Isaiah 45:1-7; Psalm 96:1-9 (10-13); 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22
Delivered at Holy Cross Episcopal Church on October 22, 2023.
Sometimes when you are preparing a sermon, you have one idea at the beginning. Then you think, and contemplate. — there’s a good Dominican word for you — and things take a turn. That’s what happened to me in writing today’s sermon.
We have today another Gospel reading we all know very well. We’ve heard it so many times. A group of Pharisees ask Jesus whether or not it’s lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. Jesus says, “Show me a coin.” They give him a denarius. He asks, “Whose picture is on it?” They say, “The emperor’s.” At the time this likely would have been Tiberius, the successor to Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.
Jesus says, “Well, then, give the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and give God the things that are God’s.” Simple, right? We’ve heard it so often that the interpretation seems almost automatic. I mean, the emperor’s picture is on the coin, so it obviously belongs to him. It looks like Jesus is suggesting some sort of doctrine of separation between things that are in the sphere of religion, things that belong to God; and things that are in the secular sphere, things that belong to Caesar. Do your duty to God and do your duty to Caesar — or whoever the secular authority happens to be. And I’m sure there will many sermons preached today that make that exact point. It’s a tempting, simple interpretation, which automatically makes me suspicious.
Too often, when we look at the sayings of Jesus, we interpret them as if he were part of our culture, a 20th-century man with 20th-century sensibilities and a 20th-century upbringing. We seem to forget that Jesus was…Jewish. He was one of the people of Israel, steeped in Hebrew Scripture. And when we interpret his sayings, we would do well to remember that. Here, Jesus is, once again, saying more than is evident at first glance.
Let’s just take what he says about giving to God what’s God’s, and giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and ask the question that’s begging to be asked: What do the Hebrew Scriptures say about what belongs to God, and what belongs to the ruler, whoever that may be?
It’s not that difficult to find references. A few minutes with Google will do it.
In Deuteronomy 10:14 we find, “To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.”
In 1 Chronicles 29:11 we read “Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours”.
I don’t know about you, but I’m already sensing a theme here.
From Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world, and all those who live in it.” And in Psalm 89, we find “The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it—you founded them.”
The Hebrew tradition — the tradition that both Jesus and his antagonists, the Pharisees would have learned from an early age — says that everything on earth belongs to God. Everything. He made everything, and everything belongs to him. This includes you and me. It included the Pharisees. It even included the man whose image was on the coin: Tiberius Caesar. Now there’s something to contemplate. And I imagine the Pharisees did just that.
I personally think that Jesus was intentionally not answering the question that the Pharisees posed, and with good reason. There’s no good direct answer. If he had said that it was lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor, the people would have been angry. They hated paying taxes to the Romans. But if he had said it was NOT lawful, he could have been arrested for sedition. The question was a trap. And it assumed a kind of equivalence between God and the Emperor.
So Jesus…didn’t answer that question. Instead, he gave a response that demanded an answer to the question we posed before: Exactly what does belong to God, and what belongs to the emperor? Posed in this in a way, the Romans couldn’t possibly have taken offense. It would have seemed eminently fair to the Romans, and fit right into their own theology. You want to worship your one God? Fine! Just keep the money flowing.
But the Pharisees would have known that Jesus had seen through them. He reminded them of something they already knew: that everything belongs to God. There is no division between what belongs to God and what belongs to the emperor because everything, even the emperor, belongs to God.
We should remember this any time we are tempted to put secular power in an equal position with God. Our allegiance to God must come first, every time. We have to keep our priorities straight. God is always first. Secular rulers are created by God, just like we are, and must always take second place.
And this is where we sometimes have a problem. Sometimes we think about our country and we just kind of…turn God off. We’re giving Caesar what we think belongs to Caesar. We’ll give God what belongs to Him on Sunday. After all, this is what Jesus told us to do, right?
To be clear, Jesus never said not to pay taxes. He didn’t say we should never obey authority. After all, not paying taxes was a wonderful way to run afoul of the Roman authorities and likely end up in prison. I really don’t think Jesus wanted people to do that. I think Jesus was telling us how to set priorities. Even when we do pay our taxes, we need to remember who everything really belongs to: not to us, not to Caesar, but to God.
So what does this mean for those of us who have patriotic feelings? We love our country, right? Of course we do! And that’s OK. But…and this is a big but…you can never put your country before God. God’s demands must always come before anything our country asks of us. Every single time.
Let us pray that we can always remember who we belong to, who our nation’s leaders belong to, who everything belongs to.
Amen
Becoming Dominican 