Proper 24; October 20, 2002

Holy Innocents Episcopal Church

The Rev. Marion E. Kanour

This morning we hear Jesus respond to the Pharisees questions with an answer that seems to satisfy them.  They think they are going to trick him into saying that the government is less important than God.  Instead, he says, "Give the emperor what is due the emperor and give to God what is due God."  This satisfies them, at least temporarily.  But had they understood fully what Jesus meant by that response, it would only have added fuel to their fire.  If you think about what he said for just a moment, you are hard-pressed to say what exactly might be due the emperor, if God is the creator and sustainer of all things.  

The emperor might claim certain things are due him, but the only claim that holds water is that all glory and honor are due to God.  This is just what King Herod most feared people would understand when he heard of Jesus’ birth.  It’s why he had the Holy Innocents killed.  He understood that God has the greater claim, the greater power.  It’s always the one who is threatened who gets it first.  Herod got it.  It didn’t change his life in a positive way, because of his greed; but he understood the potential, were people to understand that God was the greater power here on earth; the Word made Flesh, incarnate in our midst.  

Other rulers through the ages got it and tried to align themselves with God, so that some of the power ascribed to God would come to them by default (the divine right of kings it was called in some areas of the world) where God was believed to have chosen the ruler and therefore the ruler should be treated with the deference one would accord to someone chosen by God to rule.  Other countries named it more appropriately what it is:  the mingling of church and state, but named thusly, there can be no confusion about the fact that human beings decided to mingle the two, and not God.  

In this country we wanted to make sure there was no confusion, no interference, and so we created clear, legal boundaries between the two areas of human affairs - church and state, yet we still proclaim in our pledge that we are one nation, under God; not one nation, under the President.  Which puts us, as Christians, in a bit of the same position that Jesus finds himself in this morning with the Pharisees.  What if our country asks us to do someone we believe strongly shouldn’t be done?  What if we believe what is due God has a greater claim on our lives than what is due the country?  When the two areas of our lives seem not to contradict there’s no problem; no need to sort through the answer to a hypothetical question.  But when the two areas call for contradictory responses, then we, as Christians and we as Americans must decide which area has precedence in our lives and why.  Then today’s gospel reading comes sharply into focus.  What is the emperor’s and what is God’s?

I was raised in a military city, Norfolk, Virginia.  Lots of us joined the military when we got older because we knew it, it was familiar, we had grown up around its rhythm and way of life.  During the Vietnam War some of our friends who were draft age filed for conscientious objector status, not wanting to put themselves in a position to take another life in combat.  Others found ways to defer their conscription.  While both of these choices were frowned upon in Norfolk, home of the Atlantic fleet, NATO, and the Armed Forces Staff College, they were tolerated.  

But the day Mrs. Harris came down the street to tell mother that her son had gone to Canada to live to avoid the draft, the neighborhood was horrified and ashamed.  It seemed dishonorable or cowardly to those folks who were raised with the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel, who understood the sacrifices their families made in times of war, who understood the commitment of those who fought, and detested the shame the country made the Vietnam veterans feel on their return.  Norfolk gave them a hero’s welcome in a time when that sentiment was not the prevailing one in our country.  So when Jimmy Harris went off to Canada, our little neighborhood was embarrassed for the family.  

One summer evening poor Jimmy was being discussed by a few parents who had gathered to watch their children play together.  Colonel White was among the adults in that group, an active duty Army Officer, who was so gruff in his manner that even his own kids were afraid of him.  The conversation went on at some length about how sad it was that Jimmy didn’t do the right thing ..until it was silenced by Colonel White’s booming voice, "Jimmy is the kind of man I’d want in my unit; I’d be proud to serve with him any day."  The crowd was stunned and stared unbelievingly at Colonel White.  "He’s a man who isn’t afraid to do what he thinks is right; he’s got the strength of his own convictions; he chose the path he could walk down with integrity; you can’t fault a man for that."  The Colonel went on to say how if a man couldn’t support the nation in good conscience, leaving it was an honorable path.  Staying and finding ways to defer conscription seemed cowardly, in contrast, he said. 

 At home that night I asked my father what he thought about what the Colonel had said.  Daddy said he hadn’t thought about it like that before, but that the Colonel made sense; that maybe Jimmy had done a courageous thing; to choose to act on his conviction that his country was involved in something he couldn’t morally support.  He left because he was being asked to support it, instead of staying and dodging the draft through deferment.  It was an odd moment for our little neighborhood.  The Harris family had been somewhat cold shouldered after Jimmy left the country; didn’t they raise him right?  What would cause a child to do that?  But after Colonel White made his point that summer night, people began to change a little in their hearts toward the Harris’.  They included them in their Christmas parties that year and started to be neighborly again.  

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In light of today’s gospel, the point here isn’t whether Jimmy was right or wrong in what he chose.  The point was that our neighborhood had a "come to Jesus" moment when Colonel White spoke his truth that night.  How we responded to the Harris family is what was due God---love your neighbor as yourself -- that’s what we were called to do, not to shun them because their son acted on his beliefs.  What makes us a great nation is not that we can agree on things that matter little, but that we can tolerate disagreement on things that matter much.  That’s what due God; honoring one another as part of God’s creation.  It may be that our nation will again find itself in a position of reinstating the draft.  It may be that some of those who are of draft age, will find ways to defer; others will join willingly, some will leave the country.  But what is due God in all that our nation in going through now is to make decisions for ourselves that are consistent with our faith and that give honor and glory to God alone.  Many decisions are possible that way; many paths are  But the path of hate is closed to hearts that profess love of God.  Let us pray that our nation is truly one nation under God, that we might remember our own best teachings in these difficult times.