(Matthew 22: 15-22)

15Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" 18But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" 21"Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." 22When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away (Matthew 22:15-22) 

Over the last year and a half that I have been vicar at Shepherds Bush I have regularly encountered groups of people all of whom in different ways feel disenfranchised and have a yearning to be able to belong to and be part of something bigger than just them.

There are people living in quiet desperation crowded into bed sits and flats in houses carved up for multiple occupancy. The house next door might be an owner occupied million pound house but they are the UK city equivalents of the shanty-towns.
There are the first time parents with young children struggling to keep them entertained on a Sunday afternoon with too much time to kill and too few places to go. There are single parents who live two lives in one go juggling house and home.
There are the people passing through. There are some (such as those from the Southern Hemisphere) with a sharp sense of fun determined to make the most of their time in the UK. There are others, (such as the new Poles and people from Eastern Europe) who are looking for work and willing to take any type of employment on offer. There plenty who stay longer (for five or ten years) and enjoy the experience of living in a multi cultural area.

Shepherds Bush has always been a community in transition. It has a history of people moving in, on and then out. The church is perfectly placed to reach out and meet the needs of these and other different groups in the community. My vision for the church is that we show what can be achieved by gathering in the name of Jesus Christ. We can work in partnership with the school and offer to the wider community in Shepherds Bush an example of how a multi racial, cross-generational, different income bracketed group of people can relate to each other.

I am nervous at the fact of more people worshipping with us on a Sunday morning because it means that there are more people in the congregation who will not know who each other is. The reality of inner city ministry is that there is a regular turn over of people living in the area. This means that we continually need to recreate ourselves as a mission community. Allowing for people who have moved on and left the church it means that as many as half the people in the pews on a Sunday might be new to the church since I arrived. It is easy to assume that everyone knows everyone else and that you are the only person being left outside of the loop. This is not the case and they are likely to be just as much on the edge as you. I find it hugely moving to see this dispersed fragmented group of people gathering together – keen, nervous, unsure, bored, frustrated, sad, happy all drawn together by an instinct for Christian truth. The church is a place for people to work out new ways of relating to each other (1 Peter 2:9-10).

In order for us to achieve this vision for what a group of people can achieve in the name of Jesus Christ then I need your money. This is partly just so that we can pay our bills. It is partly to be obedient to the call of the gospel. Our hearts always follow our money.(1) Jesus teaches more on money than on any other subject. He also repeats the command not to be afraid more often than any other injunction. The tie between the two is that it is often our money rather than our faith that we rely on for our security.

The star of this gospel story is the denarius.  The denarius was a day’s wage for the working poor in Palestine.  It was a Roman coin that was used to pay taxes and tolls in the Roman Empire. It was the symbol of Roman occupation in the Palestine, and it was prohibited from being used in the Temple. When Jesus asks them for a tax coin, they unsuspectingly reach into their purses and withdraw the evidence that exposes them as people who are both obedient to Caesar and followers of God. Jesus does not give us a simple formula to resolve this tension between faith and the city but what he does do is to upset neat schemes of division: the temptation to compartmentalize life. We can’t simply pay our taxes, put aside some money for the church and assume that the rest belongs to us.  We belong; body and soul, to the living God, and we are to render to God what is God’s! We must live each day as if in the light of eternity.(2)

God is generous.(3)
God owns everything; we are simply his managers.(4)
Money is transitory and accumulating money is dangerous(5).
Giving is the antidote to greed(6)
Don’t hold back(7).
Raise your standard of giving rather than your standard of living(8).

We don’t always realise it but we are sitting on a goldmine in terms of community cohesion, Christian truth, life, light and fellowship. A legend(9) tells the story of a fisherman called Aaron. Aaron lived on the banks of a river. Walking home with his eyes half-closed one evening after a hard day's work, he was dreaming of what he could do if he were rich. As he walked his foot struck against a leather pouch filled with what seemed to him to be small stones. Absentmindedly he picked up the pouch and began throwing the pebbles into the water. "When I am a rich man," he said to himself, "I'll have a large house". And he threw another pebble into the river. He threw another one and thought, "My wife and I will have servants and rich food, and many fine things". And this went on until just one stone was left. As Aaron held it in his hand, a ray of light caught it and made it sparkle. He then realized that is was a valuable gem. He be had been throwing away the real riches in his hand, while he dreamed of unreal riches in the future." This legend summarizes the situation of many Christians. We have been given everything we need or could want, it has been placed in our hands, and we have been invited to enjoy it. But for some reason we do not look into our hands, we do not take what God has given us, and actually use it. Instead we dream of the day when we will be richly blessed, we dream of the day when the joy of the banquet will be ours.