Hi everyone,

Happy Thanksgiving!

To be honest, my family (both my family of origin and the one that was created with my wife) don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional sense. Many in this part of the world will break out the turkey, all the fixin’s, the whole nine. Us? I think I had homemade turkey like once for Thanksgiving, but that’s only because there was a pretty sweet deals on turkeys at Superstore (it was free after spending a certain amount, which wasn’t hard when buying food for a family of 5). Other than that, it was those pre-ordered turkey dinners from White Spot…

And there’s nothing really wrong with that, is there? But sometimes when I tell people what our family traditions usually consist of (like either free turkey or pre-packaged from a restaurant), they might look at me funny. Like I’m weird. Like I was raised wrong. Like I’m not really… Canadian.

Well, I guess the jury is out on all of those, but it should be reasons outside of Thanksgiving traditions. But I think we like to draw lines where we draw lines. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to live confined within them.

Here are the readings for next week:
Isaiah 45:1-7
Psalm 96:1-9
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
and a video of them being read:

Jesus, in this gospel text, uses the dichotomy of the Pharisees and the Herodians to point out how stark we sometimes draw those lines. The Herodians, we imagine, are King Herod sympathizers. While the Pharisees, as we know, are… uh… Phari sympathizers? Not sure where their name came from, but either case, they’re leaders that serve the synagogue. Both groups have wear their colours, claim their allegiances, and put up walls between “them” and “not them”. They are a difficult elite class to be a part of, and they want you to know it.

And their trap for Jesus was simple. If he says pay taxes, then he is on the hook for blasphemy. If he says don’t, then he’s on the hook for tax evasion. However you slice it, they got him.

But Jesus gives the classic line, “give to Caesar the things that are Caesar, and to God the things that are God’s”.

He isn’t giving legal advice, either civic or religious. But Jesus is basically asking them, where do your allegiances lie? Who do you serve? Where is your heart?

And the answer to that is telling. Not just in who we are, who we present as, and how we conduct ourselves in our communities, relationship, and in society in general.

But through it all, God continues to claim us, whether it is reciprocated or not. For that, I choose to be thankful.

Thanks be to God! I hope you all have a great week!