Jesus and the coin.

Sunday October 19, 2008 23rd Sunday after Pentecost Yesterday was St. Luke’s Feast Day. Both the Gospel according to St. Luke and the Book of Acts are attributed to him, making St. Luke the most prolific writer in the New Testament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_the_Evangelist Today we hear about the Pharisee’s disciples and the Herodians, Jesus and a coin. Jesus asks specifically to see the coin, because he mentioned it we need to pay attention to it as well. The face on the coin was Emperor Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus Caesar. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Tiberius%26Livia_Aureus.jpg/330px-Tiberius%26Livia_Aureus.jpg The Roman Senate declared his divinity and according to Wikipedia, Tiberius refused to be worshipped as a living god, and allowed only one temple to be built in his honor at Smyrna.[96] The town Tiberias, in modern Israel on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee was named in Tiberius's honour by Herod Antipas. Jesus is not saying that we have to obey the state as it was later preached. Jesus is saying that the Emperor is not a god and we have to decide who our God is. Is God the Emperial State, wealth/mammon, the self? Anything we use to replace God is the false god. When Jesus showed them the coin with the incsription Diviunus Tiberius he was showing them that they were in direct disobiedence to the First Commandment. Have you heard of Moloch? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch The immotality rites included passing infants through fire. This was done out of a fear of death. We have heard a lot about finincial distress and crisis. A word we are hearing from Wall Street and Washington is ‘trust.” The government wants us to trust their decsions, meanwhile, the banks can’t trust each other. The risk of loaning money and going into debt was spreading and finally it came to a crashing end. The question agains come to us: Who is really God? God is really God! All of us can trust God and we don’t have to trust the world’s materalistic methods. We do not and should not be ruled by our fears or the fear of a weak ecomomy. The people, that means us, have been letting the leaders run our country without accoutablity. The lies were believed that everything was going to be fine and the Stock Market would continue to climb. The banks actions were not regulated and debts incurred. It seemed their slogan was, “Just Trust Us.” We did not hold our leaders accountable. We trust God alone, All of us do. Our wealth and well being comes from God. God allows us to share our possesions.