Challenged about the rightness of paying taxes, Jesus showed the Pharisees a coin and then
said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” When they replied correctly he
responded, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God
the things that are God’s.”
So what do we owe to the State? And what to God?
1 What is our ultimate concern?
Where is the centre of each soul?
What are the things that matter most?
What single sense will make us whole?
2 We recognize the depth of love,
the grace that held us from our birth,
but all too soon we lose our grasp
and other things have greater worth.
3 The things we own, the clothes we wear,
usurp the place that God should hold,
become our idols, cloak our minds
as if our faith was lost or sold.
4 The God that we purport to serve,
to love with heart and soul and mind,
is lost within our self concern
yet still is there to seek and find.
5 So God, we come to start again;
to clear the clutter from our lives,
to see you in each neighbour’s face,
to find the faith that holds and strives.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please
include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and
any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 8 8 8 8
Tune: MELCOMBE
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