One of my favorite quotes is from J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. The quote is “God is the Lord of Angels, of men, and of elves.” Now I had this quote as a signature on my e-mails for a time, and you’ll occasionally see it pop up again depending on which computer I’m using to send out my messages to you all. But not long after I first started using it, I had someone comment, “You know, there’s no such thing as an elf.”

While that is quite obviously true, I suspect that is not really the point Mr. Tolkien was trying to make. You see, we Christians often have this habit of sort of dividing the portions of our lives. Here’s the sacred. Here’s the secular. Here’s the holy, and here’s the profane. Here’s the good, here’s the bad. And when we think about the work of a man like Tolkien, who wrote a book about elves and dragons and wizards, we immediately place his work over on the secular side of things. And yet, Tolkien was a deeply religious man, very devout, and when you read his works, you quickly discover what influences his faith has on his writing. You see themes and ideas that clearly reflect a Christian mindset. And suddenly the boundary between holy and profane, sacred and secular isn’t so clear anymore.

One of my favorite rock bands is the group Depeche Mode. Now they are somewhat notorious for stirring controversy with some of their songs, particularly when they talk about religion. The band members are atheists and their view of our faith is usually not very positive. So when I hear a song like Blasphemous Rumors, which basically says that if God exists, then he must not care about suffering in this world because there’s so much of it, I take that as a challenge. That’s the voice of the world outside the walls of our churches talking, and how can we answer that question? How can we address people who feel that way? Also, when I hear Policy of Truth, which basically says bad things will happen if you tell the truth all the time, I don’t hear a call to live a life of deceit. I hear instead the voice of Jesus saying that if they attacked me for doing the right thing, then so too will they you, and that truth does have its consequences. And once again, that boundary we place between holy and profane, sacred and secular isn’t quite as clear anymore.

Too often, as Christians, we have been quick to embrace that which we regard as the sacred and then reject the secular, fearing that somehow it will harm us or lead us astray. In times past, men and women cloistered themselves away in monasteries to embrace a godly life and to reject the life of the world. Today, you have many Christians who will only consume those hobbies, entertainments, and ideas that are approved “Christian:” Christian music, Christian TV, Christian books, Christian movies. The joke I often tell is that these people only drink milk from Christian cows. But jokes aside, the mindset is quite clear. Sacred good. Secular bad, and labels we assign to things matter.

In many ways, this is yet another variation of what we’ve been talking about these past few weeks, where we fall into the conceit of being right.

Last week, it was about the Church and how far too often we judge our fellow brothers and sisters by some benchmark of “right doctrine.” Oh, you’re too far away, therefore you’re not a real Christian.

Now we’re doing it with the world and our participation therein. You listen to Christian music, watch Joel Osteen and the Hallmark Channel on TV, so you must be okay. But watch out for that Pastor Allen. He reads books with magic and wizards in them, and man, his musical tastes….

For all the emphasis we may place upon then, the fact of the matter is that labels don’t matter to God. Truth is what matters to God. And if we get too caught up in labeling all that we encounter as “sacred” and “secular,” “holy” and “profane,” “Approved” and “Rejected,” then we might miss some of the truth that God wants us to hear that might come to us from an unexpected source. Labels don’t matter to God, and He will use anything and everything to reach us, to speak to us, to reveal himself to us.

Anything. But we have to have eyes open enough to see it.

Scripture bears this out. Our texts today include two very interesting stories. Our Gospel lesson is the famous episode where Jesus is confronted about paying taxes. “Show me the coin for the tax.” He demands, and when they produce a Roman coin bearing the face of Caesar himself, he asks, “Whose image is on the coin?”

“Caesar.” They reply. We remember Jesus’ answer to that well, “Give unto Caesar…” But in English, we often miss what’s really going on here. Our NRSV translation puts Jesus’ question as “Whose head is this?” but my version “whose image” is more accurate. The word “image” is the key. It is Caesar’s image on the coin, but whose image is on Caesar? It is that question that Jesus is trying to invoke in our minds, to draw us to Genesis and to the story of creation where man is made in God’s image. So when Jesus says, “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and give unto God…” what’s he really saying? Could it be that the distinction is artificial, that the Roman Emperor could also be an instrument of God’s will? That evil secular money might be of use to God in carrying out his plan for the world? Is God not in control even of Caesar and the government of Rome?

Fully exploring these questions is beyond our scope today, but one thing is clear. The distinction the Pharisees want to draw between the secular and the holy is blurred by Jesus’ answer. The Pharisees should know that already, since this is not the first time God has made use of the unexpected for his own ends.

For instance, the passage from Isaiah. Here, God very acts in an unexpected way. The text speaks of Cyrus, king of Persia. During the time of this writing of Isaiah, the people of Israel have been in bondage to Babylon for decades. And along comes Cyrus and the Persians, who conquer Babylon and set free all the prisoners and slaves of the Babylonian Empire. Go home, go back to your lands. Could it be that God used a pagan king from Persia to set his people free? Isaiah says so in this very passage, calling Cyrus the “anointed.” Again, we miss the full meaning in English. Anointed one in Hebrew is “Messiah.” Cyrus shares the same title as Jesus, because like him, he comes to set the people free from bondage.

A pagan king hailed as Messiah and liberator to the people. Who’d have thought something like that would happen? Well, God did.

Labels don’t matter to God. Truth does. What we regard as sacred and secular are all the same thing to him. He created all of them, either by his own hand or through the imagination and creativity he’s inspired in his children. And God can use all of them, anything and everything, to speak his truth, to proclaim his Gospel, to challenge the ideas of his peoples, and to draw us into closer relationship with him.

Think about it. The fundamental symbol of our faith is a cross. An ugly brutal barbaric instrument of torture and execution upon which the Son of God was once nailed to die. And who’d have thought that this instrument of death would become the means of the salvation of the whole world? Well, God did. Amen.