Written on October 10, 2008

For the Lectionary of October 19, 2008: Matthew 22:15-22

MONEY IS (NOT) FUNNY by Larry Patten

Years ago, mulling over what to say the coming Sunday for a stewardship sermon, I went to get a haircut.

Ah, stewardship, the fancy word for asking nice church folks to give money. And we do stew over it. We who lead churches, we who know that whether it’s the twenty-first century dollar or the first century denarius, people enjoy hearing about money in a worship service as much as they like to have teeth extracted.

As a little tyke I went to a barber. Clip and zip. Give that kid a crew cut, please. But for years I’ve gone to hair stylists. To fancy places with names like Oscar’s and Image and Preen. To places with fashion magazines for reading material and trendy furniture that made sitting an adventure.

I remember the person cutting my hair back then was a soft-spoken, shy woman.

“How would you like your hair cut today,” she said.

“Why don’t you take 10% off the top?” I asked.

Some preachers preparing for sermons can be sneaky or self-serving. But the Bible does proclaim—and you can read it in black and white at Leviticus 27:30 (among other places)—to give 10% back to God. A tithe. A portion. Keep those nine sheep and provide Holy Me, the Bible said God said, with that tenth one. 10% off the top please was the divine demand. It’s easy math. Use your fingers.

The shy hair stylist looked at me, confused and uncertain, and with those shiny sharp scissors suspended over my scalp, asked, “What did you say?”

Once, wanting to trick Jesus more than I wanted to confuse my hairstylist, some religious authorities tossed a denarius Jesus’ way (Matthew 22:15-22) and asked, “Tell us then, what do you think, is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Sneaky. Self-serving. Beware religious authorities—whether modern preachers getting a trim before Stewardship Sunday or old-time scribes trying to yank the rug from under Jesus’ sandals—asking questions.

The Nazarene studied the coin. The Roman emperor’s metallic visage stared back at him. And then Jesus gave the answer that probably even folks who religiously avoid church know: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

I imagine the scribes and Pharisees and rest of the crowd looked at Jesus much like my hairstylist looked at me. What did he say? Did I hear him right? What does that fellow mean? Or, to quote tennis great and amateur theologian John McEnroe, “You can’t be serious!?”

On National Public Radio this week, I listened to a person whose name I don’t remember. He was a money manager, a financial wiz, an expert on all things economic. Wall Street continues to plummet. There’s a global financial meltdown. Pensions are threatened. So many experts these days are paraded out on the newscasts and talk radio shows and editorial pages, and they give their two bits worth of . . . expertise? Is anyone really an expert these days?

Asked about the market woes, he said, “Everybody needs to careful, stocks are funny.”

And I laughed out loud.

Not because stocks are funny, but because they are not. People are funny. Not funny “ha-ha” but peculiar and sneaky and self-serving and yet . . . also blessed and loved by the Holy.

Stocks aren’t funny. How humans treat money is funny.

“What is God’s?” Jesus asked. What indeed? A tithe? A portion?

Everything.

Every hair on our head.

Every coin going into or out of our pocket.

The mortgages we pay, the foreclosures we fear, the SUV or Prius in the garage, the oil in Iraq, the terrorist we despise, the soft-spoken hair stylist. Everything. Everyone.

Most of the time I don’t act as if everything is God’s. I am sneaky and self-serving and selfish. And I have selective memory and wear cynical blinders when I ponder the future. But Jesus’ response is as true as true can be.

We cling to money. To things that rust. To treasure that plummets. And they cling to us. A weight. A wound. A worry.

Stocks are funny, the expert said.

No, people are.

I mumbled an explanation and apology to the hairstylist and she, soft-spoken and shy, trimmed my hair.

That day, I gave her a lot more than a 10% tip.

in Peace,

Larry