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Meditatio - A24 - Matthew 22:15-22 (Experience (How do you know the Good…

- - - - Author of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (2008)
        
        “If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles,” he explained. “Nudges” push people toward better choices by making those choices easy. For example, employers can “nudge” employees by automatically enrolling them in a retirement savings plan, rather than requiring them to opt in; schools can “nudge” kids toward healthy food choices by putting fruit at eye level in the cafeteria.
- - - - A pharisee posts on his wall a question - but he's also got friends who are the political elite.
    - - The Temple in Jerusalem. Has been said to be like a combination bank and storage depot. Also was structured according to class and status. It was something that connected people, enabled social relations, could be used for profit and assistance, had public and private aspects. Sounds like Facebook.
    - - This takes place in the Temple. Presumably one of the courts, not the inner sanctum. Busy place, people coming to make offerings, but also to make connections. This was the Facebook "wall" of the 1st Century.
    - - Jesus ultimately is saying "be as careful with what you give to God as what you pay in taxes" It's a shocking indictment. We worry far more about our taxes, our pledges, what we owe and to whom. What if, just imagine what it, we put even one tenth of our energy into exploring - what has God given me, what do I owe back to God. Will transform your life. And for the better, b/c no one likes to pay taxes, but doing God's work, there is nothing better.
  - - - It's a little unclear who produces the coin. If it was the pharisees, they are indeed hypocrites, the coin has a graven image (of Tiberius Caeser) and the inscription Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Agustus Pontifex Maximus (Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest). If it was the Herodians, well, they just colluded with folks carting around an unholy coin.
- - - - It is calling you to be thinking about God as much as you think about the other parts of your life. To apply your beliefs to your action in the world.
    - - How will that invitation be received?
  - - - What makes this Good News hard to take in? To believe? Do?
        
        It does take some work. You have to give some time to God in the way you have to give some time to taxes, or bills, or whatever.
      - Why does this matter?
      - What's at stake? If we are transformed, what do we give up? What do we gain?
        
        A world of people who's focus is God's focus, a God's eye view.
      - What difference does it make? Would it make?
    - - This is the gift we are given as Christians. To see a life beyond the mundane of taxes, to see a life beyond the mundane of this argument or that argument. We have glimpsed heaven itself and we know we can live that heaven here and now.