Year A, Pentecost 21 Matthew 22: 15-22 When my son started kindergarten, we enrolled him in a Christian school. We knew that our theology didn’t exactly align, but we decided to give it a try. A few weeks in, Joshua started talking about their pledges they said in the morning. I asked…what do you mean by pledges? I had only heard of one. He informed us that they had a pledge to the American flag, the Christian flag and the Bible. I told him that was impossible as there was no such thing as a Christian flag. Then I went to “back to school night” and learned that there is indeed a Christian flag and a pledge that goes along with it.
There was nothing
wrong with the words of the pledge…although it was poorly written. My problem was that it was written in a way
that mimicked the pledge of allegiance and ended with “life and liberty to all
who believe.” My other issue was why
Christians had a flag at all. We’ve got the cross…why do we need a flag? Then I remembered that the Episcopal Church
has a flag…with a shield on it. The only saving grace is that we don’t have a
pledge that goes along with it. I think
what bothered me…besides the poor writing, was the idea that the Christian
Church…with thousands of years of traditions needed to borrow something from a
250 year old nation.
“Give therefore to the emperor the
things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” That quote
is probably familiar to many of you—perhaps one of the more familiar of Jesus’
sayings. It is a response to a question
that the disciples (meaning students) of
the Pharisees and the Herodians ask Jesus.
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” We know this is a question meant to trap
Jesus. We know this because that is
exactly what the text says, “The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in
what he said.” This is one of those
times when the text isn’t subtle.
If you read the
chapters before this one, you would know
that Jesus has been saying some things that were upsetting to the religious
leaders and he went into the temple and turned tables over because he was upset
with the way that temple was conducting business. By now, the Pharisees are extremely
frustrated and probably a little scared.
Since the Herodians are also present for this question, it would appear
that the the Roman leadership is getting anxious as well. The Pharisees and supporters of King Herod are
very unlikely allies. They didn’t get
along. If these two groups have teamed
up and are trying to entrap Jesus, then they have already made a decision.
Jesus needs to die and they need to find a good excuse to do it.
The
question about paying taxes isn’t the interesting part of this text…it’s Jesus’
answer that amazes not just the people who were present at the time, but still
fascinates people to this day. Often
when people quote it, they seem to imply that Jesus was somehow priming us for
what would become the first amendment, or what is commonly referred to as the
separation of church and state. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That’s the first half of
the first amendment of our constitution.
It’s often referred to as the
disestablishment clause. Many of the
founders of our nation were coming from places where there was a religion that
was the established religion of the nation. If you were living in England, you
were also a member of the Church of England. As you can imagine, that created
some tension. People didn’t like being told how and who to worship. Many of the
founders of our country were intent that would not happen in the United States
of America.
When
a lot of people talk about the non establishment clause today, they talk about
the way that it protects the nation or the state from religion. That is partially true. But what people sometimes forget is that it
also protects the church from the involvement of the state. It’s critical that the church can distinguish
itself from the government and have their own voice that may occasionally
contradict the government.
People think that when Jesus said, “Give therefore to
the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are
God’s.”—he was saying that there are two distinct realms to be observed…One is
the realm that belongs to Caesar and one that belongs to God. People have inferred that these realms might
even have equal importance in our lives. But that’s not at all what Jesus is
saying.
He asks to see the coin that would be
used to pay the emperor. They gave him a
denarius, which had a picture of the emperor with the inscription: “Tiberius
Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus Pontifex Maximus.” The previous emperor, Augustus, made himself
not only political leader, but a religious one as well. When he died, he was a declared a god, making
his son, the son of god. It was his
son’s picture on the coin. Obviously Jesus knew this…but he still asked, “Who’s
head is this?” But that wasn’t exactly
what he said. The literal translation
would have been, “Who’s image is this?” That’s an important distinction.
They answered that
it was the image of the emperor. That’s when he said, “Give therefore to the
emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are
God’s.” But he actually said, “Give back”
(that is the literal translation of the Greek). Give back to the emperor the
things that bear the emperor’s image. Give back to God, the things (or more
appropriately the people) that bear the image of God. Who bears the image of God?
In the creation
story, in the Book of Genesis, after God had created the land, the oceans, the
sky, the animals, God created humanity. Genesis says, “God created humankind in
his image, in the image of God he created them…” We are the ones who bear the image of God.
It’s not just us…it’s every human being.
Jesus was saying, the emperor can have his little coins. But the hand that is holding the coin, the
body that earned that coin and every part of creation…belongs to God. Even
Caesar belongs to God.
I can’t tell you
what Jesus would think of the first amendment and the division of church and
state. That obviously wasn’t happening
during his time if the emperor made himself into a god. If Jesus came again, I am pretty sure he
wouldn’t spend a lot of time debating politics or the constitution. Jesus’ concern would not be our currency that
bears the image of men—some of whom did some pretty bad stuff. His concern would be entirely on the people
who bear the image of God…and that would be all the people of this world. That would be the children gunned down in
their own school and the child whose life was so desperate that he could take
the life of other children. That was just a few days ago. Jesus’ concern would
be with the people living in Gaza, Ukraine, the Sudan, Yemen…any place where
people are killing one another. Jesus’
concern would be with those who are starving, living without shelter, addicted
to drugs, people who have lost hope. Those were the people who Jesus went to
when he was on this earth. Did he spend
some time debating with religious leaders and a few political
leaders…absolutely, because they were children of God too.
I spend a lot of time thinking about
religion and politics, how they intersect, how they can work together. I don’t like it when politicians who behave
immorally quote scripture, because they are usually taking it out of context.
But the reason they have space to take Jesus out of context is because
Christians like us like to keep our faith and beliefs private. And I get it. We
are afraid of offending people, ostracizing people. We need to get over that. We need to get over
our insecurities that we don’t know enough or understand enough. Because we bear the image of God. God willing, we can also see God’s image in
the face of people who have been labeled our enemies or aliens---people who
have been denied their God given humanity.
There are plenty
of people out there who can debate taxes. Let’s make sure that every one of us
demands that all of God’s people are recognized for who they are—God’s creation
and God’s children. No one gets to deny someone their God given
humanity…because we all belong to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment