On the first really cold day in Denver a couple of years ago, a window cleaner was working on a scaffold outside the 20th floor of a skyscraper. He was surprised to see a secretary pressing a large sheet of paper up to the window. On it, in big letters, she had written: "It's 72 degrees in here." Undaunted, the half-frozen window cleaner reached into his pocket, pulled out a pen and notebook, and scribbled a message of his own. With a big smile he held it close to the window, It said, "If s $25 an hour out here! "

Doesn't it seem like so many discussions lead back to a bottom line with a dollar sign? So it was, also, in our story this morning from Scripture, when Jesus was asked, "Should we pay taxes to Rome or not?" Jesus, always the master of the object lesson, asked to see a coin used to pay the tax. He asked, "Whose image is on the coin?" They answered, "Caesar's " Jesus responded with a profound principle: "Give to Caesar those things that are Caesar's, and to God those things that are God's."

Now for all Christians, we do not have the image of the state imprinted upon us, but you and I have the image of God upon us and in us. When push comes to shove, we are indeed, first and foremost God's.

So, what then is it that we are to give or to render unto God?

There are many things that we might identify, I would like to name three today.

OUR FIRST OBLIGATION TO GOD IS GRATITUDE.

This past week, I had an opportunity to reflect some on my life, as another birthday passed me by--45 of them to be exact. And, as I did so, I found myself thinking about really tremendous gifts of life-like my two boys, Sheamus and Noah, a loving and inspiring wife, many faith communities that have inspired and encouraged me, many many opportunities to grow in who I am as a child of God, a good home to live in, pretty good health, and a whole host of other things. I also thought back on the tougher times of my life--some family problems as I grew up, lost jobs, personal failures, disappointing people whom I love, my shortcomings that contributed to my divorce, deaths of friends and family, and those kinds of pain-filled moments that have you dig deep just to keep going.

The thing, though, that I have experienced in my life is that when God becomes a part of the equation, all is not lost. That in those times when I have opened myself up not only to my pain but even to my fears, that Jesus brings to me the deeper truth of my existence--that I am not alone, that I am loved, and that I am destined for a purposeful life. For that I end up feeling grateful.

For, when I have been weak, God has been strong. When I have felt despairing, hope has always been present. When I have felt alone, Jesus has come near. When I have sinned, forgiveness has restored me. When I have lost my way, Jesus has always taken my hand to again be my way.

In all of that, what I have learned is that God can take those situations in our lives that appear to be only loss and turn them into gain. That is the truth about our lives that God wants us to know-that in Christ Jesus all things become new. Condemnation has given way to grace. Sin has given way to forgiveness. Death has been overcome by the author and giver of life!

When we live in this reality, we cannot help but be thankful people.

St. Paul gave this word to the Colossians: "As you have therefore received Jesus Christ the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in thanksgiving."

That means that the dominant mood for the church is one of gratitude. It infiltrates our relationships; it directs our interactions; it focuses our hearts and minds. Ultimately, it saves us from ourselves and has us focus upon the great generosity of God. Paul wrote, "In all things give thanks for that is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

This means that no matter how awful your situation, there is always good reason for thanksgiving. At least you can say, "The truth is is that God is in this with me, and somehow we will find a way through it."

I invite you this week sometime to prayerfully consider where, in your life, you are perhaps not experiencing gratefulness. That is an area of your life that needs help. Maybe you need to get help in a relationship; you may need counsel to overcome negativity in your thinking; you may need help in forgiving someone; you may need someone to help you understand the power of God that is available to you that you haven't been accessing. The only wrong thing to do would be nothing. "In all things give thanks for that is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

So often times, it is our pride or our perceived self-sufficiency or our stubbornness or our wrong thinking that has us leading ungrateful lives. Sometimes it's our resistance to really opening our hearts--to God and to one another. And sometimes we are ungrateful because we live in a society that is so deeply rooted in entitlements mid entertainments that move us away from the truth that God alone can be fully trusted with our lives. Only when that priority is set right will we be truly grateful people.

A SECOND OBLIGATION WE HAVE TO GOD IS TO WITNESS.

One day a businessman asked a friend in his Bible study group, "Isn't it possible to live a Christian life in secret?" His wise friend replied, "John, it is impossible for you to have Jesus living within you without some of Him leaking out,"

In I Peter 3:15 we hear: "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you..."

Christian faith is always for the sake of sharing. Christian faith is always for the benefit of not only your own soul but also the lives of those with whom you are in relationship. Christian faith always assumes that there's a substantial difference about who Christians are and how we interact with others and how we share ourselves and what we have. Christian faith is always about sharing the love of Jesus with others. It may be a personal thing, but it is certainly not a private thing,

I believe that one of the hurdles that Lutheran Christians need to get over is the cultural excuse about being shy or reserved. I believe that we should no longer have joking conversations about how Lutherans sit in the back or about how Garrison Keilor refers to us as "God's Frozen Chosen." We should be working to grow more deeply in our identities as bold and compassionate disciples of Jesus Christ than clinging to our Scandanavien or Northern European heritages that sometimes keep us nice instead of faithful. Let us at least be clear about the goal--and that is to have the likeness of Jesus.

Whenever we have a lack of urgency about sharing the gospel of Christ in new and life-changing ways, it's simply an indicator that we either don't know God's call to us or we don't know how hurting our world really is.

Perhaps we need a recommitment to grow Christ's church for the sake of reaching those who are living without hope. We need to dig deeper into our hearts and our pockets in order to fully live out what it means to render unto God the things that are God's. And, we need to take seriously the need to find and express our public voice--witnessing to our faith, and therefore giving others the opportunity to experience a relationship with the Lord of grace.

Tony Campolo, the Philadelphia sociologist, found himself seated beside the Pennsylvania governor at a state prayer breakfast. In the course of conversation the governor said that he was sympathetic toward Christianity but not personally committed. Campolo asked, "Why not?" The governor replied, "Well, to tell you the truth, no one ever invited me to commit." Campolo said, "I'm inviting you." within five minutes that governor had committed his life to Christ.

We need to know that we may be the only conduits God has to certain persons.

THERE IS A THIRD OBLIGATION WE HAVE TO GOD: TO RENDER A MINISTRY TO HURTING PEOPLE ON OUR DOORSTEP.

When Jesus declared his mission statement in Luke 4, his first words concerned the poor: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor."

Just as now is the time for the church to renew its public witness verbally, and interpersonally, it is also the urgent call for the church to act boldly and with compassion for the poor whom Jesus so passionately loved and ministered to.

Luke gives us an unforgettable parable in his chapter 16. It's about a rich man who had the best of everything. At his back door was a poor man named Lazarus who was filthy and sick. Both men died. Lazarus found himself in heaven, cradled in the bosom of Abraham. But the rich man went straight to the agonies of hell. By the way, have you ever noticed that the characters in Jesus'parables are always nameless? We don't have a name for the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. Ah, but here in Luke 16 we have an exception. Not the rich man. Though he was known far and wide on earth, he has no name in this parable. The character with the name is the poor man Lazarus. I think that means that God knows the names that most people on earth don't care to know ... the names of the sick and destitute, the ones who on these cold evenings have to hunt for shelter..

There is no indication in the story that the rich man was actively evil. He could have been very religious. There is no evidence that the rich man chased Lazarus away from his back door. The sin of the rich man was that he appropriated God's blessings selfishly while allowing one of God's children to die in misery at his back door. He went to hell because of his casual indifference.

What does that have to do with us? I hear Christ saying, "I will meet you in this holy place and bring healing and wholeness to your lives. But you must see Lazarus who is at your back door. I want you to minister to him with great love and generosity. But if you build a chasm between you and those who are hurting on your doorstep, I will be on the other side of the chasm. "

With our world of so much smaller than it used to seem, each one of us must not ignore what our back doors are. And we must always be open to Jesus leading us again and again into the mission field of the poor and the lost and the hurting. That is the purpose and mission of the church!

Our text this morning from Matthew's gospel Is ultimately about allegiance. It's about ultimate allegiance. It's about who we trust not only with what we have but with who we are. And, as such, as people who have the image of almighty God engraved deep within our souls and tenderly upon our hearts, let us be faithful in giving to God the things which are indeed God's.

Amen.