Johnny Cash once said that he believed the First Amendment to the Constitution gave you the right to burn a flag, and that the Second Amendment gave him the right to shoot you if you tried to burn his. I don’t agree with his interpretation of either amendment, but one could fill days and days with arguments about the precise rights granted by the writings he mentioned, and their limits.
Rights are important. I’m glad for the Boston Tea Party and Rosa Parks. Often, though, our rights talk is about much less than social justice. It’s often about personal prerogative. As followers of Christ, we know, though, that we’re more than just a collection of our individual, personal rights. The call of Jesus means walking away from some things, including our craving to cling to some of our personal freedoms.
Yesterday at Highview, I preached on this call to walk away from some of our personal freedoms. In Matthew 17:24-27, the Spirit shows us something of the Christ-life in the most ordinary of circumstances: the paying of a bill. You can listen to the audio of “Read My Fish, Some New Taxes: Surrendering Our Freedom to Follow Our Christ” here.
In one of the oddest (and most fascinating, to me) stories of the gospel accounts, Peter sees something of the glory of Christ in a coin lodged in a fish’s mouth. Opening this text helped me to see how unlike Jesus I am, and something of how kind and wise he is. I hope it helps you as you follow Christ this week, even in the paying of bills.
