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To Caesar What Is Caesar’s
A sermon by Dr. Jim
Somerville, Pastor
Richmond’s First Baptist Church
Richmond, Virginia
October 19, 2008
The Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 22:15-22
At
first glance, it looks as if the religious authorities in today’s Gospel reading
are playing a game of “Stump-the-Preacher.” Do you know that game? It’s an old
one. Someone played it with me just last week down in Community Missions.
“Hey, preacher! Why did Noah get drunk?” “Why?” I answered. “Because he drank
too much wine!” That was an easy one. Sometimes they’re harder, like, “Where
did Cain get his wife?” or, “What ever happened to the Jebusites?” or, “Why is
there so much suffering in the world?” Often my best response is to say, “Why
do you ask?” because if I know what prompted the question in the first place I
am much more likely to come up with the appropriate answer. So, when the
Herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees try to stump Jesus, asking, “Is it
lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” he might have said, “Why do you
ask?”
Except that, in this case, he already knows the answer to that question.
They
were trying to “trap him in his words,” as Matthew tells us at the beginning of
today’s Gospel reading. For more than a chapter now Jesus has been hammering
away at the religious authorities, waging a war of words in which they are being
badly beaten.
He
tells the parable of the two sons, in which he says that tax collectors and
prostitutes would go into Kingdom of God before the religious authorities. He
tells the parable of the wicked tenants, where he says the owner of the vineyard
would take it away from them and give it to others who would give him his fruit
at the harvest. Finally he tells the parable of the wedding feast, where those
who snubbed the king’s gracious invitation were put to death, and others, both
good and bad, filled the banquet hall. The religious authorities don’t know
what to say in response to these parabolic attacks. They go off to console each
other, and talk about how they might use Jesus’ words against him.
This
should all seem very familiar to us, not only because we’ve read the Gospel of
Matthew before but because we are in the last few weeks of a presidential
campaign where—as always—words are being used as weapons. In stump speeches
across the country each candidate has tried to point out the strengths of his
own platform and the weakness of his opponent’s. There’s nothing wrong with
that; that’s just the art of persuasion. But when we get to this stage in a
campaign things tend to get a little more personal. There’s a lot more
finger-pointing and name-calling. And in the debates we often hear candidates
provoking each other, saying, “This one is out of touch,” or “That one wants to
raise your taxes,” hoping to get a rise out of their opponents, hoping they will
say something they will regret later, hoping to trap them in their words. You
can just picture their political strategists, can’t you? Meeting with the
candidates in the days before the debate and telling them what to say. Now
picture the Pharisees, meeting with their disciples and the Herodians, telling
them what to say to Jesus. “Ask him about taxes,” they suggest. “That always
works.”
They
couldn’t have picked a better topic.
When
Judea became a province of the Roman Empire the emperor imposed a tax on every
citizen. It was called the “census tax” and it is the same tax Luke was talking
about when he said, “Now a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the
world should be enrolled,” or, if you are reading from the King James Version,
“that all the world should be taxed.” Luke tells us that Joseph and Mary went
down to Bethlehem because Joseph was from “the house and lineage of David,” but
don’t be misled: they didn’t go down there to have a baby, they went down there
to put their names on a list. The baby just happened to come at the same time.
And because their names were on the list they had to pay taxes from them on,
along with every other citizen of Palestine. Did they enjoy it? Not one little
bit. The people kept dreaming of a day when God would send the Messiah, a
descendant of King David, who would run the Romans out of Israel and sit on his
ancestor’s throne.
So,
you can imagine their excitement when Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a
donkey. There was an old prophecy from the book of Zechariah that said: “Rejoice
greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes
to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey”
(Zech. 9:9). And there he came. This man everyone had been hearing about, the
one who could heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out
demons, the one who wasn’t afraid to take on the authorities and tell them
exactly what he thought. Could it be—could he be—the Messiah? That’s
when they started throwing their cloaks down on the road and stripping the
branches off palm trees. That’s when they started shouting “Hosanna!” and
“Glory to God in the highest!” They were excited. They thought everything was
about to change in Israel. They thought their Messiah had come at last.
Add
to that the fact that they were in Jerusalem for Passover and you will begin to
get a feel for just how volatile this situation really was. Passover, as you
may recall, was when the Jews celebrated their deliverance from slavery in
Egypt—that time the angel of death passed over their houses but killed the
firstborn in every Egyptian household, so that Pharaoh finally relented and let
God’s people go. It was, in a sense, their independence day. It was also the
most popular of the three annual festivals every Jewish male was supposed to
attend, and so the city of Jerusalem would be packed with people—old men raising
their fists and talking about freedom, women singing songs and shaking
tambourines, children running through the streets with noisemakers.
So, you’ve got a city
overflowing with people, yearning for deliverance from an oppressive Roman
government and its burdensome taxes; you’ve got Jesus, the wonder-working
prophet from Nazareth, riding into the city on a donkey and stirring up all
sorts of messianic expectations; and then you’ve got these disciples of the
Pharisees, who, along with the Herodians, come to Jesus asking questions about
taxes. They begin with flattery, telling him what a straight shooter he is and
how he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks and how he will give them the first
answer that comes to his mind. And then they ask, “Do you think it is lawful to
pay taxes to the emperor or not?” It sounds like a game of
“Stump-the-Preacher,” but you only have to consider the outcome to know that it
was no game.
If Jesus had said yes he
would have been guilty of blasphemy. Notice that they didn’t ask him if it was
permissible to pay the tax, but if it was lawful, that is, in
accordance with the laws of Moses. The very first law of Moses was that the
people should have no other god but God. And yet Caesar had set himself up as a
god. The coin Jesus asked for had his image on it, and around the edge this
inscription: “Tiberias Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.” He was making
himself out to be the son of god (or at least a god) and, as any of the
religious authorities would tell you, that was blasphemy. Should you pay taxes
to a blasphemer? Was it lawful? Wouldn’t it be the same as condoning his
blasphemy? If Jesus had said yes the religious authorities might have shown him
then and there what they did with blasphemers.
But if Jesus had said no
he would have been guilty of insurrection. Palestine was part of the Roman
Empire. It enjoyed the protection of Rome, and all those soldiers in the
streets were a constant reminder. Many of the pilgrims who had come to
Jerusalem for the Passover had traveled on paved Roman roads. Their taxes
helped pay for these things. If Jesus had said that paying taxes was unlawful
the Roman soldiers might have started to haul him away and the revolution might
have begun in that very moment. Throughout the crowd were people hostile to
Caesar. Some of them, called Zealots, were ready to use violence to overthrow
the Roman government. All they needed was an excuse. “What do you think,
Jesus, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” There he stood, surrounded
by Zealots who were ready for revolution, Herodians who were loyal to the Roman
government, Pharisees who felt that Caesar was a blasphemer, and Roman soldiers
who were on his payroll.
You could have heard a pin
drop.
But Jesus, who was aware
of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?”
The Greek text says that he was aware of their “evil,” and asked why they were
“tempting” him. The word for testing and tempting is the same word. It
suggests that scene in the wilderness, where Jesus was being tempted by the Evil
One, and it makes it clear that this was no word game the authorities were
playing with Jesus, not just another round of “Stump-the-Preacher.” This was a
cosmic conflict, with the forces of good and evil lined up against each other
and the whole city holding its breath to see what the outcome would be. Who
knows how long they waited before Jesus sighed and said, “You hypocrites! Show
me the coin used for the tax.” And right there in the temple precincts someone
produced a denarius—a Roman coin stamped with Caesar’s idolatrous image and that
blasphemous inscription: “Son of the divine Augustus.” “So,” Jesus said, “Whose
image is this, and whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they said. And suddenly it
seemed so obvious. “Then give it to him,” Jesus said. “Give to Caesar what is
Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
It was the perfect
answer. It wasn’t blasphemy or insurrection. It raised the question to a whole
new level. On one hand Jesus was saying yes, it was lawful to give to Caesar
what belonged to him (and I hope you will remember that at tax time), but on the
other hand he forced his hearers to consider what was God’s and what belonged to
him, and that’s something I want you to think about right now. So, let me play
a little game of “Stump-the-Congregation.” What is God’s? What belongs to him?
And are we or are we not giving it to him? I’d love for each of you to answer
that question for yourselves but let me tell you the answer I’ve come up with.
I don’t think God wants the same thing Caesar wants. I think what belongs to
God, and what God really wants, is not so much our money as our hearts. I know
that answer will come as a disappointment to our budget team. They probably
wish I would tell you that God wants the same amount you pay in taxes each
year. But when I read the Gospels carefully it appears Jesus has no earthly
interest in earthly goods, but almost every interest in the human heart. Later
in this same chapter he will say that the most important thing in the world is
not what we give, but who and how we love.
So, let me ask you to
imagine something. In this episode from the Gospel Jesus asks for a coin. He
takes it in his hand. He feels its weight. He holds it up and asks his
questioners whose image is on it and whose inscription is there and they say,
“Caesar’s.” Now imagine this: what if, instead of a coin, Jesus asked for a
heart—your heart? What if he held it in his hand, and felt its weight? Whose
image would he find on it, and what inscription would be there? This is not a
game, and just like the time those religious authorities came to Jesus…
The answer is more
important than the question.
—Jim Somerville, © 2008
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