those we work with or for, to fellow parisherners. The opposite of this whole way of thinking is Jesus’ response: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” But wait, that is a very broad answer. God made everything and everything is God’s. We’re just borrowing what we have, and we leave it all here when we go. There’s nothing here that didn’t come to us that way. I wonder if Jesus’ picture were on our money if that would influence how we shared it. Realistically that won’t happen but what if our eyes planted God’s image on everything we saw. I refer not just to money but to all things and all persons. Material items that we may decide we must have or if we have it that we must protect or hoard: would these items find themselves being shared with those who have no homes or jobs? Would the surplus food in our country be given to those who are hungry wherever they live - in the United States and in countries whose names we cannot pronounce? Images are very significant. I believe Jesus’ unique ability to state things encouraged the listener to approach life differently or to summon the courage to live out what is in their core being - put there anyway, I believe, by God. Each of us was created in the image of God. Do we hide or ignore that image? As the Forward Day by Day put it: is our manner of life worthy of the image of God? Do we bear the title of God’s chosen with humility and respect for one another? Images - ours, others, internal ones, visual ones in the world, God’s image.. During the past few weeks, I was invited into seeing a world of images. Many of you know that for the past six weeks I have been helping with the Hurricane Relief Efforts out of our diocesan office in Jackson. The work has been busy and chaotic much of the time but definitely good. As I have thought about today’s Gospel, I realize that I have witnessed seeing people give to God in amazing ways. Yes, they are giving to God what is God’s anyway but incredible things are happening because they believe in living out the image of God that is within them and they see others in this image of God. The image countless callers have presented are ones of love, compassion, concern, creativity and I might add, perserverance because they had to call so many times due to crowded telephone lines or because they had to wait patiently for a call back because there were mountains of messages for us to respond to. The thousands of calls that I and others have taken of offers of help to the victims of Hurricane Katrina are living images of people who are giving to God the things that are God. They are giving their time and energy and money and their unique gifts to help their brothers and sisters who are hurting and suffering. At some point we will tally all of the calls that have come to Mississippi through the Episcopal Lutheran Disaster Relief Efforts. There are youth groups, college groups, retired folks, couples who have decided to give their vacations to come and work on the coast. There are some who indicate that they can’t do heavy work but they come to do other tasks like check people in, re-stock the clothing area, set the tables to feed hungry volunteers . I, along with several others who are helping me, enter into a telephone chat with people who share themselves. I confess that sometimes I am so tired I feel like uttering just tell me when you are coming and when you are leaving and how many are in your group - the basic facts that are needed. But I pause and just listen often to the highly creative ways that persons offer their help. I listen and I hear: I live in Seattle or Arizona or Michigan or North Carolina and I want to come help. My church has gathered supplies and is sending an 18 wheeler - where do we deliver it? A group of five parishes has $10,000 - please tell us what you need and please think big because after January we will have another $40,000. My parish is ready to send a team of 20 for a week. Part of what we want to offer is to feed your volunteers and we are bringing the food and human power to do that as well as others to work in other ways. After this team returns, we plan to send another 20 person team about 2 weeks later. We want you to know that we plan to continue this effort for many months. What about you, Diane; how are you? Though we may never meet, I am concerned about you, they say. It has to be crazy there; all of you must be so tired. Maybe we should send Godiva Chocolate said a clergy person from Atlanta. We both laugh and it feels good. The Episcopal Church in Southaven, MS calls to say a group of 10 will come for 5 days. Diane, a group of women in Oregon have gotten together and had a quilt-a-thon. Most cannot come to MS to work so we started at 4:30 one morning and quilted until late at night. We were already quilting for our companion diocese and we decided to take time out to quilt for our brothers and sisters in MS. Our Episcopal Relief & Development coordinator and her husband are coming to MS and will bring them to you at the diocesan office until someone decides how and where they need to be distributed. After driving from Oregon and then getting lost trying to find their way to Congress Street in Jackson, a delightful couple showed up to deliver 3 large bins of quilts. More will be shipped later, they explained. It was 7 p.m. and only a couple of us were still at the office. We began to open beautiful quilts and to lay them out - there were some especially for children and lots of varied colors and designs. We hugged the couple and they us. The next morning they were on their way to the coast and I learned later that the 2 weeks they gave there were very special. There is the young adult who could not get the particular classes he needed at the start of the semester and so he headed to the coast. He is staying the entire semester and working at Coast Episcopal School. Two young men in the military called to say that one of their grandfathers is an Episcopalian in Alabama and told them how to contact us. This was early on right after the hurricane when very little was set up for our volunteers. Their confident response of, “We can be totally self-contained because we have our military supplies and don’t worry because we have all of our shots since we have been deployed. We have two weeks of leave and we are headed down from Virginia to come work at the coast.” All of these images and countless others occurred in the conference room of the Diocesan office. Last week I encountered different images. Our staff had been encouraging me to come to the coast and see the operation in action and to see the people that they see. Our son Lee and I went down and also present from our parish were Joe Mosley and Anita George and Roger Clapp had just left after serving there with the Panama Medical Mission team. Leonard and Rae Brandon are there this weekend working in the medical clinic; Steve Brandon had been there previously and three of our Canterbury students are there over their fall break. As Lee and I drove, I thought I would have more time to prepare myself before I would see the ravaging effect of Katrina. I didn’t because from Hattiesburg on the broken trees and cleared out areas were highly visible. I began to feel uncomfortable. While we were on the coast, a deacon who had a FEMA pass drove us along Hwy. 90 which is closed off to the public. There are not words to describe what we saw. Because our cable was out for so long and then I headed to Jackson to work very long days, I have seen very little television. I think even if I had followed the visual news, the glaring effects of what I saw this week would still have been difficult. And, I saw the area 6 weeks after Katrina when much clearing had been done. The rubble and the debris are still everywhere and slabs where houses were are crumbled piles. As we drove along suddenly a grand house loomed ahead and we would think, at last a vision of those stately coastal homes that we all associate with the coast. As we got directly in front of it, we saw that it was completely gutted from the winds and waters that over took it. Yes, the walls were standing but everything had been washed out. It was a shell. There were signs: pray for us; gone to the Virgin Islands; we will survive Katrina. Beautiful sailboats lying on their sides were piled in unexpected places. We saw one of the Episcopal flags that our Bishop had planted on the grounds of each of the destroyed church buildings. At Coast Episcopal School where well over a thousand people flow through each day for groceries, supplies, clothing, medical supplies or services the expressions vary. Some look very tired; some look bright-eyed; some act like they are in the local Wal-Mart pushing their way down the aisles. The workers labor hard and then gather for meals and morning prayer and evening prayer and to sing together. Some prepare the food; some sweep; some drive fork lifts; some organize the area; some go out in work teams to tackle cleaning out houses and to begin repair work. Today I am sharing images of persons who are giving to God what is God’s and living out the image of God within themselves as they work in Hurricane Relief work. Wherever we are though there are opportunities to decide how we will answer that question of whose image we are living out. Within our family, at work, at school, in our volunteer work, in our parish - how will we show forth the image of God that we bear? Ponder the question and don’t miss the opportunities that God presents us with to give to God the things that are God’s. It does others and ourselves a world of good.