Matthew 22:15-22
October 22, 2017
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
We’ve been following Jesus around the last few weeks in the gospel of Matthew, and it might be helpful to pause for a moment and remind ourselves of where we are now on this journey. We’re very close to the end, here in this reading. It is Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, the Tuesday of what we’d call “Holy Week” to be exact. Things have been heating up for him in Jerusalem and his enemies are slowly closing the net around him. They’ll finally entrap him, of course, but not through his own words. A few short days after this reading, he’ll be tried for blasphemy and sedition.
In this reading, they’ve come up with a brilliant scheme. They are in the temple, surrounded by crowds. In the first half of the first century in Jerusalem, there is a marked political division among the Jewish people. On one side are the Herodians, those who supported the corrupt, adulterous, idolatrous, self-serving Herod, the so-called King of the Jews. The Herodians were willing to stick up for anything Herod set forth, including, in this case the hated census tax imposed on everyone.
On the other side are the Pharisees, who find Herod and everything he stands for utterly disgusting and deplorable, but who are unwilling to risk speaking out too much, lest he come after them.
But these two groups were united in one common cause: their hatred of Jesus. So they set out to trap him with a question of taxation. If he answers in favor of the tax, he offends the Pharisees. If he answers against the tax, he angers the Herodians. Let’s listen for God’s gracious word to us in Matthew 22:15-22
Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.
So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"
But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax."
And they brought him a denarius.
Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?"
They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them,
"Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's,
and to God the things that are God's."
When they heard this, they were amazed;
and they left him and went away.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Oh, Jesus!
How clever you are!
They tossed that coin over to you,
and all you had to do was look at it to know your answer.
“Whose image is on this coin?”
That denarius, of course, bore the image of Caesar.
They weren’t even supposed to have that coin, the Pharisees.
It not only bore the image of Caesar, it bore this blasphemous inscription:
“Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.”
If Augustus was divine, that made Tiberius Caesar the son of God.
No faithful Jew should carry such coinage, not in the temple.
And no faithful person could support a tax paid in such a coin.
But no sane person would publicly speak out against such a tax.
Nobody wanted to risk the ire of Herod.
John the Baptist had done so, and been beheaded for his troubles.
The trap was laid, and very skillfully so.
But Jesus won’t fall for it.
You can almost see the gleam in his eye, the tiny smirk,
as he took the coin with its image of Caesar and those blasphemous words,
the idolatrous coin of the realm that shouldn’t have been there.
You can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he recalled
the words of the first book of Torah – Genesis, when God said,
“Let us make humans in our own image.”
You can almost hear the ironic tone in his voice as he asked,
“Whose image is this, and whose title?”
As if he didn’t know.
As if!
Just to be perfectly clear,
Jesus was not offering a first century declaration
of the separation of church and state.
That idea had not yet become part of anyone’s political discourse.
And besides, Jesus wasn’t God incarnate
so that he could put forward some great Enlightenment ideals,
or offer any principals for the United States to be founded 1750 years later.
Jesus was not even interested
in becoming embroiled in their political divisions.
He was interested in calling them back to their ultimate loyalty: to God.
So, Jesus said, “Pay your taxes. Follow the law.
Give to the government what belongs to the government.
And give to God what belongs to God.”
Period. Full stop. End of discussion.
Except….these words have been interpreted
in so many different ways over the centuries.
The Amish, for example, from the 16th on, have paid their taxes,
but in the United States, they do not pay into Social Security or Medicare,
nor do they receive any benefits from such programs.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not say the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Quakers, in two notable periods of American history,
have withheld their taxes as resistance to American wars.
In fact, from the beginning of the colonial period to the present,
American Christians have practiced peaceful resistance to taxes
as a matter of their understanding of Christian conscience.
Other Christians have understood Jesus’ words to mean
that the citizens of a country owe their allegiance to the government,
because God ordains and permits governments to exist.
Some would tell you that whoever is elected to lead a country
is placed there by the hand of God.
Some only say that if they LIKE the person who was elected!
That reasoning has led to some disastrous positions:
the support of the Nazis by Christian leaders in Germany
being the worst, but not the only example.
And no faithful person could support a tax paid in such a coin.
But no sane person would publicly speak out against such a tax.
Nobody wanted to risk the ire of Herod.
John the Baptist had done so, and been beheaded for his troubles.
The trap was laid, and very skillfully so.
But Jesus won’t fall for it.
You can almost see the gleam in his eye, the tiny smirk,
as he took the coin with its image of Caesar and those blasphemous words,
the idolatrous coin of the realm that shouldn’t have been there.
You can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he recalled
the words of the first book of Torah – Genesis, when God said,
“Let us make humans in our own image.”
You can almost hear the ironic tone in his voice as he asked,
“Whose image is this, and whose title?”
As if he didn’t know.
As if!
Just to be perfectly clear,
Jesus was not offering a first century declaration
of the separation of church and state.
That idea had not yet become part of anyone’s political discourse.
And besides, Jesus wasn’t God incarnate
so that he could put forward some great Enlightenment ideals,
or offer any principals for the United States to be founded 1750 years later.
Jesus was not even interested
in becoming embroiled in their political divisions.
He was interested in calling them back to their ultimate loyalty: to God.
So, Jesus said, “Pay your taxes. Follow the law.
Give to the government what belongs to the government.
And give to God what belongs to God.”
Period. Full stop. End of discussion.
Except….these words have been interpreted
in so many different ways over the centuries.
The Amish, for example, from the 16th on, have paid their taxes,
but in the United States, they do not pay into Social Security or Medicare,
nor do they receive any benefits from such programs.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not say the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Quakers, in two notable periods of American history,
have withheld their taxes as resistance to American wars.
In fact, from the beginning of the colonial period to the present,
American Christians have practiced peaceful resistance to taxes
as a matter of their understanding of Christian conscience.
Other Christians have understood Jesus’ words to mean
that the citizens of a country owe their allegiance to the government,
because God ordains and permits governments to exist.
Some would tell you that whoever is elected to lead a country
is placed there by the hand of God.
Some only say that if they LIKE the person who was elected!
That reasoning has led to some disastrous positions:
the support of the Nazis by Christian leaders in Germany
being the worst, but not the only example.
Here in the United States,
there are numerous Christian groups who have refused
to say the pledge of allegiance,
or sing the national anthem,
or swear in a court of law,
because they believe that their first allegiance,
their only allegiance,
is to God and God alone.
So which is it, Jesus?
Do we pay our taxes, or not?
Jesus isn’t really all that interested in that dispute, apparently.
Pay Caesar what is Caesars.
Taxes, I suppose.
And give God what is God’s.
Which is… yeah…which is everything.
And that shifts the question.
The question is no longer “what belongs to whom?”
The question is “Who’s whose?”
To whom do you belong?
In whose image were you made?
Two of the great principle of the reformation, and of Presbyterians,
are that God is sovereign over all creation – God rules the cosmos,
and that the conscience of each one of us is subject to God.
So, we do not have freedom of conscience –
our conscience is captive to God.
And the exercise of that conscience is subject
to balance, humility and sensitivity to others.
An article about freedom of conscience from Presbyterians Today
summed it up this way:
“At its best, the “God alone is Lord of the conscience” slogan will function, as it does in our constitution, as a warning against tyranny by the majority against the minority. When used correctly, it means that “my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Only God is Lord of it. Only God’s Word has the right to bind it.” In other words, if a community standard is contrary to my informed understanding of God’s revealed will in Scripture, God sets me free to dissent from it, and then either passively submit to the standard or peaceably withdraw from the community.
At its worst, the slogan will be used to defy, not merely dissent from, corporate judgment.
It is used incorrectly when it is used to mean “conscience is my master.”
It is used incorrectly when it leads to schism.[1]
there are numerous Christian groups who have refused
to say the pledge of allegiance,
or sing the national anthem,
or swear in a court of law,
because they believe that their first allegiance,
their only allegiance,
is to God and God alone.
So which is it, Jesus?
Do we pay our taxes, or not?
Jesus isn’t really all that interested in that dispute, apparently.
Pay Caesar what is Caesars.
Taxes, I suppose.
And give God what is God’s.
Which is… yeah…which is everything.
And that shifts the question.
The question is no longer “what belongs to whom?”
The question is “Who’s whose?”
To whom do you belong?
In whose image were you made?
Two of the great principle of the reformation, and of Presbyterians,
are that God is sovereign over all creation – God rules the cosmos,
and that the conscience of each one of us is subject to God.
So, we do not have freedom of conscience –
our conscience is captive to God.
And the exercise of that conscience is subject
to balance, humility and sensitivity to others.
An article about freedom of conscience from Presbyterians Today
summed it up this way:
“At its best, the “God alone is Lord of the conscience” slogan will function, as it does in our constitution, as a warning against tyranny by the majority against the minority. When used correctly, it means that “my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Only God is Lord of it. Only God’s Word has the right to bind it.” In other words, if a community standard is contrary to my informed understanding of God’s revealed will in Scripture, God sets me free to dissent from it, and then either passively submit to the standard or peaceably withdraw from the community.
At its worst, the slogan will be used to defy, not merely dissent from, corporate judgment.
It is used incorrectly when it is used to mean “conscience is my master.”
It is used incorrectly when it leads to schism.[1]
To exercise conscience does not mean that we have the freedom
to deploy our religious principles to the detriment of others,
or force our beliefs upon them.
In the congregations, that means that our decisions must balance
both personal and corporate judgment,
and in situations where our personal conscience
cannot support the corporate judgment,
we are to withdraw without attempting to create any schism.
In other words, if, say, elders or deacons finds their personal judgment
to be in conflict with the majority about polity or doctrine,
they must peaceably withdraw from their office.
To work together also requires humility –
the conviction that my own perspective may not be the last word,
and in fact, may not be the correct perspective.
This all goes into practice with an intentional sensitivity to others,
caring deeply and humbly about how our words and actions affect them.
I suppose you might be wondering what difference this all makes
when you walk out those lovely new doors this morning.
My prayer and my hope for each of us is that we remember who’s whose.
to deploy our religious principles to the detriment of others,
or force our beliefs upon them.
In the congregations, that means that our decisions must balance
both personal and corporate judgment,
and in situations where our personal conscience
cannot support the corporate judgment,
we are to withdraw without attempting to create any schism.
In other words, if, say, elders or deacons finds their personal judgment
to be in conflict with the majority about polity or doctrine,
they must peaceably withdraw from their office.
To work together also requires humility –
the conviction that my own perspective may not be the last word,
and in fact, may not be the correct perspective.
This all goes into practice with an intentional sensitivity to others,
caring deeply and humbly about how our words and actions affect them.
I suppose you might be wondering what difference this all makes
when you walk out those lovely new doors this morning.
My prayer and my hope for each of us is that we remember who’s whose.
The first question of the Heidelberg catechism asks this:
What is your only comfort in life and in death?
The answer is: “That I with body and soul, both in life and death,
am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ”
Jesus’ clever answer does not spare him the wrath of those around him.
He’ll pay for his answer with his life.
But their hatred cannot destroy him, and death cannot hold him.
We may be afraid sometimes, to follow him,
but then we remember who’s whose.
We belong to God.
That’s our primary identity,
before politics or nation or economics- we belong to God.
The image on the coin, or on the currency, is not the image we bear.
So we may espouse a particular point of view,
but as Christians, those things cannot own us.
We bear the image of God; love etched upon our hearts.
Next week we’ll hear some of these same enemies
question Jesus about what is the greatest commandment.
You know, of course, what he answered:
Love God with all your heart and soul and mind
and love your neighbor as yourself.
We belong to God – heart, soul, mind, body, spirit and conscience.
Do you belong to a political party, or to a certain candidate?
Not if you belong to God.
Do you belong to a particular worldview, or nation?
Not if you belong to God.
Do you belong to an economic system?
Not if you belong to God.
If we take Jesus seriously, and I submit to you that we do,
our allegiance is not to the flag,
nor to America first,
nor to any race or nation or anthem,
nor to any candidate or elected official,
nor to any political or economic system.
If we remember who’s whose,
we remember that we belong to God.
And we render unto God the things that are God’s.
That’s everything – and it’s by loving God and loving others
that we demonstrate – every day – who’s whose.
What is your only comfort in life and in death?
The answer is: “That I with body and soul, both in life and death,
am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ”
Jesus’ clever answer does not spare him the wrath of those around him.
He’ll pay for his answer with his life.
But their hatred cannot destroy him, and death cannot hold him.
We may be afraid sometimes, to follow him,
but then we remember who’s whose.
We belong to God.
That’s our primary identity,
before politics or nation or economics- we belong to God.
The image on the coin, or on the currency, is not the image we bear.
So we may espouse a particular point of view,
but as Christians, those things cannot own us.
We bear the image of God; love etched upon our hearts.
Next week we’ll hear some of these same enemies
question Jesus about what is the greatest commandment.
You know, of course, what he answered:
Love God with all your heart and soul and mind
and love your neighbor as yourself.
We belong to God – heart, soul, mind, body, spirit and conscience.
Do you belong to a political party, or to a certain candidate?
Not if you belong to God.
Do you belong to a particular worldview, or nation?
Not if you belong to God.
Do you belong to an economic system?
Not if you belong to God.
If we take Jesus seriously, and I submit to you that we do,
our allegiance is not to the flag,
nor to America first,
nor to any race or nation or anthem,
nor to any candidate or elected official,
nor to any political or economic system.
If we remember who’s whose,
we remember that we belong to God.
And we render unto God the things that are God’s.
That’s everything – and it’s by loving God and loving others
that we demonstrate – every day – who’s whose.
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