Then the Pharisees met together to find a way to trap Jesus
in his words. They sent their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to
him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are genuine and that you teach
God’s way as it really is. We know that you are not swayed by people’s
opinions, because you don’t show favoritism. So tell us what you think: Does
the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
Knowing their evil motives, Jesus replied, “Why do you test
me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” And they brought him
a denarion. “Whose image and inscription is this?” he asked.
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to
God what belongs to God.” When they heard this they were astonished, and they
departed.
It’s hard not to be thankful. It’s hard not to be thankful
with the car packed driving smoothly past vast stretches of America, be they the barren
landscapes of I-10 West where barbed wire cuts the dishwater-yellow desert into
a three point perspective drawing of leading lines and nothing. Its hard not to
be thankful edging up the California coast on Route 1, skirting danger and
decadence by glimpsing windward toward Big Sur slamming against it’s sharp
mesa-ed cliffs and churning back out to sea. Its hard not be thankful on the
way just from Baker up to Anthony cornering the edges of near ripe potato
fields with their curved leaves changing sun colored, when you look the other
way and tufts of butter-hued sheep now in their late Summer childhood still
bound toward their mother. It’s hard not to be thankful for the ease of
vacation voices heard across a lake in the dim silver mirrored light of
gloaming just before the bats skim the surface and side-eye you, and anything
else that moves. It’s hard not to be thankful for Labor Day, for that last bite
of summer, when the corn is ripe and the watermelon hallow to the thump, and
the edge of seasons bring both an exploding bounty and an anticipation of the
quieting autumn to come. It’s had not to feel thankful, for a country to
explore and call home and for the freedom to do so.
I feel thankful because I know that I am afforded this grace
by very little I have done. I neither surveyed the roads nor designed the curve
of their safety, nor set the smoothness of their ride. I did not stretch the
barbed wire, nor cut its raw heune post, the simplicity of which keeps the
livestock off the interstate on which I love to feel the wind pass by. I do not
know when to plant the potatoes or when to wean the lambs, but I know the taste
of twice-baked and butter, and local shanks cooked in wine. Likewise, I did not
have anything to with deciding that this late summer weekend would be an homage
to all those who labor in this country. Yet, 130 years after its inception
began in this state, I don’t think I am any less thankful, and perhaps I am
more. Because in that time I too was granted the right to vote and thus to
work, and to live out my calling, just as you have done and do likewise. I know
that I am fortunate to be born into a nation of relative peace and prosperity
and overwhelming power, and this too, has nothing to do with anything I did but
instead from the greats and the little who have gone before me. It’s pretty
easy to remember this on Labor Day weekend.
Maybe then, it shouldn’t be in mid-April when we pay our
taxes, when the canned and dehydrated jars of fruit have become boring to the
taste and avocados as non-existent as peach juice running down your chin.
Nonetheless, I must admit, even when I am riled up by different aspects of the
state of our country, even when it’s April in Baker City,
even when I have just gone through Advent and Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and
Easter, working without stop, I don’t particularly mind paying taxes to Uncle
Sam. Because I do believe that I give to Caesar what is his own. It’s easier to
see and to count.
Yet, neither Caesar nor Uncle Sam made the sun rise to grow
the mint which running by makes even late afternoon smell as fresh as morning
brushed teeth and my energy likewise. How do I give back, for sun, and smell,
and legs that run? Even Caesar and certainly Uncle Sam could have predicted the
time when the moon covered the sun, but none of us could know how we would gasp
in awe and cheer in joy, and speak for weeks to come about the wonder of the
eclipse. How do we give that back, our cheers, our gasps, our excited revelry?
Neither Caesar nor Uncle Sam are the giant Texas
trucks hauling any boat they have lining the highways into Houston, so they can join in, rescuing
strangers of any color, and animals of any fur, still stranded from the floods.
The President has visited, and FEMA will come, but those who give back now are
not they, they are giving back something more precious than gold. Neither
Caesar nor Uncle Sam were the one who called every day when you were in the
hospital working through your diagnosis, nor are they the one you cried to more
times than you could count during your darkest hour. It is easy to wonder how
you can every repay such a debt given out of this type of love, but it is
easier to know from whom this type of love ultimately comes.
The pharisees among us try to relegate this gratitude to one
entity or another, to Caesar or the Emperor, or to Democrats or Republicans, to
our leaders or the working person, and to great degree, to them gratitude is
due as there is a lot for which to be thankful, especially on this Labor Day
weekend, and even in late April, but for that which we cannot quantify, or
count, or measure, we return to God in like manner. From the gratitude of this
experience of life, its greatest joys, its humbling wonders, its audacious
justice, its boundless compassion, its belly hearted laughter, its falling
loves, its abundance, from this we return to God, all that is God’s own.
Alleluia, Amen.
