citizens of heaven

The reading at the Eucharist today is the one where the Pharisees come to Jesus with a question. It is a trick question and one which they hope will lead him to say things which will get him in trouble with the authorities and, therefore, out of their hair.

It is all about paying taxes, should they pay taxes at all. Jesus asks for a coin and looks at the image imprinted on it - it is Roman money from a Roman Emporer - give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's Jesus says.

There is a danger in over-stretching this story as we quite soon move from talking about good citizenship to establishing an unhealthy duality between our material beings and our spiritual ones. This is not a good place to get to - everything is ultimately God's, even coins with the Queen's head boldly printed on them.


The key point is about citizenship - we are called to be good citizens. In the context in which Jesus was speaking his answer was a clear indication that there would be no political insurgency, that the Kingdom which he was ushering in was of a different ilk. When we look to 1 Peter 1:10ff we might find the thing which is to characterize this kingdom - holiness.

Holiness is a word which has been abused over the years and has led to excuse making for not engaging in the real world but that is really not what holiness is about - it is about being set aside for God - but not usually to the exclusion of the world in which we live.

I noticed in the Church Times that there is a Church in Sussex advertising for a Holy Retired Priest. I do not know how many people they have had apply - it is a little curious actually because most of the holy people I have ever known are so self-effacing that they would never apply for such a post - not believing themselves to deserve such a title.

I am sure, however, that the people who wrote this advert did not do so with the idea that they were advertising for someone who would be disengaged from their lives and their parish, but someone who would very precisely engage with them, but on a level where God and faith were shot through into every action.

This is what holiness is really about, lives shot through with God, lives which make constant reference to God, and ultimately lives well lived in which God has found a way into all the nooks and crevices.

In the Letter to the Romans, chapter 12 vv 1 and 2 we find another call to holiness:

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual* worship. Do not be conformed to this world,* but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Do not be conformed but be transformed says the writer and do so with the aim of giving up everything to God in holiness.

As we approach Lent we could take on few better aims for this season, that we would be transformed by it and resist the temptation simply to agree blindly with the norms and pressures which are often put before us.

Political rebellion is probably not on many of our agendas - well at least not in the form which the Jewish authorities worried about. But the call to justice both in our own land and further a-field is an action which is linked to holiness. God's heart yearns for all God's people and we yearn for God and that ability which God has to fill that void with presence and transformation is holiness.

We are called to be good and engaged citizens here in this place, but we are called more fully to citizenship in heaven. This is not some vague future hope, but a here and now reality which we have to work on - to truly render to God what is God's - ourselves and our possessions.

There is a hymn with the line "then they find that self-same yearning deep within the heart of God" - I cannot for the life of me remember which hymn it is from (and Google has let me down!) but I do remember that idea that when we look to God longing for holiness, God looks back with that same longing, and more still.

God dwells in us and we in him, this Lent let us strive to become better citizens by turning ourselves over more fully to that holiness, that engaged holiness, to which Christ calls us.