Who Gets What? A Sermon based on Matthew 22. 15-22.
Preached on October 22, 2023 at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Scranton, PA
Words.
Words carefully chosen.
Words skillfully crafted for a purpose.
Words prefaced by sly words meant to flatter, disarm, and disguise the purpose of the skillfully crafted, carefully chosen words.
Words, spoken with malicious intent, words not in the least believed at all by those who spoke them, words which conveyed “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” so help them God.
“Teacher, we know that you are sincere,
and teach the way of God in accordance with truth,
and show deference to know one;
for you do not regard people with partiality.”
Truer words have never been
spoken, as the saying goes! Though they
did not believe any of those words, they hit the nail on the head, captured the
essence of Jesus in a nutshell; distilled in four short phrases all that was so
compelling about the words of this un-credentialed rabbi from
Galilee. And though they didn’t know it,
those very words comprised the problem they had with Jesus. They could use them
in the opening argument when they presented their case against Jesus few nights
later.
He was sincere in what he
thought and spoke. People noticed and remarked how his teaching was offered
without constant quoting of others. That called the words and actions of other
teachers into question. Even so, he
taught the way of God in accordance with
the truth, and in doing so had, on occasion, pointed out that the Pharisees
and the Scribes were selective in choosing which ways of God they would enforce and which they could ignore.
If that weren’t enough to get him into
hot water with the establishment, the third line of bogus praise was what really
caused discontent among the religious leaders: he showed deference to no
one. He wasn’t awed by the pedigrees of priests descended from
priests. He wasn’t intimidated by the
diplomas on the wall of the Pharisee’s offices. He didn’t take a back seat to
those who had earned the three doctor’s stripes on their sleeves.
To top it all off, he did not regard people with partiality. He wasn’t careful about the company he kept.
He was known to travel with people of questionable reputations. He sat at table with sinners and tax
collectors, one of the latter was even numbered among his inner circle. The great
physician didn’t spend his time doing wellness checks for the healthy, he made
house calls and touched those who needed to be healed.
So if you wonder why Jesus was on to
their tricks, it is just this simple: their flood of flattery leading to their
trick question was a thinly veiled rough draft of the indictment they were
secretly preparing for his one and only appearance at night court. That, and the make-up of the strange
coalition that showed up in the temple of all places to try and trick him into
saying something he would regret.
As one commentator put it: “Politically, about the only thing Pharisees
and Herodians have in common is that they don’t like Jesus. So they hold their noses, put aside their
many differences for a moment, and come together to pose a question that they
hope will put Jesus between a rock and a hard place.”[i]
This is truly one of those moments
when “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
To get a handle on the absurdity of these questioners standing as one to
discredit the one questioned, picture the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and
the President of the NAACP stepping up to the microphone together at a town
hall meeting to ask a candidate about racial profiling by law enforcement. “For the record, is it lawful to pull over an
individual for driving while black?” No matter what the candidate says, the
constituents of one or the other of the persons posing the question will be
dissatisfied.
On a less serious note, to get a
handle on how difficult a question Jesus was being asked, imagine two people dressed in the garb of
their favorite sports teams putting a question to a candidate for governor:
“Tell us, dear candidate, which team truly represents the people of our fair
commonwealth: the Phillies or the Pirates?
The Steelers or the Eagles? And don’t tell me you grew up in New York,
or we’ll ask about the Yankees and the Mets!
(We won’t bother about the Giants and the Jets because they both share a
stadium in New Jersey!)
So here come two representatives of opposing
views on the payment of taxes to Rome.
They slither up together to ask Jesus a question about those taxes:
“Tell us, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
Lutheran Scholar, David Lose provides
some background on the question and why it was such a hoot that Herodians and
Pharisees would have cooked it up together:
“Jews in first century paid numerous
taxes, temple taxes; land taxes, customs taxes just to name three. The tax in
question was a particular—and particularly onerous—one. It was the imperial tax
paid as a tribute to Rome to support the Roman occupation of Israel. That is right: first century Jews were
required to pay their oppressors a denarius a year to support their own
oppression!”[ii]
The Herodians and the Pharisees had diametrically
opposed views about the payment of this tax.
A preaching professor from Colgate Rochester Divinity School introduces
us to the two sides posing the seemingly unanswerable question. “As their name
suggests, the Herodians were allied with Herod Antipas, who had been named king
of the Jews by Rome. Not surprisingly,
they supported paying the tax to Caesar.
The Pharisees, who were committed to every detail of the Jewish Law,
opposed paying the tax to Caesar. Their opposition was less based on the fact
of the oppression and more on the special coin that had to be used to pay this
particular tax.”[iii]
That coin, pictured on our bulletin
cover this morning, played a pivotal role in the marvelous answer Jesus gave
to their Machiavellian question. Jesus
begins his answer by putting them on notice.
He knows that they are up to no good.
He calls them hypocrites, and then he proves his point by asking them to
produce the coin used to pay Caesar for the privilege of being under the thumb
of theEmperor’s forces.
We’ll flip that coin in a moment,
but before we do let’s listen to David Hare provide insight as to why there is no
simple “yes” or “no” answer to the question.
He writes: “It should be noted that the question, while profoundly political,
is phrased in religious terms: ‘Is it permitted…’ The question,” he notes, “can be paraphrased:
‘Does it accord with Torah (the law) to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ One facet
of the legal question involves God’s ownership of the land of Israel:
‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine,’”[iv]
(God declared way back in the Book of Leviticus!) That makes Caesar a
trespasser, which leads Professor Hare to ferret out what is beneath the
question from the standpoint of the Pharisees: “Since Caesar is a usurper is it
not an act of disobedience to God to pay a tax to this pagan ruler?”[v]
The dilemma Jesus faced was
this: If he said that Jewish law
prohibited paying taxes to Caesar, all his opponents would have to do is drop a
dime, call the Hot Line and report Jesus as a dangerous man riling up the
people against the Romans. If he said that it that paying the tax was
permitted, he would risk losing the support of the crowds, for whom the tax
was, in Professor Hare’s words: “not only an economic burden but also a hated symbol of lost freedom.”[vi]
Now we’re ready for the coin
toss. At Jesus’ request, one of them
produces the silver coin that represented an average day’s wage for a
laborer. Just by carrying the coin, and
pulling it out in the temple precincts the hypocrites are exposed. Their duplicity is all the more on display
when Jesus asks about the picture and the words printed on the silver
coin: “Whose head is this, and whose title?”
They answer: “the Emperor’s”
Heads: The likeness on the coin was
the emperor on the throne back in Rome. Tails: Words to identify the picture
on the other side. In this case it read: “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine
Augustus, Pontifex Maximus.” One, two, skip to my Lou…you’ve broken two of the
ten commandments, the first two, the one that speaks of having no other gods
before Israel’s God, and the other that prohibits graven images. Those who
attempted to ensnare Jesus in their trap find themselves entrapped.
Meanwhile, Jesus goes free. He speaks and they are stunned: “Give
therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the
things that are God’s.” I’m with Professor Hare, who suggests that Jesus might
have heightened the impact of the answer by pausing for effect between the two
halves of his answer.
“Give
therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s…” See the
Herodians about to break into a happy dance and cheer, as it appears he has
validated their collaboration with the enemy.
Witness the ear to ear gotcha grins on the faces of the Pharisees as
they calculate how far Jesus will drop in the polls, thereby eroding his
popularity with the people. But wait, there’s more! Having baited the hook for those who tried to
reel him in, Jesus adds the second half of his answer:
“…and
to God the things that are God’s.”
Gotcha! Betcha thought you had me!
As we’ll say in today’s affirmation
of faith using the words of the Psalmist, it is pretty clear what the
Scripture’s include in the list of “the things that are God’s!
“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it!” (Psalm 24.1)
Doesn’t leave
much out; doesn’t leave much doubt; Caesar can have his silver coins. Truth be told, they’re God’s too, but we
won’t sweat the small stuff, because all stuff from the contents of your
kitchen junk drawer to the stocks and bonds in your portfolio to the gifts and talents
that make you a unique child of God in your own right, belong to God. It is the same truth Paul the apostle wrote of
in the letter to the Romans, which are often read beside an open grave:
“If we live, we live unto the Lord;
And if we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live therefore or die,
The words of
Jesus to those who attempted to catch him in their political/theological trap
have been interpreted by some to bolster the argument for the separation of
church and state. That is not what is
going on in this passage. Douglas Hare
explains why not:
“Although there is strict
parallelism between the two halves, (of the answer Jesus gave) they are by no
means of equal significance, because Caesar’s role is so vastly inferior to
God’s. That is, Jesus is not
saying, “There is a secular realm and there is a religious realm, and equal
respect must be paid to each.” The second half (of Jesus’s answer) practically
annuls the first by preempting it. In Jewish religious thought, foreign kings
had power over Israel only by permission from God. Tax may be paid to Caesar
because it is God’s will that Caesar rules. When God chooses to liberate his
people, Caesar’s power will avail him nothing.” [viii]
What the words of Jesus are not
saying may leave us scratching our heads. They take time to sink in. The impact
of what he was saying on the way we live our lives is much clearer. As Professor Susan Eastman informs us: “Some
early interpreters looked to the image of the coin, and answered that
coins—bearing Caesar’s image--belongs to Caesar; and human beings—bearing God’s
image—belong to God.”[ix]
Presbyterian Pastor Richard Spalding
picks the coin up off the turf after the toss and announces what it means for
the game of life:
Jesus “is not sketching parallel
responsibilities, but a radical antithesis. Caesar can stamp his picture and
pedigree far and wide, but he cannot come near the true commerce that animates
us. So Caesar will get many or most of
the coins—and be flattered by how well his likeness is rendered in the
medium of cold, hard cash; but the coin of the realm of our flesh and blood is
the image of God. What is rendered to
God is whatever bears the divine image.
Every life is marked with that inscription, an icon of the One who is
its source and destination.”[x]
That One who is both the giver of
our lives and “our hearts true home when all our years have sped,”[xi]
The God to whom we give what belongs to
God,” as Spalding points out, “is the God described by the prophet Isaiah in
the midst of the looming shadow of an earlier empire, for a people just as much
at a loss to grasp the full magnitude of God’s care:
“Can a woman forget her nursing child?...
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.”[xii] When Jesus directs that we “give God
the things that are God’s” it is a transaction that is based in relationship, a
relationship grounded in love, a relationship in which the One in whose image
we are made has promised guidance to make our way through the wilderness. For the Israelites out there in the desert it
was a cloud by day and a pillarof fire by night. For followers of Jesus today, it is the gift of
the Holy Spirit, providing the power and the direction “if thou but trust in
God to guide thee.”[xiii]
Discerning that guidance and
allowing the Spirit’s power to move us along is not always easy. Spalding elaborates on that as well: “All of us have fine lines to walk
in negotiating the various kinds of commerce that fill our days. Most of us are
collaborators some of the time, subversives some of the time. There is comfort,
perhaps, in Jesus’ refusal to make the conundrum of daily rendering into an
easy question. The answers are simple only for those who regard Caesar as God,
or as the devil. Meanwhile, we bear
God’s image—as the palm of God’s hand bears ours.”[xiv]
Words.
Words carefully chosen.
Words skillfully crafted for a purpose.
Words carefully chosen and
skillfully crafted by the One who backed them up with forgiveness. Words
visible in a life given in love for others so we might know who we are, to whom
we belong, and the purpose of our lives, to “give to God the things that are
God’s.”
“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
[xv]Amen!
[i] Lance Pape, “Commentary on Matthew 22. 15-22, 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, workingpreacher.com, 2014
[ii] David J. Lose, Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 2, Chapters 14-28, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p. 189
[iii] Marvin A. McMickle, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 189, 191
[iv] David R.A. Hare, Matthew – Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1993), p. 253
[v] ibid.
[vi] ibid
[vii] Romans 14.8
[viii] ibid., Hare, p. 254
[ix] Susan Grove Eastman, , Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 193
[x]Richard E. Spalding, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 190
[xi] Hugh Thomson Kerr, God of Our Life, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), Hymn #275
[xii] Isaiah 49. 15-16
[xiii] Georg Neumark, If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), Hymn #282
[xiv] ibid., Spalding, p. 192
[xv] Isaac Watts, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), Hymn #100, 101
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