Render Unto Caesar...

I know almost everyone here is old enough to remember a series of commercials for E.F. Hutton that went like this: Some young professional is talking with a friend at a loud, public event, one, for example, was a boisterous dinner party.  The speaker remarks that his stock broker is E.F. Hutton, and immediately the party is silenced—all conversation stops, and everyone leans in to hear what he has to say. This is the scene I imagine in today’s Gospel. For weeks now, the Pharisees have been trying to lay a trap for Jesus, to trick him into saying something that will incriminate him with the Roman authorities or alienate him from the crowds that support him. Today’s attempt at trickery is especially pernicious. In asking Jesus about paying taxes to the Emperor, they use the specific word for the individual, personal “head-tax” that was particularly degrading to Jesus’ Jewish listeners, because it was the standard day’s wage, specifically the day’s wage specified for the Roman soldiers stationed in Judea to keep the peace. When the Pharisees pose this question to Jesus, I see the entire crowd instantly become quiet and bending in close, waiting and straining to hear how Jesus answers.

Jesus understands the hypocrisy, the craftiness, the wickedness, of his accusers. As always, Jesus’ reply is not crafty in return—it is wise. As he does with every encounter we have with him today, Jesus does not give them a legalistic ruling—he forces them to participate in the answer—which makes it impossible for them to escape the responsibility and consequences for that answer. Jesus is not driven by political expediency, as they are—Jesus is driven by obedience to God. Jesus’ answer to this complex, dangerous question has only eleven words in Greek; it is almost witty, like a limerick or a haiku: Give Caesar’s things to Caesar, give God’s things to God. The verb Jesus uses doesn’t just mean “give”—it means “give back” – “repay” – and specifically to repay a debt in full.

When Jesus asks them to show him the coin used to pay the tax, and then asks them to tell him whose face is on it, Jesus is saying in a certain sense that those who are using Caesar’s coins should not complain about returning them to Caesar. Especially since the wise and crafty folks who put together our lectionary chose to give us this text during stewardship season, it’s easy for us to stop there in our interpretation—essentially stopping with the thought that those who benefit from the infrastructure and services provided by a government should not avoid paying for them, and likewise those who benefit from the infrastructure and services provided by a church should not avoid paying for them. This, however, essentially equates what is due to Caesar with what is due God, putting them on more or less equal footing. We have to dig deeper than that; we have to see that Jesus is making the point that he was asked the wrong question. The coin, bearing the image of Caesar, belongs to Caesar. We, however, bear the image of God, and we belong to God. The real question involves our proper “repayment” in the form of discipleship to God.  Jesus is calling us to give back in full to God that which was never ours to begin with—our loyalty, our love, our very life and breath.

Jesus isn’t saying we can divide our “repayments” into two halves; he isn’t saying that we can compartmentalize our loyalties into Caesar-stuff over here and God stuff over there—Jesus isn’t saying we can separate our lives into empire-and-worldly-stuff over here and holy-Godly-stuff over there. Caesar can stamp anything he wants to on the coin—even his face and the words “Divine Emperor” – maybe even “In God We Trust”—but the actions of the Pharisees and the kind of questions they ask and the kind of lives they lead prove where their trust really lies. They’ve been asking Jesus closed-ended questions trying to get themselves off the hook for what God asks of them and the deeper, true discipleship Jesus has been calling them to live: “Why do your disciples not follow the cleanliness laws? “Give us a sign so we know God sent you.” “Do you pay the Temple tax?” “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “What deed must I do to gain eternal life?” “By whose authority are you doing these things?” “Is it lawful to pay taxes?” Even the disciples get in on the action: “Which one of us is the greatest?”

Jesus’ answer to every one of these is essentially the same: “You’re asking the wrong question.” Closed-ended questions force an assumption and a particular world-view on the answer and force you to pick a side. They are “gotcha” questions, either for the one giving the answer or for the one asking the question. There is “bait” in the question, and you’re caught however you answer it. We may not be trying to trick Jesus the way the Pharisees were, but still, like them, we ask “when have I done enough” – “How can I get myself off the hook and nicely separate my allegiance into world-stuff and God-stuff?” Jesus’ answer to us is, also, “You’re asking the wrong question.” Caesar’s image is stamped on the coin. Whose image is stamped on us? We know the answer to this question—and it’s no accident that the word Jesus uses for “image” in this passage is the same one in Genesis 1—we are stamped, we are made, in the image and likeness of God.

How do we really know what this image and likeness looks like? All throughout Matthew this summer Jesus has been telling us. He’s been telling us what the image of God is by describing what God’s Kingdom is like. The image of God is seen in the sower who indiscriminately sows wheat abroad everywhere, waiting to see where it grows. It is seen in a mustard seed and yeast, bringing forth abundance from the tiniest beginnings. It is seen in a treasure hidden in a field or a beautiful pearl—worth selling all for. The image of God is seen in the feeding of crowds of hungry people, and in healing the sick. It is seen in a shepherd who goes in search of even one lost sheep. It is seen in a vineyard owner who rewards all generously regardless of the number of hours they worked. It is seen in a wedding banquet to which all are invited and offered clean robes for participating in the feast.

God wants human flourishing, the flourishing of all people and of all creation. If we don’t make the working out of this flourishing the center of our lives, then we are not living into the Kingdom of God. Jesus is saying that it’s not that Caesar, that any government, is evil as such. Jesus is saying that any human system is sinful—it sinfully tends toward holding power and authority for its own sake, to appropriate power and allegiance that only belongs to God. The Pharisees are, in a sense, simply being human when they oppose Jesus. They are putting their own desire for power, their own desire to win, in front of Jesus healing on the Sabbath or preaching God’s Good News that all are invited to the banquet of salvation. Jesus is inviting us to be part of that Good News—to claim the image of God we are stamped with, the image of God who creates and sustains and nurtures and redeems and saves, no matter what the cost. Jesus is inviting us, as God invited Adam and Eve, to serve as God’s stewards, as God’s agents, as God’s partners, as God’s co-workers, to be stewards of creation working to extend God’s abundant life to every place and to every creature and to every person.

Our days are filled just now with closed-ended questions that sound a lot like the questions Jesus was asked: Who should we allow in to be neighbors? How much should we provide for care and healing of our most vulnerable? Is it disrespectful to kneel during the national anthem? Should we care about the extraordinary and growing economic gap between the low and high ends of our society? As Christians, we must take on the image of God we see in Jesus, and see these as “gotcha” questions that must not have “gotcha” answers. The world is leaning in, waiting and straining to hear our answers—what will those answers be? In giving answer, how will we follow Jesus’ example? How will I answer those questions this day, this week, acknowledging the fact that my life is not a closed-ended response to the closed-ended questions asked by those who seek to consolidate their power or to trip me up, but rather, my life, my innermost being, the heart of each of us, is formed and stamped with God’s Divine image. Everything I have and everything I am belongs to God—how will I answer? What should I pay back in full, and to whom?