Sunday, October 22, 2023

 

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,
We are the Lord’s”[vii]

            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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