Oftentimes in my work as a hospital chaplain, when I’m with someone whose loved one is dying or has recently died, I invite them to take a deep breath. To sigh. Sometimes I take that breath with them. (Deep sigh.) And then I paraphrase these words from Romans: “When we do not know how or what to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

Our sighs are prayers too. Sometimes they are the only prayers we have.

Have you ever known you were supposed to do something, but actually doing it was a whole lot harder than you expected? Someone explained it to you. You knew what you were supposed to do. But when it came time to do it yourself, something just wasn't clicking.

Sometimes I wish Jesus would just answer the question instead of giving us another question to ponder. Because what exactly belongs to the emperor? And what belongs to God? And how are we supposed to figure out the difference?

The author of this parable gives God the status of a King, but also gives God the attributes of violent earthly Kings. We know how kings and colonization and destruction work. We know what happens when those with power decide that their authority matters more than the lives of the people they oppress. But that is not the God we know.