Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
October 16, 2005
Matthew 22: 15-22
A week and a half ago I was fishing on the Fall River in Northeastern California – truly one of the beautiful places on God’s green earth. It’s beautiful even when the fishing is slow. And I know what I am talking about when I say that. Each morning before we went out fishing, we received a copy of the Redding newspaper. One of those mornings, we learned the stock market had dropped over a hundred points. The next day it fell another thirty or forty points. So as I was getting ready to fish for wild trout in this spectacular location, Mount Shasta rising magnificently in the background, what was I thinking about? The fish I would catch that day? The big one that got away yesterday – you should have seen it – it was this big (Gene’s hands are spread wide), it jumped out of the water, and then it was gone! Was I thinking about these things? Actually, I was thinking about my retirement. My retirement! What is this uncertain stock market doing to my pension? The world of Caesar has such a strong hold on me. Even at the Fall River.
It is a college Bible study. The student’s are discussing Matthew 22, Jesus and the coin. “Jesus, should we pay taxes to Caesar?” Jesus says, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. But be careful. Don’t give to Caesar that which belongs to God.”
A student asks, “Did I miss something here? Jesus doesn’t answer the question. Should we pay taxes or not?”
“Yes,” says another, “What is Caesar’s and what is God’s?” The group is generally frustrated with Jesus’ answer…or non-answer.
Finally, another student says, “Well, perhaps when it comes to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, we can never be too sure. Maybe Jesus wants us to be permanently uneasy.”
I like that – a relationship with Caesar that is ‘permanently uneasy.’ I think of Sir Thomas More, with his head quite literally on the chopping block, saying, “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.” Permanently uneasy.
You know this familiar text. Even though they begin with flattery, Jesus’ opponents are out to trap him. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” This was far more than an invitation to an intellectual discussion about taxation. Jews were forced to pay a head tax to the Roman government. While some rested easy with Roman rule, even profited from it – the Herodians for example – most reacted to the idea of paying taxes to the Roman oppressor with a distaste ranging from mild anger to seething insurrection. Adding to insult to injury, remember that each Roman coin, and that is what had to be used to pay the tax, carried an image of the emperor with the odious, indeed blasphemous (for a Jew) inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus and high priest.” The emperor as god. Thus the payment of taxes to Rome was both a political and theological hot button issue. Jesus’ opponents know this. And so, they ask, “Jesus, shall we pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
If Jesus says, “No way, don’t pay those taxes,” the Romans could move swiftly against him as a traitor, a dangerous political agitator. But if he says, “Yes, pay up,” then he would certainly lose credibility with the people, seeming to be nothing but a tool of Rome.
But Jesus is no fool. He is well aware of the treachery of his interrogators. So he holds up one of the idolatrous coins – interesting that his detractors are the ones who have the coins in their pockets, Jesus doesn’t, thus revealing their own deception and hypocrisy. They give him the coin and Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Well, along with those frustrated college students, we find ourselves wondering, just what does he mean by this?
Some have suggested that with these words Jesus is compartmentalizing life – over here the world of Caesar; and over here, all things religious and spiritual…and never the two shall meet. This part of my life is for God; and this part is for me and Caesar. Nice, neat separation.
Did you know that many of the now disgraced executives of Enron, at least I think they are disgraced, I hope they are disgraced, were faithful church members. Every Sunday, there they were in Houston churches, praying and praising God, and on Monday they went out and artificially jacked up our utility costs and eventually stole people’s pensions, stole people’s futures. World of Caesar - world of God…no relation.
Perhaps closer to home is this story told by United Methodist pastor, Judith Johnson: “I was emphasizing to parents of confirmands that the young people should be with their families in worship as part of their preparation for church membership. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have time for worship,’ one mother told me after the meeting. Her words were soothing and gentle, yet they sounded condescending, as if she were explaining something to a not very bright child. ‘We’ve committed to soccer and cheerleading for my youngest on Sunday mornings so we have a full plate. Maybe in a few years.’”
Says Johnson, “This same woman had been adamant that her children be baptized and confirmed. Although she and her family could fit in brief forays into religious rites, other activities were more important than a steady commitment to worship and the church.” God – Caesar. Two separate worlds.
Now it is tempting, maybe even fun, when preaching on this text, to confine it to the relationship between church and state, or between Christian and state, especially in a time when questionable wars are justified as patriotic, moral, and religious crusades, and when having the right kind of religious faith – as defined by James Dobson, a leader of the religious far right - seems to be a requirement for sitting on the Supreme Court. But I really like the way Judith Johnson expands the concept of Caesar. There are so many gods out there, so many variations of Caesar, inviting us to worship at their altars. The Pension Board for example. And Jesus knows this. Is he suggesting compartmentalization? God here and Caesar there? I don’t think so. I like these words of writer and outspoken Baptist preacher, Will Campbell: “I think that when Jesus said, ‘Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar,’ he was drawing on his tremendous sense of humor. He held up a worthless coin and said, ‘Okay, then, give him a quarter.’ In other words, give him nothing. But we come along and say, ‘Jesus told us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, we know something belongs to Caesar. Now what is it?’ And we end up giving Caesar everything!”
Jesus isn’t talking about compartmentalization. I believe he is taking us in a radically different direction; inviting us to be permanently uneasy in our relationship with Caesar in all his various manifestations, from our relationship to country and government to our relationship to a consumerist economy and culture to our relationship with all the many activities which fill and overfill our lives. Jesus is out to upset our neat divisions and separations. He is telling us that we cannot compartmentalize our lives. If God is to be God and we are to be a people of God, then God must be the final authority in all of life. “I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.” Caesar’s image may be on our coins and on our television screens and in our calendars, but God’s image is stamped on each and every human being. And Jesus wants us to know that. In the words of New Testament professor, Thomas Long, “What Jesus is saying in this text is, although we may have to live under this or that Caesar and may have to plunk down this or that tax, we are never Caesar’s. We belong, body and soul, to the living God, and we are to render to God what is God’s.” We are never Caesar’s. I don’t care what war we are fighting, how much security we may desire, how fearful we may be, how tempted we are to consume and consume, or how overwhelming our over-full calendars may be, we are never Caesar’s. So don’t you go giving to Caesar what you ought to give to God.
On Thursday we finished our men’s Bible study of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Toward end of his letter, Paul writes, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need and I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” For Paul it all begins with the love and grace of God he has experienced in Christ. And because of this, Caesar has no claim on him, Caesar has no power over him. Because of this, whatever happens – remember – he is writing from prison, his life is full and he is not afraid. You might say that Paul has the grace of being permanently uneasy with Caesar. He knows in whose image he is made and it looks nothing like Caesar. “I can do all things through the One who strengthens me.
Poor, illiterate, and black, Isabella Van Waggoner was born the property of Dutch American slaveholders in upstate New York. She lived in their damp basements, bore 13 children, and saw most of them sold into slavery. We remember her today by another name, Sojourner Truth. Without benefit of education or patronage, this extraordinary woman rose to become one of this nation’s most compelling and memorable advocates of abolition and of women’s rights. Sojourner spoke her mind in all contexts, eschewed social niceties, and refused pressures to remake herself in the image of white abolitionists. And she never gave to Caesar what belonged to God; she never gave an inch to Caesar ,not even when Caesar came disguised as the great Frederick Douglass. At an anti-slavery meeting in New York, Douglass, under the fiery influence of John Brown, urged the people to embrace violence if that is what it would take to end slavery. From the back of the room, Sojourner rose to her full six foot height, and her voice boomed out, “Frederick! Is God dead?” In that moment she turned the sentiment of the meeting away from armed resistance and violence. In that moment, she reminded them that people of faith, people claimed by God and not Caesar, had to find another way. In that moment she reminded them that when it came to living with Caesar and the values of Caesar, they had to remain permanently uneasy.
I hate to say it, but everyday I feel like I give in, just a little. Everyday it is as if I give a little more of my soul to Caesar – it is so easy to do. But we can’t give in. Caesar wants us so badly, will take as much as ourselves as we give and will want more, and will do anything to convince us that we cannot live without him. But we cannot give in. For we are called to another identity, to another way and it is a way that looks an awfully lot like Jesus. No, Sojourner Truth, God is not dead, not here, not now. And on that, there can be no compromise.