Ever wonder why God doesn’t give us straight answers?

Sure, it happens sometimes, maybe when we prayed to meet our spouses, or to have kids, get a job, or to win a bout with sickness.

But then, there are those other times – like when an innocent baby gets hurt, a drought hits a poor country, or when we plead and plead, ‘God show me which way to go!’ and we get nothing but crickets.

Where is God? Why can’t we get a straight answer?

In this Sunday’s Gospel we get a straight answer about why we don’t always get straight answers.

In Matthew 22, pressed by his opponents on who should pay taxes, Jesus famously says ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God.’ And He leaves his opponents, as well as His friends, with the challenge and the gift of figuring it out on our own.

Jesus transcends the dilemma by articulating a fundamental life principle – that of human freedom and reasoning amidst God’s ever-presence. God’s answer to many of our deepest dilemmas is not that God is absent or elusive, but that God wants us to rely on the gifts we’ve got to figure it out.

Sure, this isn’t the answer we wanted, we’re human, we want to know all the answers! But because we’re human, we can’t know all the answers. However, we can know that the same God who leaves us to figure stuff out, is the same God who promises never to leave us alone.

So, what are the questions we have that God is just not answering? What if we’re being asked to come up with our own answers? What does it mean to serve a God who has great confidence in our ability to address our own most pressing questions?

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Reading

Flickering Pixels – Shane Hipps

Matthew – Donald Hagner

Living in the Village – Ryan Mack