Romans 12:1-8

Pentecost + 10 - Year A

Romans 12:1-8

Who do you say that I am? Who do you say you are? When tracking well we say we are members of one another. Which part of a “Son of God” are you? Pinkie, Pate, Patella?

We receive meaning from the body as a whole as well as from our particular locus. We all hold the keys to love and life. There is no holiness but social holiness!

If there is one corrective to today’s resurgence of fundamentalism (one part is more important that another part) it is this sense of universal social holiness where none will be redeemed until all are. This plays out in economics as well as in theology. You might think of a tax as a binding principle that keeps us together even as death drives us apart.

There is a cost to a body of many parts. Each part cannot maximize its own wealth (its predominance among the many) but must play and pay its part. The greater the perception of the part, the more it costs to be a part of the whole.

To wrestle with the purpose of taxes is valuable community building. To put taxes beyond our decision-making is the same as putting G*D beyond our current time and space (no pie in the sky, by and by). Taxes do for a healthy community what serving one another does for the body of Christ. Taxes will always be with us, not because they are imposed from the outside, but because they are a constituent part of being in community. We need to talk about them more.